#today is a kaijus only event humans get out

[fantomcomics]

What's Out This Week? 11/15

Upcoming events:

11/19 - Anti-Imperialist Collage Workshop!

11/20 - Scott Pilgrim Book Club & Netflix Watch Party!

Alien #1 - Declan Shalvey, Andrea Broccardo & Javier Fernandez

EVERYONE WILL HEAR YOU SCREAM! •  In deep space spins a world infected by the universe's greatest killers. Most people - sane people - would construct a barrier thicker than the hulls of ten Nostromos and leave it to rot. •  But where most people see a death trap, Weyland-Yutani sees the biggest payout in the history of civilization. And if it costs a few human lives to secure? Those come cheap here. •  Corporate corruption, personal betrayals and extraordinary violence - Declan Shalvey and Andrea Broccardo's next and greatest Alien story starts here!

Catians #1 - Cortney Cameron & Luyi Bennett

Stray cat Felix leads a happy life skimming milk from his human friend Rose's convenient store, until the local protection racket turns violent. To save Rose's life, Felix breaks his vows and shares an ancient secret. Unfortunately, Rose uses her newfound knowledge to mix revenge and forbidden magic, unleashing a monstrous abomination that forces the mysterious Council of Cats to launch a global quest for the Relics of the divine Great Cat.

Deadpool: Seven Slaughters #1 - Rob Liefeld & Greg Capullo

Seven kills in seven days! Welcome to a week in the life of Wade Wilson, the best mercenary Marvel's ever had (just ask him)! From facing off with rival killers to top secret assassinations, DEADPOOL has a lot of work to do in this blood-soaked oversized issue full of fan-favorite creators past and future!

Dungeons & Dragons: Fortune Finder #1 - Jim Zub, Joe Jaro & Max Dunbar

In the city of Sigil, an amnesiac hero only known as "Finder" tries to uncover who they are and why they're being chased by planar beings intent on capturing them-or worse. But as their tumultuous journey unfolds, they discover that their fate is tied to grand forces that dictate reality itself throughout the planes! A shocking surprise lurks around every corner in FortuneFinder, a miniseries inspired by the new Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse.

Speed Force #1 (of 6) - Jarrett Williams & Daniele Di Nicuolo

Wallace West and Avery Ho: the young speedsters have been Teen Titans, Justice Leaguers, and above all, members of the Flash Family. As they become aware of mysterious changes happening to the Speed Force, they race to Keystone City, where they encounter old friends, new threats, and a chance to forge their own paths.

Geiger: Ground Zero #1 (of 2) - Geoff Johns & Gary Frank

The saga of THE UNNAMED continues! GEOFF JOHNS and GARY FRANK return to the apocalyptic world of GEIGER for a special explosive two-issue origin epic.

What happened to Tariq Geiger in the days after the nuclear bombs first dropped? How did mankind survive the UNKNOWN WAR? Who is the mysterious Russian scientist Dr. Molotov and why is he hunting Geiger? And how does this tie all the way back to the American Revolution? Get ready to put on your hazmat suit and find out!

GI Joe: A Real American Hero One-Shot - Bob Mcleod & Herb Trimpe

Celebrate the return of G.I. JOE: A REAL AMERICAN HERO with the definitive edition of its historic first issue! This issue restores Larry Hama's original, unedited dialogue, which has never before seen print!

Godzilla Rivals VS Mechagodzilla #1 - Mark Martinez

IS YOUR CITY BESIEGED BY KAIJU? DO YOU LIE AWAKE AT NIGHT ANXIOUSLY LISTENING FOR THE MONSTER SIRENS? HAVE YOU HAD ALL YOU CAN TAKE OF GIANT LIZARDS, MOTHS, PTERODACTYLS, AND SHRIMP? THEN CALL TRACER TECH TODAY! OUR STATE-OF-THE-ART ANTI-KAIJU TECHNOLOGY HAS ALLOWED DOZENS OF CITIES AROUND THE WORLD TO FEND OFF THE THREAT OF MONSTER ATTACK.

San Palomar, California. It's a sleepy city with not much going on. That is, until Tracer Tech built their new corporate headquarters there, displacing lifelong citizens and forcing out local businesses. But what is the source of Tracer's amazing, almost alien technology, and why has it put San Palomar in Godzilla's sights? And what can a couple of local kids like Alex and Jaz do to protect their city when the King of the Monsters and its robot doppelgänger clash?

Lotus Land #1 (of 6) - Darcy Van Poelgeest, Caio Filipe & Alex Eckman-Lawn

In a Vancouver of the future painted with ultramodern decay, a groundbreaking advancement in technology promises an end to entropy itself.

But when an attack on this mysterious "Keeper Program" threatens the lives of everyone tied to it, retired Police Detective Bennie Strikman is called to investigate one last case.

The Ministry Of Compliance #1 - John Ridley & Stefano Raffaele

Thirty-seven years ago, Earth was secretly invaded by an alien force known as the Devolution, and they have been shaping the direction humanity has been going in ever since to prepare us to be assimilated into their empire.

The Devolution has thirteen ministries, each responsible for manipulating a different aspect of human life. The Ministry of Compliance, the most feared of all the ministries, led by the fierce Avigail Senna, makes sure all the ministries stay in line and remain focused on the Devolution's mission. As it appears the Ministry's mission is on the verge of being completed and Earth will be assimilated, things begin to go terribly wrong, and a conspiracy among the ministries breaks out that Avigail must deal with head-on.

Outsiders #1 (of 12) - Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly & Robert Carey

Never the End. A universe of secrets is about to come to light. Batman protects Gotham City from evil. Batman Inc. protects the rest of the known world. But what of the unknown world? What of the ancient evils in hidden tombs and forgotten tragedies from a magic-and-mad-science fueled super-heroic century? Using his fortune, Luke Fox launches a new organization dedicated to shining light into the world's darkest corners. His first recruit: Kate Kane, the Batwoman--who will re-embrace her military background to protect Luke's dream and encounter every bit of strangeness the DCU has to offer. And just wait until you meet the Third Man...or learn what universe-shattering secret they've discovered buried under Antarctica. Outsiders is the return of comic book archaeology, digging into all the forgotten corners of DC's history to preserve, record, and better understand the true nature of the DC Multiverse...and the forgotten stories that make up its fabric.

Red Light #1 (of 4) - Sarah Cho, Priscilla Petraites & Jeff Dekal

Lacy is an A.I. sex worker in a futuristic Red Light District. And Lacy knows exactly what her clients want - better than they know it themselves. Housed in a high-tech brothel under the watchful eye of the mysterious Mister, Lacy has little in her manufactured life besides work. All that changes when she befriends Natalie, an orphaned child who comes into her care. Now Lacy and Natalie are on a mission to escape the Red Light District, only to find themselves flung headlong into the mystery behind Lacy's creation.

Superior Spider-Man #1 - Dan Slott & Mark Bagley

A Superior Reckoning! SPIDER-MAN faces a NEW VILLAIN from his SUPERIOR past. As she fries New York with all the power of a living star, DOC OCK makes a life-changing discovery! MARK BAGLEY and DAN SLOTT continue their Spider-Man run with this 10th-ANNIVERSARY celebration of everything that made Spider-Man Superior.

Street Fighter 6 Evolution Special #1 - Capcom, Matt Moylan, Hanzo Steinbach, Tovio Rogers, Jeffrey Chamba Cruz & Genzoman

The new era of fighting games continues with three short-stories starring six World Warriors! Featuring Rashid, Cammy, Dee Jay, Luke, Jamie, and the debut of an all-new Street Fighter 6 character.... the deadly A.K.I.!

365 Days To The Wedding GN Vol 1 - Tamiki Wakaki

A sweet "fake engagement" romance about quiet coworkers by the creator of The World God Only Knows! The J.T.C. travel agency is looking for someone to manage its brand-new branch in Irkutsk. But for employees Oohara Takuya and Honjouji Rika, they'd rather just stay home in Tokyo! Thankfully, they've discovered a way out-their manager has narrowed down the recruits to bachelors, so what if they just... got married? The problem is they barely know each other at all! Can they convince their office they're engaged just long enough for the transfer to finish up?

Cat On The Hero's Lap GN Vol 1 - Kosuke Iijima & Shiori

In this hilarious fantasy adventure, will the hero triumph against the evil demon king, or face defeat... because he can't fight with a cat on his lap?! Our brave hero, Red, has embarked alongside his companions on a journey to defeat the great demon king. Or at least, that was the plan. But then a cat sat on Red's lap and fell asleep. There's no way he can fight monsters like this! As it turns out, Red's greatest enemy is right on top of him!

Curses GN - George Wylesol

"Sometimes I think I see things. Out of the corner of my eye, behind a door, I catch a glimpse of something. It's like a curtain caught in the wind, and then it's gone." From hospitals to hell to the wilderness, George Wylesol's short stories take place in liminal spaces where nothing is as it seems; the surreal becomes real; and something is lying in wait around every corner. As our main characters navigate through corridors, passageways, and highways, they sink deeper and deeper into everyday strangeness that slips into peculiarity, creating an internal journey from normalcy to the supernatural.

Dai Dark Box Set Vol 1 - Q. Hayashida

Introducing the first box set for this hilarious, gruesome, unforgettable tale where dark magic and space action collide! Zaha Sanko's body has great and terrible powers-they say that possessing his bones will grant you any wish, even the desire to become ruler of the universe. But Sanko is still a teenage dude with his own life, and he isn't about to let every monstrous lowlife in the galaxy rip him limb from limb. He and his skeletal buddy Avakian will use their dark powers to fend off any murder attempts while they search space for whomever put this curse on Sanko's bones... because killing them might end the madness. (And then Sanko can celebrate with his favorite spaghetti.) This beautiful box contains Vol. 1-4 of the manga and one double-sided poster.

The Dangerous Convenience Store GN Vol 1 - 945/gusao

This hit Boys' Love webtoon/manhwa (comic) is coming to print in English for the first time! Yeo Eui-joon needs cash, so he works part-time at a convenience store-where the clientele includes hoodlums and mobsters. He's tired of being yelled at while ringing up booze and trying to talk his way out of extortion, but he's not tired of seeing a certain good-looking gangster walk in the door. Gunwoo is huge, gruff, and intimidating at first... but he seems to care about Eui-joon's well-being, and is quick to knock aside anyone giving Eui-joon a hard time. After Eui-joon gets a peek at the enormous condom size Gunwoo buys, a little spark of attraction might just grow into a big, fiery love story!

Disturbed: Dark Messiah TP - Tim Seeley, Angel Hernandez, Esau Escorza & Ryan Christensen

In the not so distant future, firefighter Griffin DeSanto has found himself a man out of time, stumbling into a harsh world of poverty, automation, and subjugation. Technology rules and a tech empire built on suffering keeps the population in check through surveillance and mechanized policing. Though lost, Griffin is never alone, he was brought here for a reason, and The Vengeful One is his guide.

Gunhild GN Vol 1 - Fred Tornager

Her travels lead mainly to many foes, but a few enemies become friends, persuaded by Gunhild's unwavering determination and burning passion for her own cause. Being a tiny Jotun against a big, powerful world, Gunhild must fight smart and learn a trick or two from Loki to earn the title of godhood. Certainly, Gunhild will stop at nothing to forge her own fantastic path and make her dream come true.

The History Club HC Vol 1 - Bret Baier & Marvin Sianipar

From Bret Baier comes the first book in a thrilling new time-bending graphic novel series about kids who use their love of history to thwart an evil time traveler's scheme to change the past! Becca, Zack, Cam, and Thomas are best friends who may seem like an unlikely group on the surface but who have something very important in common: a love of history! Together, they make up their school's history club that has an all-important secret mission: stop the villainous History Twister's plot to destroy the past, forever altering the future. Knowledge of history is their superpower as they chase the Twister through time. After all, who knows what would have happened if Alexander Hamilton had lived and Aaron Burr had died in their infamous duel? It's up to the History Club to save the world from utter destruction!

Jim Henson's Labyrinth: Beyond The Goblin City TP - Delilah S Dawson, Gustavo Duarte, Jeff Stokely, Ross Curry, Jonathan Case, Adam Smith, Lara Elena Donnelly, Sas Milledge, Daniel Bayliss, Pius Bak, French Carlomagno, Jeff Stokely, Kyla Vanderklugt, Samantha Dodge, Gustavo Duarte & Mike Allred

Featuring the secret history of Sir Didymus and the untold story of one of Jareth's Masquerade guests, in addition to stories featuring fan-favorite characters like Ludo, Hoggle, Sir Didymus, and the Goblin King himself.

This epic collection showcases imaginative tales from critically acclaimed writers and artists, including Jonathan Case (The New Deal), Delilah S. Dawson (Star Wars: Phasma), Gustavo Duarte (Bizarro), Roger Langridge (Snarked), Katie Cook (Star Wars: ABC-3PO), Jeff Stokely (The Ludocrats), S.M. Vidaurri (Labyrinth: Under the Spell), Sina Grace (Superman: Kal-El Returns), Michael Dialynas (Wynd), Sarah Webb (The Storyteller: Sirens), Boya Sun (5 Worlds), Lara Elena Donnelly (The Amberlough Dossier), French Carlomagno (The Dead Lucky), Pius Bak (Eat The Rich), Samantha Dodge (Catwoman: Soulstealer), and many more!

Collects Jim Henson's Labyrinth: Shortcuts and Jim Henson's Labyrinth: Under the Spell.

No Touching At All GN - Kou Yoneda

On the first day of his new job, the shy and introverted Shima suddenly finds himself trapped in an elevator with an extremely hungover man, who turns out to be none other than his new boss, Togawa. Though Shima is initially put-off by Togawa's rude and shameless behavior, he can't help but be drawn in by the man's compassionate side, and he soon finds his thoughts are completely consumed by the charismatic man. Unfortunately, painful experiences from his past continue to haunt Shima, and ultimately prevent him from taking the first step. Even when Togawa makes his feelings for the young man blatantly clear, despite also having agonizing memories and an unpleasant past of his own, Shima still hesitates to open himself up to the man. How will things turn out when a love is so obvious that it can felt, but the individuals in question can't express it directly?

Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human GN - Osamu Dazai & Chika Ito

This manga version of novelist Osamu Dazai's masterpiece No Longer Human, the #2 bestselling novel of all time in Japan. Yozo Oba, a young man growing up in Japan in the immediate aftermath of World War II, is tormented by a failure to find any value in himself or in human relationships, despite being surrounded by women who love him. He creates the persona of a buffoon who mocks himself while entertaining others. But inside he is tortured, and as he moves from childhood to adulthood he becomes addicted to sex and alcohol. Largely autobiographical, No Longer Human explores Dazai's own sense of failure and alienation which drove him to self-destruct with alcohol and numerous suicide attempts.

Power Rangers Universe TP - Nicole Andelfinger, Simone Ragazzoni & Derrick Chew

WHAT IS THE TRUE ORIGIN OF THE PHANTOM RANGER?

On a journey across time and dimensional space, writer Nicole Andelfinger (Dragon Prince: Bloodmoon Huntress), artist Simone Ragazzoni (Odessa), and colorist Mattia Iacono answer the questions fans have been asking since the beginning!

A mysterious pod crashes to earth, while the Legendary Ranger Teens take on thrilling new forms, powerful against their foes and dangerous to themselves, and even contend with a corrupted former ally. Can they save their friend and protect the Morphin Grid from destruction?

Discover the truth behind the Phantom Ranger, the Morphin Masters, Power Rangers, and the Morphin Grid itself in the series that will unlock the secrets of the Power Rangers Universe!

Saigami GN - Seny

The girl known as Ayumi is a troubled European teenager who feels lost, like a stranger in her world. Her father left when she was little, while her mother's work means she is never around. A love of manga and books keeps her happy, while honest-to-goodness friends seem to be something only other people have. But this is not the case in the fantasy land known as Aesztrea. In this strange new world, there are dragons, creatures, and warriors who can wield power beyond our wildest imagination. When Ayumi arrives in Aesztrea, she learns that she may also be a Saigami. This warrior class of supernatural and superhuman abilities is one of the most honored and respected people in this new world. For the first time in her life, her potential is limitless, and she has seemingly found a place and a people where she can belong. But not all is right in Aesztrea, Ayumi will have to face her own demons to get to the bottom of this and determine who she wants to be.

Sakura Saku GN Vol 1 - Io Sakisaka

Saku Fujigaya would like to thank the boy who helped her, but all she has is a note signed "Ryosuke Sakura." She discovers that a boy at her high school, Haruki Sakura, has an older brother named Ryosuke. She asks Haruki to deliver her thank-you letter to Ryosuke, but why does he refuse?

Sheep Princess In Wolf's Clothing GN - Mito

In this beautifully illustrated yuri/Girls' Love fairy tale, a wolf-woman butler must tutor a sheep princess who's not as soft as she looks! Aki Rikujo, a Wolfa, works as a butler at the royal castle in the land of Sheepa. Her quiet and peaceful days get shaken up when she saves the life of Princess Momo Shiudafaris. The shy sheep princess immediately latches onto Aki who, before she knows it, becomes the princess's private tutor. Momo wants more than just math lessons from Aki, and even sneaks into the wolf-woman's bedroom to seduce her! Aki soon realizes that, under the timid woolly exterior, Momo is a wild animal!

The Star Seekers GN - HYBE & Tomorrow X Together

When assailants interrupt Star One's comeback stage, the boys spring into action...all except Eugene! Though he helps as best he can, his lack of magic limits what he can do. That is, until the strange stray cat he picked up appears in a flash of light and offers him power...

Whatcha snaggin' this week, Fantom Fam?

#comic books #wotw #comics #comic book #comic #what's out this week? #manga

[n3onstarss]

PACIFIC RIM AU - CH 1 Part 1

I'm very autistic about both TMNT and pacific rim, so have this!! the plot for this takes place in an alternate universe where the rim wasn't fully closed. everything plot-hole wise will be explained away later, it's there for a reason!

each chapter will have 3 parts, I'm splitting them up so i can pace myself!

TW for mentioned blood, plenty of violence and cussing if you need one for that!

this is the Rise turtles, and all are aged up by 5 years. (Making Raph 22, April 21, Donnie and Leo 20, Reader 19 and Mikey 18!) the events of the Rise movie or most of rise in general, along with the Pacific rim movies, won't be used. this is an excuse for me to be weird about my interests ♡♡

°•°

Things weren't going well. The war against the kaiju out in the Pacific wasn't going great either. Many jeagers and their pilots had been lost. In fact, pilots were sparse, few and far between. That is, legal pilots. In the slums of NYC, there were 6 delinquent individuals. And not far away there was a junkyard full of old jeagers from both the US and Canada.

Those 6 had spent years, almost a decade by now, gathering parts and assembling their very own jeagers, hidden in warehouses along the docks. These young adults had even perfected drift compatibly down to a science, literally. Teams of two, that was the deal, and they were all partnered off.

Donatello was most compatible with his older sister figure April. Raphael with Michelangelo.

And Leo with [NAME].

An odd team, compared to the others. a short fused, easily upset human with a cocky turtle who laughed through all his problems. A team that shouldn't have worked. And yet it did. Flawlessly, even.

In fact, most would think they were only paired due to being the last options left, when infact they were the first to be found compatible. They fueled each others ego when needed, brought each other down to Earth more often than not, fueled the others rage and motivated them to keep going when things looked bleak.

Most would think they were just teens in love, and they wouldn't necessarily be wrong. [NAME] had harbored feelings for the blue clad turtle since they first piloted side by side, even before. His memories, his hopes, his fears. They'd seen them all and still fell for him all the same. But it was something they had to bury deep. A day would inevitably come when they would have to pilot in a fight, and their feelings cannot get in the way.

And today was the day, apparently. [NAME] was sat straddling the shoulder of their jeager, clinging tightly while they welded on some finishing touches to the large blue and white bot. And not a second too late were these upgrades finished.

Mikey burst through the warehouse doors into the large, dusty space, making [NAME] twist around at the waist and stare down at him, shocked by his sudden entrance.

"KAIJU! OFF THE COAST! LIKE, RIGHT NOW!!" His arms flailed wildly as he tried to talk with his hands and convey his distress. He definitely succeeded in that last part.

"DEADASS?? You're kidding, right?! Aren't they only in the Pacific?!" Their welding items and mask were dropped off into the basket and the rope untied, sending it plummeting down. [NAME] caught the end of the rope, gently lowering it the last of the way quickly as Mikey continued to holler.

"No, no I'm not kidding!! It's moving fast, Dee and Apes are already out there! We gotta go Now!" He was still gesturing wildly, bouncing on his heels like he was about to bolt to suit up. And he was, [NAME] could tell.

"Shit okay!! Go get Leo, tell him to get his blue ass in here!" [NAME] called as they scrambled down the arm with practiced ease.

As if on queue, Leo bolted in and almost knocked Mikey over, clambering up the jeager's leg at surprising speed. Mikey bolted out the instant Leo was in the room, likely because the warehouse holding his and Raph's jeager was down the way a little.

By the time both pilots were inside, in sync and moving, the kaiju was up in the shallows, coming off the coastal shelf. The bots burst from their warehouses, tearing them to splinters. The two bots sprinted through the decrepit storage yard, barreling towards the nearby sea and the other jeager.

Leo and [NAME] moved in tandem, running in place and pumping their arms in sync. The neural handshake was strong as always and practically ensured precision. They sped ahead of Mikey and Raph's jeager, taunting eachother over the comms.

"Damn, you guys are slow today! And that's saying something Mr. Orange-insisted-on-long-ass-legs-on-this-itty-bitty-torso!' Leo panted into the mic, teasing Mikey about his design choices.

"Oh shut up Leo!! Did you even bring medic supplies like you were supposed to?" Mikey was yelling and [NAME] almost had to crank down their comms to stop the oncoming headache, chuckling the entire time.

"No, he didn't Mike." [NAME] faux whispered into the comms, knowing it would be heard by Leo anyways.

"HEY-"

"Guys! We need to handle this as a team, which means no. Fighting!" Raph interjected, cutting Leo off and smashing the red jeager's fist into its palm mid run as if to punctuate his point.

"Hey, hi, hello! We could REALLY use some help right now! Our plasma cannon rounds are low and we don't have any more back at home, so I'd really fucking hate to run out right now!!" April jumped in, sounds of struggle from inside the jeager alongside the screaming of metal and the bellows of the beats could be faintly heard.

"Shit, sorry Apes, we are enroute! ETA is about a minute and a half out!" [NAME] reassured their friend, going faster and pushing themselves to the limit to get there quicker, which in turn made Leo speed up too.

"Yeah yeah, hurry UP!" Donnie interjected. He wasn't really one to talk on comms, so hearing him made everyone realize how bad the situation must be.

Finally close enough, Leo and [NAME] got good visuals on the fight. Running across a large stretch of gravelly sand they could see Donnie and April's jeager, Echo Seven, grappling hand to hand with a giant beast. This kaiju was likely only a category 2, but it was still formidable on the battlefield. The kaiju looked like a pangolin, shark and lionfish all at once, with spines along it's back and arms, scaley plates covering it's body and fin-like legs supporting the whole thing. The head resembled that of a shark with some odd growths and horns.

Even worse, the kaiju towered over the green jeager. This normally wouldn't have been a problem, their jeagers were small, but Echo Seven was that tallest of their little fleet.

Even with the disadvantage of size, the fleet had the advantage of speed and team work. The mace flew past Typhoon Eden, the blue jeager, landing right on the creatures back, crushing spines and causing the kaiju to scream out in pain. Just as the creature whipped around, flailing that long tail of its in an attempt to knock down Brawler Fury, the red jeager. Typhoon Eden, and subsequently the pilots, ducked and rolled underneath the flying tail before sliding across the dunes beneath it's belly. Time seemed to slow as they delivered an uppercut punch, rolling to a stop right beside Echo Seven and the creature was forced to rear back with the force of the blow.

"Thank God, what took y'all so long?!" April hollered over comms.

"Eh, downtown traffic, you know how it is." Leo joked back, earning a small chuckle from [NAME]. They began running the small bot up the bigger bot's back and onto the monster, working seamlessly like a well oiled machine. The kaiju had been mid-turn when Typhoon Eden ascended, the creature moving to attack Brawler Fury. The blue and white bot grabbed tight to the keratin horns and yanked, putting all the force of the bot and their combined fury to the test.

The kaiju's head was reared back again, and Brawler Fury was able to land a few hits to the chest and neck and tangle up it's front legs in the chain. Typhoon Eden's pilots shared a nod and attempted to snap the kaiju's neck and end this battle quickly. Just as the head began to be yanked at a full force by the jeager the monster threw its head forward in an attempt to buck off the mecha.

Typhoon Eden managed to hang on and ride the kaiju like a bucking bronco for a minute, but were ultimately sent tumbling info Brawler Fury, knocking both jeagers back into the sand. During the time it took for that one move to throw off the plan of attack, Donnie had concocted a new one.

"April, under it! If we go under it and plasma blast it we can rip it to shreds!!" Donnie spoke a little too quickly, undecipherable to anybody except those close to him.

Echo Seven tucked in on itself an rolled onto the jeager pile, landing on it's back with it's arms flung wide, as the baest shuddered and collapsed.

"Got it, got it!"

And with that the two of them ran in tandem, falling to their knees and leaning back in a mock power slide. Their plasma cannon ripped and burned through the creatures belly, tearing it from anus to mouth as sickly teal blood began to ooze from the rift and drop onto the sand below.

Shock and joy filled everyone's systems and within a minute all three bots were on their feet, holding each other's shoulders and jumping for joy as the comms lit up with boisterous laughter.

They did it! They'd defeated a kaiju! All on their own! They were as good as actual pilots with no training and half the jeager!

Just as the celebration was coming to an high and the adrenaline rush crashed, a booming voice rang through the atmosphere.

"Unauthorized jeager pilots, exit your jeagers and surrender."

The loud voice was demanding and left no room for contemplation. All four turtles, alongside their human companions, exited the command pods cautiously.

The giant, full sized jeager cast a shadow over the pilots and their bots. The Saber Athena glowered down at the six young adults, who simply stared in awe.

Eventually, and nervously, [NAME] and Raph both waved at the massive jeager, one five fingered hand next to a three fingered one. The pilots of Saber Athena must've been stunned, an educated guess substantiated by the lack of response or movement since the pilots of the rouge jeagers emerged.

The Saber Athena straightened, and one of her pilots cleared their throat before speaking.

"Re-enter your jeagers and retrieve your weapons. Await orders from there. And no funny business. understood?" A different, higher voice came through the comms, presumably the other pilot.

A lot of nodding and a few salutes were sent towards the Saber Athena and her pilots before the children dispersed, splitting off into pairs and disappearing quickly back down the hatches into their jeagers.

Teasing jabs and laughter could be hear over the comms, and the pilots of Saber Athena seemed to relax at the lightheartedness. These kids weren't here to cause trouble, that could've been guessed by the fact that they took down the kaiju instead of the city while they had the chance, but they had been uncertain up until this point.

It wasn't long before all three jeagers were up and running again, and again the voice they'd heard first came over the comms.

"What are your designations and names?" The voice seemed almost softer, but not by much. Enough to allow them room to respond, but still demanding.

The blue and white jeager raised it's hand first as an older teens voice came across the comms.

"Pilot number one here, you can call me Leo. This here is my lovely co-pilot [NAME] and our bot is the Typhoon Eden." The jeager did a theatrical bow followed by a curtsy, one for each pilot assumably.

The giant Saber Athena nodded sharply before directing it's gaze to the next, a green and black robot.

"Hi, hello, I'm April-" The left hand of the jeager waved a little, but rather enthusiastically.

"-And I'm Donnie." The right hand raised in the least enthusiastic wave possible.

"And we're piloting the Echo Seven." Both hands began doing jazz hands, except one was more exaggerated than the other.

Another nod from Saber Athena and a vague salute from the Echo Seven were exchanged before they moved on for the final time. Their gaze directed at the red and black bot seemed to make it stiffen as one of the pilots began to speak.

"Oh, yeah, okay so I'm Mikey, and," The speakers attention seemed to shift from the Saber Athena to someone else, supposedly it's co-pilot. "You wanna introduce yourself?"

The jeager shook its head, before the teen continued.

"Okay, and that's Raph and this is our beloved Brawler Fury!"

The Saber Athena looked from bot to bot before speaking.

"Well, it's easy to assume none of you have licenses. Or experience. Or training." As if to punctuate and add weight to each sentence the giant jeager looked pointedly at each bot, assessing them almost. "And based on how advanced your jeagers are, for hunks of scrap at least, parents who don't care." The higher voice pitched in.

The smaller jeagers all have different reactions. The Typhoon Eden looks ready to launch and attack the Saber Athena, Echo Seven stiffens up and stands at attention, falling completely radio silent as if they weren't already, and the Brawler Fury seems to curl in on itself.

A small crowd of civilians were now gathering nearby on a sight seeing parking area on the side of the road, simply observing. The Saber Athena held a hand out.

"Welcome aboard."

And with nothing else the jeager turned around and began to talk away, turning back after a few steps to see if the smaller jeagers were following. Not one had moved from it's previous spot, but all the stances had gone slack from surprise or relief, maybe both. The Saber Athena nodded its head sharply towards the direction it was walking in and began to move again, except now the pilots could hear the scramble of the three smaller jeagers running to keep up.

#AUGH #rottmnt leonardo x reader #leonardo x reader #rottmnt leo x reader #leo x reader #g/n reader #gender neutral reader #pacific rim #rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #pacific rim uprising #pacific rim x rottmnt #crossover fic #tmnt x reader #my au #neve say never #neve.writing #neve writes

[umbranstilettos]

SWEET DREAMS, LITTLE ONE 2/?

IN UNIVERSES BETWEEN LIGHT, DARK AND CHAOS, INTERTWINING IN UNTOLD LAYERS…

“I know what I said Viola!”, Cereza struggled as she tried to form the words out of her mouth, closing her eyes as images of the downpour flashed before her eyes, her grip tightened around her pistols ‘The Whittingham Fair’ even a second of rest was a privilege as she tried to gather through her thoughts, the scent of mildew pervading her nostrils as she continued to walk the sewers with few jackboots following her trail as she argued with her young daughter about her decision to finally accept the challenge of Singularity, if this were a few years back before she had Viola, she wouldn’t careless about anything, and faced the battle head on—but in the first time, she had something to lose, she could remember from Jeanne’s words that fear seemed to have clouded her eyes, when she awoke from her slumber at that lake, but now the fear from accepting her fate was replaced by losing those that she held dearly protecting them from harm is the only thing that is keeping her going now.

Jeanne is dead and while being humanity’s last hope was overwhelming, but the thought of losing Viola was a loss she couldn’t afford. It was the last straw, last night she had a conversation with Sigurd for him to promise her that he’ll give the last crystal to Viola for her to jump into another universe and warn the other Arch Eves to find the chaos gear, her eyes always held the fire inside them with each strike, slash and kick as she began training to learn some few tricks up her mother’s sleeve she always has been closer to her father than to her, from hearing the fabled version of the events that occurred five hundred years ago, to hearing the truth from her mother’s lips one night when she was asking her mother about grandmother.

Cereza wasn’t a stern parent to begin with, but she never really understood if she were to sugarcoat everything to her daughter Viola, maybe that’s why going through a phase with her Evanescence, Bones UK and anything that is an up and coming grunge artist was playing on her earphones one night when she was tucking her into bed. Luka was always the good cop in their little power dynamics, he wasn’t much keen for Viola to undergo training as an Umbra Witch fearing that the wrath from above would get directed to her as soon as she tries to make her pact with a demon. Hell, there were days that her bedroom looked more similar to what a typical trope for Witches, she might die if she finds a witch bottle under her bed.

“But mom, you said so yourself Jeanne can take care of it”, Viola stammers as she followed behind being a part of the resistance and her mother being the leader along with Commander Sigurd, it has been months of hiding from the Homunculi that could conform into any shape, when Jeanne tried to take care of one the fight was similar to those kaiju battles from Japan as Madama Styx tore the creature to shreds it was only a matter of minutes before it could regain their limbs and swept the skyscrapers with their massive tails sending debris to civilians the last she heard in the news that this was dubbed as a phenomena and the world as we see it today will fall under the hands of Singularity; the typical villainy that spouted from the lips of what sounded like a mad man behind the creation of those creatures it was a Sunday afternoon when her mother, father and Jeanne were taking their afternoon tea as high maintenance as her mother was to implement a very strict tea time, she did love doing the tradition especially when she was a child playfully swinging her feet in the air as she nursed the tea cup and took small bites from the artisan Macarons, that Jeanne brought from the local posh bakery that she and her mom frequents to even now as they drowned in laughter mocking each and every word before the downpour came.

Her eyes couldn’t believe as people melted when they were covered by the white glob then spider like creatures jumped, crawled and leaped with heavy artilleries on their head zapped people away from existence, when she had the time to take cover she immediately contacted her mom for her to pick her up as the global phenomenon occurred that is when her mother made the decision with the remaining armed forces and led the resistance to go under the sewers to avoid casualties. Her father wanted to investigate and find the source of the truth about the Alphaverse and the source behind the mass production of these humanoids as he confronted Rodin one night to learn about the complexities of the multiverse the result of the World of Chaos being split into multiple layers of reality birthing a new one each and every time there were significant events that altered the course of the world and that the main objective of the Interloper was to merge all multiverse into one Alphaverse to restore the balance as her mother was dubbed as one of The Arch Eve of this Universe as the main cause of the split between realities as a woman lost in her time creating a different reality as The Left Eye of Darkness harnessing the power of creation, thus altering her fate birthing to a new reality in the timelines.

Part of her blamed The Infinite One from not meddling as he simply put himself out of every situation the only thing he could do was to find the solution, that is when he brought the idea of The Witch of Genesis, a variant of the arch eve that possesses the entirety of the Chaos as the only eve that walked the longest path and her knowledge in harnessing the spirit energy came unrivaled to those who went and took the path before her.

#;muse| bayonetta #;out of stilettos #;drabble #//lol lets not do drafts and go into drabbles hahahha

[thezanyarthropleura]

March 21 (2 of 2: 1970)

(This post covers Gamera vs. Jiger, look out for a separate Gamera vs. Guiron post earlier today)

Happy 54 years to Gamera vs. Guiron, the fifth film in the Showa era, and happy 53 years to Gamera vs. Jiger, the sixth film in the Showa era. Two back-to-back films with quadrupedal enemy monsters, even if Guiron apparently only is because the suit was too impractical for him to be bipedal. Also, two films that play reference to major cross-culture world events happening around the time of release

To get it out of the way, for anyone who has not seen this film, but has heard of it:

Jiger puts a PARASITE in Gamera’s LUNG. She’s specifically compared to real-world parasitic insects, like those wasps that lay eggs in caterpillars. Or like bot flies. And if you don’t know what a bot fly is, you don’t want to. All that said, however, “Gamera said: my body, my choice” is a valid interpretation of this film that I will let slide, on principle.

Along with Gamera vs. Gyaos, this film has one of the most underwhelming female cast presences of the series. Aside from Jiger herself, those with major roles include only Tommy’s younger sister Susan Williams, and Hiroshi’s older sister, Kitayama Miwako. Miwako does little besides give her boyfriend cute smiles and later scold the children for their love of Gamera, although one could argue she’s the sensible one here, just trying to evacuate her family. In fact, hers and Hiroshi’s father has a childlike, friendly inventor personality, leaving Miwako to be the one who takes charge and that even her father seems subservient to, so I guess that’s a win? By the end of the movie, her cute smile seems to have curiously affixed itself to Gamera instead, so make of that what you will.

The special effects are decent and fun, just like any other Gamera movie, so if you’re here for just that, there’s little to complain about. Setting the film during the 1970 World Expo is also a neat choice, even if, after we’re introduced to it at the beginning of the film, neither the humans nor the monsters do much interacting with anything recognizably expo-related (blame the contract that wouldn’t let them smash any of the buildings). We do get a final monster fight set near the Russian pavilion and the Tower of the Sun, and the human characters congregate inside a very fun and futuristic-looking building interior, however, unlike Kamogawa Sea World in the next film, Gamera vs. Zigra, it just seems like it was far more difficult to make this setting work (or perhaps it just doesn’t hold up as well for modern audiences who may lack the proper frame of reference to appreciate it).

Personally, and this may be the nitpick of all nitpicks, on first impression I find Jiger to be the most unrealistic and cheesy of all the Gamera monsters. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been familiar with the other Showa kaiju for far longer, my first viewing of this film having been earlier this year while I first saw the others decades ago, but there’s just something about a giant ceratopsian dinosaur floating through the air like a runaway Thanksgiving day parade balloon that kinda takes me out of my otherwise grounded movie about a jet-powered monster turtle. However, (*continuity goggles on*) it only takes a little imagination outside what’s shown in the film to envision Jiger as a speed-augmented durable blockade-breaker, primarily using those frill thrusters for triceratops-like charging attacks, with a wide-radius heat ray for clearing obstacles and quill launchers to take out any stragglers. Suction feet can also be used to brace against knockdowns, and she seems specifically designed to remove other kaiju from the equation by injecting debilitating parasites. Her ability to charge through water was likely utilized to great effect against Muan warships, possibly necessitating the switch to a fleet of primarily submarines— fine, fine! (*continuity goggles off*)

All of the gross/visceral related content warnings for a scene where scientists in the movie view footage of parasitic worms being surgically removed from an elephant’s trunk. The scene is fake and staged for the film, but it’s still probably the most horrifying thing in any Kaiju movie. Other than that, most of the going-inside-Gamera part of the movie is actually fairly tame, his insides are pretty alien-looking and more often just look like underwater caves, but I personally found the baby Jiger shooting glue out of its nose to be another gross-out moment. The effects surrounding this sequence, though, where Gamera’s arm and head become clear white and you can sort of see his bones, resemble something out of a cosmic horror story. Oh, and there’s also probably one of the most uncomfortably violent things to happen to Gamera, arrows getting shot through all his limbs and then a particularly long sequence while he struggles on his back trying to get them all out while crying in pain. And, last one I swear, I don’t know what kind of warning this is (self-harm?) but Gamera protects his hearing from a sound-based attack by… putting sharp objects down his ear canals.

Along with Viras, this is another strong contender for my least favorite Gamera film, not because I particularly or overtly dislike it but because it’s just kind of lacking in exceptional qualities that make me like other films more. That, and despite some of my favorite films still having specific scenes I prefer to look away from, the fact this movie has not just one, not just two of these, but additionally a whole, continuing special effect that’s pretty uncomfortable can sometimes hurt my enthusiasm to rewatch it. It’s dark and fairly horrific, but not in any meaningful or tasteful way like Revenge of Irys or most of vs. Barugon.

On a positive note, I do like that this film delivers one more ancient-civilization-related monster sandwiched between what would otherwise be three consecutive alien monsters at the tail end of mainline Showa. Also, the scene where Gamera tries to stop the statue’s excavation is a favorite of mine, both from special effects standpoint and as a character moment for Gamera. If we step back for a moment and exclude things from the Heisei series, only considering direct evidence in the Showa films, then it’s left unclear whether Gamera actually recognizes Barugon or even Gyaos as monsters from the past that are known enemies, but here it is abundantly clear that Gamera knows Jiger, if perhaps not the full extent of her powers and abilities.

Building on this, (*slips continuity goggles back on*) personally I headcanon Jiger as having been created by the Atlanteans, keeping her origins consistent with the other Daiei kaiju, but that she was eventually defeated and sealed away on Wester Island by the Muans, as is stated in this film – even if it’s probably trying to imply a society significantly less advanced than Toho’s take on the Muans. Adjusting for this, the shape of the Devil’s Whistle statue may be the Muans’ attempt at a future-proof warning a la “this is not a place of honor” and while this does bring up the question of why a civilization with access to their own kaiju couldn’t just kill Jiger and be done with it… that’s actually also consistent with the film. Gamera specifically picks up and carries away Jiger’s body, which is our hint that stabbing her in the brain may not be enough to keep her down for good, and that using the statue or some equivalent plan of Gamera’s is actually the only guaranteed way to keep her from coming back.

...probably don’t eat anything while watching this movie, just to be safe. Especially not gummy worms.

#gamera #gamera vs jiger #jiger #kitayama miwako #gamera march #rogue atlantean warbeast jiger #a lesbian reviews all the gamera movies

[hopeatermeetsgodzilla]

Chapter 24

Earlier that day...

“But come on, it’s fun! And it works!”

“That doesn’t change the fact that my headaches have been getting worse lately, and you and Ni smashing things on my head to either get my attention or as petty vengeance for telling you what to do doesn’t help.” Ichi started, rubbing the bridge of his nose as San whined.

Rodan turned toward from the rock he was sitting on. “Wouldn’t have expected you to get headaches.”

Ichi turned toward him, momentarily startled. Rodan hadn’t said anything since last night, and had kept his eyes on them the entire time they were debating on who was going to go retrieve what they pretty sure was a bomb- they had settled on Ni-, and they were now waiting for their brother to come back, Rodan perched on a rock not far away and looking out at sea.

Ichi eventually nodded. “It’s a stress thing. And you don’t realize how much proving to you we’re not lying is stressful.” Rodan hummed in response, turning back toward the sea with a frustrated expression.

Just in time to see Ni coming out of the water, flipping his braid out of the way and dragging something metallic behind him. He trudged out of the water and up to them, stopping a few feet to flip the object in front of him before crossing his arms. “There’s something wrong with that thing, but I can’t put my finger on it. Thoughts?”

Ichi frowned, bringing the shell closer. “... it’s a bomb.” He finally realized. “Humans made a bomb that can suck out the life of their planet.”

“How?”

“You know how planet with life on them have this... thing in the air? The thing that the life actually breathes?” Ichi asked Ni, who nodded. He ripped one of the components out. A broken, transparent box with a crumpled spherical object in it where the explosives should’ve been. “That was used to destroy it.”

“Hey, uh...” San started hesitantly. “... had the Xiliens figured how to do tha-”

The trio froze as Rodan got off of his rock, crawling on all four toward them. How he was so comfortable with his own bestiality, they’d never know. He slowly moved to where they were, hesitantly looking at what was left of the bomb. He then breathed in the air, eyes closed in concentration, before they blew wide open in shock. 

Death on this planet had a very distinctive scent, and there was no doubt he was able to say where it was coming from. “So... still believe humans can’t cause wide-scale destruction?” San asked, tilting toward an horrified Rodan.

Horror slowly shifted to anger. “Those vermins...” He muttered, fists balling as heat started rising. “Was it not enough for them to rip away everything I had for me once!?” He roared, black smoke exiting his mouth, a sudden burst of heat melting the ground under his claws.

He gasped, the temperature going back to something bearable. Ghidorah was watching him, looks of confusion, surprise and concern was all over their face. One of them started coming near him, and he gave into fear, letting the wind carry him away from them. He needed to think.

San made a move to start following him, but Ichi taking a hold of his arm stopped him. {Let him be.} They watched as the distant silhouette removed layers of clothing, before jumping into the volcano’s mouth. {We’ve given him a lot to think about.}

Ni hummed in agreement, before frowning as he saw something glitter, back on the the rock where Rodan sat. He walked up to it, frowning as he saw the necklace he had given a while ago. He picked it up, twirling the shard in his fingers as he looked up to the top of the volcano. What would their firebird do?

It took until the sun was starting to disappear over the horizon for Ni to get his answer. A sudden, screeching call sounded for them, snapping the three out of their laziness. He immediately snapped his head up toward the mouth of the volcano. Despite the black smoke that had started rising, he could still make him out. [Rodan’s calling us.]

San immediately floated up, holding the necklace tight in his fist as he dragged Ichi up. (Come on, brother Ichi, let’s go!)

{Yes, yes. No need to be impatient.} He told him, floating up as well and taking Ni’s hand. He opened a portal, allowing them to appear just a short distance away from where Rodan was sitting. He was currently dressing himself. Ichi started talking. “Firebird-”

“Wait. You three wait here.” Rodan told them, still not facing them. For some reason, they obeyed, floating there, watching as Rodan finished dressing, before getting up and turning toward them. They nearly flinched at blazing fury in his gaze.

“...Are you mad at us?” San asked in a far too small voice. “You left your necklace behind...” Neither of the three would admit to sagging in relief when Rodan shook his head, his frown lessening by a small bit.

“Not at you three.” He then added.

“Then what is it?” Ichi asked. He frowned as Rodan extended his hand. He looked at his face, searching for any sign of what was going through his head, but the only thing those yellow eyes betrayed was cold rage.

“I will let you go, on one condition: you help me get my revenge on humans, and I will help you claim the throne.” Ichi’s eyes widened at that, as both Ni and San snapped his head toward him, waiting for their leader’s decision.

“Excuse me?”

“You let me help you destroy humanity.” Rodan repeated. “And in exchange, I will light the way and pave the road to the throne for you three to claim.”

Ichi closed his eyes, letting thoughts run through his head. 

He could almost touch San’s giddiness. The initial plan had worked beyond all hope, and that their dear little firebird would be the one heralding their conquest for all to ear was the icing on his cake.

In contrast, Ni’s recurring paranoia was almost silent. There was the doubt of how far his loyalty would go, but Rodan’s loyalty itself was unquestioned, if only because Ni knew how far wrath could carry one.

As for Ichi himself... Rodan had more than proved himself. If he could survive his nest dying, and not break down in despair no matter what, it already made him preferable to every single one of their former associates.

And that wasn’t counting on the sickly sweet satisfaction of one of the former weak king’s friends becoming their servant. Ichi composed himself. “We accept your offer, Rodan.” He put his hand in his, his brothers following suit by putting their on top of his.

Rodan nodded, bringing Ghidorah closer and allowing them to stand on the rocky surface. Before Ichi could say anything, he knelt, voice dropping to a whisper. “I swear my body, mind and soul to you. From now on, I solely dedicate myself to paving the way to your conquest. And if you deem my work inadequate, then I shall lay my neck bare to your fangs. King Godzilla is dead, long live King Ghidorah.”

King Ghidorah. Oh, how Ichi loved the sound of that one. “Fire bird, look at us.” Rodan raised his head, looking at the three of them with something close to adoration. His brothers were clearly affected by it, Ni lowering his guard at the look, and San was barely not bouncing on the spot. Ichi allowed himself to smile. “No need to be so uptight.”

“You’re the King, now.” He answered. His voice had taken a low, smoky quality to it, probably in an attempt to make his voice seem softer, submissive even. Ichi had to strangle off a purr at it. “The least I can do is show reverence.”

“Perhaps when we’re in private.” NI started, bending down to put his hand under Rodan’s chin. “But you didn’t show reverence to the former king when others were watching, and you shall do the same to us, understood?” Rodan nodded, letting Ni drag him up. “Good.”

San was the next to move, wrapping his hands around behind their servant’s neck. “You dropped this earlier.” He said softly, tying the necklace around his neck. Rodan hummed softly, bending his head and lifting his hair out of the way. San giggled, bringing his hand to Rodan’s cheek. “Good boy~”

Ichi took a few steps back. “For your first order... how about you get us back into reality?” The sudden wind that blew around them nearly startled him.

Rodan looked at them, still looking so very vulnerable despite doing something that, in any other context, would be an intimidation display. “Anything else?”

“Where did the humans in the flying machines come from?” San asked, grabbing Rodan by the shoulder, circling him and effectively turning him around so he was facing the horizon. “Approximatively speaking.”

That hardened him right back up, eyes sharpening as his gaze locked onto whatever they could see of the land from the Island. “They came from further up North. There’s powerful Titans that live on this continent, if I remember properly.”

Ni raised an eyebrow at that, taking a few steps forward. “Which powerful Titans? We need to know which ones we’re going to be controlling.”

“Behemoth, the forest’s protector. Scylla, the ice sculptor.” Scylla? Oh, they hadn’t even started their conquest and it was already looking like tons of fun. “Godzilla was in the middle of culling the beetles when hibernation started, so there should be a few left alive.”

Ni narrowed his eyes. “Are the beetles dangerous?”

“They were able to kill one of Goji’s sister. It’s what prompted the culling.” Rodan answered. “There is also Camazotz, the night bringer. And finally... Methuselah, Guardian of the Earth.”

San perked up at that. “One of Terra’s Guardian?”

Rodan nodded, turning back toward them. “Yes. I doubt I’d be able to wake him up, however. We’re of the same standing. Only a King he would recognize can control him.”

Ghidorah chuckled. “Don’t worry about that, firebird~” Ichi purred. “You won’t be the one waking them up. We will be.”

“Our songs don’t work like your calls.” Ni stated. “Whoever hears us has to listen. You’re the exception that proves the rule, and we know how to carry our voice.”

“This said...” San cheerfully started, grabbing Rodan by the hand and making him spin until he was facing the horizon again, his arms wrapped around him. He could feel the smaller one tense, and what he could see of his face had flushed to glowing orange. “If you want to sing with us, we wouldn’t complain~”

“I doubt I’d be able to add anything.” Rodan started, shrugging out of San’s grasp. “I’m still pretty new at this whole Call thing- AH!”

Ichi chuckled as he lifted Rodan high in the air, sticking his hip out and sitting him on it. “Once again, you’re not the one waking them up, firebird. We are. We’d just like you to lend us your anger.”

“Just because we can draw on other’s emotions to do our bidding doesn’t mean it’s easy.” Ni added, taking Rodan out of Ichi’s arms and putting him back on the ground, turning him back toward the horizon. “It’s easier to force them.”

“All we need is for you to lend us your anger, and we’ll take care of the rest.” San finished. “You write the lyrics, and we compose the tune, if you may.”

“... so I just have to sing with you.” Rodan repeated, Ghidorah nodding as they dragged him close to them again. “... Alright. I’ll try.” He closed his eyes, thinking of everything humans had taken from him, and where his loyalty currently lied. And then he opened his mouth, a discordant melody of wrath and pain and vengefulness and promise poured out of it.

And then Ghidorah sang.

#*rodan voice* i stopped giving a shit and im gonna make it everyone elses problem #today is a kaijus only event humans get out #Godzilla #godzilla gijinka #King Ghidorah #ghidorah #ichi ghidorah #ni ghidorah #san ghidorah #kevin ghidorah #Rodan #rodorah #writing #My writing

[evolutionsvoid]

It is just as much as an enigma now as it was when it first appeared. There were no warnings, no signs of its coming. Just one day it drops out of the sky and right atop a bustling metropolitan area. It was so abrupt and bizarre that it actually caused delays in getting the military deployed. No one really believes you when you say a hundred foot dinosaur thing just showed up in the middle of the city and no one knows how. Every person contacted argued that it should have shown up on satellite, or that someone would have seen it coming. Nope to both, it just appeared. It stomped around the city, crushing traffic underfoot and punting small buildings left and right. It roared almost the entire time, just non-stop. There is no real good way to describe the sound, it was just the same short bark but it often had different inflections or emotions to it depending on the situation. Its movements were even weirder, very stiff and awkward, yet it was surprisingly fast and agile. It could jump hundreds of feet into the air, without hardly trying, yet it fell at different speeds, sometimes even floating like a falling leaf. As its rampage went on, the military finally appeared. Jets and helicopters rushed to the scene, the opening wave of attack as tanks and ground troops moved it. The first barrage of missiles did nothing, they burst across its flanks but its hide was pristine once the smoke cleared. Bullets almost bounced off of it, the only damage they caused was to its pride. It grew angry at the attacks, roaring and stomping defiantly towards the attackers. It became even more furious when the tanks unloaded on it. This was the breaking point, and it at last lashed out. It lurched forward with its mouth agape (well, more than usual) and let out a deafening "BWAAAAAH!" At first, everyone thought it was just another tantrum. The loud shout sure shook the landscape, but nothing immediately happened. A few seconds later, the reason for this scream appeared. A wave of force struck the streets before it, sweeping cars, tanks and troops off their feet and sending them flying through the air. It was like an explosion, but no one saw any fire, light or source for this power. The same thing happened again when it let out another "BWAAAH," though this time the effect happened a little faster. One second there is a line of heavily armored tanks, then the next has them tumbling down the street like scattered toys. It's explosive roar was unleashed upon the army, obliterating the ground troops and knocking the air force out of the sky. Officers wondered if it was some kind of sound-based weapon, but it worked so erratically and slowly that it made no sense. No one could get close to it, and none of our weapons left a scratch. It was then that talks of nuking it began. It was an insane decision, as it was dancing in the middle of a populated city, but the brass thought we could lure it to a more isolated place. Calls were made, higher ups were notified. Everyone was nervous and terrified, both of the seemingly indestructible beast and of the country-changing decision that was about to be made. The screens of televisions across the nation lit up, and the leader of it all stepped up to say some somber words. The speech began, and we all knew what the end result would be. Or, what it would have been, if the beast didn't suddenly let out a startled noise and vanish into the sky. Just as mysteriously as it came, it disappeared, leaving quite a lot of confusion in its place. No one really knew what to make of it, some even claimed it was a hoax. The carnage and destruction left behind, though, was clear evidence that this strange event did indeed occur. Every video of its appearance, attack and disappearance was thoroughly looked over, but no one could come up with any real answer. It dropped from the sky and then returned to it, despite it having no wings or any apparent source of propulsion. Its screaming weapon still could not be solved, so we had no way to counter it if it returned. Its bizarre movements and behavior appeared otherworldly, which led to the idea that this was some interdimensional creature. Perhaps it appeared and disappeared through portals, and used abilities beyond our understanding. A possible idea, but one that was in no way comforting. We were dealing with a menace beyond everything we knew, so how could we fight it? Things grew even more dire when it appeared again. And again. All we know is that it loves to drop into cities and cause havoc. No one has seen it eat, drink or do any other biological function except "destroy." It descends from the heavens, smashes the landscape and fights the military, then vanishes without a trace. Researchers around the world have been trying to deduce anything they can from its brief rampages, but there is very little to understand. There is, however, one interesting observation that may prove useful. The scientists are thinking that the beast may be fueled by solar power. All of its attacks have been during the day, which at first wasn't all that telling. When the darkness of night begins to creep in, the beast will leave shortly after. This would just suggest it was a diurnal creature, heading back to its cosmic den for a good night's sleep. Then the night attack came. Long after dark had fallen, the beast dropped down again but things were very different. Though it smashed and crashed as usual, its roars were much quieter and muffled. At times it seemed to suddenly stop and look about, as if worried of some kind of predator. It would go silent during these brief lookouts, then hesitantly return to stomping. The real bizarre change, though, was the beam of light that fell upon it. As if god was looking down upon it, a shaft of light fell from the heavens and illuminated the beast as it rampaged. No one could find the source, and it appeared to move with the creature as it strolled though the city. When it would suddenly stop for a quick look around, the light would snap off for the briefest of moments, then return as it resumed its destruction. Could this light, and the light from our sun, be powering it? Why else would it require such an energy source during its nighttime attacks? Is that why it retreats when night falls? But if it has the ability to summon this light, why not just turn it on when the sun goes down and continue with its mission? Why vanish at around 6pm, but then show back up later at around ten? There are many mysteries around this creature for sure, but humanity must solve them if we are to survive. Cities have been totaled, hundreds of lives have been lost and the sense of safety in our world has been shattered forever. The stakes in this fight are too high for us to give up. There is no time for playing around. This is a game we must win.     --------------------------------------------------- Kaijune needs some weird kaiju, so here we go! Pick one up today from your local dollar store!

#kaiju #kaijune #monster #creature #alien #art #drawing

[hermannsthumb]

I know you don't usually write PRU stuff, but if you ever feel inclined, here's a ficlet idea! so: Newt is trying to fight off the Precursors by constantly reminding himself that He Is Human. but whenever newt thinks about what makes him Feel Human, the answer is always hermann. so newt starts conjuring up vivid mental images of hermann (doing mundane, hermann-y things) to ward off the Precursors. bonus point if, like, newt fondly remembering smth innocuous (like the scent of Hermann's chalk dust?) is enough to actually sever the alien mind control.

Anonymous asked: Maria!!! Would you ever write an angsty post uprising prompt? Or even a pre uprising? Anything with Newt fucking around with Kaiju and being sad i am HERE FOR 👏

in honor of the sequel’s 3 year anniversary, let’s try something a little different 👀 THIS ONE GOT AWAY FROM ME RE: LENGTH....I'll leave it up to interpretation whether or not the bonus is wholly fulfilled.... also on proofing this I realized it might need content warnings? so vague refs to disordered eating and alcohol drinking (ie, newt’s body is inhabited by aliens who forget how human stuff works)

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Honestly, Newt’s life has been kind of a shitshow lately. He’s too, like, high strung. Too many responsibilities. Not enough hours in the day to get that shit done. He’s even higher strung than he was during the war, which is nuts, because certain doom was lurking around every corner. Maybe that’s why it’s not that nuts, though. The war was chaotic—and Newt’s fueled (or, used to be fueled?) by chaos. The kaiju were unpredictable. The kaiju didn’t run on a 9-5 schedule. The kaiju didn’t expect Newt to have three new jaeger prototypes on their desk by noon on a fucking Saturday, which is usually the day Newt spends two hours in his expensive bath tub and drinks a nice bottle of wine, and definitely not a day he wants to spend giving himself a stress migraine and shouting at underlings to make themselves useful. On top of that, his usual cafe got his coffee order wrong—when Newt had to run in to get it, himself, on a Saturday morning—and it only had half the espresso shots he really needs for the day. No wonder he’s going grey at forty. Fucking nightmare. Stable employment is exactly the kind of chaos that’s bad for Newt—give him the kaiju any day, thanks.

“Dr. Geiszler?”

Newt pushes his sunglasses up, and scowls at whichever one of his employees has dared to interrupt his catnap. The fluorescent overheads are brutal on his poor eyes right now. The lab needs more natural lighting. Maybe if he complains, they’ll knock out some walls in put in a few more windows. “Did you find any Aspirin?” he says.

Wordlessly, Newt’s assistant passes him a bottle. Newt pops the cap off and takes at least four. The coffee he washes it down with is cold. “How are the last simulations coming along?” he says, flicking his sunglasses back down. He seems to have so many migraines these days. It’s the contact lenses, he thinks—making the switch over from frames so late in the game. Screwing with his perceptions. Newt went thirty years with frames, after all. “We only have two hours before—”

“We’re almost done,” his assistant cuts in. “We’re working as fast as we can, Dr. Geiszler.”

“But are we gonna make the deadline?” Newt says.

She fidgets, and moves her clipboard to her other arm. “Well—we’ve had some—issues.”

Newt stands up with a long sigh. Double overtime, probably. Sunday lost to this shit too. That new bottle of wine waiting for him on his kitchen counter bought for nothing. “Gotta do everything myself, huh? Unbelievable.”

He follows his assistant over to the main lab down the hall, where his team of j-techs are hurrying around. Hardly anyone in proper lab attire—no labcoats—someone in sweatpants—Newt wasn’t the only one who had his Saturday ruined, probably. No one else is going grey, though. “What’s this shit?” he says, stopping in his tracks with one foot through the doorway. The high-tech holo-smartboards have been pushed aside, and instead, someone’s wheeled in a huge…chalkboard.

“Technical issues,” his assistant says. “The other floors are having the same problem—something in the new interface update that downloaded last night, we think. They’re all out of commission. Technology is working on it, but for now, we had to pull that out of deep storage.”

Two of his scientists are scrawling across the board quickly—one with white chalk, the other with pink. They’re debating something in hushed tones. Newt hasn’t seen a chalkboard in years. It doesn’t fit with Shao Industry’s whole chic, sleek, futuristic aesthetic. So—bulky. And messy. “Of course it would happen today of all days,” Newt sighs. The sight of it makes him feel odd, and he can’t seem to drag himself any further into the lab and any closer towards it.

His assistant says something. Newt doesn’t hear—he’s listening, instead, to the squeaking of chalk across the blackboard. So noisy and obnoxious. It reminds him of years and years ago, of working in a grimy little basement, of…

“—look it over. Dr. Geiszler?”

“Hm?” Newt says. It was like a layer of fog had begun to lift from his thoughts, but the interruption sends it rolling right back in.

“I said we’re ready for you to look it over. Only if you want too, of course,” she adds, nervously.

“Uh-huh,” Newt says.

Newt’s never had anyone fear him before, not like his employees seem to fear him—he’s not sure he likes it. His scientists shut up the second he looms over (well—under, Newt’s never loomed over anyone in his life) their shoulders to inspect their work so far. The squeaking stops. One of them lowers their piece of chalk. “Wait,” Newt says, too-loudly, surprising them and himself. They both look at him with the same nervousness as his assistant, like he’s about to start shouting or something. “Keep doing that.”

“Keep…?”

“Writing,” Newt says. “On the chalkboard.”

The scientist frowns at him. “Um, okay,” she says. “What am I supposed to write?”

“Anything,” Newt says. “Seriously. Anything.”

She hesitates.

“Anything,” Newt repeats.

She picks up the white chalk, and writes out her name, then doodles a few random pictures—a DNA helix, a flower, a cat face, a star. Newt shuts his eyes, and breathes in deeply. That smell. He snags the forgotten piece of pink chalk from the ledge. “Can I have this?” he says. He doesn’t wait for them to respond—though they both nod yes frantically, and bewilderedly—before writing out his own name on the board. Dr. Geiszler. It looks wrong, so he writes Newt beneath it. He shuts his eyes, and writes Newt again. Why does he feel like he’s done this sort of thing before? This thing is ancient—before his time at Shao—he wouldn’t have used it before they carted off to the basement. Newt, Newt, Newt Was Here,he writes, Newt +, and then he stops.

He opens his eyes. “Who’s Hermann?” his assistant says.

Newt + Hermann. Newt didn’t realize he wrote it. “Someone I knew,” he says, faintly. “Years ago. He was my—” He swallows. He feels strange. “My colleague?”

Strange. Dizzy. The Aspirin isn’t working. Definitely the contact lenses. He could afford laser eye surgery now, if he wanted, maybe he should look into it. He grips the ledge of the chalkboard, swaying, and grits his teeth; his two scientists back away from him slowly, no doubt worried he’s about to hurl all over their shoes. He might, to be honest. Newt + Hermann. Hermann was his colleague. Hermann was his— “Are you feeling okay, Dr. Geiszler?” his assistant asks. “You look…”

“Tell Shao I’m taking the rest of the day off,” Newt says.

“What?”

“You guys got this shit handled without me,” Newt says. He pockets the chalk. “I’m not—I’m not feeling myself. I think I need to go home and lie down. Seriously, you’ve got it under control—all these numbers look, uh, good, I trust you. If you guys don’t get it finished you can just tell Shao it’s my fault, okay?”

She gapes at him. “Uh,” she says. “Okay?”

Newt doesn’t go home. He goes to the nearest shop he can find instead, and makes a beeline for the art supplies aisle. Only a few boxes of chalk in stock. Four multicolored, two all-white, one yellow. He drops them all into his basket but the yellow, which he rips opens and immediately smells. Newt + Hermann. Hermann always smelled like chalk dust—he always had a fine layer of it on his clothing, patches of it on his blazer, his sweatervest, even on his undershirt. Newt used to tease him for that. He closes his eyes, and breathes in again. Funny—all those baths, all those bottles of wine, and this stupid little box of chalk is what’s finally making him feel calm for once. Quieting down his brain. He didn’t realize how loud it’d gotten in there. When Hermann would kiss Newt, he would sometimes stain Newt’s clothing with chalk, too, and Newt would pretend to be annoyed, but he never really was.

Someone is speaking to him. An employee. They’re staring at him, a cautious distance away, and Newt’s not sure what they’re saying.

His vision’s gone blurry—he didn’t realize he’d started crying, either. He wipes his eyes on the cuff of his blazer and sniffles. “Sorry,” he says. The box of yellow chalk is wet. “Um. Do you have any more of these in the back?”

He takes the bus home for the first time in years, one hand stuffed in his little brown shopping bag the whole time, wrapped around a box of chalk. When he gets back to his apartment (his big, lonely, apartment), he pulls out the only food in his fridge—some leftovers from a Shao Industries event three nights ago—and settles down on his big, lonely couch. He can’t stop thinking about Hermann. Five or so years, maybe more, not thinking about Hermann, and now suddenly—it’s like the floodgates have opened. He thinks about Hermann’s haircut. (Bad.) He thinks about Hermann’s smile. (Silly, and sweet.) He thinks about Hermann’s dumb accent, and the clack of Hermann’s cane on the floor, and Hermann’s chalk squeaking over his chalkboard, and how it felt when Hermann would wrap him in his arms and kiss him and whisper things to him. Hermann’s sweaters always smelled like mothballs and stale cigarette smoke. Terrible combination.

Newt’s stomach growls. He’s finished the small bit of leftovers without realizing, and is apparently still hungry. He would kill for some sushi takeout right now. Or pizza, God. Yeah, it’d be screwing with his new diet and fitness plan—he casts a guilty glance over at his brand new exercise bike, which is gathering dust in the corner by his TV—but he’s tired of doing stupid kale and juice cleanses or whatever, just to please—well. He’s only human.

He is?

He walks up the stairs to his bathroom, and stares at himself in the mirror. Stupid vest. Stupid tie. Neat hair, clean-shaven cheeks, contact lenses. Newt’s only human. “I’m human,” he tells his reflection. Is he human? He felt human standing by that old chalkboard back in the lab, and holding that box of yellow chalk in the aisle of that little shop. He felt human when he was remembering things. Because of—Newt blinks at himself. Because of whom?

“Hermann,” he says, and smiles at the way the name makes him feel. He should text him, maybe.

-------------

“I must say,” Hermann says, “I was quite surprised when I received your dinner invitation. You’ve done a rather fine job of ignoring my calls as of late. I’d thought— Ah, thank you,” he adds, as Newt holds the door open for him. He steps into Newt’s apartment and cranes his neck around, squinting curiously, and then shoves a bottle of red wine at Newt’s chest. Hermann is much more personable than Newt remembers—what little Newt remembers—and he wonders if it’s age or something else. “I’ve been holding onto this one for a while. It’s the one you gave me as a part of a gift for my thirty-seventh birthday—you remember? Oh, but isn’t it so terrifically, er, modern in here.”

“Is it?” Newt says. He’s never given much thought to his apartment before, but he stares around at it now in mild interest. It is very chic, isn’t it? Monochrome. Impersonal. Not something Newt would’ve picked for himself. “Yeah, I had some interior decorators come in and do it for me.”

Hermann arches an eyebrow. “How…”

“Modern,” Newt offers. He puts the bottle of wine on his marble kitchen island. “Thanks for this, by the way, but I’ve actually been trying to cut back on the—” He bites back drinking. No need to alarm Hermann. “—Calories, so if it’s cool with you I’d rather not open it. I’m doing a, um, a new fitness program.”

“Ah,” Hermann says. “I suppose that explains that, then, doesn’t it?” He points at the dusty exercise bike. Newt watches his gaze move from that, to the barren leather couch, to the short staircase which leads to Newt’s shut bedroom door. Newt can practically see the gears working in his head. “Will—ah, what was their name, that little flight of fancy of yours—a dalliance, one might say—will they be, ah, joining the two of us?” He looks at Newt out of the corner of his eye. “Alice, was it?”

“Who?” Newt says, blankly.

Hermann breaks out in a broad grin, which he quickly tries, very badly, to turn into a sympathetic frown. He pats Newt’s arm. “There’s the spirit, then, Newton! All in the past, I presume? Hardly any use in dwelling on a broken heart. Then again—it’s not as if you were together long enough to warrant those sorts of dramatics, were you?” he says, cheerily. “What I mean is—certainly it wasn’t as if you had any sort of deep or emotional connection with—?—oh, I’ve forgotten the name again.”

“Uh,” Newt says. He’s not really sure who Hermann’s talking about, but just based on that fact alone, he would assume Hermann is right. “I guess not?”

“Precisely as I expected,” Hermann says, with a satisfied nod. “Rotten grounds for a relati—for a fling. You deserve far better, Newton.” Hermann touches Newt’s arm again, and this time, he doesn’t move his hand. It makes Newt’s skin prickle pleasantly. “You look well these days, though I admit it’s a bit of a shock to see you without your glasses,” Hermann continues, flicking his eyes up and down Newt twice. He lingers on Newt’s left hand, over the bare spot where—until this morning, when he suddenly realized how stupid it looked and yanked it off—he was wearing that Elvis ring. “Ending things must be treating you kindly. I don’t suppose I could dash to your loo?”

“Loo?” Newt says. “Oh, right. Yeah, it’s that door there, right off the living room.” He drops down onto the leather couch. “Knock yourself out. I’ll be right here.”

Hermann disappears into Newt’s bathroom, and comes back out three minutes later with combed hair, a straightened collar, and the vague smell of cologne. He’s tucking a small bottle into his top pocket. “I found a box of hair dye in your medicine cabinet,” he declares, smugly. “I knew there was no bloody way that was natural. Though I’m not surprised it fooled Alice.” He rests his cane against the glass coffee table and sits down next to Newt. Right next to Newt. The whole sofa to pick from, and he’d rather their thighs touch. Newt doesn’t mind—actually, the contact is strangely grounding, like Hermann’s hand on his arm had been earlier. He’s here, in his living room, with Hermann, his friend Hermann, his colleague Hermann, his—well, question mark—Hermann.

“Hermann, can I ask you something?” he says. “Something important?”

“By all means,” Hermann says, leaning in and fluttering his eyelashes. Even over the cologne, Newt can still make out that mothball-chalk-smoke smell.

“Do you take your coffee with sugar?” he says.

Hermann laughs. “Do I—what?”

Newt repeats the question. The smile slips off Hermann’s face, and he draws away, furrowing his eyebrows. “Well,” he says, “yes, usually, only I’m not sure what—”

“Sugar, and some milk,” Newt says. “It was the same with your tea. And you had a mug that you would use—you wouldn’t use any other. It was blue, and it said—” He exhales through his nose. “It said TU Berlin. That’s where you got your PhD.”

After Newt sent Hermann a text about dinner last night, he sat down with a pen and pad of paper and made a list of everything he could remember about Hermann. He started with what Hermann looks like, and who Hermann is, and then moved into the harder stuff like what Hermann likes and the sort of things Hermann used to do. He stayed up all night doing it, until his hand cramped and his head hurt even more than it had that morning, and then recited it over and over to himself in a whisper as he fell asleep. Hermann has brown eyes. Hermann likes blackberry jam on his toast. Hermann wears little glasses on a chain. Hermann uses a cane with a tiny little nick in the brass of the handle. The list is in his pocket now; it makes Newt feel calm, and even calmer when he reaches into his pocket and touches it. He exhales again, hard, and then inhales. “We were together,” he says. “When we closed the Breach, you told me you loved me.”

“I did,” Hermann says, quietly.

“I said it back,” Newt says.

Hermann nods.

Slowly, Newt reaches out and puts his hand over Hermann’s. Hermann makes a strange noise in the back of his throat—like a sigh, or maybe a groan. His pulse twitches erratically under Newt’s fingertips. “I bought chalk,” Newt says.

“You—” Hermann echoes, his voice choked. “You bought chalk?”

“It reminded me of you,” Newt says.

He’s not surprised when Hermann kisses him, but he is surprised at his knee-jerk reaction: to pull away, or push Hermann away, and to order him to get out of his apartment. He’s surprised, because those aren’t his thoughts. He doesn’t want Hermann to leave—he wants Hermann to stay longer, and kiss him more, and help him remember more. “Oh, Newton,” Hermann says. “Newton, Newton—” He moves his mouth to Newt’s neck, kissing, breathing, and whispering his name, and Newt shuts his eyes and forces himself to remember his list.

“Tell me things about you,” Newt begs. “I want to remember you.”

Hermann’s laughter, hesitant and confused, comes out in a puff of hot air against his skin. “Remember me?” he says. “I’m not sure— Are we not a bit—?”

“Hermann,” Newt says.

He grips the back of Hermann’s sweater, digging his nails in Hermann’s skin through the layers of fabric. Hermann must hear the urgency in his voice, because he shakes his head with another laugh, kisses Newt’s jaw, and says, “Well, alright. What am I even meant to tell you?”

“Your favorite color,” Newt says. Hermann kisses his chin. “Your favorite song. No, wait—” He nudges Hermann away from him, just enough so that Hermann can see him smile. “Tell me what you like about me.”

“Feeling rather egotistical tonight, aren’t we?” Hermann teases. He reaches out and brushes his fingers through the side of Newt’s hair. One of the spots Newt dyed—it was too grey. He catches Hermann’s hand by the wrist and pulls it away gently, but only to press himself up against Hermann’s chest instead. He can feel Hermann’s heartbeat. “I like—hm,” Hermann says. “I like your stubbornness. I like your passion. I like…”

His voice vibrates in his throat—Newt can feel that, too. He listens.

#newmann #maria's fanfiction tag #if Alice was a real person her picture would be on Hermann's dartboard #it probably is anyway #Anonymous

[catboycafe]

I Will Now Express Every Thought I Have About Pacific Rim: The Black 

⚠️ spoilers for the whole thing baby

I actually forgot Pacific Rim: The Black was premiering today until I saw it in an article this morning! When I first heard about it months ago, I was decidedly not sold on a Pacific Rim anime. Uprising burnt me the fuck out and I don’t have a lot of trust left in me for new entries to the franchise. But I had heard rumblings of Raleigh and Herc being referenced after going into #pacificrim and I decided I may as well check out to see what was up! I binged it in 4 hours and it sure was a whirlwind, I’ll tell ya

The Plot

I really enjoy the setting and initial concept! We’re so use to seeing Kaiju/Jaegar shenanigans play out within these major cities with helpless civilians everywhere that spending so much time in a lonesome desert and these destroyed civilizations was really cool and indicative of the changes Pacific Rim has undergone in the last few years. I also looooved the Desert Settlement from the beginning!! It seemed really homey and picturesque; I wish we’d spent more time with the other survivors and got to see more of their day to day aside from farming and sitting. 

I also found the first episode set up to be really tight and well written! I was hooked during the initial flashback, Hayley and Taylor’s fight was really poignant and well acted, and the reveal of Atlas Destroyer felt really huge and epic!!

But once we left the Desert Settlement and the plot started actually moving along, the pacing becomes suuuper rough. We spent way too long in Bogan with Shane and Mei; there’s only 7 episodes and we spent, like, 3? 4? within the confines of that camp and I felt it weighed the plot down. Boy is introduced in the 2nd episode and, because the narrative spends so much time on Shane’s evil machinations and Mei’s back story, we still don’t know anything concrete about his origins or purpose 3 episodes later! That felt frustrating to me

The story beats overall were very predictable. I was able to pick up on Mei’s backstory via her dynamic with Shane in their introductions, so her memories felt too built up and too hollow once they were revealed. The same with the reveal of Boy’s Kaiju form; he was in a big green test tube in a PPDC base - I assumed immediately he was a part-kaiju experiment and again his reveal felt hollow, especially after the glacial pace of it’s development. 

Even when events weren’t predictable, they lacked weight. The appearance of several Kaiju Breaches in “Boneyard” felt very cheap for some reason; I wasn’t scared and I didn’t feel tense about these odds mounting against the protagonists. This was just happening and I was just watching. 

The Art Direction and Animation

I’m very obsessed with all the new Kaiju we got from this; I love how Copperhead is rendered, they’re a joy to see on screen!! The Rippers are also very cute and deserve little plushies...i love these neat little dogs. Boy’s Kaiju Form is very intimidating with an interesting color palette and I loved seeing him next to Copperhead’s highly saturated design!

That’s unfortunately all that I liked however; All the human character design is unmemorable to me. Every character looks exactly like another easily identifiable anime character from a different property (Hayley looks exactly like Zero Suit Samus to me, for example. And Mei kept reminding me of both Bernadetta Fire Emblem and Motoko Kusanagi from GitS. The list goes on). 

I can sort of understand why they’re so bland? A franchise going from Live Action to something as heavily stylized as anime is probably a really difficult transition and these designs are probably meant to be more lowkey than more unique anime designs in order to help that transition. But realistically stylized designs can still be recognizable and unique! These feel uninspired and bare bones.

 I have no problem with the switch to CGI animation that modern anime is doing because I know it’s a lot cheaper to produce and it can still be really unique and striking! But The Black’s model animation felt very stilted and inconsistent. I don’t have a lot of knowledge about animating so I don’t think I can accurately describe what I disliked? Wooden is probably the best term. Character movements felt wooden and things like hair and clothes felt plastic. 

Impacts also had very little weight. The fight between Tayler/Mei and Copperhead reminded me of when you’re in a dream and trying to punch something, but you can’t punch hard. It was simply too floaty and too soft. The final showdown in “Showdown” was better, but not by much. It was very immersion breaking seeing these Giant Robots and Giant Monsters unable to throw a real solid hit!

Characters

My favorite character was unequivocally Joel Wyrick. We love Joel Wyrick in this house! Joel’s character has real charisma and charm. I love his flirtations with Loa, how his cocky disposition is juxtaposed with his drinking problem and later insecurities over his lost memories, and his genuine kindness shown to Mei, Taylor, and Boy. No one ever plays with Boy, they just run after him and drag him around...but Joel has this moment in “Escape from Bogan” where he kneels down to Boy and helps him collect rocks. It was sweet!

So of course, when Joel dies for absolutely no reason 5 minutes later - pissed! I was pissed! I yelled “COME ON” aloud in my studio apartment! I was genuinely so excited to see him interact more with the rest of cast then, poof. No More Joel.

His death felt like it was for shock value to me rather than actual narrative development. Why kill him when we still don’t fully understand his and Mei’s relationship? Why were they so close? Were they childhood friends, or just coworkers that happen to become friends? Why did he specifically know all the details of Shane’s abuse towards Mei before she did? 

What did his death accomplish? It made Mei sad...ok? She was already...very sad. Her running away from Shane already had consequences - the consequences of Shane coming after them for revenge in the future. Why did Joel have to become a causality? 

His death is ultimately tied to Mei’s character arc which is, unfortunately, my least favorite :c I find Mei to be a really one dimensional character with a personality, backstory, outlook, and motivation that I’ve seen done a million times before with a million other characters. She feels very out of place in the franchise as a whole - Pacific Rim is, at it’s core, a story about connecting with others. Her self-centric arc and lack of desire to connect outside of drifting really alienates her from the story at large and it frustrates me how long The Black’s narrative spends on her. 

Hayley and Taylor were otherwise very interesting in the pilot episode, but become similarly one dimensional at the story chugs on. Taylor’s unflinching (bordering on unhealthy) faith in their parents was really interesting next to Hayley’s complete acceptance of their parents’ death. But once the two of them make up their differences, they lack an interesting dynamic and become very passive protagonists.

 Taylor especially has no personality - how would you describe Taylor? He’s...brave. He’s the older brother. He’s a leader? He’s nice? There is nothing noteworthy about him at all, which is sad considering I think he has the potential to be a really interesting way to explore the original movie’s influence on The Black’s story.

Hayley’s grief and self-blame are more interesting than Taylor’s...nothingness, but she still falls into this one-note trope of being the naive, excitable little sister. I guess I feel abnormally frustrated about this flat character writing because Pacific Rim’s incredibly unique cast has always been an inspiration to me! It feels sad that this new iteration into the series is full of what feel like stock characters. 

Then we get to Boy. How come Boy can’t have a person name? It’s specifically written in a dialogue between Taylor and Hayley: “I’m not going to call him Chad or Barnaby or one of those names for a baby brother you wanted as a kid,”

Why?

He’s by all accounts a human child when they find him. Yes, he was found in a big green test tube - but he walks and acts just like a human child. The only difference, seemingly, is that he is non-verbal and engages in strange/annoying behavior (running off, eating bugs, etc). So he isn’t deserving of a name?? I don’t know why that makes me so mad, it just does. it’s like they refuse to treat him as a human even before they find out he’s a Kaiju  - it’s super weird! How can the story sell me on the three of them becoming found family (like they’re seemingly trying to do) if the protagonists won’t even treat this kid like a kid??

Misc. Thoughts

The callbacks to Stacker, Herc, and Raleigh were cool! I also like that Herc is a major plot point! We love Herc Hanson and it’s what he deserves. I also find Loa’s connection to Horizon Bravo very interesting...and the fact we’re getting Kaiju cultist lore! Love that! Love that!

Fucked up that the only two dark skinned characters were: 1) removed from the story 10 minutes in with no call back yet, 2) Killed after having 1 line of dialogue and fridged for the character development of the blonde white girl. I really need to know what the deal with those 4 characters leaving in the beginning was about - I absolutely thought we’d see them again by now, but no dice

I don’t know how to feel about Ajax and have no clue what their purpose in the story is. They’re cool, but whats the point? 

If Mei and Taylor are paired up together romantically, I’m putting Craig Kyle and Greg Johnson in the time out box. Very tired of seeing random hetero romance B plots in stories that can’t even get their A plots together

Overall, it’s kind of subpar! It has the foundations of a really interesting story, but the pacing and characters really took me out of it. I’m interested in Season 2! I know season 2 is already ordered and I’d love to see how things continue to develop, see if the character writing gets any better - but I’m not too hopeful unfortunately. I really really love Pacific Rim after all these years and I’m happy to still be getting content and world building! There’s just sooo much I would change about this however. At least fanfiction’s free! 

Thanks for reading all this, I have ADHD and just go on and on if u let me. hmu if You Too have thoughts about Pacific Rim: The Black and have no one to talk abt them with

#pacific rim #pacific rim: the black #pacific rim the black #taylor travis #hayley travis #long post #sorry this is thousands of words. i contain multitudes

[hopeymchope]

Godzilla Singular Point

I came into Singular Point with some trepidation because Godzilla’s history in anime is both very recent and extremely bad. The three anime movies released between 2017 and 2019 are easily the worst work of famed writer Gen Urobuchi and honestly contain more bullshit than I can even get into here. Those movies and this series were both Godzilla anime properties commissioned by Netflix, which didn’t get my hopes up very much. Thankfully, Singular Point is a very different beast from the anime trilogy. One could argue it’s very different from most Godzilla media, actually — at least from my perspective. And I’m still a pretty entry-level fan of Toho’s Big G, all things considered.

Let me just warn you right up front: This smartphone-based virtual assistant is basically the breakout star of the series. 

When you think “Godzilla,” you probably don’t think “incredibly dense sci-fi concepts,” but with the big G’s first-ever anime series, the writers clearly set out to change that perception. Before the first kaiju even appears, the lead characters are plucked from obscurity and dropped into a mystery that involves fourth-dimensional time travel, physical objects that look different from all sides, theoretical math concepts, self-propagating A.I., and a whole lot more. And it’s NEVER made clear how all of it connects to the rampaging kaiju! Although we spend a lot of time investigating a red dust or sand that is very obviously tied to the monsters in SOME way, no one ever makes a connection that explains the relationship. Maybe we’re supposed to wait for a later season to connect the threads... but let’s get into the idea of “another season” later.

I like to think of myself as someone who typically enjoys hard sci-fi, but even with the characters spending loads of time trying to explain the high concepts driving the story, I was never able to fully wrap my head around what was going on in the mystery at the center of GSP. I rewound and rewatched a few explanations, but I still walked away feeling lost. I eventually settled on some vague, loose understandings of most of the ideas mentioned, but those understandings were subject to being ripped apart in subsequent scenes when I was shown or told something completely at odds with what I thought I knew. I can’t say I was ever bored with the thick, dense scientific concepts on offer — trying to find purchase with these far-out ideas kept me glued to the screen — but damn, I sure wish I was able to comprehend them.

What do we want?! DENSE SCIENTIFIC DISCUSSION AND DEBATE! When do we want it?! AFTER THOROUGH RESEARCH, TESTING, AND PEER REVIEW!

Another weird thing about this show is that the lead characters remain in separate locations and on separate tracks for the entire duration. We have Yun — a mechanical engineer and programmer who has an amazing grasp on physics and human behavior. And we have Mei — a grad student who is deeply invested in theoretical science, UMAs, cryptids and other far-flung concepts. Both of them are basically geniuses in their fields, and even though they take opposing views of just how flexible reality is, their shared ability to think “outside the box” becomes the crucial component in solving the mystery at the core of the series. Because they don’t even know one another (despite being separated by like, ONE degree), they only ever interact via text messages and behind screen names, which feels pretty damn weird. At least  I immediately liked both of them, with Yun being the standout to me because of how his lowkey reactions to crazy shit generates a lot of humor.

This soundtrack cover LIES; you will never see these characters in a room together like this. 

Alas, we don’t get to know the characters a whole lot beyond what we learned of them in the first two episodes. It’s not long before they’re trapped in a series of complicated exposition dumps, endlessly attempting to explain the high concepts of the show to other characters as well as my dumb ass in the audience. The fact that I liked them in the first couple of episodes carried me through more than half of the show, but I was always hoping to see them share more of themselves or just display more emotion. Anime as a medium excels at emotional storytelling. But despite the major, world-altering events the characters are constantly warning us about, none of them seem to have many emotions about said events. 

Further complicating matters is how, when major events finally occur in this show, they are often kept off-screen. One character shockingly dies, but the portrayal of that death is so piss-poor that I didn’t even realize it’d happened until someone mentioned their death in the next episode. After that vague death, I was particularly sensitive to anything that looked like it might possibly be lethal. Yet a later event that is played up as a tragic, fatal occurrence ends up... fine, somehow? It’s not clear how the character survives, because — even after one of our heroes is left screaming their name in despair as they seemingly die — nobody ever talks about or explains how he’s just fine a couple of scenes later. And near the end of the series, there’s a major transformation that occurs for one of the characters, and we never see it happen nor do we understand HOW it happened. It’s just that suddenly, this character is extremely different due to off-screen reasons that are only vaguely verbalized.

I guess these two really bonded at some point for some reason? And what you are seeing here is literally the height of emotion shown in the entire show.

Even though the overarching story of the series so far pretty clearly wraps up in episode 13, we then get a post-credits tease for a potential second season. So the question becomes: Would I watch that?

Well... Godzilla Singular Point is a series with a lot of issues that kept me at arms’ length from it — tons of extremely confusing dialogue, highly frustrating choices in direction that lead to baffling storytelling, characters who are mostly exposition-dumping — and yet there’s still some foundational work here that I appreciated a lot. When the action occurs, it’s pretty cool/fun. And when urban destruction occurs, it can be awe-inspiring. The human characters, though little-explored, have likable and interesting foundations to them that could be expanded upon. And I didn’t even mention the soundtrack, which features a variety of musical styles combined with the classic Ifukube theme music and an OP that is an absolute banger. (I have a weakness when it comes to music; a good soundtrack can carry me through even the blandest series sometimes.) Even the core idea of centering a Godzilla series around hard science and mathematical concepts is a compelling one, I think! I just hated the execution of it; they went waaaaay too far on poorly explaining incredibly complex, mind-bending concepts for my pea brain to handle it. They spend so much time trying to explain things, yet somehow they never succeeded for me. 

Ultimately, I’d probably give the show another chance. But if I do give another season a chance, it’ll be on probation. I wouldn’t watch the entire season unless I could see within four episodes that they’d definitely improved things.

Would I recommend that anyone watch the series as it currently stands? I mean... not really? I guess if you really dig complex math, hard theoretical science, and/or Toho’s stable of monsters, then maaaaaaaaaaybe give it a shot. But otherwise? Naaaahh. It’s not good enough at anything to make it stand out from the anime crowd. I didn’t hate it like I hated the Godzilla anime films, but Singular Point is still something that both casual viewers and most fans can comfortably ignore for the time being. It’s not a complete disaster, and it’s not without its highlights... but it’s definitely disappointing in my opinion.

OKAYOKAYOKAY, so let’s talk about the kaiju for a bit! 

Below will be SPOILERS revealing all of the kaiju that appear in Godzilla Singular Point and giving my feelings on them. 

Godzilla — It’s interesting to see a version of Godzilla that borrows some ideas from Shin Godzilla. Shin G has been incredibly unique until now, but this Godzilla manages to fold some of Shin’s distinctive aspects in with the more classic/typical versions to build a fun new depiction. Be forewarned that Godzilla doesn’t show up until the series is halfway over, and he doesn’t get a ton of screen time, either. He’s used quite sparingly and kept in hazy settings, often framed from the neck-up when they show him. It’s a little frustrating that they felt the need to shroud him so much, but I respect the fact that whenever Godzilla is shown, the destruction he causes is on a scale far beyond anything that the rest of the kaiju ever do. He is pure devastation. 

Rodan — He’s easily the biological kaiju with the most screen time in Singular Point. Rodan is first introduced as one gigantic pterosaur, but if you’ve seen ANY trailers for this show then you already know that his depiction transitions into an asston of smaller pterosaurs, all of whom are also called “Rodan.” (Apparently the word Rodan is both singular and plural, like the word “buffalo.”) Although he looks kind of cool at first, pretty soon Rodan showing up isn’t special or threatening anymore. Rodan appearances go from “a big goddamn deal” to “some bland background noise” before the series is even 1/3 finished. The design might be a little too far removed from the original for my own taste, but even if I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t be able to care for this Rodan simply because he’s rendered so unimportant and unimpressive.

If you go out in the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise... 

Anguirus — Now check this guy out! Anguirus gets one of the coolest fights in the show and also demonstrates some powers that are well beyond anything we’ve seen him do before. Because he sticks to unpopulated areas, we never see him do much damage to Japan, but he is definitely holding all the attention when he’s on-screen. He’s a highlight for me — a total badass who is very unique in his abilities. And the stated origin for his name is goddamn adorable.

Manda — Yup, Manda is in this series... but I don’t have much to say for him. It seems like the creators of the anime didn’t have much to say about him either. His role amounts to little more than a repeated cameo, and in most of those cameos you only ever see his tail. When we finally see his full body, it’s done so briefly and kept at a distance, leaving me with no real impression. I had to look up his design online and... yup, that sure looks like Manda. Final score: MEEEEHH.

Kumonga — I definitely did not see this appearance coming! Kumonga is much smaller here than you may be used to, but she gets to star in the most suspenseful sequence in the series and easily earns the most exciting cliffhanger moment at the end of an episode. I was utterly glued to the show during her screen time, which comes with a lot of icky twists. Good ones! I honestly like Kumonga here more than I ever have previously.

NEW PHONE WHO DIS

Salunga — Uh, who? This is the one monster that isn’t based on a classic Toho kaiju but instead is a brand-new creation. I suppose that everybody who touches the Toho Kaiju franchise wants to make their own mark on it in some regard. But a big part of the fun of this series for me personally was the anticipation of seeing new interpretations and designs of classic Toho monsters. And so, given that he kind of resembles both Baragon and Gabara, I never stopped wishing they’d just used one of those guys as the basis and namesake. Taken on his own, however? He’s... pretty neat. Not unique or exciting, but solidly above par.  He resembles a cross between a lizard/dinosaur and an ape, plus his head has some nifty coloration. 

Our Jaguar!

Jet Jaguar — I guess Jet Jaguar isn’t exactly a kaiju in the traditional sense because he’s a Giant Robot. However, if you want to consider him one, then I wager he probably gets even more screen time than Rodan! We meet him almost immediately when the series begins. Initially an odd pilot-driven robot that was constructed at the whim of a quirky old factory-owner with too much disposable income, Jet Jaguar grows and changes over the course of the show, ultimately undergoing a transition in episode 7 that makes him pretty damn impossible to dislike. In fact, I utterly adored him by then. This is definitely the best Jet Jaguar I’ve ever seen. His design is recognizably similar to the original yet utterly distinct, too. Like many of the other kaiju here, he’s not nearly as big as he was when he was first introduced to the movies, but his size is ideal for battling the smaller-scale monsters that we spend most of the series on.

#godzilla #godzilla singular point #anime #anime reviews #kaiju

[ghostgirlvii]

Ok first time doing this, but I need to take all of this out my system. I never did such thing before, but I really want to make some sort of review.

So, I was excited to know that we would have more Pacific Rim content after Uprising and I was really looking forward to it. I did not do much research about anything because I love to keep everything a surprise and of course when Netflix dropped the trailer, I didn’t watch it. Today I binged watch the first season of Pacific Rim The Black with only 7 episodes. It was… interesting. I’m kind of glad I didn’t hype myself too much for it. Don’t get me wrong it was good, but not exactly the best. The only + points I would give now are the animation/design and story. Music vibe with the Pacific Rim universe but not that much. Uprising did a better job at catching the ‘main theme’ vibe. This series have good soundtrack but doesn’t have the catchy theme that make you feel like every thing you do is in a jaeger and you can fight anything. Also, the story take place in Australia. The first movie was a bit a let down with actor not having a real Australian accent, but hey the Hansen are still my favorite! The Black has only 2 (two) characters with Australian accent and it’s two bad guys. Not even the main characters. I’m very disappointed by it.

I guess that was the less spoilers-y part of all that’s coming, so heads up spoilers coming next. I don’t want to describe each episode fully, mostly just talking about general stuff and spoilers come from moment that made me went ‘WTF’, so I won’t spoil everything but probably some major moments.

First episode opens with a jaeger that looks very much like Striker Eureka, which turn out to be Striker Berserker (because we all know what happened to the beautiful piece of metal was Eureka!) Thing happened and the PPDC initiates something big (later reveal to be some sort of protocol that everyone call The Black) We also get introduced to our main character, Taylor and Hayley. Isn’t very clear at the beginning when this take place, however a few episodes later it said that it takes place years after the Uprising war. For now, it is safe to assume 5 years has the story is 5 years after the event of the blackout. Kaiju seems very easy to kill also, then again some are only Cat. 3 so maybe? Even then, I’m not super comfortable with this when we saw how all other pilots always struggled to kill their kaiju. Breaches also seems to appear on land now!

After some events, episode two force Taylor and Hayley to wander off the safe place their parents told them to stay 5 years ago while they went looking for help with their jaeger (Yup Mom and Dad are pilots!) Taylor and Hayley end up in a weird city with dog like kaiju after them and found out an old PPDC lab/place. They found a boy (named ‘Boy’ all season long) in an experiment lab. Oh no is the PPDC the bad guys now?! Well, answer later. We also see a kaiju/jaeger hybrid kind of fully transformed/evolve. That is just so weird at first.

Remark on episode three are small, mostly the usual people selling kaiju part or jaeger part and that feels very normal, honestly that just normal stuff. Also imply some worshippers which is then again nothing new. What’s knew is interrogating someone via drift and store everything on ‘mermory drive’ ? Cool, I guess? I don’t know, drifting always feels more ‘intimate’ it’s weird to force yourself in someone mind to find the intel you want...

Episode four is the moment where I had to check back on info about Uprising, I only saw the movie once, so I had a lot of piece and bit missing. But at this point it sort of made sense that the world would be infested of kaiju because at the end of movie Newt says the Precursors will keep attacking over and over again. So okay at this point I made peace with the idea of the world, no excuse me, Australia being invaded by so many kaiju and left in a post-apocalyse place. Also, I forgot to mention that there’s one kaiju named Cooperhead who sort of is the main kaiju who always find Taylor, Hayley and their jaeger. Which come to the point that is seems like kaiju can hear from VERY far away. Maybe this was always a thing, but it never felt like it would be like 100 kilometers like the series make it feels like.

Fifth episode is by far my favorite for one reason only…. Herc Hansen baby! Yup he made a cameo, voiceless, struggling to fight a kaiju and very old. We learn this because Taylor need to learn solo drifting via ghost drifting (using the memory drive we talked earlier, how did they get his last memory??). Turn out he is the one, under the order of I don’t remember who of the PPDC to initiate the blackout protocol and it has to be in a dramatic way. He fought solo a kaiju while making sure he could succeed his mission. Oh they also included Raleigh and Stacker when they were looking for candidate. The one who survived, although technically Herc died? If this is really canon, yup no original pilots are alive anymore. We learn that trying to drift too much with failure can cause lose of memory and ghost drifting side effect is you gain memory of the pilot you drifted with. Yay, joy! Or not. Because this mean they can, with the help the ‘memory drive’ , change the memories of someone to the point they don’t remember who they are (guess what it happen to one of the side character!)

Episode 6 gave me a headache! It is the episode with the most inconsistency. Uprising was better. I mean this episode had inconsistency coming from both movies, hard to beat. But first may I point a breach open in the middle of ground and no kaiju come up? Ok… At some point, Taylor and Hayley found a cave with jaeger and kaiju remains. Oh, that looks interesting. Wrong. The graveyard it somewhere in Australia, on land, right? Well, here’s the three kaiju found; Leatherback, Slattern and Mutavore.

Mutavore was indeed killed on Australian ground by Striker Eureka, but that was in Sydney and this cave seems very far from any city. Leatherback attacked Hong Kong! How did he ended up always the way there? Slattern was killed near/in the breach by Gipsy Danger. Once again, how it finds the way in the cave?!

Unless we are talking about the ‘cloning’ theory of Newt and there are kaiju with the same DNA has those three but then maybe precise it?

Then our jaegers; Titan Redeemer, November Ajax and Omega Valor.

Omega Valor was damaged during the attack of the Moyulan Shatterdome, then the remaining part used to fix Bracer Phoenix. All of this also took place near Japan, very close to inland Australia. I suppose we could assume Bracer Phoenix had a fight in Australia at some point and when the AI scanned the part, she tought it was Omega Valor.

But then come Titan Redeemer. Taylor has now Herc’s memory because of ghost drifting and he is sure that he knew the pilot of Titan Redeemer and helped/took down Yamarachi. Wrong. Yamarashi was taken town by Gispy Danger aka the Beckett brother with another unknown jaeger. Herc was no part of this fight.

Also remember Boy and the kaiju/Jaeger? Well Boy and him sort of drifted and we learned that the K-J is actually a surviving drone from the uprising war who fully merged to become a actual biomecha. He also eats kaiju. But at this point, Boy feels very not normal for the kind of universe Pacific Rim is. Too ‘magical’ and ‘OP’.

And the final episode, where everything resolves, in away. The kaiju who have been following Taylor and Hayley since the beginning is finally defeated, they found clues about their parents whereabout and Boy turns into a kaiju that looks like a gremlin. Yay everyone happy. Hmmm hold on. Human found in PPDC lab who turn into a kaiju? Could it be that the Precursors found a way to introduce kaiju that look human in our world? That’s what implied at the end. The worshipper called ‘The Sisters’ are revealed too and they seems to have plan… for season 2!

 That’s it! Overall, it left very unfazed. I did not hook me up as much as I hope. A lot of elements feel too magical/fantasy for the world of Pacific Rim (that’s my opinion) and errors in episode 6 really threw me off. I know that there was already some inconsistency between some infos in the first movie and the (not canon) novelization. But there were small. Also, that whole thing of be able to change people memory, I didn’t knew I was in Total Recall. The characters are nice, the story is okay, just some classic tropes, but some stuff just don’t seems to fit. And then again, would it have been hard to find actor with Australian accent? Not everyone but at least for Taylor and Hayley and not just the big bad guy and his assistant, sort of not sure who he was but definitely not the big boss’s right arm. In the end, I would give this series a 6/10. It wasn’t bad but wasn’t not as good as it could have been. I’ll watch season 2, because of the story, I’m curious of those worshippers and their business.

#Ghosty life adventure #pacific rim #pacific rim the black #I would call that an amateur review but honestly this is how I feel about this series #long post

[dragonzzilla]

The Sunken City of Godzilla

Saw Godzilla: King of the Monsters a second time today, and felt inspired to write up an essay on the Sunken City shown in the movie and how I changed my mind about the tragedy of its destruction:

When I first saw the movie, I was distraught that the sunken city (which I'm going to call 'Atlantis' for reasons) was destroyed in the nuclear blast. I was hoping maybe it was only the inner chamber that was damaged, but a second viewing confirmed nothing was spared. A lost civilization, proof of coexistence with the Titans, millennia of culture, lost forever. As someone who's loved the MonsterVerse lore so far, I was saddened that we didn't see more of Atlantis. Come on, a city that lived in harmony with Godzilla? That's ripe for exploration, that's something new and never seen before, I would love to see that (one can hope a comic will explore this in the future). Not to mention, I thought it was a curious move thematically to destroy what is explicitly called Godzilla's home, when the previous movie in the MonsterVerse (Kong: Skull Island) went out of its way to point out just how badly we screwed up by setting off a bomb in a monster's house. While never touched upon in the movie, I bet a lot of Monarch archaeologists would've loved to study those ruins. It would've been a gold mine. Had there been another way, I'm sure they would've spared Atlantis and return later to study it.

But a few days later, I came to a realization. One can only assume the city was above water originally, which means it must've sunk at some point. But considering the sheer scale of the city and how far it sunk (its location is never specified in the movie), the event must have been catastrophic. Something on the scale of a Titan battle. We know the Titans started causing natural disasters as soon as they awoke, including earthquakes and tsunamis, so it's not unreasonable to assume that a sufficiently titanic battle could have sunken Atlantis. After all, we saw Washington D.C. completely flooded (enough for *aircraft carriers* to wade in) just from Ghidorah's storm powers alone. Which led me to my realization: What if Atlantis sunk as a result of Godzilla battling another monster, possibly even Ghidorah himself? A city that revered Godzilla above all else, sent to the bottom of the sea, its people washed away. It could've been just another tragic causality in Godzilla and Ghidorah's intense rivalry, or it could've been the very thing that incited it.

Think about it: Legendary Godzilla doesn't hate humans. It was noticed back in 2014 that most of the damage he caused was incidental, a consequence of his immense size and battling with other kaiju. Otherwise, he ignored them unless they got in his way, and even then he didn't retaliate tenfold. And despite his enormity, he isn't oblivious of humans. He made eye contact with Brody in the Battle of San Francisco, he acknowledged his existence. Then in KOTM, he sees Serizawa come to him, even though the heat and radiation was killing him. Both times we see Godzilla at his lowest point, unable to get back up, his eye turns to a human. A vulnerable god turns to a mere human. Why? Why doesn't he hate us? Especially when both times, we were responsible for his hurt (indirectly with the release of the MUTOs and personally with the Oxygen Destroyer).

Because, I think, he loves us. They allude to a symbiotic relationship early in KOTM, and Serizawa says "We'd be his [pet]." The illustrations in Atlantis only confirm that happened once before. The people of Atlantis revered Godzilla, and Atlantis is the place Godzilla always returns to. The immense radiation wellspring was probably the main draw, but regardless Atlantis was the one place he felt safe. On the brink of death, he limped back. It was his innermost sanctum, accessible only to him and known only to a trusted few (Mothra). It was his home. Doctor Stanton remarked while they were in Atlantis, "If the stones could speak, the stories they could tell." I'd rather ask, "If Godzilla could speak, what stories could *he* tell?" A harmonious coexistence with humankind, so long ago now that humans have all but forgotten about it? Godzilla's memory is long; several thousand years is nothing to a creature that's existed since the Permian Era. He might remember the glory days of Atlantis like it was yesterday. He remembers a time when humans did not fear or hate him. Yet Atlantis fell all the same. If Ghidorah was responsible for the Sinking of Atlantis, then he wouldn't just be an intruder; he'd be responsible for the murder of an entire people that Godzilla cared for. And as I said, humans aren't beneath his notice. He would've seen everything, heard everything, yet powerless to stop it. The architecture survived, but the people did not. Every time he must return to Atlantis to heal his wounds or hibernate, he'd have to swim through the sunken city, the drowned streets, the submerged towers. A city built in his honor. A city of ghosts. It'd be a bitter pill to swallow, time and again. His body would heal, but it'd do nothing for regret.

Which is why now, I've come to accept the destruction of Atlantis. The history and culture will forever be lost to the depths of time, but Atlantis was more than a city. It was proof of peace between man and monster, mortal and god. That connection was broken a long time ago, and it wasn't until Serizawa's sacrifice that it was mended. Here is a man of unwavering belief and conviction. While the rest of the world dismisses Godzilla as a mere animal or views him as a threat, here is a man who kept faith, a man who dares to consider the seemingly impossible idea that fear and hate aren't the only options. Here is a man of peace; a man willing to sacrifice everything for the chance of a better tomorrow; a true Serizawa.

The greed and imprudence of man is a common theme in Godzilla movies. Mankind is not inherently evil, but it is thoughtless decisions that allow great evil to come about. The creation of atomic weapons, the terrible application of them, the ensuing escalation of arms. The environmental messages in KOTM reinforces this idea, that our careless exploitation of the Earth's resources are rousing the Titans to combat this disaster. We strip mine, we mine for oil, we cut down irreplaceable swaths of forest. Normal people are not responsible for these things, but the decisions of a few that are determining the fate of everyone on the planet, risking the lives of billions in the pursuit of shortsighted gain. Yet Serizawa proves to Godzilla that not every human feels that way. Serizawa shows that this is not human nature now. That some are still willing to give their happiness and, yes, even their lives to make a better world they know they won't see. Serizawa demonstrates, before the eyes of god, humanity at its most selfless. He renews the old pacts and pays with his life. One can argue that they could've sent any soldier to carry the nuke, and thereby spare Serizawa's genius and leadership, but I don't think anyone else on the submarine could've succeeded—not because I think nobody else could withstand the radiation, but rather, no one else had more faith in Godzilla more than he did. No one else could've paid back the love Godzilla had for humanity, all those years ago. Trust for trust, a life for a life. When Godzilla rose out the water, he stooped down and looked these humans in the eye to see if they still feared him. And they didn’t back down. It wasn’t fear or hate on their faces, but something familiar, almost forgotten: reverence.

The destruction of Atlantis was more than a physical annihilation; it was the demolition of the past—a clean slate, a changing of the guard. Nothing can bring back the people or the culture, but no longer will the murals and empty streets remind Godzilla of what he had lost. The city was a promise, a promise that has been fulfilled once again. Atlantis was a monument to the lost peace between man and Godzilla. A peace that has been reforged in nuclear fire.

Atlantis had to be destroyed. It had served its purpose. As Serizawa said: “Sometimes the only way to heal our wounds is to make peace with the demons who created them." If you want to put old ghosts to rest, you cannot dwell on them; you have to bury them and move on. With Atlantis gone, Godzilla can no longer live in the past. He is the once and future king.

#godzilla #godzilla king of the monsters #essay #long post #theory

[sabraeal]

Sic Semper Monstrum, Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Obiyuki AU Bingo Post-Apocalypse AU

There is no worse sound than the sirens.

Science agrees: every day, papers pile up in her queue, every last one of them tagged with the word kaiju and trauma. Everything from former Rangers to survivors of those first attacks to the children who still live in the cities along the coast, growing up in the looming shadow of the kaiju threat -- every single one of them has a lasting, ingrained reaction to the noise. Siren Anxiety, some papers call it, sanitized from the PTSD of other papers. Worse are the epigenetic ones; the endless articles speculating about what the alarms have done to the human psyche, calling it the next great epigenetic event in human history, not tired to any one ethic group or restricted region, but instead the entire coast line of four continents, none of them able to bear the whoop and moan of the evacuation siren.

Shirayuki isn’t sure how much of that she believes; she believes in science, not divination, and the plasticity of the human mind is far beyond their understanding. Still, it’s a sound that certainly has a starring role in her nightmares.

Along with, she’s coming to realize, the Marshal wants to see you.

“Doctor.” His voice is clipped, terse, but still polite as he stands, gesturing for her to take a seat. He’s a busy man by any standard, but no one can say his mother didn’t teach him his manners. “I’m glad you could take the time to see me.”

It’s not as if she had much of a choice; she might be one of the few civilians here, but as far as the Pan-Pacific Defense Corp is concerned, he’s her boss. Garack might be the head of K-Science, but in the shatterdome, the Marshal’s word is law.

Someone else might not know the extent of that power, might think that a summons sent to the civ division of the dome was just a polite ask, but Izana --

Well, if there was anything like royalty left on this coast, it would be the Wisterias. Three generations of Marshals since the first kaiju ransacked San Francisco, and it could be said, with little exaggeration, that his grandfather practically built the PPDC from the ground up. If anyone knows the power behind that title, it’s him.

“It’s no problem,” she chokes out, sinking into a chair. Beside it sits a steaming mug -- her mug, she realizes with a jolt -- filled with green tea and muddied up with cream. Just the way she likes it. “I had time.”

He nods, hand hooked over the back of his chair, gaze fixed to the wall. The one that would look out over the Pacific, if they weren’t underground. She’s been here six months, and training up to take Garack’s place hasn’t left her much time, but --

She’s been in this office a few times, in an official capacity. And every time she can’t shake the feeling that he shouldn’t be here. That he belongs in some high-rise, looking out a fortieth floor window, surveying his domain, crunching numbers and worrying about stocks. Not down here, half-buried beneath what’s left of LA, talking to her about monsters.

None of them should be here, really, but that’s just the way things have panned out. For now. There’s no accounting for who they would have been, if not for --

“You’re settling in?”

Shirayuki nearly scalds herself on her tea, only just clamping her lips around her teeth to keep it from spilling out. She take a moment to swallow, liquid burning all the way down. “Ah, yes. It’s been...slow, but I think the rangers are acclimatizing to the shift.”

Finally, she wants to add. And only because of your brother.

It’s a mistake to say any of that. Bringing up Zen, here, right now --

Probably not career ending, but she’ll certainly approach the limits of Izana’s current goodwill. She may be the psychologist in this room, but he is the one who could sit back in his chair with that enigmatic smile of his and flay her alive. There’s no amount of insisting that will get him to believe that Zen is only her patient, and --

And, with the way Zen acts, she can’t say she blames him. She’s a professional, but no matter how much she swears to herself that she would never cross that line, would never make a patient more than that --

Well, she’s read the papers. Everyone living under one roof like this, never a day’s rest when kaiju don’t believe in filing for paid time off, civilian and military alike -- it’s a recipe for disaster. Zen wouldn’t be the first ranger to read something more in his sessions.

And she wouldn’t be the first PPDC psychologist to encourage it, if she did --

Which she doesn’t. She’s told Izana all this before, shoulders straight and stance stoic. But he’d only smiled that infuriating smile of is, and asked, but if he wasn’t your patient...?

She didn’t have a good answer to that. And the Marshal wasn’t one to miss a detail like that.

They’d been...at an impasse since then. Zen still takes his sessions with her, and she keeps her distance.

Well, as much as he allows. Which is quickly trending towards not enough and also too much.

“Good.” His fingers tap idly at the leather of his chair, expression uncomfortably thoughtful. “Garack speaks highly of your skills, you know. Best investment I’ve forced you to make.”

It’s useless to hide her blush. She knows she’s well-regarded -- there’s not many psychologists clamoring to get into the PPDC, and even less rangers wanting to talk to one -- but still. Garack practically invented the idea of trauma therapy for pilots. It’s not only a compliment -- it’s a reinforcement of her whole life’s work to date. There’s no point in hiding that she’s happy about that.

“And my brother, of course,” he mentions mildly. “Not a day goes by where he doesn’t sing your praises.”

Oh, so -- so he is going to bring this up.

“Studies have shown that having a mental health professional available to pilots has decreased the likelihood of risk behaviors as well as nearly all forms of self-harm.” Her cheeks heat, and oh, how she wish they wouldn’t when she talked about this. “A-and it isn’t unusual for pilots under stress to believe they’ve formed and intimate bond with support staff. As long as the professional--”

Izana holds up a hand with a huff of a laugh. “You don’t have to preach to me Doctor. I think we are both tired of that particular conversation.”

Her fingers tighten around the mug, and she grimaces at the pinch. “Then I must admit that I’m at a loss for what we need to discuss.”

She only just manages to bite off, if I’m not here to defend my professional credentials. By his look, he still hears them, loud and clear.

His eyebrows raise, but she’s not one of his rangers; there is no pressing need, in her mind, for her to call him sir. Some of the other civilians here might fall in line -- lord knows Suzu trips over himself to do it -- but she’s not some lab scientist, taught military hierarchy in a day’s orientation. Oh no, she’s written papers about the long term effects of the military complex under martial law, and --

“I have need of your expertise, Shirayuki.”

All her protests dry up in her mouth. She hadn’t expected that.

“Oh,” she replies eloquently. She lifts the mug to her mouth and takes a long, meditative sip, trying to buy herself some time to come to terms with -- with this. “I, uh, well...”

“I’m bringing in a new ranger,” Izana continues, graciously ignoring her sudden inability to form coherent sentences. For once, it’s a mercy she can appreciate. “I think he might present a...unique challenge for you.”

“A ranger?” The room feels off-kilter now, tilted. Izana may make this announcement so casually, but a shatterdome is a complex ecosystem of egos, an exquisitely delicate biome that can collapse into total anarchy with a single breath. And now he wants to upset that balance. “When?”

“Soon.” His mouth quirks, gaze distant. “I’m flying out today, in fact, as soon a we’re done here.”

Pressure pulses threateningly just behind her eyes. “Who would you--?”

Her mouth shuts with a click. Most of the pilots here were experienced teams, working together for years, but there was one -- one -- jaeger that has been lying in wait for half a decade, stuck in shatterdome purgatory until his single pilot managed to find a partner --

And it just so happened to be the single ranger that Izana Wisteria, prince of the Pacific, would burn half the world for, if it meant finding someone drift compatible.

She twists the mug in her hand, anxious. “Does he know?”

A stupid question, when she already knows the answer.

“No.” An easy answer for a complex situation. “And he won’t.”

She bridles in her seat, mouth pulling thin. “You called me in here to ask me to lie? Is this some sort of test of loyalty, because I don’t appreciate mind games, Marshal.”

“No. I asked you in here because I have...concerns.” He grimaces, as if it physically pains him to admit it. “About...reintegration.”

“You should be more concerned about what this will do to the dynamic of your pilots,” she tells him, setting aside her tea. “You should be telling him that --”

“Doctor, you have been here long enough -- and privy to my brother’s thoughts long enough -- to know there is only one copilot he will accept.” Izana looks at her now, and he seems so -- weary. Not even thirty, and here he is, shouldering the hopes of the world. “We don’t have the luxury of waiting for him to be reasonable about this. I would rather he had less time to plan his objections than make a misguided attempt at trying to appeal to his logic.”

Her lips press together, annoyed. She wants to fight on this point, to tell him he needs to prioritize Zen’s comfort --

But unfortunately, she agrees. Were this a mediation between two brothers about a family legacy, she could counsel caution, could recommend respect -- but this is a dispute between soldier and commander, and in this, she’s loath to say Izana has the right of it. It had taken hardly a handful of sessions to see where, precisely, Zen’s hang up lied in regards to the drift.

It’s her job to provide support, to empathize, but oh, sometimes she wishes it included telling someone they were being belligerent, ridiculous. That they were risking lives for pride, for a reward that had never been promised and would never come.

“I still think he should know,” she insists stubbornly.

“Of course you do.” Izana mouth curls in that infuriating grin of his, too knowing. “You are eminently fair, even to a fault. It’s part of why you are so good at your job.”

She frowns at the compliment. Kind words, but she knows the Marshal too well to believe a kiss won’t come with a sting.

“However,” he drawls, “you won’t tell him.”

“No,” she agrees begrudgingly. “I won’t.”

“I won’t lie to you, Doctor,” Izana says, suddenly serious, fixing her with a look so intense that it’s almost a burden to bear. “This is a very...unorthodox situation.”

“I think you’ll find that I’ve seen nearly everything the PPDC has had to show me,” she said, forcing a smile. “There’s very little left that can surprise me.”

His mouth twitches, smile turning to something almost self-deprecating. “So you might think.”

Her office is empty when she returns to it, dark. The offices along the entire hall are empty, probably for dinner.

Good. She’d rather do this without anyone around to see.

It’s not as if this isn’t in her purview; Zen is her patient, and this, inarguably, will have a direct impact on his current mental health. It’s only...

There’s a difference between hearing trauma from a patient, freely given, and finding it out through a dispassionate report that is more date than substance. She’d sworn she would wait -- Zen was neck-deep in trust issues, and if flying blind would make him feel more comfortable, make their relationship seem more natural, it was a small price to pay.

But now with Izana talking about a new ranger, about reintegration --

Shirayuki may not be fluent in the Marshal’s particular dialect of doublespeak, but she’s able to read between the lines: he’s bringing someone back, someone’s from Zen’s past, someone no one will be happy to see. She only knows one ranger that fits the profile.

She flips further in Zen’s file than she’s ever let herself: far past his current benching, far past Kiki’s unexpected and upsetting arrival at the dome, even flipping through Mitsuhide’s all-too brief tenure as his co-pilot --

Right to the hole in Rex Tyrannis’ pilot history, to the year that every ranger talks around: Atri.

She doesn’t have access to his file, so she’s only gets half the story -- an endless string of appeals filed by Zen, insisting that some unexplained petty crimes could not have been perpetrated by his co-pilot. A run of misconduct charges that are strenuously sanitized. A laundry list of official complaints lodged at about Izana’s enthusiastic reprimands, Zen passionately insisting Atri was being singled out by the Marshal because of his background. And then, finally, the removal of Zen from the duty roster.

Absence of Drift Compatible Personnel, it reads. A simple way to name the gaping wound he still carries with him.

She knows the specifics of this part at least; Mitsuhide kept Zen’s past close to his chest, but he’d slipped on this, tongue lubricated by a few after hours beers. Court Martial In Absentia was what it would read on Atri’s file, since he’d been long gone with his stolen goods before Zen had caught wind of his plan. Mitsuhide had recovered the parts before they went to market, but Atri himself had never been found.

And now here he was, about to waltz back into Zen’s life, complicating the peace she’s worked so hard to maintain.

Shirayuki sits back, rubbing at her temples. If only that would be the worst of it. Having a man most of the pilots thought of as a traitor slink back under the shatterdome would be hard enough, but --

But if Izana could find Atri, that meant he knew where he was. And no matter what the Marshal would say about it, Zen would never believe he hadn’t known the whole time, that Izana hadn’t just let Atri get away with some awful proviso where Atri never contacted Zen again.

Her head tips back with a sigh. Knowing the Marshal, he probably had, too.

She reaches out, grasping to catch the handle of her mug, meaning to take a sip of the tea she inevitably had cooling in there, but --

But her hand swipes at air. It isn’t here, it’s back in Izana’s office. Or rather, in the kitchen, where he doubtlessly sent it after she left it there with half a cup of cold tea.

Shirayuki rests her head in her hands and groans. There’s nothing she can do about this now -- the Marshal will do what he thinks is best. That’s his job.

And it’s hers to deal with the fallout.

There’s only one room in the dome with windows: the mess.

Curved glass wraps around the rounded outer wall, gazing fearlessly out over the Pacific, as if daring the kaiju to come, inviting them. It’s PPDC pride at it’s finest; making a grand show of defiance when it was all just an illusion -- the glass was engineered at Shao Industries, able to withstand anything just short of a nuclear blast.

It’s always easy to tell who is new in the mess; no one but experienced personnel ever sit facing the windows. It was a game the rangers played sometimes, making the newest recruit sit on the bench opposite the window, waiting and watching for them to break, for the anxiety to overcome them and send them bolting out of the room, meal wasted.

Shirayuki’s mouth thins. Those had been some of her first patients here -- the recruits who couldn’t stop shaking long enough to eat their food.

“It’s the math.”

She jolts out of her reverie, gaze scrambling up to meet Suzu’s, hoping he hasn’t noticed that her attention drifted. He’s always been a bit sensitive about things like that, about being dismissed. A common problem, when your thesis is about trying to apply algorithms to kaiju attacks.

There’s no need to worry, of course; she tries to look attentive, but he’s too busy attempting to eat the sloppy joe spilling out over his fingers to appreciate it. “It’s worrying me.”

Yuzuri lets out a groan load enough to make a kaiju rethink an approach. “Are you on about this again?”

“When am I not on about this?” he snips around his bun, circling around for another bite. Ground meat drops down to his tray, splattering sauce everywhere. Shirayuki has met a lot of people, but until she met Suzu, she’d never known one with a splash radius. “It’s important, even if you don’t think so--”

“Me, Marshal Wisteria, everyone with a brain--”

“Hey,” Shirayuki murmurs. “Do you hear that?”

The Formica shakes under her hands, gentle at first, and she can feel the collective breath of the mess stop, every body going tense. The rangers two tables over are half out of their seats, heads twist over their shoulders.

Shirayuki follows suit, watching the waters churn at the edge of the flight deck, ripples slapping hard against the metal. Kaiju don’t typically come this far down the coast -- just the once, just that first time when Yamarashi rose up on Long Beach. The most recent, most deadly attacks have been on the other side of the rim, Russian and Japan and China, all fighting off more kaiju every month --

But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen here. That things can’t change. They all learned that lesson well, after the kaiju came.

“Chopper,” Suzu says with a sigh, settling back into his seat.

He’s the only one; already there’s bodies crowded along the windows, faces pressed eagerly to the glass as the helo swings down to the flight deck, skids bouncing once, twice before settling flat.

“I guess His Majesty had returned,” Yuzuri observes dryly, mouth ticking up in a grin. “I wonder who he’s with.”

Izana alights from the chopper first, hair whipping out in a golden banner behind him. It’s no wonder everyone is jostling to see; he cuts a striking figure on the tarmac, Marshal blues neatly pressed, golds stars shining along both shoulders. Angel of the Pacific, they’d called him right out of training. The name had stuck, though it came out with more irony now.

He half turns, gaze swinging back to the helo as a man slides along the seats. Shirayuki holds her breath, jaw clenched tight. His head is ducked, hair a wild black hedgerow, but for a moment he looks up, and --

Ah, that’s -- that’s not Atri at all.

She refuses to run.

Shirayuki is a professional, a doctor. Unless her life is on the line, she walks briskly, with purpose. Her pace this time might leave her breathless, might leave her feet aching in what she would have called sensible flats this morning, but it’s still not a run.

She gets there just in time to see it happen.

Zen’s waiting in the hangar, Kiki and Mitsuhide flanking him to either side. This is an ambush, she knows; Izana couldn’t have has enough time to officially page him, but the rumor mill works fast inside the dome. It wouldn’t have escaped him what purpose his brother’s guest would serve.

The man himself is calm, preternaturally so for a one walking into a room with hostility so thick it’s practically a wall. His mouth is curled up at a corner as he looks around, taking in the view, hands hooked in his pockets, casual. Cocky, even.

She hesitates as she draws closer, as she finally able to see his eyes, and she amends her assessment. He mimics calm, exudes it, but his eyes are half-wild, darting around the deck like he thinks the jaegers might come off the wall and stomp on him. They’re nearly all pupil, she can see it even from twenty paces away, but as they stop, as they catch on her --

She could swear his eyes are gold.

His gaze jumps away, and by then Izana has rallied, that he’s already started to speak. She can’t hear a thing, close as she is. With the whirring of drills and growls of machinery, she’d have to be nearly on top of them, part of the conversation itself. She wants to be, she should be, but --

It’s too late. Zen’s jaw sets with just one look at the man, and she knows -- that’s it. He’s done. There won’t be any drifting with what’s washed up on the deck.

No matter how angry he is, Zen keeps his head, giving Izana a tense nod as he makes introduction, as he clearly tells him this man’s purpose in the dome. She knows the exact moment it happens; Zen clenches his jaw so hard she’s surprised he doesn’t crack a tooth. His gaze shifts to the other man, forbidding, but --

But the pilot slips one broad hand out of his pocket, holding it out to him. A peace offering.

Zen stares at it like he’s been offered trash.

The man’s smile goes sharp as he pulls it back, hooking his thumb on the loop of his jeans. He doesn’t seem surprised, just -- amused.

Zen spins on his heel, stomping away, Kiki and Mitsuhide trailing behind him. The man’s mouth slants into a smirk.

“Well,” he says, easy to hear over the sudden lull, “I think that went well, don’t you, Marshal?”

No one knows who this mystery man is, but it takes no time as all for them to divine why he’s here -- another ranger for Zen Wisteria to fail to drift with, another pilot to be shown the marvel that is Kain Wisteria’s legacy and fall short. There used to be a betting pool about how long it would take to find someone compatible, someone Zen would accept, but it’s long since dried up. No one thinks Rex Tyrannis will be coming out of its box anytime soon.

Shirayuki wants to believe it will, that Zen will find someone to be his copilot, even if no one else does, but --

She doubts it will be this one.

“He’s a jackass,” Zen grumbles, head tilting against the back of her couch. A mug steams in front of him, filled to the brim with a coffee more cream than bean. “He keeps on showing up everywhere, saying ‘don’t forget, master, we have a drift to fail.’ Last time he followed it up with, ‘come on, I want to get home already.’ Just, you know...asshole stuff.”

Shirayuki nods, sympathetic, and sips at her tea. She’s good at that; it’s her job to listen, to withhold judgement. Zen’s comfortable with her like this, with a drink in front of both of them, pretending this is a social call and not an appointment, pretending that she’s the one person in his life that doesn’t need to give her opinion on every thought that passes through his head.

It’s easy to do, mostly. She has practice at non-interference, at knowing the precise time to chime in with an observation that will be heard, instead of dismissed. Trust is the most important bond she can forge with a patient; if she needs to voice a scathing remark, she can always save the impulse for her actual friends, for when she steps out for dinner and listens to Suzu talk about numbers with steadily increasing incredulity.

After all, she doubts Zen would appreciate being told that he is making this man wait, that his whole life has been put on pause until Zen gets over himself enough to decide he’s ready to try.

She presses her lips together, biting down on the impulse to speak. It’s easy to forget that he isn’t a friend, most of the time, that he isn’t some handsome ranger that she just happened to meet at work and hit it off with. But sometimes --

Sometimes it’s not.

His eyes roll up to the clock, and he starts. “Aw, sh--oot,” he mutters, throwing a wary glance at her. “Our time’s up.”

“I don’t have anyone after you today,” she says lightly, busily straightening her notes. He doesn’t have to know that’s how she usually plans it, just so she can make this offer. “You can linger, if you want.”

“Nah, I have to go.” His cheeks flush ruefully, and he gives her a shy glance from the corners of his eyes. “Izana wants to meet with me. You know, about this guy.”

Of course he does.

“Oh, go ahead then,” she tells him with a smile, swirling the last dregs of tea in her mug. “I can finish up alone.”

He hesitates, and this is the problem, this moment here, where he looks like he was to protest, like he wants her to never feel alone, but --

But instead he just nods, giving her a tense smile and a murmured see you before walking out the door.

The tea goes cold.

Shirayuki sticks out her tongue at the sour taste. She’s been working a while, knee deep in catching up on the papers weighing down her queue, but she’d thought -- only for an hour, maybe two.

Her stomach growls. Okay, maybe four.

She gets up, wandering down to the mess with a limp in her walk, foot still half asleep from being tucked under her for so long. She takes a step through the doors -- and blinks.

It’s nighttime. Well, she certainly didn’t mean to read that long.

Dinner sits in chafing dishes, rubbery and unappetizing, but it’s better than the nothing she’ll have if she turns her nose up at it. She takes a plate in hand, picking what seems the most edible and taking it to a table by the window.

It’s quiet this time of night; everyone is on-shift or sleeping. She has nothing to do besides go over her notes and eat, looking out over the Pacific and wondering about Suzu’s numbers.

“Anyone sitting here?”

She blinks, and suddenly there’s a man in front of her, mug of coffee steaming in one hand, and an equally unappetizing plate in the other. It’s the new ranger -- Obi. The asshole.

He’s not wearing the uniform. She’s not sure he ever has.

“Ah, no!” She moves her papers, stacking them on the seat next to her to make room. “Just -- thinking.”

He smiles, the kind that doesn’t bare teeth, and -- well, it’s not a bad look on him. “Thanks. Didn’t think I’d find a place to sit down. This place is packed.”

She turns, taking in the ocean of empty tables, and when she looks back, he’s grinning, trying to hide it behind a sip of his coffee.

“I haven’t seen you around,” he says, and for a moment, she wonders if he remembers her, remembers that moment their eyes met on the deck. He doesn’t seem like the type. “Not part of the jaeger crews, I take it?”

“No.” It’s annoying how her cheeks flush under that stead gaze of his. This close, she knows for certain: his eyes are gold. Even if she can’t seem to manage to meet them. “I’m mostly...below decks.”

“Ah,” he hums, eyes lighting. “Scientist?”

“Psychologist.”

His smile pulls tight, eyes crinkling with strain. “You don’t say.”

Ah, she should have known. Military personnel aren’t usually...fond of her position. Not at first, at least.

“You know,” he says, voice still thin, “I think His Majesty is going to tell me to see--”

“What are you doing here?” Zen demands, just over her shoulder.

“--you more often,” Obi finished, taking a long drag from his mug. “Just having some coffee, taking a break. Making friends, since you’re so happy to keep me here.”

“Oh, I see. If you can’t bug me, you’ll come bug my -- Shirayuki?” Zen’s cheeks flush an angry red, like he’s been slapped on both cheeks. Still, he keeps up is glare. “Can’t you just go away already?”

Obi’s eyebrows twitch, the rest of his body going still as he looks at him. “Love to. Just set the date, master.”

The flush spreads all over his face, eruption immanent. “I--”

“Did you need something, Zen?” she asks, pointed. It’s more than she means it to be, but still less than this sort of behavior deserves.

She takes a breath, calming. She’s not here to take sides.

“Yeah, I--” Zen casts a nervous look around the room, and that when she sees Kiki and Mitsuhide lingering at the door with amused and concern expressions, respectively. “I left my jacket here. After dinner.”

“It is over there?” She points to another table, one with a vest slung around the back of a chair.

“Oh.” He coughs, scooping it up. “Yeah.”

Still, he lingers.

“Is that all?” she asks innocently. “We were just going to finish up dinner.”

“Yeah. Right,” he bites out, glare sweeping in Obi’s direction. “Sure. See you.”

It’s silent as he walks out, as Kiki and Mitsuhide fall in behind with only a lingering look. Shirayuki sighs, heavy, and turns back to her plate.

Obi’s mouth bows with concern. “You didn’t have to do that.”

She sits, staring at her food, barely seeing it. She really, really didn’t. It was a mistake, a trip-up that might have cost her some of her hard-won trust with Zen, but --

“I know,” she says, spearing a noodle. “But I did.”

She doesn’t add, and we’ll both have to live with it. By the steady gaze he sets on her, he hears it anyway.

“Yeah,” he coughs after a moment, eyes skittering to look anywhere else. “You did.”

#obiyukibingo2019 #obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #pacific rim AU #my fic #ans #guys i am not even gonna lie I'm not sure when in the Pac Rim timeline i'm placing this #i mean i think i want to keep it 2024 but clearly there's a lot of rangers here #but also I used Shao industries #whatever guys you're just gonna need to trust me here and be foggy on everything following the movie #i mean clearly since i actually put a psychologist in here #though i think there's mention they exist in the domes? #i forgot #whatever you all know you want psychologist shirayuki

[nathlomon]

very rough concepts for apophistuck

so today ive been questioning over what planets there would be for the whole story n stuff. bc its not just hanging around but a buncha other stuff. so. yea. each so far has like 2 level varieties- the “architecture” levels w/built stuff n the “natural” ones which are just like the ecosystem around it. but there will be more.

(i accidentally turned this into somewhat of a narrative as i kept writing, sorryy)

Gaia

The “Earth” setting of the story. It has a very biology-based, natural setting. There are cave levels, eventually the player is brought to other ones where they fight prokaryotic beasts as they evolve in little-oxygen, volcanic Proto-Earth. Godzilla is available in this setting as the level progresses into the city. There they meet an enormous human congregation, panicked, in one of the final levels, where monsters flood the scenery. In the end of the world they are chased by a beast that resembles some sort of...Miasmad Jr.

Stygius

Stygius is a planet- well, not really a planet, but sort of like an underworld setting of Gaia, full of mountains and ghostly opponents. Hokmuto is unlocked upon completing the first level. Lots of large spiderlike beasts trot around shack-like structures and many slightly bigger that Miasmad Jr in Gaia. In some levels, there are no opponents though the focus is more on some sort of visual storytelling, talking about the story of many game aspects, one of the visions being of Solomon and Red fighting, as well as some sort of funeral pyre being offered to a giant monster as some sort of sacrifice. Some revelations are made about certain characters and the boss is like a giant aquatic beast dwelling inside a lake, resembling a fish-squid mix. As it dies, its body dissolves in the water into a mass of garbled graphics that resemble somewhat intelligible game glyphs.

Audacium

The entire world has a rather industrial look and organic robotics aesthetic. where horned grey abstractions of monsters climb on top of walls and attempt to attack the player, who is made incredibly small and whose attacks deal much lesser damage than usual for the first half of the planet’s levels, which are some of the hardest of the game. Upon completing them, the opposite happens and the player’s usual size doubles, as well as its attack power and health- but so do the enemies (...so the game doesn’t really change that much from normal). The colors of the assorted forms of the enemies seem to be sequential, with groups of enemies ranging from red, to orange, all the way until purple and a slightly-pinker purple, where the level layout starts to resemble more of a river platform thing more than anything. The boss resembles a large pink human/fish/salamander thing with a large rainbow-y trident for a weapon. It towered over the player and often opens its mouth to reveal a large robotic cannon that shoots lasers at the player. Upon defeat, the monster drops a small, black pixelated mass that can be picked up.

Secular

A planet that has plain-looking natural features that are like the surface of a moon, with opponents that look like half-alien lich beasts. It also contains levels that take place in what seem like space colony formations with mostly inorganic enemies, like traps that can be found around, like rockets and explosives. Every once in a while scientist-like figures with elk heads can be seen using giant syringes to take life from the player, with every wave of them being completed by a giant monster that resembles an upside-down rotting elk head which “walks” with its antlers and spits out swarms of blowflies.  The final boss resembles a strange, lanky white form (somewhat like Not-Gezora) with a large featureless head, and at death it has an animation of it melting down into diminutive, spider-like animals.

Baroque

A world that is marked by nearly full darkness. What makes the natural levels even remotely visible are the impaled poles in the background, which contain horned, humanoid skulls with bright yellow lights radiating from its jaw gaps and eye sockets, like a jack-o-lantern. Enemies often resemble wormlike beasts that stay underground until they sense they player, which is when they attack. Multiple-headed bats are also other enemies seen in the natural levels, with a miniboss being eventually fought that resembles a beastly cleric. The final blows aren’t the ones that defeat it, but rather a giant sword that swings and decapitates it.

 The other variety of levels involve colorful and unusually cheery church-like structures depicting stained glass art of morbid events, strangely enough.  The level includes enemies such as greyish flying cherubim/seraphim and quadrupedal caprine monsters wearing what look like nun robes. The boss of that level is a large dark grey monster with messy white and black face markings and long, distorted purple horns with multi colored splotches. At death, a cutscene plays, and text that says “ORDER HAS BEEN VIOLATED BY YOUR GALL. THE MARK IN YOUR DISOBEDIENT FLESH SHOWS A PREMONITION OF YOUR DOOM.” Upon viewing this, Kaiju!Janavo becomes available as a player character.

Hiraeth

A stage where everything feels old, nostalgic, like eons ago- or was it something perhaps closer, more recent? The levels seem to resemble a castle with eagles and lizards decorating it. Worn, yellow papers with interrogation marks on them mark the walls, with enemies looking like ghostly formations made from cobwebs and tattered bags of straw, and haunted knight armor filled with what looks like a slime monster. In the end of each level there would be a chest that revealed to be a crablike mimic. After defeating it, the player receives some HP. Another level features what resembles a swamp with towering mangrove trees. The enemies resemble skeletal sea snakes and dryad-esque opossums, as well as six-winged parrots. At the end of the level, the player finds a hooded figure kneeling in the shallow water. When they notice its presence, the hood is lifted and a nearly unrecognizable face is visible, covered in wounds and a sorrowful look in its features. The screen turns black as to display text, that says “GONE FOR SO LONG. THE LOST SPAWN OF ATLAS. REUNITE.”. Upon that, the figure starts to weep, and tears begin to drop from its sprite. As it cries, the water level rises and it incentives the player to continue walking, as to end the world.

Dysphoria

A level that has its entire atmosphere drawn to a colorless and sharp aesthetic. Unlike the other levels, that contain a horizontal line as its route for the player to walk towards. one of Dysphoria’s level types involves having them climb a diagonal, upwards-facing mountain. For flying characters, the rise is relatively faster although they are vulnerable to airborne attacks like a pendulum-like mace that appears from the top of the screen and swings for a couple of seconds.

 Enemies come crawling downwards the mountain and tend to resemble frozen, incredibly thin and bony wolves, which tend to every once in a while self-sacrifice by detonating themselves and sending bone shrapnel to deal gradual damage to the player.  Other enemies involve vultures which open their mouths to throw spinning daggers. Upon reaching the summit, the mountain begins to break apart as something like an earthquake strikes the soil, pushing the player into platforms. There they meet one of the bosses- a beast that resembles a large dragon covered in quills, whose attacks are based off spitting a black fluid that immobilizes the player for melee offense, and also beam attacks that resemble fiery raindrops. No cutscene follows the defeat. 

Another level features a scenario that resembles a courtroom, with multiple uniform, faceless entities as the jury, two horned creatures that seem covered in drapes as the parties and a judge that looked more like a strange sharklike beast. After the “trial” ends by the shark slamming a femur on the table as a gavel, the entire setting is attacked by batlike creatures with human skulls, one of the draped parties being mauled by the monsters, and a dark pink puddle of blood pooling under its dying body. One of the skullbats proceeds to impale its body with a trident coming from its mouth as a final blow. The screen, again turns to black and text saying “A MEMORY REVIVED, TO NEVER BRING JOY AGAIN”. 

Lugubre

The final level. It’s almost completely natural in terms of level scenery, resembling some sort of haunted, bone-filled forest with frozen puddles of water on the ground. The enemies resemble mostly half-reptile, half-mammalian beasts with snarling teeth and drops that caused the game interface to become nearly invisible from darkness for around 30 seconds, only the player sprite being outlined white. As the level progresses, humanoid skulls with spider legs appear and use green lasers as ranged attacks. Another level features cobra-like beasts with centipede legs inside a flooded cave, which has a viperfish-mudskipper hybrid covered with spines and open wounds. When defeated, it soaks the ground in a dark red fluid, which starts to consume the level’s walls while phasing through all of the spectrum until it reaches pink, when the entire screen has become covered. Eventually black fish skeletons begin to pile up at the bottom of the level, slowly rising, and eventually the player is stuck in a mound of bones, without having an end-level route. After they get consumed by bones, the level ends.

 When they move to the final level, the scenario resembles a rocky wasteland covered in inorganic parts and surrounded by glowing cyan lakes. There are barely any hostile enemies though NPCs can be viewed interacting with each other, like fishes getting snatched up by crows and carrion being consumed by bears. Eventually, the layout begins to become more aquatic, and it’s the stage where hostile characters begin to appear, which resemble intermediate stages of cetacean evolution and amphibians. They tend to attack the player with pink “acid fluid”. The level, after it becomes simply a far-away platform-jumping scene with water in between, starts to include fish. Passive, pink fish are seen jumping out in schools, only to splash back underwater again. Suddenly, a lightning bolt is seen zapping the fish mid-air and causes them to float around, with a lonely one falling back into the water. 

The player finally is left to swim only, having to fight large mollusk monsters that have the average health of a miniboss. A particular one, which seems to resemble a large, plate-covered squid with lobster pincers, manages to drain away a large portion of the player character’s health, and when they find themselves trapped, the dropped fish returns as a large whale, striking itself against them and having them attach themselves to its sprite, as if somehow riding it. The two float around the air for around 8 seconds, which then is followed by the whale splashing back into the water and spraying water onto the player from its blowhole, restoring the health of all its characters. However, when it returns underwater, it dissolves into sea foam- leaving the player alone yet again. 

The sprite of Warlock appears, half-turned into a shark. A black screen with text says “FROM THE WALLS YOU’VE SMASHED. THIS IS THE ONE THAT WILL BREAK YOUR NAILS”. The duel between Warlock and the player is tricky, as he moves extremely fast and is able to sacrifice local NPCS for health, as well as draining it from the player. His attacks are somewhat like a combo, managing to inflict lots of damage multiple times in a short timespan. Ranged attacks involves him glowing bright green and making a radius of boiling water around his body that deals damage. Easily he could bring half of the player’s monsters to less than 5 life bars during the fight. 

And when he is finally defeated- he does not swim away or dissolve, but instead has his mouth open and from within, is revealed a much larger and intimidating marine beast, skin covered in deep wounds, blotches of pink and blue littering its hide, with two jaws, four sharp claws, and a sharp extendable fin. A black screen with text says “I’VE MANAGED TO TEAR DOWN AT YOU QUITE WELL, JANAVO. I CAN SENSE YOUR WEAKENING MUSCLES, YOUR MIND SHUTTING DOWN. NOW SOON I WILL DISPLAY YOUR CARCASS TO MY REIGN, YOUR BLOOD WILL MIX WITH MAERAH’S FOR OUR ULTIMATE FEAST!”

The player is locked to only utilize Janavo as a character, whose attacks seem to deal not a lot of damage to the scarred beast, and his move which involves lowering his damage from an attack by using his hood is rendered useless. Its attacks involve spraying dark purple ink at the player, temporarily disabling their attacks, and slashing at them with its claws. This combination of moves makes for a challenging and nearly impossible battle, together with taunting comments and imagery. The beast, once Janavo is at one life bar, makes one last comment, saying “HOW WEAK AND LAUGHABLE OF YOU TO SUCCUMB LIKE THIS. JUST LIKE YOU WERE MANY YEARS AGO, FRAIL AND SENSITIVE. HOW ABOUT YOU FINALLY RETURN TO SUCH A FORM AGAIN, AND LET’S END YOUR PATHETIC, PETTY EXISTENCE!”

And so it proceeds to charge a bright red beam and shoot it at his sprite, which was twitching, becoming thinner and smaller, until Janavo resembled nothing but a dry, shriveled husk worm contorted into a curled up shape, surrounded by a blue “mist”. A laugh comes from the killer monster, which proceeds to grow large tentacles from its scars which start to consume the screen, but when it least notices, they are all pulled back and torn from its body in a gory fashion. Then it is shown that the whale had ripped them off itself and was consuming them. It faces the screen and everything fades to black as it dialogues with the player. 

“Dear. The blood of Atlas still flows through me. This is not the true fate of you. Remember the dueling behemoths that once managed to climb their way out. The two, who now offer their own lives to reverse this nightmare.”

The screen returns to the death of Janavo and the husk is devoured by the whale. On his place, appears a strange, purple tauric creature which was labeled “Mialomon”. The scarred beast went at full speed to successfully devour and kill him, but 10 health bars were taken away as its body seemingly goes limp as if broken inside. Mialomon’s attacks are a heat beam and using his tail as a whip, which both seem to deal a moderate amount of damage yet he shows to have an extremely high level of defense, with every blow received draining around only a quarter of his life bar. With every hit he gives, the beast seems to be torn to shreds, with its scars becoming screaming mouths, and its movements becoming more frantic. When nothing but its heads, spine and ribs remain, Miamolon inserts its front legs on the top jaw and pushes them apart, splitting both heads in half, ending its existence and clouding itself in dark violet blood. 

The whale appears again, and says “The pain has been vanquished, at last. Salvation has been reached. Now it can all sprout back again, fill itself with life and joy”. It opens its mouth, and from it, comes the revived sprite of Janavo, large and majestic again. The other characters are again accessible and soon the whale turns into some sort of mermaid. “I’ve missed you so much. The spawn of Atlas truly did save and reunite with its ophidian cavalier. I will never allow anyone to separate us again“. A pink sigil appears, and the game returns to the Godzilla: MoM home screen.

BONUS: Password Screen and More

The glyphs that can be seen at the death of Stygius’ boss can be used as an input. It will make so that the next time you (re)play the final level of Gaia featuring the human cluster, you will receive a cutscene that features Aloisio and his relations to both Earth and Stygius, and upon that, you will gain him as a playable character. Smaller in defense and size, he compensates it with high attack speed and strength.

By replaying the courtroom Dysphoria level, without setting in any code, by leaving the scene before watching the murder of the draped entity, the screen also turns to black. But the text instead says “A familiar yet so fresh scene you had to witness. Much like the manuscripts mention. Pain so sharp and tearful, like a talon slash to the eye. Not evaporating, not even when you try to close them. May warmth be in your heart, might by your side, and you will never shed blood tears again.” After that display, the player has a new playable character in the board- Sebastian.

By typing in “ENDOGENAS” as an input after finishing Lugubre, by replaying the game, Janavo’s sprite is shown to wear the carcass of the scarred beast as a lavish cloak.

#long post #lore

[vagabondanon]

For posterity; Grand Summoners X KLK Collaboration Limited Time Side Story

Spoilers ahead for Kill La Kill itself, the Side story in GS, and shockingly Kill La Kill: If. An overview of a story only available for a limited time.

It may be surprising to many, if not practically all fans of the show, that Kill la Kill: if was not the first video game story to star a certain pair of scissor crossed sisters (that I might care too much about and will continue to obsess over any and all content for, which led me to downloading a gacha game and grinding for days to level them and their equipment for no other reason than it was them.), and a handful of their closest compatriots/equipment options. Kill La Kill was featured in a (relatively) short crossover story in Good Smile’s mobile game “Grand Summoners”. In it you could (eventually when the event was rerun and all content was put out on the NA version) spend Gems/”alchemy stones” to “summon” Ryuko, Satsuki, and Mako as units. Senketsu, Junketsu, Guts, Mako’s two star fight club uniform, Mako’s brass knuckle, Ryuko’s scissor blade, Bakuzan, Mako’s fight club baseball bat, and the completed Rending Scissors (titled “The Snippity Snips” for some as yet unknown, but probably awful, reasons) as support “Equips” that can be carried by any unit with compatible sized/typed slots. Sukuyo Mankanshoku’s croquettes also featured as a consumable item that dropped as mission loot for minor stat buffs if consumed by your four unit squad before any mission. (Equipment refresh 2% faster, base skill refresh 2% faster).

While the stats themselves are interesting as they provide direct numerical valuation of everything listed above in terms of what they can do Offensively, Defensively, etc the story itself is the focus of this post. Because it turns out that out of everybody that knew about it nobody else cared enough to preserve it in whole. (And as I have learned from experience, if you like something save it. Before you wake up one morning and find 1/3 of it has been deleted off the face of the earth) And it could only be accessed for a limited time before it was removed, and again basically nobody seems to either know or care that it actually had more than just pixelated cameos at all. (KLK game marketing tho, for real. Twice now.)

So I present a record for the Library, Grand summoners X KLK, a “too long, I can’t read it anymore anyway, so tell me what happened”; I got you.

(”Stickers” were given for log in streaks that you can post as the only form of communication in multiplayer modes/lobbys.)

The story opens with two of the GS main characters, Rayas and his possible love interest(?, that is at times vague) Mira, out hunting a monster that purportedly had a vitality so high it was unkillable. Upon finally finding the thing the monster hunters as a group had corralled into a forest they are interrupted by a flash of white light. That drops Ryuko, Satsuki, and Mako in full combat readiness between them and the monster.

(Lower right stickers are Rayas and Mira. Our characters on this wild ride.) 

Confusion ensues all around.

The monster runs off to escape, but not before Senketsu (and Satsuki somehow) could "feel” the monster was empowered by Life Fibers. Ryuko blames Satsuki and becomes suspicious of her involvement because of their presence there. (Ryuko constantly tries to pick up the fight they, per Mako, had been having before they got dragged in. What fight? No idea. Fight club Mako is there, but the post fight club Ryuko and Satsuki are not. Except Ryuko can be upgraded to full Kisaragi. How? No idea.) Satsuki refutes being responsible. She also talks down to everyone. (For reasons somewhat unknown.) In KLK fashion the conversations that follow dip into the absurd. Satsuki's text font is so large at times her lines broke the speech box (though this seems to have been fixed in the cutscenes that can be downloaded today as record provided for beating it while the event was on), before going off in search of answers/on the hunt. Ryuko insults the kinda gary-stu mc by calling him “a geezer” (He claims to only be 25 in shocked response), demands he not gawk at her by minding his own business, and ran off after Satsuki. Mako follows Ryuko to keep from being left behind.

Leaving the GS MCs to give confused ellipses laden speech not sure what just happened, and this continues throughout the story.

(Interesting line from them though, the girls officially have 0 magic in full Kamui. So life fibers confirmed as entirely nature/science/organic based/origin? If this story has any weight.)

Also apparently Satsuki is so in tune with/knowledgeable of Fibers she can sense them. Or maybe Junketsu could. It isn’t specified how Satsuki is picking up what Senketsu is without being able to hear him. The “Life Fiber resonance” as it is called guides them either way. The chase leads deep into a forest/jungle full of dense vegetation (which in the missions slows them down leading to loads of fights against mobs of fiber altered orcs, monsters, and human bandits that get stronger the further they go. All controlled by life fibers.)

Ryuko doesn't know what the word vegetation means.

Mako took a nap as they waited for the GS MCs to catch up so they could get some answers as to where they were, and what they could be facing, after Satsuki points out they are not on Earth.

Between remarks during the missions themselves and in the cutscenes the cast attempts to figure what the Fibers are doing when they link up again. They figure life fibers can't break space or time (when weak, or not an OLF, as we learn in KLK: if) so no teleporting or time travel without magic at that time. So chase is deemed possible, but “so long as a single cell of a randomly infused organism exists the whole can regenerate” leading to more grueling fights the deeper they go toward the “source”. Over the same missions Ryuko butts heads with Mira, pointing to a dislike of tsunderes, as she hates when people are not upfront with her. Cast notes that they have similar voices as they argue eventually, but over time they find common ground to drop hostilities after the discussion.

When they reach the big monster again the GS MCs offer to fight it first, they are obliged. Ryuko actually wants to fight Kaiju though to the point she is actively looking forward to fighting giant monsters. Mako from the beginning thinks “Monster Land” is a theme park as she roots everyone on (she is a support character with buffs/healing equipment). Satsuki wishes to see how “magic” works, and if its effective. During the missions leading up to and including the boss fight Ryuko is confronted on if she would do “what it takes” as things ramp up in seriousness, to which she confirms that she has no issues killing targets to win if necessary. As you go through missions which involve mowing humanoids down by the dozen.

(Did not expect that, but given her life it's reasonable to expect that no Kiryuins have truly clean hands. I don’t suspect she has actually killed anyone before. Though that might not be for lack of trying, or simply lack of caring for opponents after any particularly nasty beat downs that may or may not have been shown to us when she reached high school in flashback.)

The first main boss (of two) is a giant quadrupedal demon like monster (”Betelgeuse” model in game colored differently) with spines on its body, altered seemingly loosely based on Senketsu. They share Yellow Orange “eyes”, some shapes, majority body coloration, and it possesses red clawed feet/hands/spines. Guarded by three dire wolves. (battle oddly enough took place in a desert canyon map, not forest as the cutscenes show they should have been in. Probably just a copy paste of the boss's regular arena.)

Once it is weakened/dropped Ryuko uses Sen'i Sōshitsu, but Senketsu fails to absorb the life fibers in it. The cast notes they see strings beyond the edge of the screen (which we can’t) and corpse though, which (likely) led from it to the true final boss that appears from there shortly afterword.

The final boss was a giant green bipedal monster with a vertical mouth that splits its face, which is based on a bright red boss in the main story (Beta-3), which was artificially created by one of the in game story factions through magi-tech. So one of those surviving living war machines likely got picked by Life fibers as a host in this new world they found themselves. It was powered by “Magically enhanced Life fibers” of some sort. (The battle itself was particularly difficult because the character's “top” ability, “Arts”, are powered by a substance called “Battle Ether” that is generated while in combat by using base moves. In this battle there was a substantial decrees in Battle ether production, likely trying to mimic the monster absorbing all free energy around it. Both Bio, or magically.)

This was also another boss fight that took place in an arena that shouldn't be there as it was inside a lab like structure full of green circuit looking lines over all the surfaces. Again likely because that was the “original” boss's arena. Once it is defeated it drops to the forest floor and reverts into a pile of fibers like the OLF in the show when its core got cut, just red instead of orange.

Mira and Ryuko have a moment ribbing “Ms. President”. Rayas just wants to know what is going on. (He won’t really understand it all.)

Satsuki can somehow read/anticipate people's wills, and life fibers exhibit a will through “vibrations in their strings” (Banshi vibrate? Wut.). She reads the vibrations by stabbing her sword down into the mass and holding the hilt.

Satsuki proclaims the life fibers were made to “fix seams” and somehow activates the monster's magic-infused life-fiber corpse to repair a hole in space and time itself. The monster was figured to be what likely dragged them all there in the first place through that hole to provide fibers from their Kamui it wanted. The hole in reality is propped open until they all passed through back to their own world where it is fixed permanently. After which the GS characters proclaim them immensely brave for literally running into a hole in reality without any hesitation.

Thus ended the Side Story.

Not sure who who wrote the script so its hard to tell how much of their given words are “true to cannon”. But it was credited as involving Nakashima who was directly on hand to make the first long explanation promo video on the JP YT channel. Who honestly knows at this point. But time wise it must have been made during production of KLK: if, which leads back to some very interesting consistent points.

Per KLK if: Life Fibers can in fact fuck with space, time, and reality itself. Though this is a power Satsuki was unaware of, (consistent with GS side story) even if she was the catalyst for initiating it in IF’s case through Junketsu's link to the OLF. Junketsu being Ragyo’s original “final” Kamui this was likely a function Ragyo prepared for her life after Earth. It would explain why she was so willing to give up the planet and everyone on it instead of seeking to rule it at least, she could literally just create her own reality and be its true god. Per how KLK: if ends by dumping “existences/minds” back to true reality at different times through the flashes of white light, with only the faintest of memories in the strongest of minds involved, they also very likely explained how this GS story can both feature fight club Mako and not change official “canon”. Or at least I thought it couldn't, before If once again set down that Life Fibers are the most powerful force in existence basically making up the “fabric of reality” itself on a whim.

Is the GS story retroactively canon if IF is canon?

Did Nakashima use the GS story as a test bed for KLK:IF ideas he had in the works?

Will we see more reality hopping for even more spin off stories?

Can these two finally have a happy reality as a couple?

:Shrug:

If you want to see all almost 30 minutes of prerendered cutscenes that remains for yourself in all their limited animation, and honestly somewhat questionably translated/proofread, glory I recorded them and threw that here: https://youtu.be/s3FneXNL8eQ

(Apologies for any sounds on top of the game’s already exceptionally loud music. I have never recorded from android before, I have no idea how to mute mics in the Google games app thing, and it picked up some air con being funky near the middle for a sec.)

#kill la kill #grand summoners #kill la kill Materials archiving #Nobody played this nobody cares why write it up #Because I can #For the lore

[insanely-creative-things]

Big Hero 7: The Series

Failure Mode

(Long Post)

www.fanfiction.net

*In the center of San Fransokyo, there is an Art Museum currently hosting an event in the early evening, cars are lined on the street as many well-dressed people enter the building.*

Fred: San Fransokyo Museum of Art, all is quiet... for now.

*Hiding in a man-hole just outside the museum is Fred in his Kaiju monster suit, while across the street on top of Noodle Burger is Hiro, Honey Lemon, Baymax and Cora.*

Hiro: Fred, why are we staking out at an art party? What could happen-?

Fred: Everything! Museum Galas are like in the top three favorite super villain things to interrupt! Right after big parades and experimental weapon demonstrations!

Honey Lemon: This is so exciting! I can't wait to see the new Shimamoto exhibit!

Baymax: Who or what is a 'Shimamoto'?

Honey Lemon: Lenore Shimamoto, she was an amazing artist and kind of my idol!

Fred: Never heard of her.

Honey Lemon: She painted 'City Rising', the first famous masterpiece they're unveiling tonight.

Fred: Never heard of it.

Honey Lemon: Oh! That's because it was lost for like a hundred years!

Fred: Still never heard of it.

Honey Lemon: ...It captures the city's rebirth after the great catastrophe of 1906. I'm a huge fan!

*The look Hiro is giving Honey Lemon gave her a signal that her phrasing is raising some concerns.*

Honey Lemon: Not of the catastrophe, that was-that was terrible... Of Shimamoto! What about you Cora?

*But when she turned to regard the younger girl, Cora is leaning on her hand dozing off as she stared at the building...that is until a loud sound emitted from the museum. This shakes Cora out of her near asleep daze in a snap.*

Cora: Don't steal my Cranberries!

*The other four stare at Cora's shout as she blushes over what she said, it's quickly forgotten when a guard came bursting through the door.*

Guard: The Gala is under attack by an inhuman freak! Out of my way!

Fred: Inhuman freak wha-?

*The herd of stampeding guests running for their lives closed the man-hole cover, prompting Fred to fall to the sewers below.*

Fred: Oh...there's the floor... Super villain! totally called it...*Collapses again*

Cora: And I think I have a pretty good idea on which Inhuman freak/Super villain both the guard and Fred are referring to. Globby's back.

*Once Fred is recovered from his fall, the five run into the building to face off the intruder.*

Fred: Nice try super villain!

*In front of them is Globby, the chemical human hybrid that Honey Lemon inadvertently transformed, covered in shards of glass from the skylight he broke into.*

Globby: Darn it!

Hiro: You know I don't know if I can call Globby 'Super', maybe Sub-par.

Fred: Well Sub-par villain isn't a thing. So what am I supposed to say?

Globby: *Still picking glass off himself* Oh there should be a warning on that skylight! Glass may shatter!...Time out guys, really appreciate this. You guys are looking sharp by the way...except you there however*pointing to Cora*, are you alright? You look pretty tired there kid. Have you been getting enough sleep lately?

*Cora's eyes widen before she returns to her usual glare.*

Hiro: Sub-par villain.

Cora: What does Globby even want here anyway?

Baymax: Broken glass can be hazardous.

Fred: Fine...we'll wait.

*Once the glass is removed from his body, Globby turns to the team.*

Globby: OK. I'm in on three. One...two... psych!

*Globby immediately uses his elastic arm to grab the Shimamoto painting and run down the nearest hallway to escape. Cora and Hiro climb on Baymax as Honey Lemon and Fred chase after him...but Baymax did not move.*

Hiro: Baymax go!

Baymax: He did not finish counting. Technically it is still 'time out'.

Cora: Ugh Three! Just go Baymax we don't have time for this!

*Baymax flies into the hall to rescue the painting, though Hiro sees that Cora is currently irritable.*

Hiro: Hey, are you feeling alright?

Cora: *Rubs her eyes a little* Yeah I'm fine, just a little tired.

Baymax: Actually-

Cora: Oh look Globby's there!

*Soon they joined Fred and Honey Lemon through the hall.*

Fred: Hey no fair you said time out!

*Globby immediately shoots out pieces of his goop which the team dodged but barely hit on the priceless antiques.*

Honey Lemon: We have to protect the paintings!

Fred: Ha! Fredzilla to the rescue!

*A large ball of goop is fired at the team, but Fred is quick to jump into action. His flame easily burned the goop...but unintentionally melted a water fountain just down the hall.*

Fred: Okay so I did that.

*Globby continues to shoot out more goop balls to which Fred fired back, but Hiro and Cora barely grabbed a painting down another hall from being burned into a crisp.*

Hiro: Fire and paintings, bad combo!

Fred: Right! Good call!

Honey Lemon: Anti-sticky ball ready!

*As Globby is exiting the hall, Honey Lemon pulls out the anti-sticky balls to turn Globby back to Dibs. The anti-sticky balls hit Globby and turn into a yellow foam, but Globby still remains Globby. The only result it had is the chem human hybrid dropping the painting. Honey grabs the painting before it can hit the ground.*

Honey Lemon: *Gasp* I'm holding 'City Rising'!

Fred: *Lands beside her* You talking about the famous painting? I've heard of that!

*Globby slowly slithers away, but Baymax is right behind him.*

Baymax: Do not move, you could be injured from your fall.

*Baymax picks him up.*

Baymax: I will scan you now.

Hiro: Don't worry Baymax, they can take care of him in jail.

Globby: Jail? They don't even make pants that can hold me!

*Globby melts under Baymax's hands and morphs into a ball, bouncing away to the exit.*

Globby: Boing, boing, boing everybody bye-!

*Globby attaches himself to bus just outside the museum, taking him away.*

Fred: Wait, he can turn into a ball? That's new!

*Globby morphs back into himself to taunt the heroes but his head smacks into a traffic light, temporarily dislocating it before it returns to his body.*

Globby: Darn it..

*The next day at the Lucky Cat Cafe, the rest of the gang converse over last night's events. Cora is stuffing her face with the breakfast Cass made and drinking Coffee, sweetened with honey, at a fast rate.*

Baymax: Cora, it is important that you slow down and chew more thoroughly.

*Cora pouted but continues eating but in a slower rate.*

Wasabi: Thank you Baymax. OK Hiro, you mean to tell us that Globby's back?

Gogo: And you let him get away?

Hiro: We saved the painting so let's focus on that!

Fred: The very famous painting, perhaps you've heard of it?

*Just then Cass places a big plate of what appears to be breakfast nachos.*

Cass: Guess what I made? Breakfast Nachos El Diablo!

Fred: Breakfast nachos? The unbalanced part of a balanced breakfast.

*He takes a bite out of the nachos and immediately starts breathing heavily for air to cool his burning taste buds.*

Cass: So what we're you guys doing out so late last night?

Hiro: We um-

Baymax: We were at the museum.

*Cora wipes her face with a napkin as she turns to Cass.*

Cora: Yeah, we saw Shimamoto's painting called the 'City Rising'. Grandmama told me all about it when I was younger, it actually inspired me on what to do with my project.

Hiro: *Turns to his girlfriend confused* Project?

Fred: *Mouth still burning from the nachos* Caliente! Muy Caliente!

Hiro: *Whispers* Smooth.

*While Fred is running to get either water or milk, Baymax's belly lights up to show a clock.*

Baymax: Hiro, this is your reminder that you have a school project due today that is currently 10% finished.

*Cora's eyes widen when she hears the news, worried over Hiro's project being nowhere near complete.*

Cass: What? Shouldn't you have been doing homework last night? Here at home? The work?

Hiro: Aunt Cass don't worry, it's me! I'll improvise.

Wasabi: *Deadpan* You mean scramble?

Gogo: At the last minute?

Hiro: Always worked in high school.

*But Cora's eye brows' burrow as she fidgets her hands over his confident claim. While she never attended high school herself, she has doubts that this will be an easy pass. Eventually they all got to SFIT where the two teens happen to share the same class with Professor Grandville herself.*

Grandville: Alright everyone, settle.

*Grandville activated a few buttons that lights up the chalkboard with a screen.*

Grandville: Good morning, I hope you used your three weeks wisely for this seismic project.

Hiro: Totally wisely.

*Cora spots Karmi, another teen prodigy they met before but never really got along with, present her project onto the table meant to simulate earthquakes.*

Karmi: My prototype uses nickel titanium as a shape memory alloy, which allows it to have increased plasticity under pressure.

Grandville: Very good Karmi, now lets shake it and break it.

*The project Karmi built stood its ground.*

Grandville: Our goal is to withstand an 9.0 or greater on the Richter scale.

*The earthquake scale continues to climb up until Karmi's project finally broke in pieces.*

Grandville: 8.5. Impressive, but Karmi I am confident that you can do better. Let's see version 2.0 next week. Your next Miss Mizichio.

*Cora took a deep sigh as she brought out her project, which by all means looks grey and not impressive looking, aside from the bottom resembling dark rocks. Hiro gives Cora a thumbs up as she takes a deep breath.*

Cora: The Prototype I've built has the adhesive strength of Barnacles that can be often found on rocks, ships, and whales which activate to hold the base. Also, because of the recent news about Shimamoto's painting being found, I want to commemorate the memory of 'City Rising', which is why I also added this.

*The earthquake simulation is turned on as it begins to shake the project which only shook a little. Cora holds her breath as the project begin to shake more. She finally closes her eyes tightly as she waited for the result, whether it'd be a success or a failure.*

Student: Woah that's so cool!

*Cora opens her eyes hesitantly to see that not only has her project survived to the 9.0, but it functioned exactly like she planned. The dull flat surface on top of the prototype transformed into a jade-colored roof with the structure turning from grey to a white pearl surface.*

Grandville: *Very Impressed by the display and the hard work Cora obviously put into it* I have no other words to say...other than you did a truly superb job Miss Mizichio and as for you commemorating this project after Shimamoto's 'City Rising', I'd say you succeeded that as well. You should be very proud.

*Cora's face beamed over the success and praise of her project, that all her trial and error over these last three weeks have not been for naught. She picks up her project and places it back on her desk, her heart still racing over the fact that she-*

Grandville: Your turn Mr. Hamada.

*Cora's happiness shatters in an instant as she remembers that Hiro did his project last minute. Her heart stops in concern over Hiro, but she still gives a somewhat shaky smile to show support for Hiro.*

Hiro: Elastimer Dampers.

Grandville: Is the paint still wet on your model?

*Cora's hands gripped on her skirt as she looks at Hiro with concern.*

Hiro: No... that would imply I threw it together at the last possible minute!

*Grandville however, knew better. But she activated the simulator none the less.*

Grandville: Perhaps your design will save our city from the next 'Great Catastrophe'.

*The model shook for what felt like a few seconds until it begins to break, Hiro tries to place the model back into place but Cora knew that his model building is as good as dead.*

Grandville: Or not.

*The piece completely falls onto Hiro's shirt, to which he immediately smacks his face. Which gives him a red mark, which he notices and nervously laughs. Cora turns her attention to Karmi who has pulled out her phone and is recording it. *

Karmi: And scene.

*Karmi then notices Cora glaring at her with her dagger eyes, but Karmi simply smirked. Cora then wrote on her hand to remind herself on what to do later today. After the rest of the presentations are done, Cora walks beside Hiro, her fist hiding the words 'Exact Revenge on Karmi as soon as possible!'*

*Back at the lab, Honey Lemon is showing Baymax a book documenting Lenore Shimamoto and her famous painting.*

Honey Lemon: Amazing! And we saved it.

Baymax: I do not understand the purpose of art.

Honey Lemon: Well, to create art is to be human, to be alive.

Baymax: *Blinks* I am neither.

Honey Lemon: Oh, I'm sorry.. I mean how can I put this so you'll um.. it could be you know really good for emotional health like art therapy.

Baymax: I am coded to expand my therapeutic capabilities. Perhaps I should increase my understanding of art.

Honey Lemon: Ooh I could teach you! To me, art is about expressing your feelings!

Baymax: Do you mean like this?

*His belly activates his famous pain scale.*

Honey Lemon: Hmm not exactly-

*At that instant, Hiro and Cora enter the lab, the teen girl giving a half-hearted smile while Hiro remained in his paint form.*

Honey Lemon: *Horrified thinking the red paint is blood* Ah! Hiro!

*Honey Lemon rushes to Hiro, thinking he had just been in a terrible accident.*

Honey Lemon: What happened?!

Baymax: Hiro is covered in red paint. Do not be alarmed. This red paint is non-toxic.

Honey Lemon: So I guess your demo wasn't a masterpiece?

Hiro: It's more of a disaster-piece.

Cora: Well Hiro-

Fred: Hey! Check out this funny video I found!

*The video happens to be the same one Karmi recorded earlier.*

Hiro: *Not at all amused* Uh Fred that's me.

Fred: Hey that is you! Maybe you can try to imagine-

*But he stops his voice as he spots Cora's purple orbs become heated flames directed right at him. Fred nervously takes a couple steps back to avoid provoking the young, and at the moment, scary girl.*

Fred: *Somewhat scared* Uhh...you know what, never mind...

Honey Lemon: It's okay Hiro, we learn more from our failures than our successes.

Hiro: Ah! You know what? It's no big deal! I've got a ton of better ideas, I'll just do one of those! The better ones!

*Hiro quickly went towards his lab to plan out his new and better model, but Cora sighs.*

Baymax: Optimism.

*Once the whole gang is grouped up in Hiro's lab, Hiro presented a much better looking model that can be used to counter a hypothetical earthquake.*

Hiro: Check it out! A mag-lev base isolation system.

*The building suspended from the ground.*

Gogo: Yup... that's what I did when I was a freshman.

*This is disheartening news to Hiro, who simply pushes away the table, causing it to fall down. He went back to the drawing board to design another way to protect the model from the earthquake.*

Hiro: And when any fractures appear they're instantly filled by a quick drawing, but flexible foam.

Honey Lemon: *Gasps* That's wonderful Hiro! I'm sure it's super different than when I did the same exact thing!

Cora: *Softly* Oh boy...

*Hiro throws away the other model into the trash as he goes back to the drawing board again, but he finds himself stuck on making sure his model being able to withstand an earthquake and at the same time being an original idea.*

Hiro: These high strength air bags cushion the people inside the building and also prevent floors from pancaking.

*Cora notices that the gang is silent, as if they know someone else that had also done this already.*

Hiro: So just to be clear, no one here has done the airbag thing? Right?

*The gang remain silent as Cora is fidgeting her hands. She is about to speak up until Baymax waddled over.*

Baymax: This approach will be highly effective.

Hiro: *Hopeful* You think so?

Baymax: Yes. This is exactly what your brother, Tadashi did. It was highly effective.

*Hiro groans in frustration as Cora simply face palms. Just then Honey Lemon spots Cora's project sitting off to the side.*

Honey Lemon: Oh my goodness! Cora, is this your project! This is so beautiful!

*The gang turn to Cora's project, impressed over the fact that it's beautifully structured.*

Fred: Wow Cora! This is so sick! Before it was all dull and grey, but now it's all pretty and shiny!

Cora: *Embarrassed at the praising and worried about how Hiro will take it* Guys it's fine-

Wasabi: The structure surely is sticky, whatever it is it defiantly stuck together.

Honey Lemon: It reminds me of 'City Rising'!

*Cora looks at Hiro with an embarrassed and guilty smile as she blushes, hoping it won't discourage him from trying harder to find his own solution. Hiro just face plants into Baymax's belly to which the robot patted his head in comfort.*

Hiro: This is hopeless.

Wasabi: Hey, you can do this little man! Maybe you never had to work this hard for something before.

Hiro: School's never been this hard before!

Wasabi: This place is tough, for everybody. I got lost finding my first class, why aren't the buildings in alphabetical order? Am I the only one who sees the obvious solution?!

Hiro: Wasabi...Is this supposed to be a pep talk?

Wasabi:...Sorry.. The thing is, You got in for being you. Be you Hiro.

Cora: Yeah Babe, you can do it!

Hiro: You know what? You're right! I've got this!

Cora: There's the spirit!

*But when it got time to return to Grandville's class however.*

Hiro: I've got nothing.

*Cora face palms in exasperation. Granville simply writes down on her notes while Hiro groans in exasperation, throwing his notebook away. But he has inadvertently hit another student's project, which causes Hiro to panic. But Cora rushes forward and catches the other student's project, yet in doing so causes her to knock off her own project and land on the floor, breaking it into pieces. The other pieces hit on the other projects, causing them to all break. Cora's face is stricken with a mixture of shock and fear over what happens next, and Hiro is on the same boat. He threw his notebook but because of his careless aim, Cora had to protect the one in her hands but inadvertently broke her own project and others as well.*

Hiro: Oh no...

*Then came a couple of snapshots coming from Karmi and some other students.*

Karmi: Got it!

*After the students pack up the remains of their projects Cora is standing by Hiro's side.*

Hiro: I'm just no good at this...

*Cora places her hand on his shoulder to comfort him.*

Cora: Hiro...

Grandville: Mr. Hamada, I'm the one who gets to tell people they're not good. Don't take my favorite part of the job away.

Hiro: Well go ahead... enjoy.

Grandville: No! I'm not letting you off that easily. You are going to rise to this challenge!

Cora: That's true Hiro, I know you. If anyone can pull this through it's you! Like how you made*Starts to nod off*...microbots...

*But Cora's words slowly turn to muffled words as her eye lids nearly close.*

Hiro: Uh Cora? *nudges her a little* Hey, you doing alright?

Cora: *Snaps back up* I'm fine! Really, I'm alright.

Hiro: But what if I'm really no good at this?

Grandville: Then you fail, after which you try again.

*Just then Karmi butts in with her project.*

Karmi: Professor G, My new prototype is ready to go! But if you want Hiro to say he's not good at-

Cora: *Cranky and aggravated* Karmi do us all a favor and just shut up!

Grandville: *Warning Tone* Cora.

Hiro: *Surprised at his girlfriends outburst* Woah Babe, are you sure you're ok-?

Grandmama: Cora?

*The four people turn to Cora's grandmother, who is looking with concern over Cora.*

Grandmama: Cora, have you eaten at all today?

*At this, Cora just looks down sheepishly and slightly shakes her head no signifying that she hadn't.*

Grandmama: *Sighs in disappointment* Oh Cora... *Reaches into her purse and take out a protein bar* Here.

*The old lady throws the protein bar to Cora to which she catches it with her eyes lit up, but it was thrown between Karmi, which causes her to yelp and drop her project to the ground, breaking it.*

Karmi: Oh no!

Cora: Grandmama what the heck?!

Grandmama: *Sternly* You did not eat your breakfast this morning young lady...again!

Cora: I'm fine Grandmama I'm not mmph-

*She doesn't even finish her sentence as she tears off the wrapper and stuffs the protein bar into her mouth. Confusion is ringing through the other people present.*

Grandmama: It's alright, she'll be fine. This sadly happens every now and then...especially when she hasn't eaten or had a good night's sleep...

*Cora sighs after she finishes the protein bar before she looks at the three, she blushes in embarrassment before helping picking up Karmi's project to put the table.*

Cora: *Somewhat monotone with her head down and her hair hiding her eyes* I apologize for my behavior and accidentally breaking your model Karmi. *Slightly turns to Hiro but not quite meeting his eyes* Hopefully I'll see you later Hiro?

Hiro: *Confused and slightly worried* OK...?

*Cora quickly walks out the classroom in silence with her head still down, leaving more confusion on them but Grandmama simply shakes her head.*

Grandmama: I'll explain later.

*Meawhile, Honey Lemon is with Baymax at the San Fransokyo Museum of Art showing him 'City Rising' as it's being hung back where it belongs.*

Honey Lemon: Ooh this is so exciting Baymax! 'City Rising' is back where it's supposed to be!

Guard: Don't worry! Nobody's getting it on my watch! Not this time!

*Honey gave a positive smile while Baymax merely blinks. Afterwards they walk down a hall to observe more paintings.*

Baymax: Honey Lemon, thank you for teaching me about art.

Honey Lemon: This is gonna be great! Okay, look at this portrait from the golden age what do you see?

Baymax: I see a man who suffers from Rosacea, a lack of exercise, and excessive consumption of red meat.

Honey Lemon: That's not what I-let me put it in another way. To understand art you have to feel it!

Baymax: Oh.

*Baymax turns his attention to a very spiky sculpture to which he is about to touch to 'feel it'. But Honey Lemon is quick to pull Baymax away from the sculpture.*

Honey Lemon: Oh no no no, let's maybe not touch that! Maybe we should try something more abstract... and less pointy.

*The next painting Honey Lemon shows to Baymax is an abstract painting of a man whose limbs are twisted in all directions. There are moments of silence as Baymax blinks at the painting.*

Baymax: This man was in a terrible accident.

Honey Lemon: No Baymax! He's painted that way to make you feel emotions!

Baymax: I am not programmed to feel emotions. Only to monitor emotions in others. You are frustrated.

*Despite her best smile, her eyebrow is twitching.*

Honey Lemon: I'm fine!

Baymax: I detect vocal tones that indicate frustration.

*Just then the two spot Fred heading down the hall where they encountered Globby last week, where the melted water fountain is currently still running like a fountain.*

Modern Shakespeare: Caution: Water Hazard. Such a bold statement about the futility of existence. I would give anything to meet the genius who created this masterpiece!

Fred: Allow me to introduce myself, Fred Frederickson the IV. Master of this piece!

Modern Shakespeare: *Gasp* A pleasure sir! You have moved me!

*The man kissed Fred's hand.*

Fred: Cool!

Baymax: Is this also art?

Fred: Well Duh.

Modern Shakespeare: Well Duh indeed.

Honey Lemon: *Sighs* Maybe that's enough for today. Let's just go.

*But while Honey Lemon drags away Baymax. Up in the air vents, Globby is crawling. He notices that his leg is stretched until it flips forward and hits his head.*

Globby: Ow.

Honey Lemon: *Gasp* Did you hear that?

Baymax: Art must be seen, felt, and heard? Art is complicated.

*Just then out of the air vents came Globby, who has the misfortune to land himself on the spiky sculpture that Baymax nearly touched.

Globby: OW!

Guard: Don't touch! That's all I'm paid to say! Don't touch! Did my job, everybody saw it now outta my way!*And then runs off*

*During all this, Hiro is at his home in the garage currently planning his project. But looking at the blank piece of paper he grows frustrated so he crumples it up and throws it away. Just then Cora, Wasabi, and Gogo come in which the cool woman quickly catches the paper ball and unfolds it.*

Gogo: Did you just crumple up and throw away a blank piece of paper?

Hiro: I was just trying to save some time.

Gogo: OK... This is gonna hurt you more than it's gonna hurt me.

*Gogo raises her hand to slap the sense into Hiro but Wasabi quickly catches her hand.*

Wasabi: What are you doing?

Gogo: Slapping him out of it.

Wasabi: You can't do that!

Gogo: You got a better idea?

Cora: I do.

*The two adults turn to Cora, who is crossing her arms as she walks over to Hiro.*

Hiro: Hey Cora, you...doing any better after earlier?

Cora: At the moment, yes. But I'll be even better after you get out of this funk you're in. Look Hiro, I get how frustrating it is to work on these things and not have anything to work with because you feel so blocked.

Hiro: So what's your point?

Cora: *Rolls her eyes in mild annoyance* So, what my point is-

*Just then Gogo's phone rings so she picks it up and reads it.*

Gogo: Globby's back.

Hiro: *Gets out of his chair* Let's go!

*Hiro runs out to suit up, leaving Cora shaking her head in frustration over failing to comfort her boyfriend.*

Cora: Dang it! *Sigh* Well maybe we can talk about this later.

Wasabi: Uh yeah but.. my car is still at the bottom of the bay?

*The memory of them being chased into the ocean by Callaghan pops in Cora's mind.*

Cora: *Winces at the memory* Oh yeah... oops...

Hiro: So how are we gonna get there?

*After they all suited up, they go and rent a little car to drive to the museum.*

Wasabi: Rick from the self-driving car project said we can use it for an hour.

Hiro: Can't this thing self-drive any faster?

Wasabi: Of course it can, its just programmed not to for safety reasons.

*Gogo, being the famed speed adrenaline junkie she is, looks at Cora who gets the signal. She pulls the wires out of the casing and re-wires them to increase the speed...which it did as it zooms down the street.*

Wasabi: It wasn't me Rick!

*The car zooms past the other cars until they arrive at the museum where Baymax, Honey Lemon, and Fred are waiting outside. The four sprawl out of the small car gasping for air.*

Fred: Tell me you brought our super suits!

*Wasabi opens the trunk to show that they did indeed. He goes to pull out the armor but its currently stuck.*

Wasabi: *Struggling to pull the armor out* It's a little tight!

Hiro: Where's Globby?

Honey Lemon: He's got the Shimamoto, but the museum's on lock down.

Gogo: So he's trapped inside?

Fred: Sub-par villain's gonna sub-par.

Wasabi: Gah! Gotta help me!

*Just then Honey Lemon's helmet hits Fred in the head, knocking him out. Inside the museum however, Globby is struggling to open the steel gates to escape with the painting but is unable to lift it and ends up pulling his arms right off.*

Globby: Ow! Come on!

*He transforms into a ball to break through the gate but is simply bounced into a wall where he is flatten to a pancake until he falls back into the same spiky sculpture from before.*

Globby: Ow! oh..hm nice piece!

*Globby grabs the sculpture to ram into the steel gate.*

Globby: I hope this works!

*But just then Baymax lifts up the gate from the other side alongside Hiro. So in the end Globby is sent running past the team and tumbling into the street.*

Fred: Ouch!

Cora: Sheesh!

Wasabi: Ooh...

Globby: You think?!

*Globby slings his arm and grabs 'City Rising'.*

Honey Lemon: He's going for the painting!

Gogo: Well he's gotta stick-to-itivness.

Cora: But why that painting alone?

*Globby throws his goop balls to which Wasabi slices them into tiny pieces. Honey Lemon brings out a chem ball and aims it at Globby, but he simply dodges it and thus the chem ball freezes Fred.*

Globby: Nope! not this time!

*Once again he morphs into a ball to bounce away.*

Wasabi: Yes this time!

*Wasabi blocks Globby's escape route but is simply rolled over.*

Wasabi: I've got some in my mouth.

Gogo: Just spit him out and lets drop this blob!

*Gogo zooms past Wasabi as Honey Lemon's tosses one of her chem balls to her to catch up with Globby.*

Honey Lemon: Get him!

*Hiro and Cora climb up onto Baymax's back and begin to chase after him*

Hiro: Right behind you Gogo!

Fred: Get on!

Wasabi: Ok.. but just don't jump-TOO HIIIIIGH!

*Fred jumps up into the sky to join the rest of the team. Globby continues to bounce down the street where Gogo is about to take aim. But the appearance of a bus makes Gogo quickly jump up to avoid a collision. The ball misses Globby as he happily bounces away.*

Globby: Hoh it's really happening! My first successful art heist! Who's number one now? I'm-

*Just then he splats right into Baymax in front of him.*

Baymax: That painting does not belong to you.

*Hiro and Cora grab the paining from Globby.*

Hiro and Cora: Thank you!

*Globby falls down to the street splattered until he regains form.*

Globby: Well this isn't fair! Oh why do I even bother?

*Just then Gogo arrives.*

Gogo: Honey! Let's freeze him and seize him!

*Honey Lemon had just arrived using the car Wasabi rented to catch up with the rest of the team. She throws the chem ball but Globby melts into water and escapes through the sewer drain nearby.*

Gogo: Did he just...melt?

Cora: Something tells me this isn't the last we'll see him...

*Later on that day, Globby ends up on land nearby the golden gate bridge.*

Globby: I can turn into water? Woah! What else can I do? Ummm...metal!

*Globby uses his mind to morph his hand into a large piece of metal. It weighs down his hand until he thinks it back to his regular globby self.*

Globby: Yes! What else?!

*Immediately he spent the early evening morphing his body to do whatever he wanted.*

Globby: Ice! Rock! Chocolate! Wood! Brick! Chocolate! Cookie dough! Cotton candy! Chocolate with ice cream and caramel! and whip cream!

*Globby eats his ice cream hand to which he gains an idea.*

Globby: Oh this could be very useful! I'm delicious!

*He then morphs his hand into a hammer to which he breaks the drain he crawled out of.*

Globby: And powerful!

*The next day at the lab, Gogo is testing out her discs with Cora looking over her gloves as Hiro whistles through his way. *

Wasabi: Alright! Someone's in a good mood!

Hiro: Well yeah! We crushed our last mission, we had Globby so scared he wet himself!

Honey Lemon: Not exactly.

*Hiro and the others walk towards Honey Lemon as she is currently using her chemistry experiment.*

Honey Lemon: The volatile chemicals that made Dibs turn into Globby combined with the neurotransmitter.

Gogo: Right?

Honey Lemon: Well, Globby finally learned how his thoughts can control his...mmm...Globbiness?

*This raises concerns for the rest of the team.*

Wasabi: So he can turn into anything? That villain is on his way to being super.

Hiro: I don't care if he's a solid, liquid, or gas! We can take him!

Wasabi: Oh.. I hope not gas!

Cora: Hey, where's Fred?

Gogo: He's at the museum, in case Globby strikes again.

*However Fred is merely guarding the unintentional sculpture he made from the drinking fountain.*

Fred: *Blocking a kid from taking a drink out of the drinking fountain-turned art* Up up up up! Fine art, it moves people. So keep moving.

*Back at the lab*

Hiro: Anyway, it's great to feel like I'm good at something! I really needed that.

*Just then Cora notices that her boyfriend is grabbing some stuff from the lab.*

Cora: Uhh...Hiro, what are you doing?

Gogo: So you're finally ready to step up and crush that quake proofing demo?

Hiro: Totally ready! I just don't have a plan of any sorts so uh..

Wasabi: Well of course you're not just gonna blow it off.

Hiro: I hadn't considered that but...

Wasabi: No no no! Forget I said anything! Stop looking like you're considering it!

*Hiro takes some of the stuff but is blocked by Honey Lemon, and behind him is a slowly irritating Cora.*

Cora: *Slightly growling* Hiro...you better not be doing what I think you're doing...

Honey Lemon: Hiro wait! You can't just quit!

Gogo: Yeah. Do you really want to be known as a genius quitter?

Hiro: No... but at least a genius quitter is probably the best kind of quitter right?

*Cora stands up from her chair as her eyes begin to slowly burn.*

Cora: *Growling more* Don't you dare...

Wasabi: I get it. You think that if you give up, it doesn't count as failing. but actually it's worse.

Baymax: Tadashi failed 83 times before I functioned properly.

Hiro: Well maybe I'm not as smart as Tadashi!

*Hiro storms his way out of the lab leaving the rest of the gang behind.*

Baymax: Perhaps art therapy would be beneficial.

Cora: I'm joining you Baymax.

*Cora walks over and grabs Baymax by his hand, dragging him towards the door.*

Honey Lemon: Umm...You okay Cora?

*Cora turns her head sharply as her purple eyes entered full on flame mode.*

Cora: *Extremely irritated now* No! I am not doing okay! If he doesn't snap out of it, my 'genius quitter' of a boyfriend will become my 'genius corpse' of a boyfriend instead!

*They both leave to follow Hiro to his lab, leaving the other three behind.*

Wasabi: Is it just me or does she seem more irritable than usual lately?

Gogo: It's not just you. Cora's been pretty moody lately and I think half of it has to do with Hiro.

Honey Lemon: And the other half?

Gogo: Can't say for sure, but hopefully getting Hiro out of his funk will help her out with whatever's going on with her...if she doesn't end up killing him first.

*The three than walk over to see what Baymax's painting is.*

Wasabi: *Slightly disturbed* Guh! Should I be worried here?

*The painting is of Wasabi, Hiro, Cora, Gogo, and Honey Lemon. In skeletal form...in vivid detail.*

Honey Lemon: He's painting what he knows?

*Hiro is currently typing away on his computer when he heard the door slam open causing the boy to yelp and turn. There he sees the face of his angry girlfriend and Baymax on her hand.*

Hiro: *Slightly nervous now* Cora! Is uh...is something..wrong?

Cora: *Firm and irritable* You and I need to talk. NOW!

Hiro: *Still slightly nervous* A-about what exactly?

Cora: Look Hiro, we've been dating for almost a year now. Are you seriously thinking of quitting?! Oh no. This 'quitting' is the cowards' way out, and I know you Hiro. YOU are not a coward!

Hiro: *Starting to get irritable as well* Well maybe I am and you just never knew it!

Cora: Oh please Hiro! What kind of a coward would start a superhero team to track down and take down the madman who killed his brother and then go straight into an unstable inner-dimensional portal just to save said-madman's daughter?!

*Hiro eyes widen in shock at what his girlfriend just said to him and than glares hard at her, but Cora glares back just as hard. Neither say a word as they stare hard at each other that you could actually start to see sparks fly between them. Luckily, Baymax speaks up to try and ease the tension.*

Baymax: It is alright to become discouraged.

Hiro: *Having enough, he breaks eye contact with Cora and turns around in his chair* I don't want to talk abou-

*Suddenly Baymax pulls out one of the test videos of Tadashi Hamada, Hiro's brother. Shocking both Hiro and Cora out of their irritation as they watch the video together.*

Tadashi: Tadashi Hamada test number 58, robotics project.

Baymax: Hello, I am Baymax. Your personal healthcare-.

*In the video it seems like his project was finally working until it bursts into flames, which causes Tadashi to panic and quickly put out the flames with a fire extinguisher.*

Tadashi: No! Why? Why do I put myself through this 58 times!? *sighs* Maybe this will never work... maybe I should give up...you're not still recording are you?-

*The video pauses as Hiro looks at Tadashi's frustrated and defeated face, which Cora notices as she looks at the video of Tadashi with sad eyes. *

Hiro: I never saw him like that...

*Cora takes a deep breath before she turns to Hiro.*

Cora: Hiro, you can do this, I know you can. And if Tadashi were here...he'd tell you the exact same thing. *Puts a comforting hand on Hiro's shoulder and gives him a small, comforting smile* Just...look for a new angle, remember?

*Hiro looks at her and gives a half-hearted smile back to her.*

Hiro: I guess...all I can do is..try...right?

*Cora's smile widens a bit as she nods to him. Just then, Wasabi opens the door.*

Wasabi: Fred just called! The museum decided to put the painting into storage.

Hiro: Wise move.

*Just then Gogo comes in.*

Gogo: That means it's in a truck crossing the city.

Hiro: Not so wise move.

Cora: Downright stupid move if you ask me.

*That night, Globby is swinging across the streets chasing after the truck containing Shimamoto's painting. Globby throws his goop balls at the truck and finally manages to causes to skid the truck to a halt, crashing it strainght into a light pole in the process. The driver runs away at Globby's face.*

Globby: Acid!

*He drips one drop of acid to create a hole in the truck and grabs the painting from its casing.*

Globby: Ha! Got it!

*Globby takes a moment to admire the painting before he notices Baymax with Hiro and Cora.*

Hiro: Don't you ever get tired of losing?

*It is also when Globby notices that he's surrounded.*

Globby: No. No I really think today's my day.

Honey Lemon: Aw! I love your positive attitude! Sorry about this!

*Honey Lemon pulls out a chem ball and throws it at Globby, but he uses his elasticity to bounce back the ball and thus splashing Honey Lemon in yellow goo, which causes her chem purse to malfunction. Gogo chases after him but Globby uses his hands to morph into and grow crystals out of the street.*

Globby: Careful! Pavement's a little rough!

*The crystals causes Gogo to fall flat on her face. Then Fred jumps into action.*

Fred: Time for a meltdown!

*Globby uses his arm to form a shield to fend off Fred's flames, he then turns his other hand to block Fred's mouth.*

Globby: Eh shut your fire hole!

*Wasabi comes to Fred's aid as both his fire and jumping abilities had been disabled.*

Wasabi: I got you buddy!

*Globby brings out his own chem balls that immediately encase Fred and Wasabi together. Baymax flies over Globby.*

Hiro: Come on Baymax! It's up to us!

Baymax: We will protect the art that is valuable. For some reason.

*Baymax launches his rocket fist at Globby, but he uses his hand to twist the rocket and land it to the ground, causing an explosion. The goopy debris lands on Baymax's face.*

Baymax: Oh no.

*This causes him to drop Hiro and Cora, but luckily they land into the larger piles of goop safely. They look up to see that Globby transformed into a rock to protect himself. With the explosion over, Globby returns to normal.*

Globby: *Laughs triumphantly* If at first you don't succeed, learn to turn yourself into chocolate.

*Globby morphs his hands into chocolate to which he gives to Cora and Hiro. But that's when Cora brings out the biggest question on her mind ever since this whole thing started.*

Cora: Wait a second! Why do you want that painting so badly? I know it's very famous but you could have easily stolen the other art pieces at the museum! So why just that one painting? What's so special about it that you'd only go after it?

Globby: Ooh look at the time! Would love to chat but my boss isn't the patient type.

Cora: Wait wha-?

Hiro: Huh?

Globby: Enjoy! Catch ya later! Gotta bounce!

*Globby did bounce away into the street, evading the team with his prize. The two unsticky teens rush to help their friends out of the stickiness Globby left behind.*

Honey Lemon: Oh no...that was awful!

Fred: I know! 'Gotta bounce'? I mean it fits but come on! Dig deeper!

Honey Lemon: We've failed! And worse, we failed Lenore Shimamoto!

Fred: I don't know Honey Lemon that kind of makes us sound like losers.

Wasabi: Well we did lose.

*Wasabi and Gogo are currently stuck on the underside of a nearby street bridge.*

Hiro: Ah come on guys! It's not the end of the world! Look at Globby, he failed again and again. But he figured it out... Eventually. It's okay to get discouraged. But you have to pick yourself up and try again... *Looks at Cora when he's says this next part* And look for a new angle.

*Cora smiles and nods proudly at her boyfriend.*

Wasabi: That's a great speech Hiro. But can you get me down? I'm about to pass out.

*Both Hiro and Cora pull Gogo and Wasabi out of their goopy imprisonment as Cora brings up something they learned.*

Cora: By the way guys, when I asked Globby why he wanted that painting so much, he said it was for his boss or something...

Fred: Wait?! Did you say he was stealing it for his boss? Oh man...this is really getting curiouser and curiouser...

*It is the very next day where Hiro is currently working on his demo model with Cora by his side eating her bento. He turns to her and smiles brightly, to which Cora gives a thumbs up back. *

Gogo: Hey how's it going 'genius whose not a quitter'?

Hiro: Honestly not great... but failure worked for Globby. So why not for me?

Wasabi: That's the spirit!

*Just then, Fred comes in with a large check under his arm.*

Fred: Hey Honey Lemon, my art thinging, 'Caution Water Hazard', just sold for a million dollars!

Gogo: Really? I guess art must be in the eye of the beholder.

Baymax: Fred's art evoked many emotions today. It might be more accurate to say art is in the heart of the beholder.

Honey Lemon: Aw you've really learned a lot about art Baymax. That was very poetic.

Baymax: What is poetry?

*Honey Lemon and Gogo look at each other before Cora finishes her food and speaks up.*

Cora: It's okay guys, poetry lessons are next week.

Honey Lemon: What are you gonna do with the money Fred?

Fred: I'm giving the check to the museum. I don't need it and they could use a new fountain. Plus they just lost a priceless painting.

*Just then, Cora's grandmother is standing by the open door.*

Cora: Oh! Hi Grandmama!

Grandmama: Hello Cora...Would it be alright if I borrow Hiro to talk for a moment?

Cora: *Confused* Sure..go ahead?

*Hiro hesitantly walks away to converse with the old woman, wondering what she wanted with him. They finally got outside into the open air where the cherry blossoms are bathed in warm light.*

Grandmama: Do you remember how I came to check on Cora a while ago..you were with the Dean and some other student or whatever...I said I owe you an explanation.

Hiro: About..Cora?

Grandmama: Yes. I already explained this to the Dean a short while ago before I came to you Hiro, and now it's your turn. Did you notice how she's been feeling sleepy lately? Or how the slightest thing would irritate her? Or how she's not been eating much?

Hiro: *Concern* Actually, yeah I have. Is something wrong with Cora? Does it have anything to do with me?

Grandmama: *Sighs*...I'll tell you the full story one day.. but for now..you must know that Cora was born...a little premature...and different from the other children..and that led to having these..effects in her life...But ever since you came into the picture, it seems to have become fewer and fewer, and it just seems to be getting better with all your friends. However, that doesn't mean she doesn't fall into...*Sighs* I suppose the proper term would be..'relapses' from time to time... But as I mentioned before, meeting you, your...brother... and your friends has been helping her greatly. Even though you and her have your disagreements or tiffs from time to time, that's normal from anyone who's in a relationship. If anything it proves that no matter what is going on either between or just one of you, you two always manage to talk it out and work together to make it better. That is the key to any good and functioning relationship Hiro. So to answer your question about whether or not Cora's recent behavior has anything to do with you, I would say it only had half to do with you. the other half was just something she...had to work out on her own. And apparently helping you out with whatever was going on with you seems to have help a good bit. But all-in-all Hiro Whatever you and your friends are doing to help Cora overall, keep up the good work. Now I think it's about time I let you go about back to your business, you have presentation to go to after all.

*Grandmama walks past Hiro, giving a knowing smirk at him before she goes on her way. Hiro raises an eyebrow in confusion and looks back at the old woman for a moment before he runs back inside to finish his project. Time passes by until finally Hiro is ready to present his project to Grandville. He carries his model, peering inside to see Grandville with her notebook and Karmi, who's pulled out her camera ready to see him fail. But Cora quickly gives him a kiss on the cheek as their usual way of saying good luck to each other, to which he smiles brightly.*

*Hiro puts his model on the table. Cora being on his left holding his hand while Karmi is behind him ready to capture what appears to be his next magnum opus. The model puts out two stabilizers as soon as the quake simulation got a little rougher.*

Karmi: What?

Hiro: My building has sensors to measure the seismic forces, then it sends out the exact sonic pulses needed to counteract them.

*The Richter scale simulation quickly goes down in numbers. Cora smiles brightly at Hiro's success.*

Karmi: So your solution is cheating?

Hiro: No! My design was to the shaking by dealing with the problem at its source.

Grandville: Not only will the structure save itself, but it would also save the other buildings around it. This is an excellent solution.

*Cora is quick to pull out her phone and take a picture of Karmi's 'unbelievable* face. Cora and Hiro are walking out of the room once its over to take a walk around the quad to talk.*

Cora: *Smiling evilly* And scene...and revenge achieved.

Hiro: *Looking over at his girlfriend's phone and sees the picture. He than smiles smugly and puts his arm around Cora's shoulders and kisses her cheek.* That's my girl.

*As they walk outside into the quad, they walk in comfortable but still somewhat awkward silence as they both in their own minds try to figure what they were going to say. Hiro then looks over at Cora in a side glance and decides to start.*

Hiro: Um...Cora? There's...something I wanna-

Cora: *Cuts Hiro off as she stops walking, causing Hiro to stop walking to as she stands face-to-face with him and she fidgets with her hands in front of her and looks down almost ashamed-looking and only taking quick glances up at Hiro as she talks* Hiro wait. Before you say anything...there's something I should say first... About what I s-said...b-back at the l-lab...before Baymax s-showed us that video of Tadashi... I just...w-wanted you to know that...I-I was way out of line w-with what I said to you. I w-was just REALLY irritated and annoyed with how you were acting, along with some...other things I was going through. But that's still no excuse for what I said to you... And I just wanted to let you know that I'm sorry for it.

Hiro: *Surprised at his girlfriend's apology, but quickly got over it as he places his hand on Cora's shoulder.* Cora... *Sighs* It's okay Cora, I've already forgiven you for that. But to be honest with you, there's really nothing to forgive with what you said to me, because...you were right.

Cora: *Surprised at her boyfriend's words as she looks up fully to him.* I...I was?

Hiro: Yeah, you were. I-I do admit that I was just...*Sigh* I just felt humiliated... I mean first my model breaks at the beginning of the stimulation, to which Karmi took a video and posted it online.

*Cora frowns at the memory. She wanted to punch that self-absorbed biotech student for humiliating Hiro like that.*

Hiro: Then when I couldn't think of anything to make up for it, I ended up destroying the other students' projects by accident.

Cora: Technically, it was my project that kinda destroyed the others Hiro.

Hiro: Which wouldn't have happened if I hadn't throw my notebook away so carelessly...not to mention destroying your project in the process too...all of which Karmi took a photo of again...

*The teen couple grumble at the memory. Finally Hiro sighs*

Hiro: I just thought that... If I quit I wouldn't be put through that again... B-but you were right...by quitting, I was just acting like a coward...which, as you clearly pointed out to me back at the lab, I'm not. A coward wouldn't have done all the things you mentioned before, and not to mention that it would have made Karmi's day if I really was one.

Cora: Well I'm glad you didn't and that you understand what I was trying to tell you. But the thing about quitting, is that sometimes it's not always cowards who do it. Grandmama once told me this: There are actually two kinds of quitting. One is the cowards' way out as I mentioned before, where you give up because you couldn't handle it and felt it's not worth it at the cost of your own dignity or life. The other one however, is the one where it could save your's and others' lives if you're smart and do it right, where you realize that what you're doing, what your about to do or even what you think about doing could really get you or others hurt or worse and that you simply have to walk away before that can happen, even if others tell you otherwise. Does that make sense?

Hiro: *Thoughtful look in his face* Yeah, I guess.

*Cora smiles as she rests her head on his shoulder.*

Cora: You are not, nor have you ever been a coward babe. You are and always will be, my brave Hiro.

*But somewhere in the dark and abandoned undergrounds, Globby goes through the desolate building and brings in the painting. He then notices that he got a bit of himself on the priceless painting, to which he tries to clean it up but failed.*

Obake: Well? Did you bring it?

Globby: *Startled* Woah! Oh oh ah! Ah yeah! Here it is!

*Obake grabs the painting from Globby's hands and observes it.*

Obake: *Pleased* You succeeded.

Globby: Sorry about..you know...the globs!

Obake: Hm?

*He notices the pieces of Globby's globs.*

Obake: Fascinating...

*Obake grabs Globby's hand and takes off a piece of the glob using small light blue plasma tweezers.*

Globby: Ow! Rude!

*Obake places the glob into a measuring cup to study at a later date.*

Obake: Hmm.. further study might unlock even more potential..

Globby: Potential huh? I told mom she was wrong about me.

*Obake raises the painting up above his head.*

Obake: Lenore Shimamoto the artist is of no interest to me.

*He smashes the painting, causing pieces of wood to break off as it flies off everywhere.*

Obake: However Lenore Shimamoto the scientist, is of great interest... Like with so many things in life... you have to look below the surface to find real value...

*When Obake broke the painting he pealed off the paper to reveal schematics for what appears to be an ominous looking machine that Shimamoto had crafted 100 of years ago...*

Leave comment, reblog, or like if you enjoyed it! Love you!

#Big Hero 6 fanfic #Big Hero 7 #Hiro Hamada #Cora Mizichio #Hiro Hamada x OC #Honey Lemon #fred frederickson iv #Globby #Gogo #Baymax #Wasabi #Professor Grandville #Obake #Lenore shimamoto

[hopeatermeetsgodzilla]

Chapter 22

“Anguirus?” He snapped out of his trance, turning toward Mothra. Her wings were still open behind her, patterns glowing green as she absorbed energy. “Is everything alright? You’ve been awake for very long.”

He nodded. “Yeah, don’t worry. I just.. I wanna be there when he wakes up for real.”

Mothra sighed softly, turning toward her sleeping mate. Godzilla’s hair had switched from almost black to a dark, dull blue, and he was emitting his own light, even if it was much softer than her own. Not on the verge of dying anymore, stable even, but certainly not ready to fight.

“You should do like my brother.” Mothra told him, the two turning their head toward the rocky ceiling. Battra was hanging upside-down here, wings draped around him as he slept. “Rest, and conserve your energy.”

“I know I should, but...” Anguirus sighed. “Each time I lay down, I can’t help but think of all the good times I had with him. We’ve been friends for so long, I can barely remember a time when we weren’t... I don’t want to imagine what would happen if he actually did die.”

Mothra frowned sympathetically. Anguirus really was Godzilla’s oldest friend, wasn’t he? “Maybe talking about it would make you feel better?” She proposed.

Anguirus thought for a moment. “I mean, starting off, him dying from something we don’t know the source of is... pretty worrying? Especially when we look at everything else he survived: Ghidorah, Battra, Baragon, a shit-ton of Beetles, Manda pre-sinking of Mu, Ebirah-”

“You?” Mothra asked with a lilt in her voice. Anguirus couldn’t help but laugh at that.

“Yeah, me! And you too!” He noted. “I mean, he just came on my island one day, started screaming at the top of his lungs, and started wrecking shit up. What was I supposed to do, not fight him to the death?”

Mothra laughed. “He never was good at negotiations, was he? During his quest to become King, he decided that the best way to make me come out to give him the Trial of Death was to deliberately provoke me.”

“At least, he had a reason for you! For me, he just wanted to kick someone’s ass because his sisters were teasing him!” Both laughed for a moment, before calming down. “Who else did he survive... ?”

“... Rodan.” Mothra muttered under her breath. “Dear Terra, Rodan-”

Anguirus chuckled. “Yeah, that checks out. Rodan’s temper is even worse than his, would make sense the two would fight. He just takes longer to blow up.”

“No, you don’t get it- when Ghidorah was busy sinking Atlantis, Rodan was busy fighting Godzilla. When I found them, the two kept throwing a rock at each other- Rodan with his head- and I had to tie them up with silk so they would listen. The reason I sought them out is because at this point, they were the only ones who survived an encounter with Ghidorah in the past.”

“What were their reaction.”

“Rodan didn’t give a shit. Apparently, he thought that humans dying out would be a good thing because, and I quote, ‘they’re always mean to me’.” She snapped, Anguirus bursting into laughter. “And Godzilla agreed! Even after Rodan dropped him crotch-first into a tree!” The laughing doubled, Mothra joining in this time. “I mean... I was eventually able to convince them, and you know the rest.”

Anguirus nodded. “Five fucking centuries we spent before we successfully sealed those fuckers away. And now, they’re free again, Godzilla’s dying, and Rodan won’t talk to us.”

Mothra frowned at that. “Don’t worry. We’ll find a way again.”

“I know, it’s just...” He sighed, closing his eyes and turning away. “I can’t help but wonder when it all went wrong.”

-

Rodan stared up at the sky, thoughts circling in his head at a frantic pace. He knew Ghidorah were not good people. They came down from the sky to destroy their world, starting with the king that came before Godzilla, shortly followed by his father, and all of the pretenders to the throne. They liked causing storms that wiped away everything under them for... what? Proving they could? Practice? Entertainment?

They were selfish monsters who only cared about themselves, and everything else was to be destroyed for mild amusement. He knew all that. But if that was the case, then why were they being so kind to him?

Why was Ichi doing his hair for no reason and cuddling him and dancing with him and giving him compliments?

Why was Ni constantly bringing him gifts and food and trying to be less of a sharp weapon for his brothers to yield?

Why was San always so happy to see him and so patient and understanding when he messed up?

Surely, it must have been some kind of trick. Make him lower his guard so he’ll let them out. But they not being the reason why Mara had died, San opening up about his own past wounds, Ni making himself so vulnerable when he was teaching him sign words, still kept him questioning what their intentions were here.

The fact that he was currently being cuddled by all three was not helping with his internal questioning.

He tried to get up, doing his best not to shake them awake, but immediately stopped as he heard San stir. Red eyes blink open in the darkness, locking onto him. “What are you doing?” He asked, a lilt to his voice indicating playfulness.

Before he could think of what to say, he opened his mouth and asked the question that pretty much summed up all of his current worries. “Why are you three being so nice to me?”

San blinked in confusion, tilting his head. “Because we like having you around- sorry, I don’t think I understand your question.”

Rodan laughed bitterly. “Oh please. Literally the only thing you three care about is yourselves.”

San frowned. “When did we ever give this impression?”

“Oh boy, where to start?” Rodan exclaimed, starting to remember acutely the things Ghidorah did in his presence, before all four of them were trapped on Mara. “Ichi thinks he stands at the top of everything, and that whatever doesn’t bend their back forward at the sight of him needs to be destroyed.”

(Godzilla, staring into nothing, expressing doubt of being able to become King for the first time since the beginning on his campaign as he tells his friends how his father died while showing them a wound that would’ve killed him had it striked just a bit more to the left-)

“Or how about Ni jumping anyone who so much as threatens you three? Godzilla and everyone who’s ever met him are convinced that he lives to inflict physical pain.”

(Shrieking laughter echoing as Mothra was punched by lightning again and again in her child form, almost killing her permanently but that clearly didn’t matter as much to Ghidorah as making her cry out for help and in pain-)

“And as for you...” Rodan said nothing after that. Just clutched at the wound on his chest San had inflicted millenias ago, suddenly very aware of the acute pain here. The first time he had been alone with the three of them...

(Come back when you’re worth looking at.)

“You like hurting people too. Not like Ni does, but you do. Your words...” He took a short breath through his teeth. “Your words cut, and they cut deep.”

“Which is why you don’t want to hear the truth.” San suddenly said. All emotions were gone from his voice as big red eyes stared at Rodan, almost burning in the dark.

Rodan withheld it, narrowing his own eyes. “Don’t tell me what I want. The only person who can say what I want is me. Answer my question, San.”

“... We want you to let us out, so we’re being nice.” He admitted, voice still devoid of emotions. “That’s the main reason.”

Rodan frowned. “You guys do realize I’m not gonna let that happen, right? The only reason why I’m around you three is to not go insane mad from loneliness, you said it yourself. Being nice to me isn’t going to convince me you’re actually nice.” Better not mention how much their kindness had shaken him.

“But it’ll make you lower your guard. Tell us things about yourself that you normally wouldn’t tell a soul. And then, once we’ve emptied you of all your secrets, we’d be able to destroy what’s left with an off-hand comment. And that’s when you’d let us out.” There was silence for a moment, before a shaky sound emerged from Rodan. San frowned as he recognized what it was. Laughter. “Why are you laughing?”

Rodan gradually stopped. “Should’ve seen this coming.” Steam clouded his vision as he blinked. “Of course the only moment you deem me worth looking at is when you want to break me.”

“What? No!” San exclaimed, Rodan sending him a skeptical look. “I mean, at first, but things have changed since then! We... we like having you around.” He admitted. “You... you’re like the brightest, biggest, hottest star in the universe, and your presence alone beckons us to get closer and closer, regardless of the risk of getting burnt, just for the chance to bask into your light.”

“... what the fuck are you talking about?”

“What I’m trying to say is...” San grabbed Rodan’s hand, his face warming up at that. “We actually like having you around. You’re like a beacon, and we don’t want to lose sight of you.”

Rodan shook his head curtly, tugging his hand away from San’s as the blush on his face lessened. “Why should I believe you!? You literally just admitted to trying to mentally break me in order to make me a slave!”

“True. We’ve snuffed out bigger flames than yours before.” San admitted. “But none were ever as bright as you. We don’t want to snuff you out anymore: we want you to be our lantern!... you know what a lantern is, right?”

Rodan hesitantly nodded. “Like a torch, but smaller?”

San nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, they’re pretty similar! To be honest, I don’t think we’d be able to snuff you out, no matter what we try. Next best thing is feeding your flame and having you light the way to our conquest.” Rodan frowned in confusion at that.

“I thought you wanted to kill the planet?”

San giggled. “What, did one of the Moths tell you that?” 

Rodan nodded hesitantly. “Yeah, Mothra did.”

“Come on, firebird. We’re not going to destroy the planet we’re hiding on! That would be very stupid. We just want to adapt it to our needs, and, uh...” he hissed through gritted teeth. “We can’t really help it if all humans are gonna die. Beside, we can’t control something if we destroy it at the first opportunity.”

Rodan sighed, closing his eyes and turning away from San. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense...”

“You want to know what we were going to tell you?” San asked in a low voice. “What we thought would break you before you showed us nothing can?” Rodan frowned, but nodded nonetheless, convinced nothing Ghidorah could tell him would make him change his mind. Oh, how wrong he was. “We’re not the ones who killed your island and your friend.”

“Yeah, I figured out you didn’t destroy my island, it’s why I’m so confused- wait. You guys didn’t kill Godzilla?” He asked, filled with confusion. San nodded. “But... you three hate him.”

“Exactly. If we had killed him, Ni would’ve swam after his corpse to take his head as a trophy.” San told him, Rodan humming in answer. “The ones who killed them... are humans.”

“What!?” He exclaimed, somehow sitting up in surprise without waking Ichi up. “But how- humans are so tiny-”

“Do you remember what I told you, back in the soul realm?” San asked, blinking slowly. “Weaker beings fear what they don’t understand. If you don’t understand how you cheated death, how are beings as puny as humans supposed to understand anything about you, let alone your people?”

Rodan had nothing to say to that. Especially since he knew exactly what San was talking about. Humans that were both very brave and very stupid, usually the ones that could not Hear them,  “I- but how did they-?”

“With machines.” The only answer to that was an incredibly confused frown. “Look, for now, go back to sleep, okay?” San asked, putting a hand on Rodan’s shoulder and forcing him to lay back down. As he was about to retort, Ghidorah gently shushed him. “We’ll give you proof in the morning.”

-

[Telling him what we’re doing was a really stupid move.]

(I know. But his main problem with us until now is that he thought we killed one of his friends and his nest. He now knows we didn’t, and is questioning whether or not we actually want to destroy the planet. I took a calculated risk.)

{And you’re better at math than I remember you being. The biggest setback with this change is that we’ll have to wait longer before enveloping the planet in a storm for good, make an active effort in keeping it alive... Until our dear fire bird dies, that is.}

[Oh... I suppose we could wait just a few more millenias before leaving. I mean, we’ve already stayed on this planet for... what, forty thousand years?]

(Around that, yeah! And uh... I don’t know about you two, but I think I want Rodan to stay around for as long as possible.)

{Seconded, actually. He’s entertaining. Having him as an enraged flag bearer will be interesting.}

[You two should be more careful. You’ll end up getting attached and thinking you owe him something.]

{You’re the one getting language lessons from him. If one of us is going to end thinking they owe fire bird something, it’s you.}

[What-]

(~ Ni owes Rodan ~ Ni owes Rodan ~ Ni owes Ro-)

[I don’t owe him shit!]

{Are you protesting us waiting until he dies a death unrelated to us, then?}

[... No.]

{Then it’s settled. Rodan shall be kept alive, and act as our champion.}

#today is a kaijus only event humans get out #Godzilla #godzilla gijinka #gijinka #writing #My writing #mothra #anguirus #rodan #san ghidorah #ni ghidorah #ichi ghidorah #kevin ghidorah #ghidorah #King Ghidorah #rodorah