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ladynearthelake · 1 year

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Untitled Pacific Rim Fic

In the spirit of fic amnesty, I decided to post a work in progress from like three years ago that I still think about sometimes, but have no motivation to work on any more.

This was inspired by @skull-bearer ‘s Avengers AU that they posted both here and on AO3. Here’s the link for the curious! I still go back and read it sometimes when I need that Newmann love in my life.

Please enjoy this loose collection of scenes that deserved to see the light of day! It’s just over 6k with some violence and some swearing. Very much not beta read, so apologies for any spelling and grammar errors.

~~~

Newt stretches his arms above his head as he pushes back from his desk. It’s been quiet in the lab tonight, and he’s spent most of the day convincing himself that he’s going to cut out early. He’s reached a good stopping point for the evening. He checks his bag again before closing down his work station and heading for the door.

Newt’s needed a night to himself, and he knows exactly how he’s going to spend it. He pulls his well-worn hoodie on, carefully avoiding the very large goons that his benefactor employs. Most of Hannibal Chau’s organization knows that Newt’s not to be messed with, but that doesn’t stop Newt from treading lightly. At least, he does when he remembers to keep his big, obnoxious mouth shut.

Work in the city had been impossible to find when Newt first arrived. He’d accumulated an upsetting amount of debt in his undergrad and was looking at even more for his doctorate program. The money problem seemed insurmountable, until he stumbled into Hannibal Chau’s orbit. Newt can’t even remember how it happened exactly. One day he was in a coffee shop, close to tears about trying to find work that could cover all his bills and expenses, and then suddenly the most powerful mobster in town was laying an arm across his shoulders and offering him the moon.

It was the stupidest decision he’d ever made. Newt had been a bit of a shining star throughout his academic career. Chau was the type of person that followed those developments. He wanted access to Newt’s brain, and Newt handed it over. There was less and less time for school. Most of his time was spent in the lab or picking up bartending shifts at Chau’s various clubs on his off nights.

He was in the lab the first time he heard Chau rail on about the new hero in town. That was all it took for Newt to spiral into an evening of shaky YouTube videos and eye witness accounts on Reddit forums. He kept his own tiny studio apartment that was a fair distance away from Chau’s operation, and there he started to accumulate data. Newt wanted to know everything about the new guy in town that was ballsy enough to stand up to his boss. Some nights, after he got home entirely too late, he’d climb onto the fire escape and just watch the skyline, hoping for a glimpse of the hero. He’d fantasize about pulling on a mask himself and messing with Chau’s operations.

Tonight, Newt’s going to stake out the neighborhood with the most sightings and try to get a glimpse. He’s had a few other times where he’s tried, but he has a good feeling about tonight.

The neighborhood isn’t great, but Newt puts up his hood and sticks close to the well-lit streets. He knows how to make himself small and non-threatening. He can be invisible if he needs to be.

Briefly, the very stupid idea of getting himself into trouble flits across his mind, but Newt decides against it. Being in Chau’s organization, he’s taken his share of beatings. It’s never fun, and the recovery interferes with getting his work done. When Chau sets a deadline, he didn’t allow for delays.

Newt tries to not think about his boss any more than he absolutely has to. He finds it depressing.

The city is eerily quiet as Newt wanders. He fantasizes about what he’ll do if he runs into the hero. Newt’s only seen blurry photos posted on the various forums that he’d been haunting, but he was able to compile an approximation in his mind. That approximation also happened to be pretty cute. He couldn’t help himself. His situation being what it was, Newt lets himself fantasize about a handsome hero carrying him away from it all.

With a heavy sigh, Newt glances down the alley he happens to be passing. An impossible flicker of light caught his eye before a moving van flies towards the opening. Newt stares dumbly at the vehicle, unable to scream or move. Another light flashes in front of him, and the bumper of the car smashes into a golden wall that appears to protect him. Newt watches the van crash against it and then flip over his head into the empty street.

Finding himself able to breathe again, Newt looks from the van and back into the alley. The light from the barrier retreats into the darkened shadows as he takes off in a dead sprint, fumbling with his phone as he runs. He doesn’t think as he hurls himself further into danger, but he skips to a stop beside a large dumpster. His eyes can barely understand what he’s seeing.

The hero is awash in golden light. They hover above the ground as they artfully dodge between the goons in very familiar colors.

Newt presses back against the dumpster, his phone forgotten in his hand. He sneaks a glance around the side of his hiding spot as an errant goon is thrown his way. He pretends that he doesn’t recognize the unconscious body laying prone before him as he takes in the sight before him. From this angle, Newt can see the hero’s eyes. The golden light reflects against chocolate brown eyes, and Newt’s heart stutters in his chest.

He’s so distracted, Newt doesn’t realize his dumpster is being surrounded by the light and chucked to the opposite end of the alley, stopping two other goons from escaping. The hero doesn’t see him, but blazes after the others.

Newt should leave, but he can’t help but stay to watch. The hero’s movements are fluid and powerful. They use their light to dispatch the last two fleeing men, and Newt can’t help the smile that pulls across his face. He wants to run up and ask a thousand questions, but he’s already overstayed his welcome. He turns to go but finds that his body won’t move. He’s warm all of a sudden, and he’s being spun around. Soon, he’s hovering at eye level with the hero who has a hand cocked back and ready to attack.

Newt blinks stupidly.

‘Oh, forgive me.’ The hero says with a muffled British accent. Their eyes turn apologetic before the light recedes and Newt is set back on his feet. ‘Sorry about the van. No part of the it hit you, did it?’

Newt feels the brown eyes scan over his body as he shakes his head. He can’t find words in the moment. He’s slipped in the hero’s eyes and can’t seem to pull himself out. Beneath the hood, Newt notes the wisps of dark hair across their forehead. They’re taller than Newt too, even though that isn’t any great feat. They’re floating, but if their feet were touching the ground, they would still have a few inches on Newt.

An awkward moment hangs between the them before the hero clears their throat behind their scarf. Newt finally pulls himself out of his stupor.

‘Shit, sorry.’ He rubs the back of his head and nervously laughs. ‘Got a little...um...jammed up there. And no! The van didn’t hit me, so thanks for that.’

‘I should be a bit more careful about where I toss my toys.’

Their accent is slowly melting Newt’s insides. He wonders how inappropriate it would be to throw himself into a super powered stranger’s arms and smooch until they both forget about literally anything else.

‘Yeah...I think the pedestrians around here would appreciate that.’

Sirens start to grow louder as Newt tries to school his face into anything but panic.

‘Oh dear.’ The hero says. ��We can’t have them finding you here among these miscreants, can we?’ They slap their hands together and their upper body radiates with the golden light. Newt barely has a second to marvel at it up close before the hero scoops him up. They fly straight up and then hover for a moment before a proper landing area is selected. The sirens fade into the night as the hero lightly lands in a small park.

‘Apologies.’ They say as they set Newt back on his feet.

Newt’s hands have curled into fists and tucked themselves under his chin during the short flight. He is sure his eyes are wide with wonder. He could swear he saw a hint of amusement in the hero’s eyes.

‘No worries, dude.’ Newt says, trying not to sound as breathless as he feels. He smooths his hands down the front of this jacket and sticks them in his pockets. He doesn’t need them for anymore fangirling poses. ‘Uh, thanks for getting me out of there.’

‘The least I could do after nearly crushing you with a van full of stolen goods.’

Newt’s sure the hero winks at him before they turn and fly off. He stands there for a moment longer before realizing he didn’t ask for a name or anything. He reaches for his cell phone so he can figure out where he is, but comes up with empty pockets and a stab of fear in his chest. Did he drop it in the alley? Or did it fall out during their flight?

‘Shit.’ Newt kicks at the grass and starts walking in a random direction. Most of his stuff was backed up, but he doesn’t like the idea of anyone knowing he had an interaction with the hero. He isn’t too keen on that information getting back to Chau. His boss is volatile enough as it is.

Thoughts of his phone with the very obviously him cracked screen and Godzilla case keep Newton up all night. He finds his way home and manages to keep the panic tamped down until he is in his bed with the broken springs. He tries not to think about how Hannibal has informants in the police. He’s pretty sure he didn’t actually record anything during the encounter, but if anything is on the phone it could be bad.

When he walks into the warehouse the next morning, everything seems fine. Newt makes his way over to his little corner of the universe and settles in for another long day. There is a bit of tension in the air, but that has been the norm in Chau’s properties since the hero appeared a few months back. Chau has the biggest operation in town. He is into everything a criminal could think to make their way in. Anything the hero busts up directly affects Chau’s bottom line.

About halfway through the day, Chau bursts into the warehouse. Newt tries to duck behind his computer monitors. A few of his goons scurry in after him, and even with his headphones in, Newt can tell they are discussing the bust from last night. He turns off his music but leaves his headphones in. He wants to hear what they have to say...

Newt’s headphones are ripped out of his ears and a massive hand grabs his chin. His body slams against the wall beside his work station. Chau forces his jaw upwards.

‘Somethin’ funny, Geiszler?’

Newt’s eyes betray how terrified he is. Chau usually reserves his fury for the muscle. He’s raised his voice to Newt before, sure. He’s even screamed, but he’s never violently touched him. He swallows the sarcastic reply of your men’s complete incompetence in the face of the hero and just stares at his boss.

Chau snarls and pulls Newt away from the wall. ‘I just asked you a question.’ He states before slamming Newt back again. His head hits hard, and he sees stars for a moment.

‘N-no, sir.’ He manages to reply.

‘You’re worse than these idiots, you know that?’ Chau’s voice is low and dangerous. His breath smells of too many cigars. ‘You’re supposed to be the brains around here. Build them something that they can use against that hero fuck.’

Newt doesn’t bother to tell Chau that his grad work had been in biology. He has tinkered with machines, but he’s pretty sure he can’t build a weapon to take out someone with supernatural powers.

‘Didn’t Geiszler run into that do-gooder once?’ A voice calls from the other side of the lab. Newt has never been in the good graces of the Chau’s goons. They think he’s coddled. To an extent, they’re right. It’s Fang, the bald woman who would kill without a thought for Chau.

Hannibal misses the glare that Newt throws at her as he looks back towards the voice. When the mobster turns back to Newt, he smiles cruelly.

‘Is that so?’

Newt swallows with effort around Hannibal’s steel grip. ‘It was just once. They....I didn’t get a good look. It was late, and they weren’t close.’

‘What did you see?’ Chau demands. ‘You must have seem something.’

‘I didn’t get that close.’ Newt lies, remembering the sensation of gliding through the air in the hero’s strong arms. ‘They may have been a guy. I don’t want to make any assumptions, but--’

Chau rolls his eyes before turning the other gathered in the room. ‘Give us some space.’

Newt watches the pleased looks on the thugs as they leave the lab. Each of them assumes Newt’s in for the beating of a life time. Newt’s pretty sure they’re right. He flinches when Chau turns back to him, but instead of violence, Newt’s released from Chau’s grasp. His knees wobble, but Newt manages to catch himself before he can slide down the wall.

‘Tell me the truth ‘cause I’ll know if you’re lying.’ Hannibal starts. ‘You go looking for that asshole?’

Keenly aware of Chau’s ability to discern lies from fact and not wanting to push his luck, Newton nods. ‘I...um....I find them fascinating. From a purely biological stand point. I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t think--’

‘I don’t need the full dissertation, kid.’ Chau straightens Newt’s shirt collar as he talks and then pats his cheek. ‘You were able to find him.’

Newt nods again.

Chau steps back from Newt and rights the chair Newt had been sitting in before Chau lost it. He places a hand on Newt’s shoulder and gently eases him into the chair. Newt tries to look back at him, but Chau’s other hand comes to a rest on his opposite shoulder. Newt stares ahead at his computer screen.

‘I know you regret taking the deal we made when you first got to town.’

Newt nervously swallows again. He isn’t sure where this is going.

‘So, let me give you an out.’

Newt stills. He isn’t sure that he’s heard correctly.

‘You find me a way to take this asshole down, and I’ll let you out of the deal.’

Newt licks his lips before he can find his voice. ‘What?’

‘Don’t make me change my mind, kid. This guy is fucking with my profits, and I’m getting desperate. Losing you’d be a real kick in the nuts, but if I can use that big brain of yours to take this guy down, then so be it.’

There are tears fighting to roll down Newt’s cheeks as he considers what this would mean. He’d get to go back to grad school. He could finish his degree and get a proper job. He could travel back home to see his father and his uncle. He could live his life as he wanted.

As much as this is everything Newt could want, a small voice dissents in the back of his mind. Chau is a mobster. He can’t be trusted. Newt could deliver the hero to Chau on a silver platter, and Chau could still decide that Newt is his.

He remembers the nights on his fire escape, hoping for a glance of the hero that’s trying to make this city a better place.

If he doesn’t take the deal, Newt is sure that Chau will just make his life a living hell anyway. The fact that he’s even offering something like this is insane. Chau won’t offer it again, and next time he asks, it won’t be so nicely. There really isn’t a choice, is there?

‘Yeah...’ Newt hears his voice answer. ‘Yeah. You’ve got a deal.’

Hermann manages to get through the day despite the soreness in his hip and his back. He has been pushing too hard during his evening excursions, and his magic can only sooth those hurts so much. The aches and pains have been catching up to him, and he considers taking an evening off in the near future.

He mulls the notion over as he takes a cab back to his flat. Can a man who has dedicated himself to protecting a city take an evening off? If something were to happen, Hermann doesn’t know that he could forgive himself. Perhaps tonight he can just do a quick patrol around the city. Just an hour or two, and then come home for an adequate night of sleep.

Though, Hermann’s restless nights aren’t all about the job. He tries to convince himself not to think about the young man with the green eyes and freckles from the other night. He’s only moderately successful. As the cab pulls up to his building, Hermann shoos the thoughts from his head. He decides to makes his rounds quickly and without distraction.

Hermann pays the driver and makes his way upstairs. The elevator ride is slow and tedious, and the doors open sluggishly when he reaches his floor. Being inside is stifling. He wants to fly.

After a quick dinner, Hermann takes a half dose of his medication for the pain in his hip. It will help, but he’ll still be sharp. A fair trade off. In the privacy of his home, Hermann isn’t afraid to use his magic to brace his leg. If the blinds are closed, which they usually are, he’ll even float across the floor. Tonight, he strolls into his study and pulls the false bookcase on the far wall open. He admires his costume, simple and light with a hood and a scarf that covers the lower half of his face. It hid his blush well the other night.

And now, Hermann’s back to thinking of the easy weight of the green-eyed man in his arms and the awe on his face during their short flight to the park. His cheeks flush as he allows himself a moment to dwell before changing. He pushes the bookcase back into its locked position before walking out to his balcony. With his hood and scarf in place, Hermann regards his city. He closes his eyes and takes in the noise. A deep breath, and he pushes off, flying into the night sky.

‘To what do I owe this sudden visit, Geiszler?’ Chau asks from behind his desk. He lights up a cigar as he regards Newt with barely concealed annoyance.

Newt takes a deep breath, pushes away the last desperate rational thought in his head that’s screaming at him to get out of there, and strides up to the desk. Chau eyes him suspiciously as Newt plants his feet.

‘The deal’s off.’

For a moment, Chau isn’t sure that he heard correctly. He takes another long drag of his cigar before setting it in the ashtray on his desk. ‘Care to elaborate?’

‘With...with the hero. It’s off. I’m not doing it anymore.’

Chau wears dark glasses that make it impossible to see where he’s looking, but Newt can feel his eyes boring into him.

‘I’m sorry.’ Chau pushes back from his desk and stands from his chair. Newt tries to stand at his full height, but it doesn’t matter. Chau moves around the desk and looms over him. ‘One more time?’ He waves his hand at Newt, waiting for him to repeat what he said.

Newton clears his throat. ‘I said that I’m out. I want to go back to our original agreement.’

Chau throws his head back again and laughs. Newt shrinks back as he does, but Chau grabs his shoulder. HIs thick fingers hurt through Newt’s jacket and pin Newt in place.

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought you said.’ Chau says. ‘Oh, I haven’t laughed like that in a while. But let me get this straight. You come in here saying you want out of our deal. You’ve been around long enough to know that’s not really how things work.

‘But now I need to ask myself. Why would he want out of the deal? I thought it was a pretty solid one. I know you hate working here. You don’t hide it very well. So, knowing that, I have only one conclusion to come to.’

‘And what’s that?’ Newt asks. He’s very nervous all of a sudden, but he can’t move away. Chau’s grip is firm on his shoulder.

‘You’ve taken a shine to this hero fuck. You like him, so you figured you’d come into my office and try to do the noble thing. Which, I’ll admit, I didn’t see coming from you.’

Newt pales as Chau’s hand moves from his shoulder to his throat. His fingers tighten around Newt’s neck and pull him in close. Newt’s hands fly up to Chau’s wrist, trying and failing to get any kind of leverage.

‘But, I don’t know why you’d want out. I said I’d let you walk away if you gave me a way to take that fucker down. And you have.’ Chau smiled. ‘You walked right into my office and all but told me you both care about each other. Thanks, kid.’

Newt's eyes go wide as he realizes just how stupid he’s been. He fights to get out of Chau’s grip, but he isn’t conscious for long enough to make a difference. Chau punches him in the side of the head, and everything goes black.

Hannibal holds Newt’s unconscious form up by the front of his shirt as he rifles through his pockets. He eventually finds the cell phone he’s looking for and flips through the contacts. Newt wasn’t the most social person, so he only had a few people listed.

Finding what he assumes is the appropriate number, Chau initiates the call.

It rings several times before an angry man answers.

‘Newton, I believe I made myself very clear when I said--’

‘The kid was never one to take a hint.’ Chau interrupted. ‘No matter how clear you may have been. Trust me.’

The line goes quiet for a moment. ‘Who is this? Why do you have Newton’s phone?’

‘You’re a smart man. Do the math.’

‘If you’ve hurt him--’

‘Spare me the speech. We can discuss your little friend’s health tonight. 11pm. There’s an abandoned subway station on State between First and Second. Eleven sharp, hear me?’

A curt affirmative comes across the line before Chau hangs the phone up. He drops Newt to the floor first, followed by the cell phone. Newt starts to come to as Chau stomps down on the device.

Newt shakes his head, willing himself back to coherency. He crawls towards the door, but a heavy weight presses down on his back. Panic churns in his chest as he wriggles to get free. He feels fingers grab his hair and pull his head back.

‘We’ve got a date to get you ready for, kid.’ Chau says with a laugh.

Hermann lands with a stutter-step as he releases the aura around him. Flight has become second nature to him since he tamed his powers. He shifts focus to his hip, willing his magic to support it as he approaches the subway station entrance. The padlock has already been broken, despite Hermann being early. He floats down the stairs and holds out his hands to illuminate the gloomy space. He easily lofts over the turnstiles, making sure that his scarf and hood adequately cover his face.

In the dark, Hermann can hear bodies moving. He knows that Chau’s men are watching and following him further into the station. He takes note of their positions, and descends the staircase to the platform. The scurrying of henchmen dies down, but he can hear panicked gasping the further he floats.

The platform is dark with the exception of a few overhead lights that still function. It stinks of rot and disuse. A cold wind howls through the tunnels, chilling the dank space. Hermann takes it all in and manages to keep his composure when he sees Newton standing under one of the lights.

Standing isn’t the appropriate descriptor. As Hermann slowly approaches, he notes the large hand holding Newton up by the back of his neck. Hermann grits his teeth at the state of Newt. The left side of his face is bruised and his cheek is cut. His arms appear to be bound behind his back. He’s shaking like a leaf, either from fear or the fact that he’s wearing a short sleeve shirt and ripped jeans as the wind howls in the tunnel. His eyes are wide and terrified as he notices Hermann.

‘No no no no! You gotta get ou--!’ He manages to say before the hand at his neck snakes around to clamp over his mouth. He struggles before he’s pulled tight against the large man looming in the shadow.

Hannibal Chau steps forward, Newton securely held in one hand and a garish, gold-plated gun in the other.

‘I don’t think we need any introductions here. I know you, and you know me.’ Chau sneers. ‘So you know that I have no problem blowing him away if you don’t comply.’

Hermann says nothing, but tries to project cool confidence even though his heart is trying to jackhammer through his ribs. His eyes dart between Newt, Chau and the gun.

‘You’ve got two options.’ Chau continues. ‘You can either come work for me, or get the hell out of my city. Do either, I’ll let your little boyfriend here live.’ Newton tries to squirm away, but Chau holds him fast. ‘He'll stay with me though. He still has to work off his debt. I’m sure he told you about the deal we had. You told him, right, little guy?’ Chau taps the barrel of the gun against Newton’s cheek.

‘He’s into me for a lot of money. Advaned degrees doesn’t come cheap, but you’re some fancy rich boy, ain’t cha?’ Chau says before addressing Newton. ‘Just one other reason this whole thing would have never worked, kid.’

Chau focuses back on Hermann and presses the gun barrel hard into Newton’s temple. ‘What’s it gonna be?’

Newton opens his eyes and meets Hermann’s steel gaze. Hermann can tell he’s trying to communicate something, but he can’t tell what. As Hermann opens his mouth to reply, Newton brings his left foot up and stomps it down onto Chau’s. The larger man yelps more from surprise than pain and releases his iron hold on Newt. He curls forward as he swears. Newt takes the opportunity to slam his head back, crashing into Chau’s face.

'NOW!’ Newton shouts as he falls forward. It’s a plea to do anything.

Hermann obliges and ignites his magic as Chau snarls and grabs for Newton again. Expertly, Hermann twists his fingers and mutters an incantation to slow everyone in the room down to a crawl aside from himself. It will only last a few moments, but he uses his advantage to cross the room and pull Newton close. Hermann fires a charge from his fist towards Chau. Time flicks back to its original speed as the mobster explodes into the far wall. The weak structure collapses on top of him.

A beat passes before the henchmen begin firing their pistols at Hermann. Newt winces, waiting for the impact of the bullets. He tucks himself against Hermann’s leg as the magician bends the laws of physics to his whims. Hermann swirls the air around him and the bullets are caught up in the maelstrom. He fires them harmlessly into the ceiling before turning his focus on the henchmen.

After a moment, the only sound is the water draining from a broken pipe and the fading crackling from Hermann’s magical energy. Hermann releases the breath he’d been holding and let’s his feet hit the ground. Newt’s curled up in front of him, still bracing for an unseen impact. His eyes are squeezed shut.

Hermann looks down at him and finds that any anger he may have been holding has dissolved. He snaps his fingers and hears the clank of the handcuffs as they slip off Newt’s wrists. A gasp of relief escapes Newt’s mouth as his arms fall back to their natural position. He rubs at the raw and bruised flesh at his wrists.

Pulling off his scarf and his hood, Hermann falls to his knees in front of Newt and wraps the smaller man in his arms.

‘You’re such a fool.’ He whispers. He feels a tremor go through Newt and tightens his embrace.

‘I know.’

‘Come, now. Let me look at you.’

Newt reluctantly pulls away and meets Hermann’s eyes. The bruise on his cheek is settling into an ugly purple color with streaks of dried blood across his face. His eyes are red and exhausted. He might be the most beautiful thing Hermann’s ever seen.

‘I’m so sorry, Herms.’ He says, unable to hold eye contact. ‘I never meant for this to happen.’

‘Listen to me.’ Hermann tilts Newt’s chin back up and lightly runs his thumb over Newt’s bruised cheek. ‘We can talk about everything else later. All that matters is that you’re safe now.’

A wobbly smile passes over Newt’s lips as he curls back into Hermann’s embrace. ‘My hero.’ He whispers.

Hermann caresses the back of his head before noting the sound of police sirens on the cusp of his perception. He lets his magic flow over his upper body and easily lifts Newton into his arms.

‘Let’s get you home.’

Newt pulls away to smile and nod, but he catches a glint of light from the corner of his eye. Chau is out of the rubble and aiming his gun at Hermann’s back. Newt’s face flashes between terror and determination as he shoves Hermann away. The gun goes off a second later, and Newt feels the bullet wing his shoulder. He cries out in pain before crumpling on the ground, pressing hard as he can at the blood spurting from the wound.

Hermann stumbles as Newt pushes him. He barely gets up the bracing spell he uses for his hip before he registers what’s happened. He sees Newt fall and the blood spatter over the subway tiles. He hears Chau stalking closer, cocking the gun again and taking aim.

‘Shouldn’t have reneged on our deal, Geiszler.’ Chau says as he aims at Newt’s head.

Hermann howls with rage as he summons all his power and crushes the gun and Chau’s hand. Hermann extends his hand and tendrils of light erupt out of it. They wrap around Chau’s wrist and force the mobster’s arm violently behind his back. The light worms around Chau’s body, wrapping tightly around his neck. Hermann makes a fist, and Chau is brought to his knees, hissing at the pressure on his arm.

Newt had tensed for the killing shot, but untangles himself when it doesn’t go off. He looks over his uninjured shoulder and sees a Hermann he doesn’t recognize. Light pulses off him. He growls with rage. This is a Hermann that’s ready to kill.

Forcing himself to his feet, Newt moves behind the magician and painfully wraps his arms around his waist. Hermann’s magic singes his skin, but Newt tightens his hold.

‘This isn’t you.’ Newt whispers into Hermann’s back. ‘Please, don’t do this.’

The contact pulls Hermann back. He shakes his head and releases Chau. The mobster crumbles to the ground gasping for air and cradling his destroyed fingers to his chest. Without a word, Hermann turns in Newt’s embrace and pulls the other man tight to his chest. His shoulder wound shows no signs of slowing the bleed. Hermann quickly pulls off his scarf and wraps it tightly around Newt’s shoulder.

‘I think it went straight through. Doesn’t feel like anything important got hit’ Newt says through gritted teeth. ‘They’re going to see your face without the scarf, dude.’

Hermann regards Newt’s pale face for a moment before pulling up his hood. ‘Will you hide my face, then?’

If the blood loss is getting to Newt, he isn’t showing it. He nods once and wraps his good arm tightly around Hermann’s neck. The other, he cradles between their bodies. Hermann lets his magic flow through his arms and back before gently lifting Newt again. With a dismissive glare towards Chau, Hermann lifts off the ground and speeds out of the abandoned station. He zips past the police that are descending the static escalators. Newt tightens his grip when he hears the shouting from the officers. Hermann extends his aura, shielding them from anything the police might fire their way. He will not let his guard down again. Not if it means Newt will get hurt.

Hermann doesn’t know if Newt has a proper first aid kit at his apartment, so he decides they’ll go to his place. It’s a risk, but he feels that after tonight, he and Newt will have nothing left to hide from each other. The shorter man starts shivering again as they arc through the sky. Hermann can’t tell if it's from his light clothing or if he’s going into shock from the bullet wound. Either way, they need to get inside as soon as possible.

It could be days later when Newt wakes to find himself in an unfamiliar bed. In his apartment, he has a full-size mattress that is slowly disintegrating from the center. His sheets are scratchy and second hand. These feel like silk compared to his.

The pain in his shoulder asserts itself as Newt sits up. He’s not wearing his glasses, so he can’t make out most of the room he’s in. There seems to be a light on in the corner and either a lumpy stack of pillows or his host sitting in a chair reading beside it.

Newt’s suspicions are confirmed as he hears a book shut and a body shift out of the chair. He lets himself fall back into the sea of pillows. A slight weight presses down on the bed, and a hand brushes against his cheek.

‘You’re finally awake.’

‘Been a rough day.’ Newt paused. ‘Days? Help me out here, Herms. How long have I been out?’

‘Approximately 35 hours?’ Hermann responds. He shifts and grabs something from the nightstand. ‘May I?’

It takes Newt a second to realize Hermann probably has his glasses before he nods. He closes his eyes as Hermann slides the frames back onto his face. He feels the lingering caress of Hermann’s fingertips at his temples before he opens his eyes.

Hermann’s expression is warm as Newt gets his bearings.

‘Hi.’ Newt says, suddenly shy. He feels his cheeks redden under Hermann’s caring expression.

‘Hello.’ Hermann inches closer before continuing. ‘You slept consistently after I cleaned and sewed up your bullet wound. I took care to make sure your tattoos wouldn’t be misaligned.’

‘Shit.’ Newt touched his bad shoulder. ‘I didn’t even think of that.’

‘Good thing you have me, then, isn’t it?’

Newt flinches. ‘I’m not sure that I’m worthy of that, Herms.’ He averts his gaze and feels the prickle of tears. ‘Shit, I think the last couple days proved I’m definitely not.’

Hermann rolls his eyes and moves over the bed. He winces a bit at the pressure he puts on his bad leg, but he can endure a little discomfort.

‘Listen to me.’ Hermann starts. He runs his hand through Newt’s hair, tracing his fingers down his neck, across his throat, and under his chin. Newt’s eyes flicker up to meet Hermann’s. ‘I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t angry or hurt when you told me what had been asked of you. However, you did tell me. You didn’t have to say anything, but you did. Do not ever say that you are unworthy of me.’

Newt sniffles and his mouth goes all wobbly again.

Hermann smiles again before shifting to move under the covers and sit beside Newt. The smaller man leans into him, grasping at Hermann’s t-shirt and tucking his head into Hermann’s shoulder. The magician rests his cheek in Newt’s hair.

‘Does it hurt terribly?’

Newt flinches again as he shakes his head no. ‘It hurts, but it’s kind of a dull ache.’

‘Then the pain killer is working.’ Hermann says. ‘Good. Your cheek should be healed in a few days. There didn’t appear to be any broken bones when we arrived.’

Newt snuffles deeper into Hermann, his voice growing thick with exhaustion. ‘Were you a doctor or something?’

‘Before my accident, yes.’ He says as he tucks further into Newt’s hair. ‘But we have plenty of time to discuss all that. Rest now. I’ll be here when you wake.’

‘Thanks, Herms.’ Newt mutters into Hermann’s neck as he begins to fade. ‘For everything.’

Hermann smiles and presses a light kiss to Newt’s hair before snapping his fingers and turning off the reading lamp.

#pacific rim fan fiction #pacific rim #newton geiszler #hermann gottlieb #hannibal chau #newmann #super hero au #unfinished fic #fic amnesty

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chiseler · 4 years

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The Head -- It Just Won’t Stay Dead

In the early 1960s, the overwhelming majority of European horror films imported to the United States were either British or Italian, the British films being easily understood and the Italian ones frequently pretending to be of British origin. Examples of French horror were rare (odd for a country whose cinema was so rooted in the fantastique), reaching an early apex with Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960), which came to the US in a well-done English dub called The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus during the Halloween season of 1962.

Seldom paid much attention in retrospectives of this fertile period in continental horror cinema is a rare German example, Die Nackte und der Satan (“The Naked and the Devil,” 1959), which came to the US retitled The Head almost exactly one year before the arrival of the Franju masterpiece. Critics like to refer to The Head as “odd” and “atmospheric,” words that seem to disregard deeper consideration, never really coming to terms with it as anything but a sleazy shock trifle. However, it was in fact the product of a remarkable and rarely equaled concentration of accomplished patrimonies.

Consider this: The Head starred the great Swiss actor Michel Simon, renowned for his roles in Jean Renoir’s La Chienne and Boudu Saved From Drowning; it was directed by the Russian-born Victor Trivas, returning to his adopted homeland for the first time since directing Niemandsland (1932, aka No Man’s Land or Hell On Earth), a potent anti-war statement that was all but obliterated off the face of the earth by the Nazis when he fled the country, and who furthermore had written the story upon which Orson Welles’ The Stranger (1946) was based; it was photographed by Georg Krause, whose numerous international credits include Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957); its sets were designed by Hermann Warm, the genius responsible for such German Expressionist masterpieces as Robert Weine’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919), Fritz Lang’s Destiny (1921), as well as Carl Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) and Vampyr (1932), and its score is a wild patchwork of library tracks by Willy Mattes, the Erwin Lehn Orchestra, and a group of avant garde musicians known as Lasry-Baschet, who would subsequently lend their eerie, ethereal music to Jean Cocteau’s The Testament of Orpheus (1960). If all this were not enough, The Head was also filmed at the Munich studios of Arnold Richter, the co-founder of the Arri Group, innovators of the famous Arriflex cameras and lenses.

Though made after the 1957 horror breakthroughs made in Britain and Italy (Terence Fisher’s The Curse of Frankenstein, and I vampiri, co-directed by Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava), The Head represented a virtual revolutionary act in postwar Germany, where horror was then considered a genre to avoid. The project was proposed to Trivas by a young film producer named Wolfgang C. Hartwig, head of Munich’s Rapid-Film, whose claim to fame was initiating a niche of exploitation cinema known as Sittenfilme – literally “moral movies” – which, like many American exploitation films of the 1930s, maintained a higher, judgmental moral tone while telling the stories of people who slipped into lives of vice (prostitution, blackmail, drug addiction), their sordid experiences always leading them to a happy or at least bittersweet outcome. Though it goes quite a bit further than either Britain or Italy had yet gone in terms of sexualizing horror, The Head nevertheless checked all the boxes required for Sittenfilme and was undertaken by Hartwig in early 1959 as Rapid-Film’s most prestigious production to date.

After the main titles are spelled out over an undulating nocturnal fog, the story begins with a lurker’s shadow passing along outside the gated property of Prof. Dr. Abel. With its round head and wide-brimmed hat, it looks like the planet Saturn from the neck up. When this marauder pauses to pay some gentle attention to a passing tortoise, we get our first look at the film’s real star - Horst Frank, just thirty at the time, his clammy asexual aura topped off with prematurely graying hair and large triangular eyebrows that seem carried over from the days of German Expressionism. More bizarre still, he later gives his name as Dr. Ood, whose explanation is still more bizarre: at the age of three months old, he was orphaned, the sole survivor of a cataclysmic shipwreck .

“That was the name of the wrecked ship,” he explains. “S.S. Ood.”

The ambiguous Ood takes cover as another late night visitor comes calling: a hunchbacked woman wearing a nurse’s habit as outsized as an oxygen tent. This is Sister Irene Sanders (the screen debut of Karin Kernke, later seen in the Edgar Wallace krimi The Terrible People, 1960). Though Irene cuts a figure as ambiguous and unusual as any Franju ever filmed, she owes her greatest debt to Jane Adams’ hunchbacked Nina in Erle C. Kenton’s House of Dracula (1945). As with Nina, Irene lives in the hope that her deformity can be eradicated by the skill of a brilliant surgeon.

When Irene leaves after meeting with Dr. Abel, Ood presents himself with the written recommendation of a colleague he previously, supposedly, assisted. A burly old walrus of a man, Abel (Michel Simon) already has two younger associates, Dr. Walter Burke (Kurt Müller-Graf, “a first class surgeon”) and the handsome, muscular Burt Jaeger (Helmut Schmid), who hasn’t been quite the same since an unexplained brain operation. Both associates share a creative streak; Burke is also “an excellent architect, [who] designed this house,” while Jaeger “designed my special operating table; it allows me to work without assistants.” (So why does he have two of them? With names that sound the same, no less!) Given the high caliber of Hermann Warm’s talent as a production designer, Burke and Burt together are every bit as skilled in architecture as was Boris Karloff’s Hjalmar Poelzig in Edgar G. Ulmer’s The Black Cat (1934). The main floor of Abel’s sprawling house is dominated by a vast spiral stairwell, striking low-backed furniture, a mobile of dancing palette shapes, and an overpowering wall reproducing Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Virtuvian Man.” Down in the lab, Burt’s robotic surgical assistant looks as if it might have been conceived by the brain responsible for the Sadean mind control device in Jess Franco’s The Diabolical Dr. Z (1965) - a film that, along with Franco’s earlier The Awful Dr. Orlof (1962), seems considerably more indebted to Trivas on renewed acquaintance than to Franju. The film was shot in black-and-white and at no point inside Abel’s abode do the silvery, ivory surfaces admit even the possibility of pigment.

Adding to its effect, the music heard whenever the film cuts back to Abel’s place is anything but homey. It consists of a single, sustained electric keyboard chord played in a nightmarish loop that seems to chill and vibrate, its predictable arc punctuated now and again with icy spikes of cornet. Though I don’t recall reading any extensive discussion of the film’s music, The Head represents what is surely the most important advance in electronic music in the wake of Louis & Bebe Barron’s work on Forbidden Planet (1956). Though the film’s music credits list bandleader Willy Mattes, Jacques Lasry and the Edwin Lehr Orchestra with its music, the most important musical credit is displaced. Further down the screen is the unexplained “Sound Structure, Lasry-Baschet.”

Lasry-Baschet was a musical combination of two partnerships – that of brothers Francois and Bernard Baschet, and the husband-and-wife team of Jacques and Yvonne Lasry. The two brothers were musicians who played astonishing instruments of their own invention, like the Crystal Baschet (played with moistened fingers on glass rods), the Aluminum Piano, the Inflatable Guitar, the Rotating Whistler, and the Polytonal Percussion. The Lasry couple, originally a pianist and organist, began performing with the Baschets on their unique devices in the mid 1950s. Some of the music they produced during this period is collected on the albums Sonata Exotique (credited to Structures for Sound, covering the years 1957-1959) and Structures For Sound (credited to the Baschet Brothers alone, 1963), a vinyl release by the Museum of Modern Art. These and other recorded works can be found on YouTube, as well; they are deeply moving ambient journeys but I cannot say with certainty that they include any of the music from The Head. That said, the music they do collect is very much in its macabre character and would have also fit very well into Last Year At Marienbad (1961) or any of Franju’s remarkable films.

When Ood meets with Abel and expresses his keen interest in experimental research, the good doctor mentions that he has had success copying “the recent Russian surgery” that succeeded in keeping the severed head of a dog alive – however, his moral code prevents him from taking such experimentation still further. After leaving Abel, Ood finds his way to the Tam-Tam Club, a nightspot where a life-sized placard promotes the nightly performances of “Tam-Tam Super Sex Star Lilly.” This visit initiates a parallel storyline involving Lilly (Christiane Maybach), who supplements her striptease work as an artist’s model, and is the particular muse of the brooding Paul Lerner (Dieter Eppler), a man of only artistic ambition, much to the annoyance of his father, a prominent judge who wants him to study law. Maybach reportedly won her role the day before she began filming. According to news reports of the day, the actress originally cast – the voluptuous redhead Kai Fischer – had signed on to play the part, after which producer Hartwig decided she must also appear nude. Fisher sued Hartwig for breach of contract in March 1959 and he was sentenced to pay out a compensatory fee of DM 4,000 – in currency today, the equivalent of about $35,000. As it happens, Christiane Maybach doesn’t appear nude in the film’s final cut either.

The English version of The Head opens with a credit sequence played out over a shot of the full moon taken from near the climax of the picture. Unusually, the German Die Nackte und der Satan doesn’t present its title onscreen until Lilly is ready to go on. It’s superimposed with inverted commas on pleated velvet curtains that suddenly rise, revealing a stage adorned by a single suit of armor. Lilly dances out, stage right, garbed in a medieval conical hat, scarves, a bikini and a black mask, performing her dance of the seven veils around the impervious man of metal. She only strips down to her bikini but her dance ends with her in the arms of the armor we assumed empty, which tightly embraces her as its visor pops open, revealing a man’s face wearing skull makeup. Lilly screams, the lights go out, and the house goes wild with applause – a veritable blueprint for the striptease of Estella Blain’s Miss Death in Franco’s The Diabolical Dr. Z (1965).

The music heard during the film’s Tam-Tam Club sequences was recorded by the Erwin Lehn Orchestra, evidently with Jacques Lasry on piano, though its emphasis on brass is its outstanding characteristic. Erwin Lehn was a German jazz musician and composer who established the first German Big Band Orchestra for South German Radio. Brass was a major component of his sound – indeed, he made pop instrumental recordings credited to The Erwin Lehn Beat-Brass. You can find their album Beat Flames on YouTube, as well.

Backstage, the beautiful Lilly is a nagging brat, drinking and flirting with patrons while berating Paul’s lax ambitions on the side. Dieter Eppler, a frequent player in the Edgar Wallace krimis and also the lead bloodsucker in Roberto Mauri’s Italian Slaughter of the Vampires (1964), makes for inspired casting; he looks like a beefier, if less dynamic Kirk Douglas at a time when Vincente Minnelli’s Lust For Life (1956) would have still been in the minds of audiences.

Once Ood joins the payroll, Dr. Abel confesses that his heart is failing rapidly. The only means of saving himself and perpetuating his brilliant research is by doing the impossible – that is, transplanting the heart from a donor’s body into his own, which he insists is possible given his innovation of “Serum X.” What Abel could not foresee was that his own body would die during the procedure. Ood tells Burke that the only way to save Abel’s genius is to keep his head artificially alive, which his associate rejects uncatagorically, pushing Ood over the edge into murder. Then Ood proceeds with the operation, working solo with Jaeger’s robo-assistant passing along surgical tools as he needs them. When Abel revives, Ood breaks his news of the procedure gently by holding up a mirror and exclaiming that he’d had “one last chance – to perform the dog operation on your head!” Abel screams in revulsion of what he has become. The conciliatory Ood gently cautions him, “Too much emotion can be extremely dangerous now.”

The severed head apparatus is a simple yet ingenious effect, shot entirely in-camera and credited to Theo Nischwitz. It utilizes what is generally known as a Schufftan shot, a technique made famous by spfx shots achieved by Eugen Schufftan for Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1926). Essentially, Michel Simon was seated behind a pane of mirrored glass with all the apparatus seen from his neck up. The silvering on the reverse portion of the mirror was scraped away, allowing the camera to see through to Simon and the apparatus while reflecting the apparatus arrayed below his neck, in position for the camera to capture its reflection simultaneously. In at least one promotional photo issued for the film, Simon’s shoulders can be transparently glimpsed where they should not be.

Irene returns to meet with Dr. Abel and is surprised to find new employee Ood now alone and ruling the roost. When he offers to perform her operation himself, she instinctively distrusts and fears him – but is reassured after hearing Abel’s disembodied voice on the house’s sophisticated intercom.

After the killing and burial of Burke, whose body Bert Jaeger later finds thanks to the barking of Dr. Abel’s kenneled hounds (a detail that one imagines inspired Franju’s use of a kennel in Eyes Without a Face), the film introduces the dull but nevertheless compulsory police investigation, headed by Paul Dahlke as Police Commissioner Sturm. Sagging interest is buoyed by a surprise twist: when Dr. Ood returns to the Tam-Tam Club and asks the perpetually pissy Lilly to dance, he refers to her in passing as “Stella,” prompting her to recognize him as “Dr. Brandt” (the scorecard now reads Burke, Bert and Brandt), who has inside knowledge pertaining to her poisoning of her husband! Given that his earlier writing projects include Orson Welles’ The Stranger and the bizarre Mexican-made Buster Keaton item Boom In the Moon (also 1946), in which an innocent shipwrecked sailor is rescued from his castaway existence only to find himself confused with a serial killer, Victor Trivas would seem partial to characters who live double lives.

Though Ood/Brandt’s aura is basically asexual through the first half of the film, the second half requires him to take an earthier interest in the female bodies finding their way into his hands. He takes the already tipsy Lilly/Stella home for a drink and some mischief.

“What’s in the glass?”

“Drink it and find out.”

“I hope it’s not poisoned.”

“That’s not my specialty, is it?”

Lilly/Stella becomes the necessary auto parts for Irene’s pending operation. In a nicely done montage, the film dissolves from Lilly’s unconscious body to a glint of light off the edge of Ood’s poised scalpel. It cuts to a curt zoom into Abel’s scream at being forced to watch a procedure he abhors, then a dissolve from his mouth to the spinning dials of a wall clock, followed by some time-lapse photography of cumulous clouds unfurling from an open sky, before Irene awakens in her recovery room with a decorative choker around her throat. She is able to gain her feet and covers her nude body in a sheet. She finds Ood lounging in Abel’s old office. He walks toward her as the sheet tumbles off her bare shoulders.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

“Well, I… I’ve a strange kind of feeling, as if my whole body were changed, as if my body didn’t want to do what I wished.”

Therefore, Ood has not only taken away her deformity but her responsibility for her actions, as well. Though she has never smoked before, she craves a cigarette. As Ood lights one for her, her wrap falls further, undraping her entire bare back and thus exposing a birthmark on her left shoulder blade that becomes an important plot point. Ood confesses she’s been unconscious for 117 days, during which time he has passed the time by performing numerous enhancing procedures on her inert body. When he compliments her superb figure, she self-consciously covers her legs and recoils from him.

“Why run from everything you desire?” he asks. “You can’t run from yourself.”

He draws Irene into a surprising deep kiss, which – to her own apparent horror - she returns. Ood then tries to take things further but she refuses. After a brief (and surprisingly curtailed) attempt at abduction, he releases Irene, who dresses in a black cocktail dress and heels left behind by Lilly and returns to the humble apartment she kept in her previous life, where a full-length mirror stands covered. In a scene considerably shortened by the US version, she rips the cover away in a movement evocative of a symbolic self-rape, and glories in her new reflection. The score turns torrid, brassy, and trashy as she admires her shapely terrain, fondling the curves of her breasts and hips in a prelude to a gratifying personal striptease. She then goes to her bed, where she tries on an old pair of slippers; she laughs and kicks them away, delighted at how small her feet now are. When she wakes the next morning, she finds a pamphlet for the Tam-Tam Club in Lilly’s old purse, which leads her body back to its former place of employ. When she arrives, another striptease artist is working onstage with a bed. This performance appears to burlesque Irene’s own motions from the night before; she kicks off one of her shoes as Irene had done.

From the moment she walks into the club, still wearing Lilly’s clinging black dress, Irene evokes a black widow, a kind of Alraune – the femme fatale of Hanns Heinz Ewers’ novel, filmed in 1930 with Brigitte Helm and in 1952 by Hildegarde Knef. Like Alraune, she’s the beautiful creation of a mad scientist’s laboratory, but unnatural. In this case, she’s not really a soulless artificial being out to destroy men; on the contrary, she is soulful, starving for some insight into who she is, what she is. In this way, she particularly foreshadows Christina, the schizophrenic subject of Baron Frankenstein’s “soul transplant” played by Susan Denberg in Terence Fisher’s Frankenstein Created Woman (1966).

She quickly attracts Paul’s artist’s eye, just as the now-topless dancer onstage swirls into a swoon on a prop bed – unconsciously mimicking Lilly at the only time she ever saw her, when Ood gave her a sneak peek at the unconscious woman on his living room couch. She asks about Lilly, whom Paul mentions has been dead now for three months, her body (in fact, Irene’s former body) found maimed beyond recognition on some railroad tracks. He asks her to dance, but Irene refuses, as she has never danced, never been asked to dance before. But he insists and they both discover that she can: “You must be a born dancer!”

Beautiful and irresponsible, she allows herself to follow Paul back to his studio, where drawings of Lilly are displayed. Paul asks to draw her, and when she turns her back to bare her shoulders, he recognizes Lilly’s beauty mark. She flees from the apartment and confronts the unflappable Ood.

“You must have grafted her skin on my body!”

In the movie’s most hilarious line, he fires back, “You have a poor imagination!”

She rejects his true account of the procedure and demands to see Dr. Abel, so Ood takes her down to the lab for a personal confirmation from the man himself. Ashamed to be seen this way, Abel pleads with Irene to disconnect him from the apparatus. She is driven away before she can accomplish this, and tries to shut away the horror of the truth that’s been revealed by losing herself in her new relationship with Paul – but the old question arises: Does he love her for her body or her mind? There seems to be one answer when he first kisses her, and another and his lips venture further down her front.

I should leave some things to be discovered by your own viewing of the film, but it demands to be mentioned that Irene – the triumphant climax of Ood’s genius, so to speak – actually survives at the end of the film to live happily ever after. Think about this. This is something that would have been considered unacceptable in any of Hammer’s Frankenstein films at the time – indeed, through the following decade. So, although Ood is ultimately destroyed (you’ll need to see it to find out how), the mad science he propounds is actually borne out. It’s left up to Paul and Irene, as they walk off together toward a new tomorrow, how they will manage to live with the fact that the two of them are in fact a ménage à trois. Will they keep the details of her existence a secret? Will medical science remain ignorant? Should they ever have any, what will they tell their kids?

The Head was hardly the first word on severed heads in horror entertainment. In his own admiring coverage of the film, Euro Gothic author Jonathan Rigby likens the film to the story of Rene Berton’s 1928 Grand Guignol play L’Homme qui à tue la mort (“The Man Who Killed Death”): “There, Professor Fargus revived the guillotined head of a supposed murderer and the prosecutor lost his mind when the head continued to plead his innocence.” Earlier such films would include Universal’s Inner Sanctum thriller Strange Confession (1945, in which a never-seen severed head is a main plot point), The Man Without a Body (1957) and The Thing That Couldn’t Die (1958), the latter two proving that the concept was actually trending at the time The Head was made. Also parenthetically relevant would be She Demons (1958), which involves the nasty experiments of a renegade Nazi scientist living on an uncharted tropical island, who removes the “beauty glands” of native girls to periodically restore his wife’s good looks. Though The Head wasn’t the first of its kind, many of the traits it introduced would surface in similar films that followed – not only in Franju’s Eyes Without A Face or Franco’s The Awful Dr. Orlof and The Diabolical Dr. Z, but also in Anton Giulio Majano’s Italian Atom Age Vampire (1960), Chano Urueta’s The Living Head (1963), and most conspicuously in Joseph Green’s The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, not released until 1962 though filmed in 1959, some six months after The Head.

It must be mentioned that the film’s unusual quality did not go unrecognized by its American distributor. Trans-Lux Distributing Corporation advertised the film that took a most unusual approach to selling a horror picture. The ads did not promise blood, or that your companion would jump into your lap, or shock after shock after shock. Instead, Trans-Lux promised that “At The Head of All Masterpieces of Horror [my italics] That You’ve Ever Seen… You Must Place… The Head.”

Of course it was an overstatement, but the size of its overstatement would seem to have narrowed appreciably with time.

So why has The Head, with its rich pooling of so much European talent, been so neglected?

A key reason may be that horror fans like their actors and directors to maintain a certain consistency, a certain fidelity to the genre. Horst Frank (who died in 1999) would appear in other horror films, but never again played a lead; he pursued his career as a character actor and singer, maintaining a career on the stage and keeping close to home, never making films off the continent or appearing in productions originating from England or America. After The Head, Victor Trivas made no more horror films. The other four features he made had been produced a quarter century earlier and the majority are impossible to see in English countries. Those who remembered him for Niemandsland would have considered The Head an embarrassment, an unfortunate last act. It wasn’t quite a last act, however. The following year, he returned to America, where he sold his final script to the Warner Bros. television series The Roaring 20s, starring Dorothy Provine. Though the show avoided fantasy subjects, it was a voodoo-themed episode entitled “The Fifth Pin,” directed by Robert Spaar and televised during the series’ first season on April 8, 1961. The guest stars included John Dehner, Rex Reason, Patricia O’Neal and, surprisingly, beloved Roger Corman repertory player Dick Miller. Trivas died in New York City in 1970, at the age of 73.

The English version of The Head is considered to be a public domain title and has been available from Alpha Video, Sinister Cinema and other PD sources. This version was modestly recut to create a new main title sequence and to remove certain erotic elements unwelcome to its target audience in 1961. Happily, a hybrid edition – which, in a fitting fate, grafts the English dub onto the original uncut version from Germany – was recently made available for viewing on YouTube.

In the immediate wake of The Head, producer Wolf C. Hartwig pushed another erotic horror film into production, Ein Töter hing in Netz (“A Corpse Hangs in the Web,” 1960). Scripted and directed by Fritz Böttger, the film (Böttger’s last as a director) was first released in America as It’s Hot In Paradise (1962), sold as a girlie picture with absolutely no indication of its horror content. It was later reissued in 1965 as Horrors of Spider Island (1965). Under any of its titles, the film is notably lacking all of the artistic and aesthetic pedigree that made its predecessor so special and, indeed, influential.

Sixty years further on, The Head warrants fuller recognition as a spearhead of that magic moment on the threshold of the 1960s when so-called “art cinema” began to be fused with so-called “trash cinema,” leading to a broader, wilder, more adult fantastique.

by Tim Lucas

[1] Victor Trivas’ Niemandsland may be viewed online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-4XhNMWoyw

[2] Rapid-Film’s later successes would include the German film that was subsequently converted into Francis Ford Coppola’s directorial debut (The Bellboy and the Playgirls, 1962), Ernst Hofbauer’s Schoolgirl Report film series (1970-80), and Sam Peckinpah’s Cross of Iron (1977).

[3] You can see Lasry-Baschet perform and be interviewed in a French newsreel from January 1961 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awaFd6gArLg&t=46s.

[4] Well, as “recent” as 1940, when footage of a supposedly successful Soviet resuscitation of a dog’s severed head was included in the grisly 20m documentary Experiments In the Revival of Organisms. The operation was performed (and repeated) by Doctors Sergei Brukhonenko and Boris Levinskovsky, making use of their “autojektor,” an artificial heart/lung machine not unlike the contraption seen in The Head. A close look at Experiments reveals that it really shows nothing that could not have been faked through means of special effects. (When George Bernard Shaw learned of the Soviet experiment, he’s said to have remarked, “"I am tempted to have my own head cut off so that I can continue to dictate plays and books without being bothered by illness, without having to dress and undress, without having to eat, without having anything else to do other than to produce masterpieces of dramatic art and literature.") Experiments In The Revival of Organisms has been uploaded to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap1co5ZZHYE.

[5] Rigby, Jonathan. Euro Horror: Classics of Continental Horror Cinema (London: Signum Books, 2017), p. 79.

[6] Joseph Green also worked in motion picture distribution and later formed Joseph Green Pictures, which specialized in spicy imported pictures, some from Germany. It’s possible that he saw the Trivas picture when it was still seeking distribution in the States. When Ostalgica Film released The Head on DVD in Germany under its Belgian reissue title Des Satans nackte Sklavin (“The Devil’s Naked Slave”), the disc included The Brain That Wouldn’t Die as a bonus co-feature.

[7] A fine quality homemade experiment, it runs 91 minutes 47 seconds and can be found at: The Head (Die Nackte und der Satan) 1959 Sci-Fi / Horror HQ version!.

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thosemultifandomwritings · 6 years

Text

Ink Pt. 2 (Peter Parker x Reader)

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Word Count: 1.7K

Summary: Soulmate AU where everything you write or draw on your skin appears on your soulmate too

Part 1 ... Part 2 ... Part 3

Good luck on your chem test today!

You smiled down at your wrist, grabbing your bag before heading out the door. Walking down the many stairs of your apartment, you gripped a felt pen in your hand, cap gripped in between your teeth, careful not to loose it. Over the last few weeks, you had experimented with a lot of pens, and if you didn’t have a marker, felt tipped pens were the next best thing. It was soft enough on your skin and pretty easy to wash off. Honestly, you had gone through many pens these past few weeks.

Thanks P. Try not to write any equations on me this time, wouldn’t want to get caught cheating(:

Peter leaving his apartment in Queens couldn’t help the breathy laugh that escaped his mouth as he read the words appearing on his arm. He basically tripped over his own foot as he began his walk to the subway, pulling out one of the many pens that sat in his pocket.

It was one time!

The relationship between the two of you had flourished quickly in the past few weeks. Even with the little time you had known him, you had found yourself developing a cliché high school crush on a guy you had never even met.

You had learned his name was Peter and he was from Queens, which made you absolutely giddy inside. You yourself lived in Manhattan and knowing your soulmate lived so close brought you instant joy. People always said fate brought soulmates together, but you could have never pictured fate placing your soulmate a mere bus ride away.

You were having an amazing time getting to know Peter, but there was always a nagging voice in the back of your head to keep your guard up. Of course, having a soulmate was an absolute blessing. But soulmates are only human after all. You had heard countless stories of people who had developed a connection with their soulmate, only to have them ripped away from them by death and other horrible travesties. The soulmate bond is such a strong feeling, that many soulmates of those who had perished end up spiraling. You didn’t like to think these horrible things, but even from the little time you had known Peter, you couldn’t imagine not having him.

Despite this, you still caught yourself reaching for a pen anytime something amazing happened, or on the other hand, if something bad happened. You itched to tell Peter about almost every aspect of your day. It was as if there were a magnet between your hand and a pen, and you constantly found yourself trying to hold back from making a fool out of yourself before you had even gotten the chance to meet him.

Peter on the other end, was doing no better than you. He would constantly check his arm to make sure he didn’t miss a note from you. He had even equipped his Spidey suit to have room for a few ballpoint pens in case he found himself on the top of a building late one night and felt his arm tingle. On his late night Spider Man adventures, he would find himself in Manhattan more often than not. Sometimes he would picture one of the giant skyscrapers he would swing by would be your apartment, you sleeping away as he worked to keep the city safe.

The two of you up until this point had never discussed meeting up, but as the weeks went by, Peter felt an urge to meet you. An urge to see what you looked like. To meet the person he was destined to be with.

But he was also worried. He hadn’t told you anything about Spider-Man. I mean, what we he supposed to say? “Hey and by the way, you know Spider-Man? The red and blue spandex wearing crime fighter who can sling webs from his wrists? That’s me! You can look me up on YouTube!” Not only was that way too much to write on his arm, but he would sound like an absolute crazy person. Peter was already nervous enough talking to you, let alone telling you all about his alter ego. As Spider-Man became more of a household name, more and more enemies were coming out of the woodworks. Everyone knew about soulmates, and if one of the many villains that littered the streets were to find out the Spider-Man had an ultimate weakness? There’s no telling what could happen to you. What could happen to you all because of him. Peter refused to get you in the middle of his Spider business.

It was as if the two of you together shared an unspoken agreement that for now, you two would remain apart.

It was another few days later when Peter found himself at Avengers Tower. He had fallen asleep on the couch in one of the many lounges after a very long meeting with members of the group. Having so many strong personalities in one room was always mentally exhausting, especially if they happened to slightly disagree on something. This time, Steve had suggested an alternate plan to one they had already discussed, many members disagreeing with him and frankly wanting to be done with the meeting all together. Peter had taken Steve’s side in the argument, shocking some of the other members seeing as he usually kept pretty quiet and agreed with whatever Tony said. In short, Peter had really needed a nap.

As Peter’s eyes were closed, he felt a slight shiver run up his arm, causing him to stir from his sleep. As Peter’s eyes blinked open, adjusting to the light, the first thing he did was look down at his left arm.

Hey P...why is there a red white and blue star on my forehead...

It took him a few seconds to really process what you had written, but when he did, he jolted off the couch, tripping over a blanket someone must have put on him while he was sleeping. He ran to the first reflective surface he could find, which happened to be one of the any gigantic windows that littered the walls, and looked at his reflection. Smack right in the middle of his forehead sat a very crudely drawn star covered in a red, white and blue American flag.

Peter groaned, reaching into his pockets to find a pen to write back to you. Forgetting he had changed earlier, he silently cursed to himself as he came up empty handed. He jogged to the nearest place he knew a pen would be, which happened to be Tony’s lab.

“Mr. Stark I really need a pen!” He exclaimed, bursting through the door and immediately scanning the room.

“Whoa kid, where’s the fire?” Tony asked, looking up from some piece of metal, “And what in the actual hell is on your forehead?”

“Thor and Mr. Barton think they are so funny,” Peter grumbled, his eyes never leaving the many drawers he was currently scrambling through. Clint, who had been snickering with Thor upon seeing Peter’s appearance, quickly stopped as he heard Peter.

“Hey kid, you have no proof it was us,” he said shrugging while trying to keep a straight face, pretending to get back to work on one of his bows.

“Thor?” Tony asked, as if Thor were a small child whose parents already knew they were guilty.

“It was I and my good friend Clint,” Thor laughed deeply, grabbing Clint around the shoulders as Clint groaned. Peter, disconnected from the conversation at hand, had finally found a pen. Gripping it rather tightly in his hand, he lifted his shirtsleeve to scribble back to you.

I’m so sorry! My friends think that are funny. Hope it didn’t inconvenience you too much.

Finally exhaling, Peter tuned back into the conversation to hear Clint explaining rather loudly to Thor on the meaning of a secret. Pen still in hand, he stared at his arm waiting for your response. He found himself waking out of the lab towards the bathroom to clean his face, knocking into a few walls on the way as his eyes kept flickering back to his arm.

Just stayed in my room to avoid questions. Kinda dig the patriotic look. Your friends seem ready for war :P

Peter finally relaxed at knowing you weren’t annoyed and began to scrub his forehead with soap to rid himself, and you, from the rather bad drawing.

Some of them were in one, a while ago though

Peter had written it before he really thought about it, wanting to write it before the soap got in his eyes. In the middle of scrubbing, he realized what he had actually written and immediately began to scrub his arm. Maybe he could get it off before you saw it. Water now trickling down his face, he had most of the words off his arm, but it was too late.

A while ago? P...please tell me you aren’t an old man

Scrambling for the pen once again, it slipped from his wet fingers onto the ground. He practically pounced on it, writing in all caps back to you.

NO!

Your response came mere seconds later as Peter now sat down on the cold tile of the bathroom floor, rubbing his eyes vigorously as soap had now gotten in them. His eyes teared up as his eyes stung, blinking rapidly in order to be able to focus them on your words.

Calm down P, I can basically hear your heartbeat from Manhattan. I’m just joking

Ignoring the fact that he was also currently in Manhattan when you assumed he was home in Queens, he let out a loud breath. His cheeks turned a deep pink as he reread your message, his eyes lingered on the end. At the very end of the sentence, you had drawn a tiny heart.

He felt his own heart beat faster in his chest as his eyes stayed glued to the shape. After a few seconds, he physically shook his head to snap himself out of it. I mean, you clearly didn’t mean anything by it. At least that’s what Peter told himself to make the blood stop rushing to his cheeks.

His head tipped back to lean on the cool tile that surrounded the bathroom walls, his bloodshot eyes staring up at the ceiling. It would be an understatement to say that Peter was completely shocked at the effect you could have on him with one little shape. If this is how he reacted when he read a message from you, what the hell would he do if he were to ever meet you?

A/N: Next chapter will be a lil drama so buckle in guys and gals ;)

If you would like to be added to the taglist for the series, just let me know (Sorry if anyone got double notifications, first time uploading this there was a problem <3)

As always, requests and comments can be sent here .xx

Taglist

@abswritesfandoms , @blackcat-midnight-thatsme , @axielle-suson , @justmilla , @noodleboylester , @squirrellover1967 , @sockywell , @iris-suoh , @tom-holland-imagines-are-us , @issyogirllexie , @embrace-themagic , @monster-alien-chode , @parker-underoos , @sergeantrosabellaswan

#peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker fanfic #peter parker imagines #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker soulmate au #spider-man x reader #spider-man imagines #spider-man imagine #spider-man fanfic #spider-man fanfiction #the avengers imagines #the avengers x reader #the avengers imagine

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inkofamethyst · 5 years

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July 14, 2019

Hello!

Today has been a really simple day. I watched two documentaries on YouTube about early British Queens (she-wolves, they were called, as they had an affinity for power) and that was a lovely time. I’m going to see just how many documentaries I can watch this summer (of course, I still need to finish reading A Game of Thrones first (speaking of which: my dad found the third book of that series in his personal book collection... so I think that means that I’ll be continuing the series (which was my plan anyway, it’s just that now I guess I own the third book!))). Maybe I’ll list them? I watched, like, two already last night. It’s just that documentaries are such a grand way to waste time, you know?

I was also putting in the individual crochet faux locs while I was watching the films today. I’ve got thirty of them attached now (about two packs of an order of seven, but I bought two orders just in case so I should be fine), and I think I’ve done about a third of my head. It takes more time than traditional crochet braids (I have to wrap these individually rather than simply attaching them at the root), but I think that the overall look is going to be wonderful! My only issue with them is that these faux locs are essentially just spirals as opposed to the typical dreadlock, so I’m afraid that they’re going to come undone easily. I like the individual look, but I may have to try a different brand next time (though I think I’ll have a whole head’s worth of these left over when I’m finished, so I’ll likely use them up at some point as well (why waste money, you know?)). These blue/green/black ones really are pretty though. I truly do think I’ll like them.

In regards to ~my four-year plan~ for college, I think I’m still going to go for the Spanish minor, I’ll just have to skip out on a Spanish class this upcoming Spring semester. That should be okay; I’ll try to do some sort of other cultural immersion instead (streaming a telenovela, watching the news in Spanish...) to maintain my language skills. My roommate this year is into French, so unfortunately she won’t be much help on that front, but that’s okay. Also,, I’m taking 15 credits my second semster with literally only four classes (two include labs, just like this fall) which is crazyyy. My sophomore spring semester I’ll be taking, like, six classes for 16 credits (if all goes to plan, of course). This is so exciting omg.

I still can’t believe that I’m entering college at (essentially) a Sophomore status!! I’m super proud of myself and where I’ve come (and I’m so glad that it’s not all from AP lol (speaking of which, I have to send my jazz from the College Board to my University before school starts)). I’m hopeful that this will grant me some assistance when it comes to registering for classes. I know freshmen get last pick, but I’ll have more credits coming in than the average freshman (I think), so that should count for something. After looking at my 4-year plan, I can definitely understand why my advisor would want me to look into pursuing a double major or a minor. I think (just for fun) I’m going to see if I could even fit in an additional minor with my pharmacy requirements into my four-year plan. Something easy that I’ll enjoy or something. We’ll see.

Today I’m thankful for all the time my mom spent last night putting my hair into little tiny braids so that I could get this hairstyle up and running. Now that my hair is getting longer, the process takes a while to do (I’m not going anywhere tomorrow so I may work on it gradually over the next few days or something), and I’m glad my mom is still up for it. I’m also glad that my Instagram cleanse is going well! I haven’t checked in for almost a week now, and I’m planning to do a quick 15-minute check (I have a time limit set on that app) after the cleanse. Most likely I’ll discover that I haven’t really missed anything vital and I may do another extended cleanse. I’ve deleted Snapchat (I just got it a few months ago and literally never liked it so good riddance) and Facebook is probably next in line (there’s literally no reason for it to be on my phone anymore now that I’m not constantly checking for a roommate candidate so,). I’ve also really got to go through my photos on my phone and transfer them to my high school flash drive so that they’re not taking up so much space.

We cleanin’ up before school starts (in 38 days!)!

(Also! Critical Role video out tomorrow!)

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bigyack-com · 4 years

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Surge of Virus Misinformation Stumps Facebook and Twitter

SAN FRANCISCO — First, there were conspiratorial whispers on social media that the coronavirus had been cooked up in a secret government lab in China. Then there were bogus medicines: gels, liquids and powders that immunized against the virus.And then there were the false claims about governments and celebrities and racial unrest. Taiwan was covering up virus deaths, and the illness was spiraling out of control. Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder who now runs a philanthropic organization, was behind the spread of the virus. Italians were marching in the streets, accusing Chinese people of bringing the illness to their country. None of it was true.As the coronavirus has spread across the world, so too has misinformation about it, despite an aggressive effort by social media companies to prevent its dissemination. Facebook, Google and Twitter said they were removing misinformation about the coronavirus as fast as they could find it, and were working with the World Health Organization and other government organizations to ensure that people got accurate information.But a search by The New York Times found dozens of videos, photographs and written posts on each of the social media platforms that appeared to have slipped through the cracks. The posts were not limited to English. Many were originally in languages ranging from Hindi and Urdu to Hebrew and Farsi, reflecting the trajectory of the virus as it has traveled around the world.Security researchers have even found that hackers were setting up threadbare websites that claimed to have information about the coronavirus. The sites were actually digital traps, aimed at stealing personal data or breaking into the devices of people who landed on them.The spread of false and malicious content about the coronavirus has been a stark reminder of the uphill battle fought by researchers and internet companies. Even when the companies are determined to protect the truth, they are often outgunned and outwitted by the internet’s liars and thieves.There is so much inaccurate information about the virus, the W.H.O. has said it was confronting a “infodemic.”“I see misinformation about the coronavirus everywhere. Some people are panicking, and looking to magical cures, and other people are spreading conspiracies,” said Austin Chiang, a gastroenterologist at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.In Taiwan, virus-related misinformation on social media has fed concerns that China might be using the crisis to undermine the government of the self-ruling island.In recent weeks, there have been posts on Facebook and other sites claiming that Taiwan has concealed large numbers of coronavirus infections. There have been fake but official-looking documents promising giveaways of face masks and vaccines. A screen capture from a television news broadcast was doctored to say that President Tsai Ing-wen had contracted the disease and was in quarantine.In a statement to The Times, Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, blamed China’s “internet armies” for the deluge of falsehoods, though his office declined to elaborate on how he came to that conclusion. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office didn’t respond to a faxed request for comment.The Communist Party claims Taiwan as part of China’s territory, and Taiwanese officials have long accused Beijing of manipulating both traditional news media and social platforms to turn Taiwanese citizens against President Tsai, who opposes closer ties with China.Summer Chen, the editor in chief of Taiwan FactCheck Center, a watchdog group that debunks online rumors and hoaxes, said her team had been busier since the outbreak began than it was ahead of Taiwan’s presidential election in January, when the island was on high alert for potential Chinese meddling.“Throughout this whole epidemic, people have really liked conspiracy theories,” Ms. Chen said. “Why is it that during epidemics people don’t choose to believe accurate scientific information?”Facebook, YouTube and Twitter all said they were making efforts to point people back to reliable sources of medical information, and had direct lines of communication to the W.H.O. and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Facebook said it bans content that could cause people harm, such as claims that discourage treatment or taking appropriate precautions against the coronavirus. Posts and videos that shared conspiracy theories were clearly marked as false, once they had been reviewed by fact checkers.When Facebook users attempt to share them, a message pops up alerting the user that the post includes information that has been deemed false by fact checkers.Those measures, however, have not stopped people in private Facebook groups from linking to and sharing misinformation surrounding the virus. In private Facebook groups, including one that totals over 100,000 members, conspiracy theories spread that the coronavirus was an invention of the pharmaceutical industry, intended to sell the public on more expensive drugs and more vaccines.While many posts simply encouraged people to take vitamins and eat a balanced diet to boost their immune system, others offered promises of immunity or cures if certain combinations of powders and drinks were consumed. Some were even more dangerous. The Food and Drug Administration referred to one “miracle mineral solution” posted many times on Facebook and Twitter as “the same as drinking bleach.”Dr. Chiang, the gastroenterologist, recently helped start the Association for Healthcare Social Media, a group dedicated to encouraging more health care professionals to post on social media so that they can dispel some of the misinformation.“People are looking for good sources of information because a lot of what they see, when they log into their social media platforms, is just scaring them,” he said.While Twitter acknowledged the presence of some of this content on its network, Del Harvey, Twitter’s vice president of trust and safety, said the company has not seen “large-scale, coordinated” efforts to misinform people about the coronavirus. After The New York Times contacted Twitter with examples of tweets containing health misinformation about coronavirus, some owners of the accounts were suspended “for spam.”Facebook said that in addition to working closely with health organizations, it was offering W.H.O. free ad space to try and point people toward accurate information on the coronavirus. The company said that it was removing posts that discouraged people from seeking treatment or suggested remedies that could cause physical harm and that it was placing warning labels on posts that were rated false by their fact checkers.YouTube, which is owned by Google, also said it was working closely with W.H.O. to help combat misinformation. YouTube’s spokesman, Farshad Shadloo, said the company had policies that prohibited videos that “promoted medically unsubstantiated methods to prevent the coronavirus in place of seeking medical treatment.”Dozens of YouTube videos, however, included titles that suggested the video offered a cure for the virus. In others, the comment sections below the videos included links to pages offering a range of alternative, unsubstantiated treatments.In some cases, those links have led people to websites that lure people in with the promise of a cure, but actually steal credit card information and other personal details.The cybersecurity firm Check Point said more than 4,000 coronavirus-related websites that include words like “corona” or “covid” have been registered since the beginning of the year. Of those, 3 percent were considered malicious and another 5 percent were suspicious.Research by Sophos, a cybersecurity company, has shown an uptick in these so-called spear-phishing messages targeting people in Italy, where coronavirus infections have surged in recent weeks. Those messages included a link to a Microsoft Word document that claimed to list cures for the virus. When downloaded, it installed malicious malware on people’s computers.Last month, W.H.O. also put out a warning about fake emails from apparent W.H.O. representatives. The emails carried malicious code aimed at breaking into someone’s computing device.John Gregory, the deputy health editor for NewsGuard, a start-up that tries to stop false stories from spreading on the internet, said the medical element to coronavirus misinformation made it different from other conspiracies the public has dealt with.Because the information about the virus is “playing out in real time, it’s always going to be easier for someone to make a false claim,” Mr. Gregory said. “Then, there’s a separation of a few days before anyone with a scientific background, or journalists, are able to debunk the claim.”Sheera Frenkel reported in San Francisco and Davey Alba reported in New York. Raymond Zhong reported from Beijing. Chris Horton contributed reporting from Taipei, Taiwan. Read the full article

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urvashiela-blog · 5 years

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Manipal Hospital Vijayawada Phone Number | Dr. Lakshmi Prasuna | Elawoman

What fertility treatment choices do I have?

In case you're struggling with infertility and need assistance getting pregnant, there are fertility treatments that can help increase your odds of having a baby.

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On account of technology, there are loads of ways to help individuals with a wide range of fertility issues. The alternatives that are best for you to rely upon your personal circumstance and what's causing your infertility.

Some of the time only one person needs treatment, other occasions both partners will utilize a combination of treatments together.

Fertility treatments regularly include meds that assistance with hormones and ovulation, now and again combined with minor surgical procedures. Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) describes several kinds of procedures that can enable you to have a baby. ART includes procedures that make it easier for sperm to fertilize an egg, and help the egg embed in your uterine lining.

Two of the most common fertility treatments are:

intrauterine insemination (IUI)

Healthy sperm is gathered and inserted directly into your uterus when you're ovulating.

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)

Eggs are taken from your ovaries and fertilized by sperm in a lab, where they form into embryos. At that point a doctor puts the embryos into your uterus.

Cryopreservation (otherwise known as freezing your eggs, sperm, or embryos), egg or embryo donation, and gestational carriers (otherwise known as surrogacy) are additional forms of ART.

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Dr. Ramas Institute for Fertility

Dr. Ramas Institute for Fertility is a Gynecology and Fertility Clinic situated in Satyanarayanpuram, Vijayawada. The first center of Dr. Ramas Institute for Infertility started in the year 1991. The services provided at the center mainly include infertility tests and treatments, for example, Ovulation Test, Uterine evaluation, Ovulation Test, Laparoscopy, Hysteroscopy. The treatments provided at the clinic are Infertility Evaluation, Invitro Fertilization (IVF), Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), Assisted Embryo Hatching procedure, PCOS treatment. Dr. P Rama Devi practices at the center.

Padmaja Clinic

We are situated in Vijayawada, capital region of Andhra Pradesh, on the northern bank of Krishna river. Our center is committed to satisfying your dreams of parenthood.

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Padmaja Clinic is an IVF Center arranged in Moghalrajpuram, Vijayawada. It was incepted by Dr. V. Padmaja and Dr. G.Gangadhar in the year 2000. The clinic serves its patients with a wide range of services, for example, Infertility evaluation, In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), ICSI, Egg donation, Blastocyst Culture, and Cryopreservation procedures. The main point of the clinic is to satisfy the dreams of infertile couples to become parents and enjoy being a parent. The clinic comprises of all condition of art offices alongside all the most recent restorative devices and innovations for the benefit of the patients. Since its inception, the clinic has been successfully creating healthier lives for ladies. The center provides a wide range of services depending upon the condition and requirement of the patients. The clinic offers its services and offices at a reasonable expense. Padmaja Clinic has solved even the most challenging cases and has registered the most astounding success rate to date. It cares for its patients technically, psychologically and by the best meditative way. The clinic brings individualized answers to your concerns. Dr. V Padmaja practices her best at this clinic. She has a medicinal exposure of more than two decades. Dr. Padmaja causes her patients by giving them the best treatments.

Rainbow Children Hospital

Rainbow Hospital for Ladies and Children is an IVF Hospital situated in Sri Ramachandra Nagar, Vijayawada and was established in 1999. The point of the hospital is to provide top class child care, ladies care and fertility care services to the patients visiting the hospital. The group at the hospital serves every patient with Care, Commitment just as Compassion which ensures the delivery of the right treatment and results. The services at the hospital include Infertility Evaluation, IVF, IUI, ICSI, Hysteroscopy, Plateau, Testicular Biopsy, DNA Fragmentation test. Dr. Sailaja Vuppu is the infertility master practicing at the hospital. Snap on the guide and find out about Rainbow Hospital for Ladies and Children.

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