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coulson-is-an-avenger · 2 years

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good afternoon folks, Pacific Rim Uprising pissed me off so hard that I actually wrote a fic about it lmaooooo. i simply couldn’t handle the fact that they just left Newt there without any acknowledgement of the tragedy that he was going through OR any hints that he might be getting help, so this is my attempt at giving myself that closure. pls enjoy <3

CWs: loss of autonomy, mind control, incredibly heavy themes throughout, some descriptions of the canon throat trauma/choking, and one instance of getting sick/emeto (not super descriptive, but just in case, you can skip the paragraph after the line "It actually does make Newt sick" if needed)

(also on AO3!)

Newt is fractured. He— Newt is dead. We are all that’s left.

No, no.

Inhale, swallow it back. Don’t listen.

Try again.

Newt is fractured. He… he— Stop. He will never be strong enough. We are still here.

No. Don’t listen.

Inhale and exhale through human lungs. He is still fighting.

Try again.

Newt is fractured. What remains of his mind feels pulled apart and splintered, thrown back together in messy wads, stuck together with bioluminescent goop that most certainly does not belong in the space between his synapses, and it hurts, fuck, it hurts being like this; fighting for every inch of consciousness, pounding against the walls of his own mind trying to make a movement that is his own, screaming his nonexistent lungs raw trying to force out the barest whisper.

He’s in a room, he thinks, chained to some kind of chair — a meaningless contraption, it won’t hold us, they are fools to think it can hold us — and he can’t tell when the days are changing, can’t tell where the screams of the defeated Precursors end and the screams of his own horror at every awful thing he’s done begin, and he can only count the passage of time by how often he sees Dr. Hermann Gottlieb.

Hermann.

God.

He can always remember when Hermann visits, not by what he says or does - if he says or does anything - but by the violence that clashes in his head at the man’s very presence. The Precursors despise him, froth against the restraints of his chair and against the prison of his body, wanting this stupid, inferior man dead with every cell in their extraterrestrial bodies, wanting to make him pay for daring to interrupt their plans, and Newt…

Well, Something in Newt’s mind always goes childishly calm at Hermann’s presence, even as lost as he is. The serenity of being seen, being known by an equal, by a mind of utter brilliance and ego and wit, matched step for step in genius and biting remarks and arrogance. The memory of Newt’s Drift with Hermann still feels like a bedtime story, all these years later. He latches onto the moments that Hermann is here with every cell in his puppeted body.

Today is a good day, if he still has anything resembling those. He feels loosely strung, like the Precursors that ravage his mind have stepped back from the controls for a moment to deal with other pressing matters. It happens sometimes, and Newt has long since given up on hoping it means his freedom.

It means lucidity, at least, for now. It means he can walk himself around some, like a dog on a leash. He’ll take what he can get.

It means when Hermann comes to see him today, with the same tenured-professor look as always, his cane falling smartly in time with his step, face written with all sorts of emotions, Newton gets to take a very coherent look.

Hermann is not wearing a turtleneck shirt. It’s a ridiculous thought - of course he’s not. He’s never worn one, that Newt’s seen, he has no reason to expect one, except that, because of this, his throat is on display; still a discolored mess of bruises clustered around the arteries, a pattern of paint-dipped rage that would match Newt’s fingers exactly if he held them up to compare.

His mind reels from the evidence, from the marks, from the canvas of his wrongdoing. Hermann hasn’t even opened his mouth yet, and Newt is already a chorus of ‘no, no, no, no’.

He hurt Hermann. Hell, he tried to kill Hermann, left those ugly, angry marks on him, that slap-in-the-face memory of turning the knife of betrayal in Hermann’s gut while looking him right in the eyes. It makes Newt want to be sick. It actually does make Newt sick.

His stomach heaves unpleasantly at the green-purple hue crowning Hermann’s skin, and he has to turn over the side of the chair to properly empty the bile from his mouth.

He can’t look at Hermann, even after he’s finished. He can’t see what he’s done to him. He can’t face the memory of that guilt, that rage, that desperate pleading futile resistance. He can’t face knowing he hurt the best man he’s ever known.

“I don’t think Newt wants to see you right now, Dr.,” Jake says, because of course Jake’s still here, always at the corner of his eye, always watching over Newt so he doesn’t try anything stupid. Newt doesn’t know what to make of that, doesn’t have enough presence of mind to tackle the mystery of Jake right now, but he does notice the a quiet apology in Jake’s tone; a gentleness and compassion for what Hermann is probably going through, and Newt wants to wrench himself out of the floor and hide.

He doesn’t want to see Hermann. He never wants to see Hermann again. He’s going to lose his fucking mind for good if Hermann ever leaves this room. He needs him here, in a desperate, lovesick, childish, only-lab-partner-that-hasn’t-actually-wanted-him-dead kind of way. His mind blisters under the strain of his own conflict, compounded by fear of the Precursors’ bloodlust, sure to return any moment.

“Are you sure you can make any kind of progress with him?” Jake is speaking again, “Even the medics aren’t sure what to do with him.”

Out of the corner of his eye, from his slumped angle, Newt can see Hermann do that little shift of the grip on his cane that he does when he’s nervous. An old gesture, a familiar one.

“Truthfully I was hoping for at least something by now. A sign, perhaps.” Hermann’s voice is a cool balm, it reawakens the fires of hatred in his alien possessors, it fills his eyes with aching, yearning to weep with apology, with affection, with relief.

“Me too. It’s been weeks—“

Weeks? No, it can’t have been weeks. It hasn’t been weeks. He can’t have been stuck in this fucking dungeon, not knowing the time and wrestling with godawful monsters beyond human comprehension for weeks, unable to tell what fucking day it is. The reality of lost time hits him squarely in the chest, wrenching him so sharply that he feels clear for a moment, in control, if he even still knows what that is. He latches onto the chance with both hands and gives it everything he’s got.

“Can’t predict your way out of this one, huh, Hermann?”

He winces at his own words, stupid and scathing and deeply uncalled for, but they are his own, as is the wince, and his eyes burn with it, even as he can feel the tendrils of the Precursors slip back into his mind warningly.

Hermann, for his part, goes utterly still before walking right up to Newt and looking down at him with an intensity that Newt isn’t sure he can parse correctly.

He tries not to look at his throat. He definitely looks at his throat.

“Newton,” Hermann says very pointedly, eyes wide, and he reaches out his free hand hand to take Newt by the chin, to force him to look back at him, as if Newt could ever look at anything else, and the Precursors back in his head want to snap at his fingers and Newt wants to crumble at the touch and at the forgiveness in his eyes, forgiveness that he doesn’t deserve, has done nothing to fucking deserve, and he thinks there’s tears running from his eyes because his face feels wet for some reason, and Hermann’s thumb is on his cheek, brushing them away, and the unfathomable gentleness of the touch, even as the monsters in his head scream for violence, tears him clean in half.

He didn’t know he had anything left in him to break, and yet Hermann shatters him.

“I’m sorry, Hermann, I’m sorry,” He manages to get out, eyes blurry with tears, his chest beginning to catch up with the sobs. “I hurt you,” he squeezes out through a throat convulsing with the alien urge to hurt him again. He’s grateful, momentarily, for the shitty restraints of this chair, keeping the Precursors from finishing what they had started before.

Hermann is still methodically wiping the tears from his face, repetitive and sure and grounding. “I know, Newt.” He says.

Newt doesn’t know what to do with that, not after ten years of nightmares and weakness and hating every single thing the Precursors forced him to do, never sure of his own extent of control. He thinks he makes a noise in response, some kind of agonized whimper that would be deeply embarrassing if he had enough presence of mind to think about it.

And then the alien colonizers decide they’ve had enough, and Newt’s body convulses against his will, and he tries to force it back, tries to bite his tongue to keep the Precursors from screaming through him, even if it bleeds.

They wrench his jaw open anyways.

“He is dead,” the Precursors spit in Hermann’s face, the voice painful and distorted through Newt’s tired human throat. “Give up.”

Jake makes a gesture from somewhere to Newt’s right and Hermann draws back, just enough to remove his hand from biting range, and scowls so deeply it seems to split his skin. “No. He isn’t.” He snaps immediately.

He doesn’t touch Newt again, and Newt is grateful that he isn’t putting himself in the way of danger, but he also feels like he’s been hollowed out with a spoon, like Hermann is the only thing that can make him feel human again.

Everyone else who ever cared about Newt is gone. And the last man standing can’t even touch him for more than a few seconds without fear of extraterrestrial violence.

“I know you’re still in there, Newton,” Hermann almost whispers, lowering himself to his level, and Newt could drown in the stern brown of his eyes, could cling to it like a lifeline and survive the endless swim to shore. “I’m not going to leave you with them.”

The Precursors growl in his head, but Newt knows he means it, has seen Hermann dedicate everything he is to theorems and functions and equations, over and over again through the years, and he’s never loved the man for his stubbornness more than he does in this moment. He sees the lifeline that Hermann is throwing him, the promise of hope, the only substantial thing any of them has left anymore, and he clings to it, tries to wrap himself and his mind in it.

He might not be strong enough to hold back the Precursors, might not be strong enough to save himself, but Hermann has always been stronger. They’ve always pushed each other to be more, one-upping each other out of fascination, then spite, and then because the world depended on it, and each time, Newt has admired Hermann for his courage and his bullheadedness to prove himself against every adversary.

If Hermann will not leave him, then that means Hermann will save him, no matter how, and Newt can cling to that. Newt can survive, with that hope.

It takes all of his breath, all of his will to push through the hold the Precursors have on his voice, one more time, but he manages to get a sentence out, meeting Hermann’s eyes with everything he has left of himself.

“I know you won’t.” He breathes.

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shaolinrouge · 9 months

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Okay, so I rewatched PR:U for the first time since its release, and I definitely had some thoughts.

To begin with, what is with the really bizarre product placement in the beginning. Jake did not need to hold up those Oreos so blatantly lmao.

PR:U jumps straight into the action in a really identifiably different way than Pacific Rim does. In PR, Raleigh narrates the Kaiju War and then we see him and Yancy get into the Knifehead fight, and it flows really well overall. On the other hand, PR:U starts with a quick relay of the Kaiju War, and then we're introduced to Jake in the regions still affected by past Kaiju attacks (i.e. half-destroyed mansion, which I also have some thoughts on). So it quickly becomes clear he's got some black market dealings going on, and the first action sequence of the movie is Jake running from these random Jaeger scrappers (??). It's just really throwing compared to the first one, since we at least have a general idea of what's going on with Raleigh.

Side note: I'm assuming they're in the Bay Area that was largely evacuated considering they head toward a Jaeger scrapyard, so how does that mansion have like...any utilities.

So then we're introduced to Amara, who can build a sickass Jaeger but has no security system? I don't know, she seems really careful about being discovered for obvious reasons, so I feel her hideout would at least have an alarm or some kind of traps, But Jake essentially just strolls in.

Of course, then we have November Ajax vs. Scrapper, which I actually do like. Its nice to see what the new Jaegers look like, and see what Scrapper, the first single-pilot Jaeger, is capable of. This scene also really seals the tone of PR:U as kind of lighthearted and jokey while also having action and death, which isn't really the case in Pacific Rim.

Another thing I like: Amara and Jake's relationship. A lot of things about this movie feel funky, but I think the actors did a very good job of forming a very genuine-feeling bond between these two characters.

Mako's introduction just feels. very bizarre. I understand that she obviously can't be there in person, thus the hologram, but the whole situation just has a weird vibe that I can't place. I'm not sure if it's because Jake and Mako act so familiar with each other even though Jake was never mentioned in the movie, or because I'm just not a fan of the hologram bit.

Contrary to popular opinion (at least what I've seen), I really like the Jaegers in PR:U. I hate that they removed the realism from their movements that was always present in the first, but there were some very interesting weapons and new designs introduced at the same time, so I can let it slide. Except the giant rotating ball of blades on Bracer Phoenix, it can go die.

Mako's death is genuinely my least favorite scene in the movie for obvious reasons. She was essentially killed off for no reason, since we don't see much of Jake's grief, meaning they wrote her off for pointless plot purposes, which I hate.

I do enjoy the villain bait with Liwen, although it's a shame Newton ended up being the villain. They were definitely setting her up as an antagonist since she was on a side somewhat opposite to Mako's, and because it becomes clear that Shao Industries is somehow evil before having her turn around and attempt to stop Newton no matter the force necessary.

While on women in the movie, not a huge fan of how Jules was treated, but she's also not present that much so I won't go on and on about female characters being used a tool to create tension being male characters blah blah.

The fight against the Mega-Kaiju was...something. Suresh dying was completely out of the blue, and I hated it. I think the cadets all being so young is an odd decision to make, especially because in the first movie most of the Jaeger pilots come into the program in their very late teenage years at the least (besides Chuck and Raleigh, iirc). They try to justify the whole. child soldier-esque training by saying the Bond is stronger at a young age, but they didn't even have that young of recruits in the first PR and that was during a war so idk.

Raleigh not being mentioned at all is also a crime btw. Or Herc, for that matter, but he could at least make a little more justifiable sense than Raleigh.

Anyway, this was a really scattered collection of musings on the movie, but there we go.

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