Pacific Rim fan fic recommendations and ramblings
I love writing fan fic and I love reading well-written fan fic so much. The fic that is so faithful to the original material and tells stories that I wish had been told. The downside to it is that sometimes when I read fan fic that I think is wonderful, it just makes me feel incredibly conscious of how bad and full of shortcomings my own fic is. When you can see that the author has a real gift and flair, it really makes you want to stop writing fic and just go off into the corner to sulk :)
Pacific Rim is a very new fandom but it's proving to be extremely active. There is a lot of fan fiction being written that is not my cup of tea. For instance, I am indifferent/have no interest to any of the slash pairings, whether they be Newton/Gottlieb, Raleigh/any of the guys, Stacker/Herc etc, Chuck an of the guys, Herc/any of the guys. I have no objection to slash pairings, I just don't really see it myself although I can kind of see why people might enjoy overlaying the Chuck/Raleigh antipathy with sexual tension - not me though.
I have a real problem with the incest fic - I personally find it kind of revolting, so I find myself shrinking away from Raleigh/Yancy and Chuck/Herc. It's actually kind of upsetting sometimes because I actually really, really like Herc Hansen as a character - I find him tragic, poignant and heroic and yet if you sift through the hundreds of stories about Herc, only a small handful of them seem to explore his character. The rest seem to involve a lot of rough sex or incest :(
I like that the internet allows people to explore lots of different facets of a character - I just wish it was easier for me to find the fic that interests me. Sometimes even the tags and summaries are enough to make me want to bleach my brain.
In terms of Mako/Raleigh, one of my preferred pairings in this fandom, there are some strange fanon elements that seem to have entrenched themselves.
1. Raleigh likes knitting? Yes he has quite a few sweaters but I'm not sure if he's the one who would be doing the knitting, but ok.
2. They have a dominant/submissive relationship in which Mako dominates the hell out of Raleigh - from the meta, he seems to perform a lot of oral sex on her, too. I can't speak to the second part as it's anyone's speculative guess, but the first aspect bothers me. Part of the reason that I like their pairing so much (whether as friends or lovers) is that they are so equal and they have a relationship based on mutual respect and understanding. It's not all about sex and domination or anything like that, it's about the fact that he seems to be the first person who truly accepts her and believes in her abilities.
Anyway, I have rambled enough. Some fic recs are in order.
I have been loving 3 stories written by tielan, who I've previously only read in the Stargate Atlantis fandom. She has a really lovely use of words and imagery which reminds me a little of writers like bantha_fodder, meyerlemon and river_soul.
Title: what the Drift has wrought let no man tear asunder
Word Count: 704 words
Characters: Mako Mori, Raleigh Becket, Herc Hansen
Relationships: Raleigh Becket & Mako Mori, Mako Mori & Herc Hansen, Raleigh Becket/Mako Mori
Rating: Mature
Key words: Friendship/Love, The Drift
Summary: The world is wide and new, and there is a future when they thought there'd be none.
This fic is a lovely little snapshot moment post-movie which briefly explores interactions between Mako and Herc Hansen (non-shippy) and also Raleigh Becket (slightly shippy). It's only short, but it's extremely evocative and faithful to the feel of the movie.
Title: voices calling in the empty wind
Word Count: 842 words
Characters: Mako Mori, Original Male Character(s), Brawler Yukon, Tacit Ronin, Matador Fury, Gipsy Danger, Coyote Tango
Rating: Gen
Key words: Jaegers, Sentient Jaegers, Angst, Grief/Mourning
Summary: The world is wide and new, and there is a future when they thought there'd be none.
It's a little out of character for me to like a story about sentient Jaegers ... for one thing, I'm traumatised by the thought of robot!sex or Hogwarts coupling with a giant squid ... but that's not what this story is about. Oblivion Bay is where the destroyed/damaged Jaegers are dumped and this story describes when Mako Mori goes there to retrieve Gipsy Danger for repair. The voices of the various abandoned Jaegers are beautiful and the story reminds me of "The Fir Tree" by Hans Christian Anderson in terms of melancholy.
Title: The Naming of Foxes
Word Count: 7.022 words
Characters: Raleigh Becket, Mako Mori, Herc Hansen, Sergio D'onofrio, Hermann Gottlieb, Newton Geiszler, Vanessa Gottlieb, Original Characters
Relationships: Raleigh Becket/Mako Mori, Raleigh Becket & Yancy Becket, Raleigh Becket & Mako Mori, Mako Mori & Vanessa Gottlieb
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Key words: Romance, Friendship, The Drift, Ghost Drifting, Drift Hangover, Developing Relationship, Post-Canon, Friendship, Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, Falling In Love
Summary: The Drift is compatibility, not destiny. Or the story of how Mako Mori and Raleigh Becket fall in love.
Tielan's longest Pacific Rim fic so far and I love it because it's a combination of world building but also continuing the world that has already been described to us in the movie. It's canon-consistent and just beautifully written - the dynamic between Mako and Raleigh and also Herc Hansen's voice. I also like the original characters she introduces. It's a really good story.
*
Now onto Herc Hansen stuff.
This is a lovely story about Herc Hansen by someone named lescalier.
Title: go ahead, go ahead
Word Count: 1,206 words
Relationships: Herc Hansen & Mako Mori, Chuck Hansen & Herc Hansen
Characters: Herc Hansen, Mako Mori, Max the Dog
Rating: Gen
Key words: Sad old men and incongruously happy dogs
Summary: Herc wakes up in the night, some time after Chuck and Stacker help to seal the Rift, finds Max gone, and goes to look for him.
Short but poignant ... I love the interaction between Mako and Herc (non-shippy) and the description of Herc's sorrow. There is so much man!pain in Herc.
Some Mako/Herc fic that I've enjoyed. I'll let the author's notes speak for themselves. Most of it is angsty, it's kind of hard not to be angsty when dealing with the character of Herc, to be honest.
Title: Lying in the Dark, I think I'm Beginning to Know Her by Velocity_Owl87
Summary: Herc can't recall when he and Mako started this clandestine affair, finding comfort with each other the dark, empty rooms of the shatterdome. What he does recall is that it keeps them grounded when nothing else does. He just wishes they both had more time for something more than furtive meetings in the dark.
Notes: Herc and Mako are two characters that have started to slowly become another of my OTPs. I can see them having this hidden affair because there are so many factors against them: time, age, disapproval and the apocalypse, those sort of things. Also, It would be pretty damned hot. So this was written.
Rating: Explicit, mature, porny.
Title: Klaxons by Ragebear
Summary: Apparently, Mako wanting to marry Herc when she was little girl is an accepted fanon headcanon, so that's what I want. However! The twist in this prompt is that Mako's feelings haven't changed and now she's a more than capable (and badass) adult. She reminds him of her promise. Have Herc's feelings changed by now?
Rating: Explicit and porny
Title: Steps by quigonjinn
Summary: Step one: lose your parents and world at the age of ten. Step two: lose your father and world again at the age of twenty-two.
Rating: Mature
Title: Sear by Anonymous
Rating: Mature
No summary provided by the author but it's very ... evocative. Only 794 words but it deals with Herc and Mako post-Drift and the surprising consequences. I liked the description of how matter of fact and almost prosaic Herc is about everything until after the neural connection. What a shock for the poor guy :)
So much angst and man!pain
Pacific Rim is a very new fandom but it's proving to be extremely active. There is a lot of fan fiction being written that is not my cup of tea. For instance, I am indifferent/have no interest to any of the slash pairings, whether they be Newton/Gottlieb, Raleigh/any of the guys, Stacker/Herc etc, Chuck an of the guys, Herc/any of the guys. I have no objection to slash pairings, I just don't really see it myself although I can kind of see why people might enjoy overlaying the Chuck/Raleigh antipathy with sexual tension - not me though.
I have a real problem with the incest fic - I personally find it kind of revolting, so I find myself shrinking away from Raleigh/Yancy and Chuck/Herc. It's actually kind of upsetting sometimes because I actually really, really like Herc Hansen as a character - I find him tragic, poignant and heroic and yet if you sift through the hundreds of stories about Herc, only a small handful of them seem to explore his character. The rest seem to involve a lot of rough sex or incest :(
I like that the internet allows people to explore lots of different facets of a character - I just wish it was easier for me to find the fic that interests me. Sometimes even the tags and summaries are enough to make me want to bleach my brain.
In terms of Mako/Raleigh, one of my preferred pairings in this fandom, there are some strange fanon elements that seem to have entrenched themselves.
1. Raleigh likes knitting? Yes he has quite a few sweaters but I'm not sure if he's the one who would be doing the knitting, but ok.
2. They have a dominant/submissive relationship in which Mako dominates the hell out of Raleigh - from the meta, he seems to perform a lot of oral sex on her, too. I can't speak to the second part as it's anyone's speculative guess, but the first aspect bothers me. Part of the reason that I like their pairing so much (whether as friends or lovers) is that they are so equal and they have a relationship based on mutual respect and understanding. It's not all about sex and domination or anything like that, it's about the fact that he seems to be the first person who truly accepts her and believes in her abilities.
Anyway, I have rambled enough. Some fic recs are in order.
I have been loving 3 stories written by tielan, who I've previously only read in the Stargate Atlantis fandom. She has a really lovely use of words and imagery which reminds me a little of writers like bantha_fodder, meyerlemon and river_soul.
Title: what the Drift has wrought let no man tear asunder
Word Count: 704 words
Characters: Mako Mori, Raleigh Becket, Herc Hansen
Relationships: Raleigh Becket & Mako Mori, Mako Mori & Herc Hansen, Raleigh Becket/Mako Mori
Rating: Mature
Key words: Friendship/Love, The Drift
Summary: The world is wide and new, and there is a future when they thought there'd be none.
This fic is a lovely little snapshot moment post-movie which briefly explores interactions between Mako and Herc Hansen (non-shippy) and also Raleigh Becket (slightly shippy). It's only short, but it's extremely evocative and faithful to the feel of the movie.
Title: voices calling in the empty wind
Word Count: 842 words
Characters: Mako Mori, Original Male Character(s), Brawler Yukon, Tacit Ronin, Matador Fury, Gipsy Danger, Coyote Tango
Rating: Gen
Key words: Jaegers, Sentient Jaegers, Angst, Grief/Mourning
Summary: The world is wide and new, and there is a future when they thought there'd be none.
It's a little out of character for me to like a story about sentient Jaegers ... for one thing, I'm traumatised by the thought of robot!sex or Hogwarts coupling with a giant squid ... but that's not what this story is about. Oblivion Bay is where the destroyed/damaged Jaegers are dumped and this story describes when Mako Mori goes there to retrieve Gipsy Danger for repair. The voices of the various abandoned Jaegers are beautiful and the story reminds me of "The Fir Tree" by Hans Christian Anderson in terms of melancholy.
Title: The Naming of Foxes
Word Count: 7.022 words
Characters: Raleigh Becket, Mako Mori, Herc Hansen, Sergio D'onofrio, Hermann Gottlieb, Newton Geiszler, Vanessa Gottlieb, Original Characters
Relationships: Raleigh Becket/Mako Mori, Raleigh Becket & Yancy Becket, Raleigh Becket & Mako Mori, Mako Mori & Vanessa Gottlieb
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Key words: Romance, Friendship, The Drift, Ghost Drifting, Drift Hangover, Developing Relationship, Post-Canon, Friendship, Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, Falling In Love
Summary: The Drift is compatibility, not destiny. Or the story of how Mako Mori and Raleigh Becket fall in love.
Tielan's longest Pacific Rim fic so far and I love it because it's a combination of world building but also continuing the world that has already been described to us in the movie. It's canon-consistent and just beautifully written - the dynamic between Mako and Raleigh and also Herc Hansen's voice. I also like the original characters she introduces. It's a really good story.
*
Now onto Herc Hansen stuff.
This is a lovely story about Herc Hansen by someone named lescalier.
Title: go ahead, go ahead
Word Count: 1,206 words
Relationships: Herc Hansen & Mako Mori, Chuck Hansen & Herc Hansen
Characters: Herc Hansen, Mako Mori, Max the Dog
Rating: Gen
Key words: Sad old men and incongruously happy dogs
Summary: Herc wakes up in the night, some time after Chuck and Stacker help to seal the Rift, finds Max gone, and goes to look for him.
Short but poignant ... I love the interaction between Mako and Herc (non-shippy) and the description of Herc's sorrow. There is so much man!pain in Herc.
Some Mako/Herc fic that I've enjoyed. I'll let the author's notes speak for themselves. Most of it is angsty, it's kind of hard not to be angsty when dealing with the character of Herc, to be honest.
Title: Lying in the Dark, I think I'm Beginning to Know Her by Velocity_Owl87
Summary: Herc can't recall when he and Mako started this clandestine affair, finding comfort with each other the dark, empty rooms of the shatterdome. What he does recall is that it keeps them grounded when nothing else does. He just wishes they both had more time for something more than furtive meetings in the dark.
Notes: Herc and Mako are two characters that have started to slowly become another of my OTPs. I can see them having this hidden affair because there are so many factors against them: time, age, disapproval and the apocalypse, those sort of things. Also, It would be pretty damned hot. So this was written.
Rating: Explicit, mature, porny.
Title: Klaxons by Ragebear
Summary: Apparently, Mako wanting to marry Herc when she was little girl is an accepted fanon headcanon, so that's what I want. However! The twist in this prompt is that Mako's feelings haven't changed and now she's a more than capable (and badass) adult. She reminds him of her promise. Have Herc's feelings changed by now?
Rating: Explicit and porny
Title: Steps by quigonjinn
Summary: Step one: lose your parents and world at the age of ten. Step two: lose your father and world again at the age of twenty-two.
Rating: Mature
Title: Sear by Anonymous
Rating: Mature
No summary provided by the author but it's very ... evocative. Only 794 words but it deals with Herc and Mako post-Drift and the surprising consequences. I liked the description of how matter of fact and almost prosaic Herc is about everything until after the neural connection. What a shock for the poor guy :)
So much angst and man!pain