#kotm meta

[murasakikagekitsune]

The Monsterverse’s Most Powerful Return to its True Purpose: Why Serizawa-hakase’s (Dr.Serizawa’s) Death Very Nearly Succeeded in Making Me Cry When I Watched Godzilla: King of the Monsters for the First Time (and Why It Always Will, No Matter How Many Times I Watch the Film.)

“Because sometimes the only way to heal demons of our past is to make peace with them.”

This single quote poetically summed up why Godzilla was even made in the first place, and why, ultimately, it was Serizawa-hakase who chose himself to be the one that would place the nuclear warhead under Godzilla.

It’s exactly what he’s doing. There is a sort of catharsis for him in practically mirroring his father’s footsteps. It’s a way to amend the legacy of his father; only this time, he is doing this to save Godzilla rather than kill him. Who knows? The death of his father may have haunted Serizawa-hakase when he was growing up as a boy and a young man, similar to the way it would/will motivate his son, Ren Serizawa, to aid in creating things that, in theory, would stop the Titans from wreaking havoc on earth. (Because, the result of his father’s legacy, in reality, was his death.) This could make any person bitter enough to do such things like Ren is going to do later on.For the father and son, their respective fathers’ legacies is a demon of their past which they have to make peace with. I’ve not seen GvK yet, so I’m only guessing here, but I think the only difference there is the fact that Ren refuses to make peace with his past.

There is a bigger demon at play here, however, and she goes by the name Enola. Serizawa-hakase isn’t just making peace with his past on a personal, individual level, but on a national and cultural level too. To die voluntarily by what is, effectively, a nuclear bomb, he’s connecting to his family and his people on a deeper level than before. Multiple times in the film, it is inferred that, because of Serizawa-hakase’s age, the nuclear bombs of World War II are in his recent memory.

Live by the katana, die by the katana.

His death was planned. He knew they were going to have to power Godzilla by nuclear warhead. He knew that if he chose to do this, he would die as a result. What do Serizawa-hakase and his female colleague, Mariko-hakase whisper to each other before he goes to save Godzilla?

All hail to the Emperor.

Serizawa-hakase’s was never a split second decision, it wasn’t a simple throwaway case of self-sacrifice that could be forgotten by whitewashed history books, nor was it a laughable suicide mission, one that the US military can point their fingers at. No, it was something much more than that; something that would instantly redeem him in the eyes of Steinz...

He chose to commit seppaku, perhaps the most significant way for someone like him to die. He feels as if he has dishonoured his father’s name, and the only way to remedy that? Pretty obvious. (Even though his father isn’t a shogun, and this isn’t feudal Japan?)

He chose to commit seppaku.

(Friendly reminder: I probably haven’t even come close to crying at a character’s death like this since I was 10, watching Sandy die in ROTG.)

(-hakase is the honorific used in Japan to address someone of particularly high academic prestige, like a doctor or a professor.)

#godzilla #gojira #godzilla king of the monsters #godzilla kotm #kotm #ishiro serizawa #seriziawa-hakase #dr. serizawa #japanese culture #ren serizawa #character analysis #quote analysis #wwii #history #character discourse #character death #meta #godzllia meta #king of the monsters meta #kotm meta #divine intervention #because kuro-sama told me to write it #need i go on? #atomic bomb #the Atomic bomb will always be unforgiveable #o captain NOT MY CAPTAIN! #i will not apologise for believing in civil rights

[ckret2]

GVK spoilers below, about conspiracy theories

I’m gonna get around to posting all my GVK reactions but this one got long so I’m putting it in its own post.

The Monsterverse series, in both KOTM and GVK, has some pretty interesting things to say about conspiracy theories and ecofascism; but, unfortunately, it doesn’t REALIZE that it’s saying any of them, so it keeps dropping the ball and missing opportunities to explore them.

Starting with KOTM, “there’s too many humans so we’ve just gotta let some die and that’ll fix pollution 🤷” is like false ecofascist claim #1 but at no point in the movie was it challenged as unfactual, it was just presented as a sad truth that people have to do morally ambiguous things about. Except that it’s just literally mathematically not true!

Emma could be such a GREAT, believable character—especially in this world with, like, frigging QAnon nonsense getting such widespread traction—showing a compelling, realistic tragedy of how this normal, intelligent, well-educated white mom who otherwise is likely left-leaning (pro-environmentalism, pro-nature conservation, got a doctorate and generally more academia correlates with more liberal ideals) got sucked into a far right ecofascist doomsday militia that combines hokey pseudo-environmentalist propaganda with “in balance with nature” semi-religious mysticism, because she was exploited at a time when she was emotionally vulnerable (when her kid had just died) and was lacking healthy emotional support (when her husband turned to alcohol and then ran off).

... Except the movie never says that her “overpopulation” beliefs are WRONG. It says that they’re RIGHT, and she was just forced to choose between two losing scenarios—deliberately kill most of humanity to hopefully save a few, or watch humanity kill itself.

Nobody bothers to mention that the size of the population isn’t the problem, it’s the disproportionate pollution coming out of first world countries. Nobody bothers to mention that when Emma talks about “overpopulation” and shows a screenshot of an overcrowded neighborhood, it ain’t affluent downtown skyscraper condos in Europe or America that she’s highlighting, but large masses of poor people whose neighborhoods look “dirty” to the white woman’s eyes, despite the fact that they’re contributing the least to humanity’s carbon footprint.

Emma’s beliefs are empirically wrong, and if KOTM had ever demonstrated that, it would’ve been brilliant. Instead, it tries to say “she was right, she just went too far,” and in doing so loses an opportunity to make Emma a deeply believable, timely, realistic, well-meaning but wrong villain.

And now we’ve got GVK, which has swerved away from the ecofascism but doubled down on the conspiracy theories. Here, Emma’s daughter, who was raised for five years with what amounts to a survivalist doomsday cult’s beliefs, when faced with the grief of her mother’s death and the struggle of trying to reconnect to her estranged father, turns—again—to conspiracies to make sense of the world around her. Because that’s what Madison’s been raised with, and even though she got disillusioned with the particular “we know something special that the normal people can’t handle” beliefs that she was raised with, that kind of thinking is still what she knows. She’s still doing what her mother raised her to do! She’s still pulling the “hypercompetent highly-trained lone wolf ‘survivor’ saves the world” shtick that Jonah’s gang taught her to do—but it’s never brought up that it was screwed up to raise a child like that and it’s screwed up for her to still be interacting with the world like that.

At least THIS conspiracy theorist isn’t literally advocating for global genocide. Bernie’s focus largely seems to be on “this corporation is trying to screw people over and screw up the environment—” (because in Monsterverse, as in Toho monster movies as a whole, kaiju/titans and the environment are symbolically conflated, so if a corporation is messing with Godzilla then they’re messing with nature as well) “—so I’m gonna find out what they’re up to and be a whistleblower.” Which is great! Solid start! We’ve got a guy taking aim at big business and who says “when the weather Godzilla acts erratic, it’s not random chance, it’s because a big business is doing something it shouldn’t,” so it looks like we’ve got a leftist conspiracy theorist, that’s different, could be interesting to explore.

Except then he starts talking about governments serving a “global elite” and facilities built by “lizard people” and then we’ve swung right back around to the far right by casually dropping in a couple of antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Add that in with the whole “hollow earth” thing and damn, we’re namedropping a lot of antisemitic conspiracy theories, aren’t we? Granted, most conspiracy theories ARE antisemitic—but like, they could have dug around for some that aren’t. Have him talk some more about Roswell. Have him bring up things that we’ve actually got documentation happened and theorize that MKUltra research was used in Apex’s development of their pilot’s psychic mind link to Mechagodzilla. Have him bring up tailor-made-for-the-Monsterverse conspiracy theories that don’t exist here, “Monster Zero is actually the secret weapon of a nearby ‘Planet X’ that’s gonna invade,” whatever. Instead, nah, we went with the antisemitic ones.

Now, do I think the writers behind KOTM and GVK intended antisemitism? Do I think they’re closet alt-right trying to dogwhistle the fascists in the audience? No, I think they think they’re making fun of—or playing around with—what they see as harmless, unbelievable, way-out-there conspiracy theories. I think they know just enough about “hollow earth” and “global elites” and “lizard people” to make references to them, but not in a way that promotes the common antisemitic understanding of those theories as true. (Monsterverse’s hollow earth, a weird underground jungle where King Kong lives, sure doesn’t resemble the usual conspiracy theory.) To me, the way they were used suggests the writers didn’t deeply understand (or at least, didn’t deeply think about) what the theories really mean—nor what they imply about the beliefs of the characters who espouse them. Which is the crux of my issue with how the movies deal with conspiracy theories and ecofascists and so forth (beyond the fact that, hey, I just don’t like seeing likable characters casually referencing antisemitic beliefs): the writers didn’t think about the implications.

Because these things do imply a lot! For example, if, say, Josh, total newb to conspiracy theories, had asked about lizard people, I would have grimaced to hear it but I would have believed that he’s a teen boy that picked up the term at school and doesn’t know anything about what’s behind it. But on the other hand, I can’t believe a guy so deep in the conspiracy theory world that he bathes in bleach doesn’t know exactly what those conspiracies mean—or, even if he does somehow staunchly refuse to believe that “lizard people” is a code for “Jewish people,” that whatever circle of conspiracy theorists he runs with doesn’t use it as a code. Bernie didn’t pick up those beliefs in a void. I really doubt that’s what the writers wanted to imply about the goofy likable underdog with a podcast.

And sure, the “global elite” and “lizard people” references are presented like a “haha look how far out his beliefs are” joke—the same as the fluoride reference, which is basically Hollywood code for “bogus nonsense only complete lunatics believe” thanks to Dr. Strangelove—but at the same time, they’re never really disproven. Nothing he believes is challenged. Nor are any of Madison’s beliefs that she’s picked up from him. Everything they both believe is either a “wow that’s wild” throwaway joke, or else they’re presented as totally right, e.g. about Apex being up to dubious crap that’s irritating Godzilla.

Just like Emma, who was presented as in the wrong not because she was incorrect but because she WAS correct but took the wrong actions. And just like Rick in KOTM, who kept bring up the hollow earth theory like a running joke but then the joke was that he was right.

And that’s at the root of the issues with both movies’ portrayals of conspiracy theories. Aside from the jokes that are never explored (and therefore, never disproven), the movies say that, every time it matters, the conspiracy theorists on the fringe are correct, the heroes that need to be believed. Even though all (excluding Rick) are characters who have suffered deep loss, who have been hurt, who you can imagine as passionate but grieving people who turned to dangerously wrong extremism in their search for meaning... the movies don’t portray them as people who have been led astray by their pain, but enlightened by their pain. Which is what they themselves think they are, sure, but that doesn’t line up with reality.

The movies never forces them to grapple with how far they’ve gone astray from reality—and I think they should. I’d like to see them processing the revelation that their beliefs are wrong. Whether it’s as big as somebody trying to convince Emma that killing half the population doesn’t fix the pollution caused by corporations rich enough to weather a global hurricane, or as small as Bernie looking at Apex’s financial records and realizing the company’s money is going to the CEO’s vacation home rather than a reptile government and deciding to rethink those beliefs after they’ve checked out Hong Kong.

“Conspiracy theorist is right about everything” is already a common enough trope that Monsterverse isn’t breaking any new ground with it. And in a franchise like Godzilla, whose movies are rife with messages both allegorical and literal about environmentalism, corporate exploitation, the futility of military action, international politics, war crimes... letting the conspiracy theorists be wrong and showing that they’re wrong and what that wrongness can lead to would mesh far better with the themes of Godzilla.

Think about Jonah and Emma unleashing Ghidorah (who emerged from a destroyed ice cap and immediately caused devastating hurricanes—a perfect metaphor for climate change), and what that could say about how ecofascists who purportedly joined the movement because they support environmentalism are actually far more in bed with the destructive industries really at the root of environmental damage... if the movie acknowledged them as ecofascists.

Think about how Jonah collected Ghidorah’s head at the end of KOTM and by the time of GVK it was in Apex’s hands, and how this exchange demonstrates that “I want to unleash titans to destroy humanity to save the environment” Jonah the ecoterrorist and “I want to beat the titans to protect humanity” Simmons the billionaire CEO actually have far more similar ideals beneath the surface of their opposed goals—ideals that have less to do with the environment or with humanity and more to do with securing personal power and control... if the movie had explained how this exchange took place.

Think about how Madison’s mother died trying to mitigate just a little of the damage she did under the thrall of a doomsday cult’s skewed beliefs, how even though Madison broke free she found herself embroiled in similarly skewed beliefs just three years later, and how powerful it would have been if she recognized that she herself had walked right back into the kind of fringe beliefs her mother had led her into as a child, and if she had then resolved to learn how this kept happening to her and break this pattern... if the movie had ever let her realize that she was making the same mistakes, or even acknowledged them as mistakes.

There’s so much potential there, so many things you can see happening right beneath the surface... but the movies never touch on them. And so it looks like, in Monsterverse, all fringe beliefs are either right or harmless. And we never get the “disillusioned conspiracy theorist” story that could be so brilliant and that, right now, would be so relevant.

#gvk #godzilla vs kong #gvk spoilers #godzilla vs kong spoilers #godzilla #kotm #meta

[sepublic]

Just watched Godzilla: King of the Monsters last night...

My general feelings are the same as the fans- It’s pretty good, and the critics are honestly forgetting to have fun. Sure, you can go on about how the film had a basic plot or whatever, but by the end of the day it had amazing Kaiju action, screen time, and love for the source material. 

I particularly like how King Ghidorah was handled. When I first heard about Tywin Lannister- I mean, Jonah, and his role in the film, I was worried Ghidorah would take a backseat to him. I had concerns he’d just be a controlled minion and lackey of a human, and while Ghidorah admittedly has tended to be in the control of smaller species before, I was still hesitant.

The film, lo and behold, assuaged all of my concerns. Ghidorah was presented full-force as the true antagonist of the film, with the human villains’ actions basically amounting to just waking him up, which was what I’d hoped for the film. Otherwise, Ghidorah is his own master, and he is a genuine beast of a villain and a true contender towards Godzilla. He was his own master, which honestly reflects the whole theme of man not being able to control nature better than my feared alternative.

Another thing I appreciated about Ghidorah was how they embraced his alien nature. I noticed in both the source material and the film that while the other Kaiju (I prefer to call them that over Titans) are given typical Latin-y, science names, thus providing the idea that they’re natural creatures... Ghidorah is instead referred to exclusively as Monster Zero.

I mean, not only is this a wonderfully fitting homage to the source material, but it really sets up Ghidorah as thematically different and alien from the rest of the Kaiju, even before the literal revelation that he’s a space invader. Likewise, I like how the writers used this part of his backstory not only as a thematic, character-related realization, but also as a means to set up Ghidorah thematically as a rival against Godzilla.

Godzilla is naturally from Earth and defending others, and while a little hostile, ultimately means well and is the true King of Monsters. Meanwhile, Ghidorah is a space imperialist, an invasive species and a false king. He’s an usurper, and so alien that something like the Oxygen Destroyer, which relies on some fundamental rules of Earth’s life, has no effect against it. Ghidorah seems to defy the laws of nature (well, moreso than the other Kaiju if we’re being honest) and is very clearly not meant to be there. The fact that this just contributes to the challenge of the human antagonists’ assertions of Ghidorah being needed to ‘balance’ nature is just the cherry on top.

(Also, I love how Lefty is the one that gets bullied by the Middle Head... yet by the end of the day, Middle Head dies the most brutal death of the heads while Lefty outlives the others and is slated to more or less continue Ghidorah’s legacy of rampage in some fashion. The meek shall inherit the earth, after all!)

So, yeah- Film was good, and the humans I actually liked. At worst they’re just THERE, in my opinion- Even Emma Russell, whom I’ve seen others criticize as kind of a traitor (not too wrongfully), at least means well and tries to be as practical as possible with her actions. She makes a point of wanting to wait for Isla de Mara (Marra?) to be properly evacuated and only releases Rodan amidst the presence of human lives when pressured to do so, under the belief that it’s her only chance. The Kaiju are shown to have a positive impact on nature in the form of some Life Radiation or something- Ridiculous by real world standards, but it’s a freaking Kaiju film. Who cares if it’s dumb?! 

Regardless, this point of Kaijus’ contribution to nature makes Russell’s actions make more sense. This, and the fact that she, again, is very deliberate on sparing humanity as much as she can, is horrified when Ghidorah acts otherwise, and ultimately realizes the error of her ways and willingly sacrifices herself to at least TRY to fix things, kind of makes her better than the MCU’s Thanos, in one regard.

(I love Thanos and all, but my admittedly biggest disappointment in his film portrayal is the fact that we never see him get humbled and be forced to learn his lesson. He never realizes the error of his ways and criticizes himself for his foolishness like in the comics- Which sucks, because if he had then the Avengers would have not only beaten him physically in Endgame but also ideologically as well.)

That aside, I’m pretty excited to see what direction the films will take. I like that the Muto is able to return, and while I was a bit hesitant and disappointed with the Titans being new characters, I’ve definitely warmed up to one of them, Behemoth.

I’ve also noticed that there are technically nine Kaiju we never see on film, which opens up the possibility of introducing some of the more classic monsters to the Monsterverse. While we already have codenames for them based on mythology, the films can always just explain it away by saying that the mythological names were given based more on location of the Kaiju and less on actual appearance, or whatever.

I think the whole ‘not revealing the remaining nine Kaiju’ was a smart move by Legendary. This way, if they ever feel like introducing a new monster, they can just as easily explain it as one of the remaining nine- And that isn’t even taking into consideration the idea that there are other Kaiju that Monarch didn’t locate, which is no stretch considering the whole Hollow Earth reveal.

Speaking of that- I wonder if the Hollow Earth, as well as the revelation of humans who once worshipped the Kaiju and even had an underwater city, will be used to introduce the Seatopians... Or Atlanteans, as the films would probably call them for obvious reasons. The Seatopians in their debut lived underground (which fits with the Hollow Earth in KOTM) and worshipped Megalon (which fits with the whole ‘ancient civilizations worshipped Kaiju’ approach).

I could see the films potentially introducing the Atlanteans as having been living underground during all this time in the Hollow Earth. Their reasons for summoning Megalon to attack the rest of humanity could be the same as in their debut, or be related to accusations of heresy towards humans not respecting the ‘gods’, or maybe a bit of both.

Of the nine unrevealed Kaiju, I’d like to see Megalon (as discussed above), as well as Anguirus (a classic), Baragon, Ebirah, Manda, etc. Maybe Kumonga could be introduced, or they could just retcon Scylla as Kumonga (Scylla comes from its scientific name Titanus Scylla, and as we all know the Kaijus’ scientific names aren’t always accurate to their current names, so...).

Other Kaiju I’d like to see are Biollante and Hedorah, who both work as natural extensions of the world-building and themes established in the films. Biollante can easily become an extension of the humans’ black market of Kaiju DNA and desire to have their own monster they can control. Either way, I’d still like for the tragic aspect of Biollante’s origins (as a misguided attempt to preserve one’s daughter) to be kept, as I think it just works in general.

Hedorah can, again, be set up as a thematic opponent to Godzilla. Both were created as allegories for human destruction of the environment, and seeing as how KOTM discussed pointedly how humans have polluted Earth, this could easily be seen as a plot point; Perhaps humans are polluting even more now, under the assumption that the Kaiju will just clean it up. Alternatively, the remaining waste has been piled up into one spot...

Either way, Hedorah comes into being as a monument to mankind’s infection. Godzilla, who has already been framed as a paragon of Nature and one who sets the balance right, is a clear opponent for Hedorah. Likewise, a film about Hedorah can also continue the discussion of humanity’s placement on Earth, perhaps musing that like Ghidorah we too are invasive and terraforming the planet to our own desires.

So that’s already a LOT of potential Kaiju and films to keep into account (not to mention King Kong’s fated match with Godzilla next year), but there’s still more with the post-credits scene! Jonah survives, and as a faithful Ghidorah stan he buys Lefty from some fishermen with obvious plans for the future.

Now, I’ve seen people discuss as to what the head will be used for- Perhaps it’ll be nurtured back to health (or partial-health, bringing in Mecha Ghidorah). Ghidorah IS Godzilla’s true arch nemesis, so more films with him certainly sounds nice.

Alternatively, his cells, in combination with the Oxygen Destroyer’s effects, could be used to create Destoroyah. And there’s also Bagan, who was born of Ghidorah’s cells and Godzilla’s as well.

Personally, I think the best scenario is to do... all of the above. Cells CAN grow and regenerate, and Ghidorah already has plenty of regenerative prowess. While Lefty is properly nurtured back to health, I can see Jonah taking DNA samples to experiment with, thus leading to the aforementioned Kaiju. Eventually, Ghidorah returns but in a weakened Mecha state, thus allowing him to fight alongside other villains without making things too hard for Godzilla, before he finally casts aside his metal shackles and fully recovers, leading to a true rematch.

So those are all of the potential Kaiju discussed- But now I want to get into baseless territory and do some wild speculation. If there’s one Kaiju I’d really like to see, its Gigan. 

With Gigan, I’d really like to see the films full-on embrace just how WEIRD he looks, because Gigan doesn’t really look like any particular animal. I mean, he does bare a passing resemblance to a penguin, but otherwise he’s an unmistakable alien, with his red visor, metal hook-claws, and buzzsaw chest.

I think embracing this alien nature of Gigan and making it more obvious will help differentiate him from Ghidorah, alongside one other achievement- Making Godzilla bleed.

I noticed that Godzilla didn’t bleed in this film, which I was personally happy about. If Gigan does appear, I’d prefer that honor to be reserved for him, like in the source material- Because if one thing has been established about Gigan, it’s that he’s one of Godzilla’s most VIOLENT enemies.

And I’d really like for the filmmakers to emphasize that, too, as a contrast to Ghidorah. I want them to show Gigan brutally cutting up his enemies, bathing in blood, and a bunch of other edgy stuff. Perhaps he’ll be commanded by aliens like in his debut, but his bloodlust will be so strong that he’ll occasionally veer from his orders so he can kill an extra few hundred humans, just because he wants to. I think this’d characterize Gigan as violent and a little unhinged, in contrast to Ghidorah.

Ghidorah is still, of course, very violent himself- But he can still be sensible. While Ghidorah is the reserved, stoic villain, Gigan could be the cackling mad murderer who relishes in the sport and gets distracted by it.

Further discussing Gigan, I wonder if the films can embrace the whole ‘alien invader’ aspect of the films by having an alien race attack Earth. They could be commanding an unruly Gigan (further differentiating him from natural leader Ghidorah) as they do generic evil-stuff... I can see the M Space Hunter Nebula Aliens (or Nebulans) being his masters, although if Legendary wants to streamline the whole Alien invader thing, they can just have one species; Probably the Xiliens, or maybe the Kilaaks.

Likewise, these aliens can be recurring antagonists (with Zaguresu from Godzilla Island being a major villain), perhaps responsible for sending creating Ghidorah and sending him to Earth in the first place. Alternatively, it’s just Gigan- Either way, I’d like for aliens to also play a role in Mechagodzilla.

Briefly going off on yet ANOTHER tangent, I like that while the humans had a role in KOTM, the film ultimately recognized that the fight against Ghidorah was the monsters’ fight, and didn’t have humans hogging the action (like in Bayformers). Like in the source material, I’d prefer for the Oxygen Destroyer’s first use to be the most effective human attack on Godzilla- From there on, the humans just kind of have to play a support role amidst the Kaiju battles, in the spirit of the franchise. 

I say this because I’d prefer the conflicts to primarily be between Kaiju (although Manda dying by the human creation Gotengo is fine). Likewise, if Mechagodzilla is made, it makes more sense (to me at least, if they introduce aliens) that it’d be made by aliens, what with its complex AI and overall effectiveness in battle. Of course, I can see the films incorporating the concept of Kiryu through the use of human tech combined with Kaiju remains. But for the most part I don’t want humans interfering or messing with Kaiju- the Kaiju are the bigger, badder kings of the planet and the franchise and the films have already made a point of humanity needing to co-exist, not fight, the Kaiju. Having them be on equal footing kind of bothers me, personally. 

All in all, Godzilla: King of the Monsters was a great film. It did a lot of effective world building that helped pave the road for so many stories, and I’m excited for more!

(Also, on one final tangent- I hope King Kong makes effective usage of his intelligence and wielding of tools as an advantage against Godzilla in the next film)

#godzilla #godzilla kotm #godzilla king of the monsters #kaiju #titans #kaiju films #king ghidorah #ghidorah #analysis #meta #Speculation #2019 #megalon #gigan #biollante #hedorah #anguirus #manda #kumonga #muto #baragon #scylla #behemoth #aliens #legendary #film discussion #king kong #kong vs godzilla #humans

[hrodvitnon]

Getting kinda meta here, but what would the Titans think of their respective themes from KOTM?

Ghidorah has the biggest, evillest grins on his faces every time the Ominous Buddhist Chanting comes up. They’ve listened to the multiple variations of Ghidorah’s themes enough times to pinpoint certain things that happened.

Ichi: Say, doctor. Quick question. Can you pinpoint the exact moment I discovered my favorite snack? Vivi: I dunno, can you pinpoint my exact favorite revenge kill, Puff the Magic Dragon?

Mothra’s listening to hers with a very calm expression, sort of tapping her fingers in time with the drums and humming along. When the music swells she does a cute little flourish like conducting an orchestra.

Goji puts on his theme and good lord, he loves it. The slow grin spreading at the beginning and as it progresses he starts humming with the strings, tapping his foot, bobbing his head. His chest is puffed out fit to bursting with that feeling of awesomeness that comes from Godzilla’s theme.

Rodan: *FRENCH HORN INTENSIFIES*

[tyrantisterror]

I was watching a video on Transformers Shattered Glass, and I was wondering, how would you do a Mirror Universe of ATOM? Who would be your main Kaiju since Tyrantis and a good majority of your other Kaiju would be evil? How would the world work with all these monsters running around? Would the Kaiju have different color schemes? Would the world welcome heroic Kaiju, or treat them the same as others? And how would you reimagine your human characters?

I feel like Mirror Universe style stories generally work best when the conflict at the heart of the story concerns two factions, one good and one bad.  Superheroes vs. Supervillains, the Utopian Federation vs. the Dystopian Romulans/Klingons, Autobots vs. Decepticons, that sort of thing.  Since ATOM doesn’t really have that premise, it doesn’t fit the set up very well - most of the kaiju don’t really have enough of a clear sense of morality to invert (even Tyrantis is included in that - he’s nice, but he doesn’t have a sense of right and wrong in the human understanding of the terms.  If you inverted Tyrantis you’d just get a big aggressive reptile driven by territorial rage, i.e. most other kaiju in fiction), and the humans are only slightly better suited to it.

But if there WERE a mirror universe of ATOM, I think it would be weirdly similar to the Monsterverse.  Why?  Well-

- I joked about this when it came out, but Emma Russel in Godzilla: King of the Monsrters 2019 is basically what Dr. Lerna would be if she was a villain instead of a hero, and not just because she’s performed by Vera Farmiga (my personal choice for who would play Lerna in a movie).  Dr. Lerna tries to figure out why giant monsters are coming out of the ground so she can help humanity survive them, Emma Russel releases monsters from the earth to destroy civilization.  Dr. Lerna continually tries to understand monsters better, Russel believes she knows more about the monsters than she actually does.  Hell, they both even have kaiju communication devices!  It’s actually really weird to me how similar these two are, given I wrote ATOM before KOTM came out, and KOTM came out only a few days after ATOM was published.

- The main human antagonists of ATOM are a shady organization that studies monsters, builds super-weapons, and has permission from the government to do whatever the fuck they want.  The main human protagonists in the Monsterverse are a shady organization that studies monsters and (eventually) builds super-weapons, but is constantly fighting to justify their existence to a government that thinks it doesn’t need them.  Monarch and Spooks are pretty good mirror counterparts, really.

- The big reptile kaiju at the heart of ATOM is an energetic and friendly creature who loves to roughhouse and generally doesn’t fully understand the stakes of any given conflict, but saves the day anyway through a mixture of plucky tenacity and earnest compassion.  The big reptile kaiju at the heart of the monsterverse is a grouchy, tired creature that is 110% done with all the bullshit other creatures heap on him and just wishes they would die so he could go back to napping.

- The big ape kaiju in ATOM is a sadist that revels in unnecessary destruction and has a mutually antagonistic relationship with humanity.  The big ape kaiju in the Monsterverse is a protective soul who tries to stop monsters that are unnecessarily destructive and protects most of the humans he comes across, provided they don’t start shit.

The similarities here are another reason I’m not super interested in a mirror universe ATOM story - inverting the characterizations of ATOM’s main cast kind of turns it into a copy of most of the prominent kaiju stories that already exist, and I think the way ATOM inverts a lot of the norms of the genre is one of its strengths.  It’s why the “canon” ATOM AU’s go less in a “what if we inverted it?” dynamic and instead play with “What if ATOM was set in different eras?” instead, often with a bit of a meta approach by also making the different AUs comparable to the many reboots the big names in kaiju fiction have had - i.e. a 1998 Dean Devlin/Roland Emmerich Godzilla style AU, a body-horror Shin Godzilla style reboot AU, a “what if this monster that had a sci-fi origin in its original film was given a mythic origin instead?” AU ala the 90′s Gamera movies, GMK, and that one lost 1994 Godzilla movie, etc.

#multiversefan

[jimpluff]

@wolffistpictures I’m basing it (since you asked twice) on my clearly more refined taste and better awareness of cultural impact.

KoTM is a far more flawed film that simply retreads ideas from earlier eras and looks to have barely broken even. Its references made easily-pleased fanboys happy, but what about the general public?

Shin Godzilla was a bold reimagining of the character that made bank and revitalized Godzilla’s image in his home country. The film captured a wide audience and addressed Japan’s disaster trauma and precarious international political position, giving it serious resonance like the original. There’s now a statue of Shin Godzilla in Hibiya Square to commemorate the film’s impact. Personal preference may vary, but most metrics rate Shin Godzilla the far superior film. But it doesn’t take an expert or a lot of meta-critic data to see which of the two is more expertly made. 

[mothra-against-all]

I’ve been holding off posting about kotm until now but the weekend is at its close and I’m going to assume many of you have seen the movie. If you haven’t I’ll be using the “#kotm spoilers” tag so blacklist if you care to avoid them.

There’s gonna be a lot of discussion in the next few days about what this movie means for the future of the MonsterVerse, but I’m going to avoid the more dour meta discussion for a little while while I bask in the pure, radioactive hype that kotm injected directly into my brain.

I’ll post my usual quasi-review in a few days, maybe next weekend. I’d like to see it one more time before I do.

#godzilla king of the monsters #godzilla kotm 2019

[teespix]

KOTM George Kittle Shirt

KOTM George Kittle Shirt

People who work hard stay with a company do earn more than minimum wage and McDonald’s is an entry-level job they also reward those who choose that as a career! That’s awesome! Send it over to Mitch, and we’ll drag it out and let it play out in public. Same as the Wikileaks trickle during the KOTM George Kittle Shirt election cycle. The only reason he’s n a hurry now that Nunes found a clause for…

View On WordPress

[ckret2]

Honestly I never really got where the "dumb and harmless Kevin" memes came from because personally I HC him as being the most DANGEROUS of the three heads. Ichi is the ringleader who boasts his superiority and keeps the other heads in check, Ni is the no-nonsense fighter who simply wants to destroy anything thag stands in his way, but Kevin? He's the one who's the most actively sadistic, like when he licks Godzilla's face before tearing into his throat when they drained his energy in KOTM...

Sometimes I kinda like “Kevin is the most dangerous” solely because it bucks against the fandom trend lol.

But like, I don’t really wonder where the memes came from? He licks thing, he got roared at/bitten, and he got decapitated; that’s all it takes to extrapolate “he does goofy things and he’s out of step with the other two,” particularly when those are the only moments in the movie when any of them are obviously/overtly differentiated from the other two in a way that’s easy to catch/see on a single watch through. (Do you know how many times I had to rewatch the scene where they bite the power plant before I was 100% sure it was Ichi instead of Ni that bit it? And after squinting through the scene where they drain Goji I’m STILL not totally sure that it’s San instead of Ichi who licks him. The fight scenes are very dark...) And from “goofy and out of step” it’s not very hard to push that characterization just a little farther to “dumb and harmless.”

So like! It’s not like I don’t understand it! I just don’t agree lol.

#ghidorah #kotm #godzilla #meta #anonymous #ask

[ckret2]

Kevin as Ghidorah’s lookout

KOTM is available! You know what that means: rewatching scenes in slow motion, backwards and forwards, frame-by-frame, to try to get a better sense for a giant three-headed lizard’s personalities!

Let’s talk about Lefty San Kevin, the odd head out. Best known for getting bitten, butted, and barked at by Ichi within their first couple minutes awake, because he keeps getting distracted from what they’re supposed to be doing.

Proposal: Kevin’s most defining individuating character trait isn’t distractibility, but environmental watchfulness. He’s not slacking on the job when he looks around; instead, his job is specifically to pay attention to the environment when the other two heads aren’t.

In Antarctica, when Ghidorah first realizes Godzilla is approaching, they look around for him. Ni glances a bit to the right, Ichi sorta looks around in front of them, and Kevin is the only one to twist completely around backwards to check their rear. He’s the only one making a real, serious check. You can see from his spines how much he’s turned himself around:

When Godzilla bites Ni’s neck, Ichi (on the right) comes up to retaliate:

And while Ichi is digging into Godzilla’s shoulder and Ni has been dropped down out of the shot, Kevin rises up on the left and just watches. He’s got his full attention focused on Godzilla, but he neither draws back out of fear nor dives in to attack. Remaining back, out of the battle, to provide a long-distance view of their enemy:

If Kevin had joined the fight, none of them would be able to see what Godzilla was doing. He gets closer and roars, but while Ni is in Godzilla’s hand and Ichi continues trying to rip through his shoulder, he still doesn’t join the fight. He’s still monitoring:

After a few shots of what the humans are doing, Ni’s the one biting Godzilla and Ichi’s the one in his hand, and STILL Kevin is just watching:

When Godzilla is powering up his atomic breath, while Ichi is making direct eye contact with Godzilla and, presumably, daring him to blink first, Kevin laser focuses on Godzilla’s glowing tail. His focus shifts from Godzilla’s face to his tail the moment it starts glowing, and he remains almost motionless watching it while Ichi is weaving around:

And presumably because he’s paying attention to Godzilla’s tail, Ghidorah’s got enough advanced notice to easily dodge Godzilla’s blast and simultaneously prepare a counterattack (the gravity beams visible glowing in their throats), which would otherwise have taken several seconds if they’d had to dodge first and then prepare to counterattack:

So! It seems likely that checking the environment, providing a long-distance viewing angle from which to see their opponent, and remaining alert to oddities in their environment that might signal danger is Kevin’s specific role on the team. His tendency to get distracted checking out the humans/tasting their barbecued remains is probably:

1) only a problem because, if he’s looking at the humans down low, he’s not doing his real job monitoring their surroundings. If that wasn’t his job, Ichi wouldn’t be so determined to get Kevin’s head back up so he can focus on protecting their back.

2) also a side-effect of his real job: if he’s trained and/or mentally wired to be the one to monitor their surroundings for oddities, then he’s also the one more likely to notice and pay attention to mundane oddities like little humans.

#king ghidorah #ghidorah #godzilla #king of the monsters #kotm #meta

[ckret2]

what are ichi, ni, and san attracted to individually?

Oh man I found my draft of this buried way deep in my docs, I meant to finish answering this ask weeks ago. How long have I been not working on this? Dang.

Anyway.

I've made some posts about who each of them are individually attracted to, but I haven't done one yet on what each of them individually finds attractive, so sure! A lot of the below will also discuss the love interests each of them has expressed attraction to, to the extent that each of their individual love interests reflect their individual tastes.

This post is 2700 words, buckle up.

Let's start off with what they've got in common—because what they've got in common vastly overwhelms their differences. All of their personal tastes have been heavily shaped by the trauma they went through, so both their collective tastes and individual tastes reflect that. Most prominently: they're all attracted to skilled/strong warriors, because 1) under the Xilien military they had it beaten into their heads that the only thing of worth about them is their ability to destroy, 2) at this point nearly all their hobbies and interests besides fighting have atrophied to nothing so fighting is the only couple bonding activity left to them, and 3) they live under constant terror that if they care about something, it will be destroyed/killed, because they ARE an instrument of destruction/death and that's the framework through which they see the universe—so a partner who can defend themself against anything that might try to destroy them is very appealing.

So you get a powerful warrior, that's gonna put a check mark on all three of their "ideal partner" wish lists.

They're also going to be collectively more attracted to people with dorat-esque physical traits. Scales, coloration in the yellow range, long flexible bodies, articulated wings, a one-head-and-four-limbs symmetrical body layout, snoutlike face with one mouth and two eyes... (When you've been around enough aliens, things like "symmetrical bodies with four limbs" and "one mouth and two eyes" are no longer a given.) Not that EVERYTHING is necessary for them to be attracted, of course, but little things add up. For example, if they were forced to choose and if he wasn't their Hated Nemesis, they'd find Godzilla more attractive than Kong on the basis of the fact that he's reptilian, he's got a tail, and he's got a row of spines down his back, and therefore he's more doratlike than Kong. However, Godzilla loses out to Manda, who's snakey, has horns, and is close to a color that dorats actually come in.

This isn't a conscious thing on their part—they don't, like, mentally tally up dorat-like traits. But if you went up to them and asked "hey, what traits do you consider hot?" and for some reason they decided to answer instead of incinerate you, the list of features they'd provide would end up pretty well describing a very handsome dorat. They don't REALIZE they're looking for dorat traits, but if you pointed it out to them they'd be like "Oh, huh. Well, yeah, basically. But a good looking dorat."

Plus some variations based on their original Dorat Sexualities; like, Ichi and Ni are both more attracted to smaller wings and longer/spiny tails, while San is the opposite. (Not that this is necessary. San looked at Gigan's itty mainly-for-decoration wings and went "yeah these are fine" and Ichi looked at Rodan's little nubby tail and went "sure, still cute.")

Other traits they've got a shared interest in: positivity, optimism, upbeat attitudes, all that, because they've got none themselves; self-confidence, courage, bravery; people who understand the war machine life—they don't feel wholly relaxed around people who don't have a kill count that can be measured in planets, they feel like they've got to keep up an artificially harmless façade not to be cast out by people who Don't Get It; someone they can see more as a "beast" than as a "person" because they feel like "people" are out of their league but "beasts" are their equals (which is an artificial divide that they absorbed from Xiliens, based on arbitrary measures of personhood like "does their culture wear clothes" or "did they invent their own technology or inherit someone else's").

Okay, so, on to their individual preferences. In order!!

Starting with Ichi! A.K.A. The Only One That Actually Has A Crush On Rodan. Most of the reasons he likes Rodan are because he hits a lot of the traits that all of them find attractive: great warrior;  he's pretty upbeat; he's brave; he gives them "oh this is definitely A Fellow Animal and not a Person" vibes; they think that he's totally down with destroying the world (because they don't realize that he didn't understand that that was what they were up to); and he makes them go "oh, he's like, 60% dorat? 65%?"—because of his appearance, because he (like them) survived the oxygen destroyer unscathed, and because he could break out of their siren song mind control. So those are all reasons for Ghidorah to like Rodan.

But it doesn't explain why Ichi likes him so much more than the other two.

And deep down... deep, deep down... I think Ichi just wants to get dicked down and Rodan looks like he can do the job.

But seriously though—Ghidorah, as a whole, has been suppressing a broad swath of their emotions for an extremely long time, ESPECIALLY their capacity to form emotional connections with anyone else. Ni and San have both cracked on that front—Ni's got an ongoing crush that he deals with by burying it alive, and San's got a star-crossed love half a galaxy away that he left behind kicking and screaming—but Ichi's never cracked. He's never let himself fall for anyone. Ni and San see "keep Ghidorah isolated, independent, self-contained" as an obligation; Ichi sees it as a duty—his duty to his other two parts.

None of the three is officially the leader/in charge, but Ichi ended up the de facto leader because back when they were even worse of a psychological wreck than they are now he was the one who just barely held it together enough to corral them and keep them going. He's the team Mom Friend, assuming that the mom in question is also a hardened drill sergeant without an ounce of natural maternal instinct, and the friends the drill sergeant mom friend is mothering are two traumatized soldiers trying to escape a postapocalyptic hellscape so they can forage for food. He's done a better job of not getting attached than the other two because he's felt most strongly that that's absolutely not an option.

But then they're on Earth, one of the worlds they've struggled the hardest to try to conquer, one of the most frustrating experiences of their post-Xilien-escape life; and they've just woken up from several millennia in ice, pissed the fuck off but also disoriented as hell and keenly aware of the fact that they lost a HELL of a fight in order to have been frozen; and mentally, they're somewhat rattled apart, they're still rebooting their usual emotional shields and defenses, they're still trying to get the mental pieces put back together, and Godzilla attacks them like a minute after they wake up and their brains are definitely not put back together—

There are holes in Ichi's mental defenses that have never been there before. He's vulnerable in a way he hasn't been before. It's not that something about Rodan is more attractive to him than it is to the other two—it's that the other two keep a good solid inch of iron around their capacity for affection, but Ichi keeps a nice fat five-foot-thick steel wall around his; and right now that wall is missing. He is completely exposed to the possibility of someone swooping in and seizing his heart—and Rodan went right for his chest with talons extended. And because just that one time, that one day, he's already shaken up, he's already vulnerable, Rodan gets through when the next day he might not.

And so even though the other two can also look at Rodan and agree, yes, the things Ichi is attracted to him for are indeed attractive, Ichi falls hard and fast when the other two don't.

Or, the tl;dr version:

Ichi has been suppressing his sexuality for several times longer than the human race has existed. For a moment—just a moment—all that suppression is gone; and so he's at risk of latching on to anyone that struck him as attractive. On this day, at this moment, he wants to get dicked down, and by god, Rodan looks like he can do the job.

And with all that written... because everything we've seen that Ichi is attracted to so far fits in with what Ghidorah-as-a-whole is into, I'm not sure that I've got anything specific to list that sets his tastes apart from the collective's. I might come up with some later, but since thus far they haven't been relevant in what I've been writing, I haven't come up with any in particular. Maybe it's just the case that all the things he's attracted to also happen to be things that The Whole is attracted to. Y'all wanna suggest specifics, I'll see if I like any that I can work in?

Ni's romantic tastes are best covered here, with the explanation of why he's into San:

https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/187039340467/anonymous-said-why-did-redacted-fall-for

And honestly... that's it. That's his taste. San is his taste. His taste is San. He had a babycrush on San since back when they were three individual dorats that barely knew each other, long before they were picked up for Highly Unethical Animal Experimentation, mutated, combined, and turned into Ghidorah; and realizing that one of the two people he was stitched together to and sharing brainspace with was the dude he had a crush on was one of the primary things that galvanized him to, like, survive. And since then having a secret limerent obsession with one of the two dudes he's fused to has determined almost everything about his romantic preferences, sexuality, and entire mental/emotional landscape.

What he liked San for originally can basically be boiled down to:

1) He was less "hivemindy" than other dorats, particularly dorats of his sex—San's sex is the one that's got less control over their empathic abilities, and so it's easy for a bunch of them to get together and catch the same emotion from each other like a fast-moving contagion. San had a tendency to go less "tunnel vision" on whatever The Group was thinking about and notice things going on outside their current activity—often with such great interest and attention that it broke The Group out of the zone as well, to their consternation—but Ni, who was uncomfortable in hiveminds, appreciated that about him.

2) Ni's of the dorat sex that's got stronger empathic abilities, but also a better ability to dim the degree to which they're active—and Ni liked to not just dim his ambient empathic field but also turn it off completely, because he didn't like others reading his feelings at all times. This is uncommon enough in dorats that it actually drove their owner to take him to the vet to make sure his head was okay. (And it was okay; he was just Extremely, Extremely Introverted by dorat standards.) Most dorats thought that this made Ni super weird/uncomfortable/off-putting. San thought it made him interesting, a unique novelty worth investigating. Ni appreciated that San didn't radiate Wild Discomfort in his presence.

3) San was, like, pretty hot. For a dorat. To other dorats. Adolescent dorats. Basically he was the cutest preteen snake in the room because he looked like a 14-year-old snake instead of a 12-year-old snake.

But that... was an extremely long time ago. And basically none of it applies anymore. What's being hivemindy or not matter when there's only three of you and you're always in and out of each other's heads? What's it matter that once upon a time long long ago San thought Ni was okay for shutting off access to his emotions when now there are only two people who CAN feel Ni's emotions/thoughts and both of them are equally chill & used to him keeping his mind closed/filtered to them? What's it matter that San was a cute baby snake when they're now three terrifyingly ancient monster snakes that were mutated to look almost identical?

So, by this point? What he's attracted to is, legitimately, "whatever San is like." His preferences shift so that they're always San-centric. San is the emotional rock Ni is clinging to.

... It's honestly kind of terribly unhealthy.

So if you asked him what he's attracted to, he'd say, like, "Oh, you know... someone who's observant, attentive... someone who's curious about his environment, likes learning... someone who appreciates the little things... uhh...... someone who's closer to the left shoulder than the right shoulder........." and then he'd peter out of traits to list because at this point Ichi, Ni, and San's identities are like 75% overlapped and there's not much room left in them for their individual differences.

But he wouldn't be interested in any of those listed traits if they were in somebody other than San.

(Ni is capable of being "interested" in other people—but it's 50% "I'm interested in you as a friend" and 50% "We, Ghidorah, currently in a mood to feel like an individual instead of like three people, are together interested in you romantically." Ghidorah slides back and forth between being "three-in-one" and being "one-from-three."

San's tastes are covered pretty thoroughly in the post about why he (and the rest of Ghidorah) is into Gigan:

https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/186622638902/more-on-the-relationship-between-gigan-and

Beyond all the reasons San likes Gigan that Ichi & Ni share—his skill in & passion for violence, his familiarity with what it's like to be an unwilling war weapon—he also likes his sense of humor, his ability to appreciate and revel in little details the way San does... and, probably more importantly than anything else, Gigan represented a way out.

All this time, Ghidorah has kept together and remained... if not "stable" in the sense of "emotionally healthy," then "stable" in the sense of "maintaining a mental balance well enough not to fall over"—but they're stable like a tightrope walker who's gotten really good at maintaining that balance on their tightrope, not like somebody who's standing on solid ground. And they maintain that balance through isolating themselves, never letting themselves get attached to any place or any thing or any one, never letting themselves linger in one spot for long, always moving on, on, on, on, back into space. They're that meme "If I keep my body moving and my mind occupied at all times, I will avoid falling into a bottomless pit of despair."

Which is all well and good, except "avoiding connecting with anything" does not adequately keep San's mind occupied, and the only reason he hasn't fallen into a bottomless pit of despair is because he's got two other people in his head just barely tugging him back from toppling in. But he's desperate for... a sense of continuity, a sense that he can invest something in life that won't vanish in three days, a sense that anything matters. He wants desperately to connect to something else—or someone else.

Gigan offers that connection—Gigan is someone safe they can connect to, because he has the same lifestyle as them. He's someone that San can let in... without them having to change their life at all.

So, that's what he's attracted to that sets him apart from the other two: he's attracted to escape routes. He falls for someone who can anchor them so they don't keep tumbling off into space, from world to world and apocalypse to apocalypse. He wants someone who can be an excuse for them to stop and hold still. Someone who's compatible with them, someone who's just like them, someone who burns worlds the same way they do, but is capable of wrapping their arms (wings? tails? whatever) around Ghidorah and holding them in one place—whether that's "one place" physically or emotionally.

He's just tired of floating through outer space in asteroids.

#king ghidorah #kotm #godzilla #rodan #gigan #headshipping #ghidorah #about my writing #headcanons #meta #anonymous #ask

[ckret2]

Can you describe what the fandom seems to have settled on with head #2?

From what I’m seeing, there’s a lot more variation in how Ni’s portrayed than there is in how Ichi and San are. But the traits I’ve been seeing pop up most frequently are:

Most aggressive in combat of the three (the first trait that was collectively assigned to him—arguably based on the movie itself, but rewatching it they seem to be about evenly matched)

The “second-in-command” of Ghidorah (basically based on the fact that his name is literally 2)

Has a hot temper, or at the least is notably grumpy

Is emotionally/mentally reserved/distant compared to the other two

Either has the unique ability to shut his thoughts off from the others when they can’t, or else they all have the ability but he tends to use it the most

Standoffish and snippy with the other two

The least interested in and most resistant to getting to know or getting close with other people/creatures

When they DO get close to someone, remains the most distant of the trio. Is either the last to catch feelings (or last to admit he caught feelings), or else never develops them but gets used to this new person in his life as a platonic friend

Quietest of the three, when he’s not being aggressive/roaring

Tends to have stronger feelings toward San than either of the other heads have toward any of the other heads, whether those strong feelings are disdainful or affectionate

#1 most likely to stir up internal head-to-head Ghidorah-drama (Ghidramah™)

When he’s not being the Hotheaded-est one, he’s being the Coldest one. (Not necessarily contradictory; acts like an iced-over volcano, tends to be cold until the moment he suddenly erupts)

This is based most heavily on how @cant-blink and I have been writing Ghidorah—as far as I can tell, at the moment we’re currently the most prolific Ghidorah writers, unless someone else out there is secretly chugging out two fics a day—but I’ve seen quite a few of the above used by other artists/writers, and other fic writers have been picking up the same tropes even more in the last few weeks; particularly @fauvester’s human AU and @ridicbird’s comics also hit a decent amount of the above points, from what I’ve seen.

None of us are writing him the exact same way (I’m p sure that within two minutes of meeting, my Ni and GB’s Ni would make it their life missions to murder each other), but the above are the average points of commonality that a lot of writers seem to be working with.

#ni #king ghidorah #ghidorah #godzilla #kotm #meta #anonymous #ask

[ckret2]

Ghidorah as Siren

So we’re all in agreement that the “Alpha Dog” theory of animal interactions is a myth and that we’re therefore allowed to say either “well I guess MonsterVerse kaiju behavior can fit the alpha pack model since they’re fictional species even though it doesn’t apply to real world animals” or “I choose to believe that Mark What’s-His-Name was totally and completely wrong when he said the titans have alphas and therefore I’m free to headcanon up any other theory I want to explain the titans’ apparent behavior,” right?

In that case, and running with option #2, let me propose a different explanation for how Ghidorah commanded an entire planet of titans: not “Ghidorah as False King,” but “Ghidorah as Siren.”

The roar he uses to awaken and command the titans is strange, alien, and multi-layered; and it’s also kind of musical, like a trumpet. And even in past movies, his roars have often been somewhat musical. So what if his roar, to the ears of the titans, isn’t “GRRR, I’M THE STRONGEST, EVERYONE HAS TO WAKE UP AND FOLLOW ME NOW” but rather, a hypnotic song? Not terrifyingly forceful, but irresistibly persuasive?

In one prior movie, Ghidorah is established as originating from the mutation of three genetically engineered creatures that have the interesting ability to sense feelings. Elements of that could be slid into KOTM Ghidorah, making him an empath as well; except, instead of having the ability to read emotions, he has the ability to write emotions. Such a power laced into a siren song would definitely be enough to make a planet of titans begin rampaging when they didn’t want to. The fact that they stopped rampaging the moment the conflicting ORCA signal started—even though the extremely newly-finished ORCA probably isn’t even programmed to say anything or give any commands, just to make a noise that conveys “hey this is a Godzillahuman”—means the titans probably didn’t stop because the ORCA was any more compelling than whatever Ghidorah said, but because it interrupted Ghidorah’s control.

It’s notable that, of the two titans who resist Ghidorah’s song, one of them is all but dead at the time (and therefore possibly not in a place to be controlled), and the other one has been historically shown to have incredibly strong telepathic abilities.

#ghidorah #king ghidorah #godzilla #kotm #spoilers #meta #headcanons

[ckret2]

hi, im a follower from in short supply who isnt familiar with godzilla, but i love your general worldbuilding and meta, including the godzilla stuff ive read. how friendly would you say your rodorah fic and other godzilla fic is to a relative outsider?

Considering that I was a complete outsider to Godzilla fandom until about four months ago, I'd say pretty friendly!

Nearly everyone who's currently writing Godzilla fics—ESPECIALLY those of us writing shippy stuff—rode in on the wave of hype following "Godzilla: King of the Monsters," which just came out at the end of May. So if you can get your hands on a copy of that and watch it, you'll have seen the one piece of Godzilla media that all of us have in common. That's it! A single two-hour movie and you've got all the canon you need to keep up with pretty much everything we're writing.

And if you can't get your hands on it, there's not just one, but two Godzilla wikis to give you summaries of the movie, and YouTube's currently drowning in HD clips of the big fights in KOTM.

Since diving headfirst into Godzilla fandom, we've all been gradually binging our way through the older movies—independently and wildly out of order, so none of us are working off the same internal repertoire of movies lmao. Most of us have also seen Godzilla 2014 (the direct prequel to KOTM), but I'd bet even that isn't universal.

(I could get you more movie recs if you want, but I'm thinking your priority right now is "as somebody who knows next to NOTHING about Godzilla, what's the minimum knowledge base I'd need to keep up with the fics?" so I'm gonna keep it bare bones.)

And while the lore can get complex—you can dig into deep themes about nuclear weaponry and war and pollution or the complex relationships of dozens of human characters—for the purposes of knowing enough to understand most fanfic? The Necessary KOTM Lore is pretty simple. Godzilla's a giant radioactive lizard, he's terrifying to humans, he swims, and he's either in charge of the other big dudes or he's just determined to keep them from stirring up shit, depending on how you choose to interpret canon. Mothra's a moth, she's the friendly one that actually likes humans, she hatches as a larva and cocoons and turns into a moth and dies and is reincarnated in another egg as another larva over and over, and she's actually considered a goddess whereas the other titans don't get that label. Rodan is a pteranodon that lives in a volcano and we're pretty sure his only goal in life is to get into fights (and, considering his track record in the movie, probably lose them). Ghidorah is a three-headed lightning-spitting golden space dragon and Godzilla's Official Nemesis, his only goal is to destroy life on Earth, he's somehow capable of controlling/commanding other titans, and his heads have different personalities. Godzilla and Mothra are a symbiotic team (what "symbiotic" means is up to fan interpretation) and Ghidorah recruits previously-neutral Rodan to fight by his side by kicking his ass. Sometimes humans are mentioned. People like Madison because she's a kid, she's got survival skills, and when Ghidorah roars at her she roars back. That's really everything you need to know to make sense of most KOTM fic.

Those of us who have seen older movies have been working some of that lore into KOTM-verse fics. Example: I regularly bring up Gigan; he's a character introduced in Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972), and I included him because he had a great Asshole Villains Working Together And Having Fun dynamic with King Ghidorah in that movie. For people who haven't seen a movie with Gigan? I figure they're googling his name, looking at his character art, reading a couple paragraphs off his wiki page, and going "okay I know just enough about him to make sense of his role in this fanfic" and continuing to read. That's what I've been doing when I run into a character I haven't seen yet in someone else's work. None of us have seen all the movies yet so we're all googling each other's references at all times. And most creators I've seen have been perfectly happy to answer "who's that character, where are they from?" questions that folks have about their fics/art. I know I am!

So, the tl;dr is that you really need to know very little in order to understand the fics. The more you know, the more allusions/references you can pick up to other pieces of Godzilla canon; but if you don't pick them up, then they might as well be OCs and headcanons and you can still make sense of them that way.

#anonymous #ask #godzilla #kotm #about my writing

[sepublic]

How I think Destoroyah can be portrayed in the Monsterverse

With the usage of the Oxygen Destroyer in the Monsterverse, a lot of people have been discussing the possibility of Destoroyah being introduced. Personally, I’m a fan of the idea, and I’ve got a few things to say about this.

For starts, if they do introduce Destoroyah, I really want Legendary to emphasize just how destructive he can be. After all, he gets power from the Oxygen Destroyer, a weapon meant to kill life. So imagine that every time another living being, be it Godzilla or another Kaiju, touches Destoroyah, they suffer immense pain and agony just from skin contact. Due to the destructive nature of Destoroyah, his cells are constantly killing life. If Destoroyah attacks Godzilla, we could see the wound quickly becoming necrotic, or something along those lines, due to the damaging nature of the Oxygen Destroyer.

And because of this nature, it’d be really cool to see just how at odds with nature Destoroyah is. Like, he can just be in a forest, and then leave without going on a rampage... But regardless, the forest dies anyway, because his presence is that destructive to the surrounding oxygen and life. Every step he takes leaves literal dust and dead plants in his wake. The air around Destoroyah quickly becomes unbreathable, suffocating anyone who gets too close, and Destoroyah is constantly breathing out toxic, oxygen-destroying breaths every second. As the allegory for the Oxygen Destroyer, humanity’s most destructive weapon, Destoroyah should be portrayed as the antithesis to life.

Not to mention, this would put him at odds with Godzilla in a thematic sense- Both were created as allegories for an incredibly powerful weapon that humanity created. Destoroyah is also specifically tailored as an embodiment of Death that Godzilla can’t even touch without hurting himself, raising the stakes. On a meta-level, Destoroyah can also be at odds with Godzilla due to his nature;

In-universe, Godzilla is a force of nature and balance. So contrast that in the Monsterverse by making Destoroyah a destructive force of death. By having this thematic conflict, the film can more or less acknowledge how Godzilla was originally devised as an unnatural allegory for humanity’s hubris and destruction, and have said allegory exist in Destoroyah. Godzilla’s roles as first a warning of mankind’s arrogance and later a hero can come full-circle with his battle with Destoroyah.

In that sense, the Monsterverse can still have a Kaiju who was once a regular animal but was heavily mutated by a dangerous weapon and now goes on a rampage as a testament to humanity’s sins. Destoroyah can be like Shin Godzilla in terms of backstory, character, and role- But a lot more villainous and spiteful, because look at him. You don’t give a character THAT kind of design and don’t go whole-hog with him being the embodiment of evil. Make him a monument to human sin in less of the sense that he’s a victim of it, but rather a representation of how admittedly-awful we can be.

Now on a semi-related tangent, introducing Destoroyah as an Oxygen Destroyer come to life, could also be an opening for Mecha Ghidorah. In his first and only appearance, Mecha Ghidorah actually played a heroic role, even if he was being controlled by someone else. Perhaps Legendary can reprise that role- We know from KOTM that Ghidorah is immune to the Oxygen Destroyer, so perhaps he’ll be the key to defeating Destoroyah.

Just... imagine the protagonists finding Ghidorah’s regenerating form and outfitting him with cybernetics, and using him to fight against Destoroyah. Mecha Ghidorah does a lot of damage, allowing Godzilla to deal the final blow against the monster. 

#Godzilla #destoroyah #mecha ghidorah #kotm #kotm spoilers #oxygen destroyer #Speculation #suggestions #legendary #monsterverse #King Ghidorah

[mechagalaxy]

Mycroft Holmes #710713 with Joe Kump #103560 - 300 Club Interview

300 Club Interview Mycroft Holmes #710713 with Joe Kump #103560

….From a pre-recorded segment… We were trying to get Joe on comms but the Pirate King was jamming the signal so we ended up doing this the slow way. At any rate here’s a short Q&A with one of the newest members of the 300 club.

Mycroft: What was the first contest you earned a medal in and do you remember any details about it? Joe: My 1st KOTM was KOTM 4, Porktober 3263. That’s about all the detail I can recall from that long ago.

M: Understandable. What clan did you get your start with? What is your current clan and how many clans have you been a part of? J: The 1st Clan I was in was the First Legion. Current clan - Warlocks, been a part of 9 clans thru the years.

M: Quite the mover and shaker. At what point did you decide you were going to make a push for level 300? J:As a long time player, 300 just happened.

M: Are you making an active push to go for level 400? J: I'm sure 400 will get here someday. Not pushing for any level.

M: Do you participate in the Meta/Multiverses? J: I played the Meta/Multiverse to get the special mecha. Other than that I don't care one way or the other.

M: There have been some additions to the Clan Wars format over the years, betting and 100% drop items in the raids for example. Is there anything else you would like to see? J: Specialist add to the game. They can make players competitive.

M: Perhaps a few more choices or a rotating list of what is available for some variation? A more recent addition is the wave challenge. So for there are two formats for it. The first is a battle for the top similar to Circuit Battles. Do you fight in these? J: I do like the wave challenges.

M: Nice weapons there if you can score in the top five. Some really impressive weapons and equipment in the Vortex. Do you ever try for those items? Why or why not? J: Yes I have done a couple vortex. I do them when I can afford them.

M: As do most of us, I’m sure. Are there any features or variations you would like to see added to the game? J: I have seen changes in this game, most improve the game play. Always like to see more mechas of all different ton weights. More equipment/weapons are also good. A player can customize their mechas to there style.

M: True, there seems to be new weapons, equipment, and even mecha available every time you turn around. That’s a good thing. Customization would be nice if it could be worked in.

….we now return you to your regularly scheduled mecha smashing….