So I finally narrowed down on the reason why Newt's possession arc in Uprising is so damn weird and out-of-touch with the first movie.

So for anybody who doesn't already know, Guillermo del Toro is a huge nerd about occult stuff. He even gives his characters ruling planets and he considers filmmaking a form of alchemy.

He's also ex-Catholic, and highly critical of Catholicism, just as he is is critical of any form of authoritarian institution. (The Precursors were visually modeled on Catholic clergy, btw.)

Once you understand where del Toro is coming from, it's pretty obvious that Newt is functionally doing necromancy and coming in contact with a much bigger, meaner spirit than he anticipated. Very importantly, choosing to drift with a kaiju itself is morally neutral, it just happened to reveal something worse than anyone expected.

Uprising, however, introduces an extremely Christian template, one that you may have seen before if you were ever unfortunate enough to come across a little thing called a Chick tract. For those who don't know, Chick tracts are basically little Evangelical Christian propaganda comics. They are extremely hateful toward anyone who isn't an Evangelical Christian, and present anything that of Evangelical Christianity as the product of man's arrogance and/or demons. Anybody who strays from the Good and Righteous will have bad things happen to them, and demons may well be involved.

Where the first Pacific Rim is using a sort of Lovecraftian "it's all fun and games until you meet the elder god" sort of template combined with del Toro and Beacham's humanist optimism (we can kick the elder god in the ass if we stick together!), Uprising is using a conservative Christian "make a deal with the Devil for fame and fortune, get possessed by demons" template. Newt's now this important bigwig at Shao Industries - because he's been drifting with the demon-coded kaiju for ten years. (Sidenote, it also isn't not the "play with a Ouija board, get obsessed with demons" template, too.)

And uh. This little switcheroo? It's bad. It's very bad. It's bad because it transforms Pacific Rim from a story about humanity banding together to defy uncaring and cruel institutions and solve our big problems together into a reactionary narrative that defends and upholds those very institutions.

art comic

Which OC has frequent nightmares?

Sometimes a family is a writer and their fucked up oc and their fucked up oc and their fucked up oc and their fucked up oc and their fucked up oc and

Isaac Asimov excerpt from the foreword to his short story "What If—," (first published 1952), personally collected in "Nightfall and Other Stories," (published 1969).

Reading both Asimov's writing and his behind the scenes thoughts on his own stories and the craft of writing always just has me going, this guy gets it, I get him and his popularity, because I've been asked the same question before, too. Where do you get your ideas...

From anything! if you are willing to think hard enough and long enough. Yes yes yes.

Ursula K. Le Guin, “Author’s Note” from The Left Hand of Darkness

worried that thing you put in your art or writing or game or music is too self-indulgent, too self-referential, too niche for anyone but yourself? fear not! you can do whatever you want forever. and you should.

Two cake theory also means your small underrated fic can be someone’s comfort fic

Rip to all the fics I got halfway through (either writing or reading) before the hyperfixation on their media promptly left my body like a demon being forcibly exorcised without warning 😔

i love you betrayals between people who still love each other i love you devotion to the point of destruction i love you selfish choices made in the name of love i love you devastating consequences of those choices

(guy stuck in a timeloop) fuckkkkk i got yesterday tomorrow

"i wish i could exfoliate my brain" you can. by reading things that challenge you.

everyone should be weirder about their ocs more.

"There's no hope for the future." And that's how they felt during the Atomic Age, during the World Wars, during the Enlightenment Revolutions, during thr plagues, during the Viking raids, during the fall of Rome.

Yet, we persisted.

ocs. have you guys heard about this?

Hey writeblr! Here's a challenge: can you summarize what you're writing in one sentence?