I could really use some help figuring out a title, but as LOVELY as many of the suggestions were, I realized they were tonally off for the simple reason that people had no part of the fic to see the tone. So I thought I’d give the first Prologue snippet below, and maybe once more solicit title ideas from that? It’s going to tonally be a technological thriller with a heavy dose of angst and domestic fluff. In essence, Hermann goes to to check on Newt who ghosted on their engagement after only a year of Newt’s possession, finds Alice, and gets taken captive and used to ensure Newt’s behavior by the Precursors in exchange for his safety, all while trying to find a way to free them both. But that’s not immediately clear in those first moments after Newt takes him captive…
—
Hermann stared dully at the television screen, its light the only one in the room against the grey of a rainy Shanghai afternoon. He wouldn’t have turned it on, except that the chattering voices of the news provided some counterpoint to the silence when the flat was empty. He hardly paid attention to it, except in moments like this, when he straightened at the sound of his name.
“We’re now in the third week since renowned scientist and hero of ’25 Dr. Hermann Gottlieb went missing. Suspects range from Kaiju Cultists to ransom by the collapsing black market, but as far as anyone has been able to determine, Dr. Hermann Gottlieb left the Hong Kong Shatterdome one day and simply vanished. Today we’re joined from Shanghai by current head of Shao R&D, Dr. Newton Geiszler, and from Hong Kong by PPDC Officer Tendo Choi, who are seeking any information that might lead to Dr. Gottlieb’s safe return.”
Two projections joined the anchor at her desk, flickering blue and transparent Hermann’s gaze skated past Newt, with his expensive suit and sunglasses, projecting in from his office at Shao Industries. Instead he studied Tendo. Even in distress, the man was never one to give in to a slovenly appearance and he was perfectly coiffed with his hair slicked back, bow-tie crisp over his jacket. Was that one new? Hermann had not seen it before he left Hong Kong. Tendo’s mouth was drawn to tense line.
“Thanks for having us on again, Cathy. I’m sure the folks back home are getting sick of hearing from us.”
“Not at all,” the anchor said with the easy, plastic cheer of television. “I’m sure our viewers are just as concerned for the whereabouts of Dr. Gottlieb. The world owes him, owes all of you, a great debt.”
“Which is why the PPDC is asking for any information which might lead to the whereabouts of Dr. Gottlieb,” Tendo said. “We’ve set up a helpline…”
“Mmmyeah, and I’m gonna need to stop you right there, Tendo my man,” Newt interrupted. The news screen widened around him as he pulled the microphone closer, staring into the camera through his sunglasses. “Sure, we all owe the PPDC a lot, but I mean hey, you may have heard I used to work for the PPDC too, and they owe Dr. Gottlieb as well. Except I’m not sure they’ve got the funds anymore to do what needs to be done now that the Kaiju are gone, if ya know what I mean. And hey, more power to you for looking after one of your own, but he was my lab partner, and whatever psychopath nabbed him off the streets could be coming for me next,” his voice skittered over a nervous shriek at those words. “Which is why I’m setting up my own helpline, along with a full encrypted, state of the art dropbox and ten thousand bucks American for any reliable tip on Gottlieb’s whereabouts. One million goes to anyone who leads to his recovery, courtesy of Shao Industries. At Shao we know how much we owe our heroes, and we’re not afraid to put our money where our mouth is.”
Tendo’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Well that’s… damn generous of you, brother. Thank you.”
“Nothing generous about it,” Newt said, waving dismissively. “This tip line is pure self defense, as I see it. Gottlieb and I haven’t spoken in years, but I don’t expect some wacky Kaiju cultist to get that.”
“So there was no truth to the rumor that you and Dr. Gottlieb were engaged soon after the Breach closure?” the news anchor jumped in. “Given the extent of the reward, it’s easy to imagine that it’s due to more personal reasons.”
Newt sneered. “And here I thought I was speaking on a respected news channel, and not some entertainment rag. No, Cathy. Gottlieb and I shared a lab. I know you were all hounding us for some juicy puff piece, romance in the Shatterdome, but those were just rumors. Gottlieb and I wouldn’t have even shared that lab if not for PPDC funding cuts. Of course I want him found, but hey, he always was a weird dude. Maybe he just got tired of the PPDC, and he bounced to go chill on a beach somewhere. I hope that’s the case. I wouldn’t wish the alternative on anyone. Well, except maybe the Kaiju. They can stay gone,” Newt laughed, and Cathy joined him. Tendo frowned.
“Thank you for your time, gentlemen, and I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say we hope Dr. Gottlieb is found safe very soon. We’ll be sharing the details of the PPDC tip line and the generous Shao Industries bounty program with you shortly. Next up…”
Hermann switched off the television as soon as Newton and Tendo vanished from the screen, sitting in the dark of the flat in silence. The hours ticked by as late afternoon turned into evening. It was not long after that when he heard the front door open.
Newt froze in the doorway at the sight of Hermann sitting on the couch. Then he looked away, folding his suit jacket over his arm and dropping his briefcase by the door and a bag of takeout on the kitchen counter. His polished shoes clicked on the floor as he approached, as if walking towards his own firing squad, and his expression tightened as he caught sight of the screen. The segment from the afternoon was playing again.
“So you saw that,” Newt said.
Hermann did not reply, did not even look at Newt in acknowledgement, but remained still, staring screen. He watched the other man out of his peripherals, as Newton ran a shaking hand through his hair, cursing under his breath as he turned his back.
“I had to. If anyone saw you… they’d kill you. I have to make sure any tip comes to me and not the PPDC. You have to understand that, right? Hermann?”
Hermann kept his lips sealed, betraying nothing on his face as Newt grew more agitated, pacing back and forth with occasional glances at Hermann. “Fuck, no I don’t want to change the deal! Of course he’s pissed, we stole his fucking life. The money will work, it’ll work, I promise. Humans are bastards, they’ll take the cash any day, and no one knows what to do with the PPDC anymore. They don’t trust ‘em. We’ll know if anyone is onto him, and we can shut down and discredit them if we need to.” Newt swallowed. “Ok. Ok, yeah that would… be good right now. Fuck, a pick me up would do just fine. I can’t believe they sent fucking Tendo.”
Newt stopped, guilt flashing over his face as he looked back to Hermann on the couch. “I got you some takeout, go ahead and eat without me. I just gotta… I gotta… Well, you know. It’ll be better after, you’ll see. It helps.” His hands shook and he seemed to notice, and jammed them in his pockets. He spoke as if trying to convince himself, and with a last glance back at Hermann, Newt climbed the stairs to the bedroom, drawing the makeshift curtain shut on the yellow light that pulsed from an unseen corner of the room.
It was a while before Hermann rose, and hobbled to the kitchen counter. As usual, Newt had ordered too much, but it wasn’t as if Hermann had given him any direction on what he wanted. He took a bowl of lo mein noodles and ate slowly, hardly tasting it. The refrigerator was full of old takeout, getting more was unnecessary but Newt brought a fresh selection back with him every day.
Three weeks, according to the news. Hermann tugged idly at the manacle on his wrist that bolted to the hook on the floor in the middle of the room. No sounds emerged from Newton’s bedroom, but he might creep out sometime in the middle of the night, usually when he assumed Hermann was sleeping, to steal his own food back to the bedroom. There would be another brief glimpse again in the morning as he set out for work at Shao Industries. Then the pattern would repeat itself like clockwork, except on weekends when he would vanish until the wee hours of the morning, and return to the flat stumbling and reeking of alcohol. Those days had grown more frequent.
He still did not have enough information, and Hermann did not dare act until he did. It was acting without all the data that had brought him here in the first place.
Oh gosh, I’m so pleased you liked my little bit of meta! (I just went back and re-read it to refresh myself on what I said, lol). And this is a really fascinating question!
I think to start you’d have to list their flaws.
Newt: selfish (I’m a doctor!), self-centered (making Hermann’s lab life miserable with the entrails, the Drift experiment being partially out of desire for attention and to be right), messy (Kaiju entrails), maybe a bit shallow (with his fashion sense and body art), un-empathetic (talks about how cool Kaiju are around people who have lost family to the Kaiju), often deliberatelyobnoxious (literally everything with Hermann), hyperactive and screechy (Charlie Day), immature (in many senses, but also in his fanboy qualities), Down to Fight at all times (“Is it impossible?!”), can’t keep a secret ( “… I’m gonna tell you.”), reckless and impulsive (the Kaiju Drift), arrogant and wants to be the center of attention (I mean… basically everything about him). Obviously he has many virtues which I’ve described elsewhere, but that’s not the point of this post.
Hermann:cantankerous (he’s 36 going on 80), a busy body with his nose in other people’s business (“Please excuse him, he’s a Kaiju grrrrroupie.”), spiteful (it may not be on purpose but he kicks water at Newt in their very first scene, and just in general this is true of him), smug (about how Newt is wrong), arrogant (literally everything about how he puts down Newt and his theories), dismissive(“Politics, poetry, these are lies.”), impatientwith others (though that could just be Newt, who could drive anyone to madness), cold (at least outwardly towards Newt, many of his insults cut close to the bone), authoritarian (Hermann appeals to military authority and clearly admires it) and just all around difficult to deal with. Interestingly, many of these traits are gone by Uprising, while “Newt” gets a whole new batch of very different flaws. And again it should be stressed, Hermann has many virtues including but not limited to his intellect, his determination, his drive, his raw courage, and his persistence in the face of dismissal, discomfort, and disability.
And by the way, both of them think they’re the “normal” one who needs to look out for their obnoxious colleague and I just cannot with them they are both heinously difficult human beings in the best way lol.
And now onto how the Newmann ship would deal with these flaws:
I think a lot of how Newt and Hermann would deal with one another’s flaws is that they have been dealing with them for years now already. These flaws are not new or shocking to them, nor have they driven the other away. Clearly, they tolerate one another when anyone else would have withdrawn to a safe distance or just abandoned them entirely. They clearly care for each other in spite of if not because of these flaws. Even pre-Drift they try to protect one another from their most dangerous fascinations (Newt his obsession with the Kaiju, Hermann his attraction to the military).
Clearly they have flaws that do genuinely drive the other to distraction. Newt seems genuinely upset when Hermann dismisses his theory and his findings regarding the Kaiju Drift. But on Hermann’s side, the proposal of that Drift seems to have genuinely touched a nerve of fear on Newt’s behalf that he covers up with snideness and dismissal.
I’ve always gone with the theory that it’s more their method of communication with one another that was clashing. Hermann didn’t understand Newt’s obnoxiousness towards him was the equivalent of pulling pigtails, that Newt wanted Hermann’s attention and regard. Newt couldn’t understand that Hermann’s dismissal of Newt’s obsessions was his way of trying to protect Newt. It’s one reason I think the Drift fused them into a functional whole after so many years of clashing, it finally showed them through a direct mind connection what they had failed to communicate. All the times they had been sincere when the other thought they were joking, and vice versa. Their method of communication. Their respect for one another hidden beneath a prickly surface. The way they’d both tried to hide their vulnerabilities from one another and thus both come off as distant, cold, and uncaring to one another. I have no doubt that the “instant hatred” at that first meeting after the letters was because both of them had such high expectations but didn’t know how to communicate with one another outside of written format where everything could be cleanly expressed.
That said, I think that before and after the Drift they actually do love one another for their “flaws”. I think Newt and Hermann are both heinously arrogant when it comes to their intelligence and their field, and I think they love that about one another, albeit secretly at first, or perhaps rather what that arrogance is a result of and how it translates. They’re both tops of their field, poised on the eccentric edge of it, they’re both the very best at what they do, and I don’t think either of their personalities could stand to be around someone who wasn’t on their level intellectually, or someone who tried to be modest about those accomplishments.
I think Hermann’s busy-bodyness is one way that Newt knows he cares. Newt would be at a genuine loss if Hermann stopped poking his nose in, as a sign that he’d stopped caring. Likewise, if Newt stopped being deliberately obnoxious to Hermann it would mean the same thing: apathy would be far worse than needling. Hermann probably wouldn’t know what to do with himself. There’s a compelling case to be made that the sniping serves a dual purpose in these final days of war which is to keep both of them from having a screaming breakdown over the stress and the sheer unholy knowledge of how fucked the world is, so when they’re bitching about little arguments and annoyances they’re not thinking about the void that’s about to open up beneath their feet.
I think Newt’s hyperactivity and fanboy qualities and general devil-may-care attitude is refreshing for Hermann and his authoritarian upbringing. I think on his own Hermann would retreat into an isolation he’d verbally claim he prefers but which would eat away at him. He may gripe about it, but he thrives and seeks Newt pulling him out of himself. Likewise I think Newt is always seeking validation. By being such a difficult person who doesn’t flatter others easily, Hermann’s regard is worth that much more and it could serve as a grounding influence on Newt to know there’s someone out there who sticks by him and engages him intellectually, even if they don’t always agree (they don’t need to agree if it’s a matter of intellectual debate). Even when arguing, Hermann validates Newt by never dismissing him from his presence or truly giving up on him, another reason the dismissal of the Kaiju Drift clearly is hurtful and unexpected to Newt (who can’t read it as a protective action).
They call one another on their bullshit. They’re not personalities who need to be coddled or told they’re right all the time or flattered. They might respond initially to flattery, and even get puffed up about it and smugly rub it in the other’s face, but it would wear thin. They’d realize the thrill and rush of flattery is dissatisfying. That they’d rather earn the other’s aggressive debate than the fawning of lesser minds. Even when Newt is showing off to Hannibal Chau it’s because he clearly identifies an equal in his field, albeit a black hat to his white hat, a criminal to his academic. They want to impress equals and they serve as equals to one another.
I think anything beyond this would go well into fanon speculation. The last note I’d say on Uprising, because they become such different characters there, is that clearly Hermann is stunned when Newt won’t help him. Clearly in PR1 Newt is stunned when Hermann won’t back him up that the Drift worked when it clearly did. That tells me that even at their lowest, they supported one another, even if they might grumble about it. The grumbling is half the fun.
Update 24! Next update should be next week on monday and it’s going to be 10 pages long for the last part of this fancomic! Thank you for staying after that hellish last bunch of pages those two idiots get through.
So I need to figure out a Kidnapping AU actual official title and would love some feedback.
The premise is that waaay back in Year 2 (2027) of Newt’s possession by the Precursors and work for Shao, Hermann does something very uncharacteristic and decides to confront the man in his own home for vanishing on him, with the intension of getting some answers and then cutting Newt out of his life in return forever. Only to discover the full reality of Newt, and Alice, and the Precursor plan. Newt makes a desperate bargain to save Hermann’s life: Newt will work willingly for the Precursors, and in return Hermann is allowed to live but must be imprisoned forever alongside Newt, cut off from contact with the outside world so he cannot reveal the Precursors’ presence. A new status quo is forged: with the Precursors using Hermann’s safety as leverage against Newt to make him work harder for their goals, and with Hermann desperately searching for a way to get them both out alive without giving away any aspect of his plan to a man who has literally been inside his head.
– Kidnapping / The Kidnapped (short, simple, sweet, no one is wondering which fic it is :P)
– In Prisons (got a nice little auditory double-meaning with Imprisoned)
– The Prisoners (kinda feeling the Michelangelo Prisoner statues for a dramatic banner)
– Something a bit more focused on the emotional journey of the story??
– Something a bit more focused on the physical setting of the story (like an address, for example)
– The go-to pretentious Shakespeare quote, probably something about prisons 😛 Though I am a bit fatigued with historical literary references after TOWOID, so maybe just “pretentious quote title of some kind” is a better way to say it
– HALP I’M WRACKING MY BRAIN HERE – my only sense is that it would be short and punchy unlike TOWOID
Avelera 