#welding sydney

[wheelsrespray2]

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[whitecrossdental01]

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[santanastudwelding]

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[metalhouse909]

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[derrick06]

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[mizzskelter]

Finally making covers for my playlists of the characters! Starting with Sydney my beloved (who I may have gone overboard on).

Here's the playlist link:

A list of the songs under the cut just in case:

Bedroom Hymns, Howl, All This And Heaven Too, and Cosmic Love (Florence + The Machine) | Trust, The Fall, creature (half alive) | Fallen Angel (P&SWG) | Shy (Saint Blonde) | Young God (Halsey) | Homunculus (Trickle) | Out of Body (ufo ufo) | Preach (Saint Motel) [Too many saints] | New Sensations (Sunsleep) | The Devil is a Gentleman (Merci Raines) | Spirit Light (Moonfall)

Can’t Go to Hell (Sin Shake Sin) | Mary On A Cross (Ghost) | Blood in the Wine (AURORA) | The Cult of Dionysus (Orion) | End of It (Friday Pilots Club) | Angel of Small Death (Hozier) | This Hell (Rina Sawayama) | For the Love of God (Mindless Self Indulgence) | The Eternal Seduction of Eve (The Real Tuesday Weld) | the fruits (Paris Paloma) [ty for the suggestion]

[coeurdalene]

looking for some light

masterlist | ao3

summary: he tells raleigh, “i want to come back from this mission, ‘cause i quite like my life.” he means, there’s still so much i want to do, so much i have to do. (aka chuck wants to make it through this goddamn war so he can finally live a normal life, even if he doesn’t really know what that means.)

pairing: chuck hansen x reader

warning(s): character death (sorry), swearing, mentions of canon-typical violence.

word count: 3.86k

a/n: i meant to have this finished by the ten year anniversary of the movie but uh… anyways, here it is now! this is my love letter to chuck hansen and also a projection of my want for a beach house.

The universe gifts Chuck an unwanted Christmas present in the form of a memorandum. He swears under his breath when you trudge into the Mission Control Center that morning with a dejected frown on your face and shove the crisp paper into his hands. His eyes fall on the letterhead, embossed with the familiar spread-winged eagle, and he already knows what it contains. He’d been expecting it for months. He resists the urge to scream, to crumple the paper into a ball and hurl it at the trash bin with every ounce of remaining strength in his body. He doesn’t envy you when you announce the bad news to everyone else, fulfilling your final duty as Sydney’s Chief LOCCENT Officer.

Days later, not even twenty-four hours after the Shatterdome decommissioning and right at the beginning of the new year, the universe offers him—and the rest of Sydney—another unwanted gift.

Mutavore is an ugly thing. Nearly ninety meters tall and weighing over two thousand tons, it’s hunched over as if struggling to support its own weight, blade-like plates protruding from its head and back.

“I don’t care how many eyes it has,” he says after you read out its classification and measurements, “I’m gonna kick its ass.”

(Six. It has six eyes. Just because he doesn’t care doesn’t mean he won’t pay attention.)

The category four Kaiju plows through the coastal wall like a knife cutting through warm butter and tramps into Sydney Harbour, stopping only to raise its head and let out a guttural screech, as if barging through a metal barrier hadn't been enough to announce its presence. He wonders how many millions of dollars have now been reduced to rubble at the bottom of the bay and how many weeks were spent welding together beams that took only a few seconds to destroy. 

Then, its beady eyes—all six of them—focus on Striker Eureka and her brass knuckles glinting in the sun. It screeches again before charging headfirst into Striker’s swinging fist.

Mutavore dies as quickly as it breached the wall, lying motionless in the bay, blood-soaked missiles lodged in its chest and Kaiju blue staining the water. 

“That’s Striker Eureka’s tenth kill to date. It’s a new record,” he boasts to the reporter in the aftermath. He ignores the questions about the decommissioning and brushes off the look his father gives him. Don’t get too cocky, he looks like he wants to say.

When they return to the Shatterdome, the J-Tech crew cleans Striker, polishing her knuckles and wiping Kaiju remains from the Conn-Pod. Chuck takes a long hot shower. Then, the move to Hong Kong begins.

The Anchorage Shatterdome—the cold and stalwart Icebox—had been the first to close. He remembers how you had stared blankly at the official PPDC statement for hours while he watched the newscaster on the television read it out loud. The Marshal had been on the broadcast, too, brought on for further questioning. When the anchor asked about the future of the Jaeger Program, he had assured her that, as long as the Kaiju kept coming, the Jaegers would keep fighting. Chuck had laughed dryly at that. The dwindling funding from the U.N. would say otherwise and whispers of better opportunities at the wall hung in the air, getting louder with every passing day.

The closure of the Icebox set off a string of shutdowns: Lima and Tokyo later that month, Panama City in November, Vladivostok and Los Angeles a few weeks after. The clock was ticking and it was only a matter of time before that damned memorandum arrived in Sydney, his fate dictated by its contents.

His beloved Sydney Shatterdome closes at the turn of the year, leaving behind its only remaining sibling in Hong Kong. What had once been a robust network of PPDC hubs was now reduced to one. 

And the clock continues to tick. 

“We don’t need a stupid wall,” Chuck declares on the flight to Hong Kong, glaring at the news broadcast replaying footage of the Sydney attack. “We need better pilots.”

He’d expressed the same sentiment to the reporter who interviewed him after Mutavore’s attack, too, blaming the fall of the Jaeger program on the mediocrity of those involved. He isn’t sure if it’s that simple—you had explained something to him about politics and funding and morale, government nonsense he didn’t understand—but he sure as hell knows that the Jaegers would be winning if pilots stopped letting the Kaiju kick their asses.

“Have some respect,” his father chides. “Every pilot has fought tooth and nail to protect the people they love.”

And perhaps that’s the truth—it sure is for him. His days consist of sore muscles from training, never getting enough sleep, and always anticipating another fight. He does it for his father, who has been a soldier for as long as he can remember. For his mother, whose untimely death lingers in the back of his mind every time he sets his eyes on a Kaiju. For you, who frequently pulls all-nighters and agonizes over details to make sure the Shatterdome stays running. And for Max, of course. (Silly little dog probably has no idea what a Kaiju is.)

So, yeah, perhaps it is the truth. But it doesn’t change the fact that they only have eight months left of funding, or that the U.N. thinks a wall will fare better than a Jaeger.

“We won’t be getting more pilots. All we can do is work with what we still have,” you chime in, pulling Chuck out of his thoughts. “But, on the bright side, our remaining pilots are some of the best in program history.”

“Including me?” he smirks. You laugh, cheerful and bright, punching his arm lightly. Max shifts in his sleep at the sudden noise. His father gives him that look again. Don’t get too cocky.

He spends the rest of the flight listening to you read briefing notes on “Operation Pitfall,” the Marshal’s shiny new plan to end the war by detonating a bomb at the throat of the Breach. Somehow, the PPDC had procured a thermonuclear warhead from the Russians, entrusting Striker Eureka to carry it while the remaining Jaegers played defense. 

Chuck is cynical about this plan. They had already tried (and failed) to drop things into the Breach. A bomb would only bounce back at them and kill anything in range.

He quips sarcastically if the Marshal had thought of that. You respond only by flipping through the file again for an explanation. He knows you won’t find one. 

As he steps off the plane and onto the landing pad, he’s met with a grinning Tendo Choi shouting over the patter of heavy rain, “Welcome to Hong Kong!”

The man, wearing a grey suit jacket too wide around the shoulders shakes their hands in greeting before ushering them out of the rain and into the Shatterdome. Chuck sidesteps some J-Techs as he enters, surveying his surroundings.

He had been much younger the last time he visited Hong Kong and much less invested in all the inner workings of the PPDC. He remembers mechanics and pilots shouting and running about, dirt and scuff marks on the floor, and his father reminding him to keep a tight grip on Max’s leash. It had felt unfamiliar then, but he realizes now that it isn’t too different from Sydney. Same high ceiling, same metal catwalks, and almost the same arsenal of Jaegers towering over him. It’s a little older, a little grittier, and a little more worn down, but no longer foreign. 

He spots Cherno Alpha in one of the bays, its stalwart form hunkering and heavy. The Kaidanovskys stand at its feet, engaged in conversation. Crimson Typhoon stands opposite it, brilliant red and regal. J-Techs gather around her three arms, inspecting and cleaning the rotating saw blades. 

“Striker arrived a few minutes before you did,” Tendo gestures to the shiny silver Jaeger standing in the far bay, metal glinting under the bright lights of the hangar. “The crew is getting her settled in.”

Then, Chuck’s eyes fall on the fourth and final Jaeger. That last he had heard of Gipsy Danger was that she had been decommissioned, damaged beyond repair from a mission gone wrong. But here she stands—untarnished metallic blue, left arm intact, and definitely not lying forgotten in Oblivion Bay.

“What’s that old rustbucket doing here?” he leers, very aware that there isn’t a single speck of rust on her.

“She looks brand new,” you remark. 

“She is, sorta,” Tendo replies, “We’ve been fixing her up: a new fluid synapse system, new engine blocks, and a new hull. She’ll be holding the defensive perimeter for you in Operation Pitfall, along with Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon.”

“Does she have pilots?” you inquire.

“Not yet,” Tendo grins. “But she will.”

Chuck hopes that these pilots won’t be incompetent idiots, whoever they might be.

The peaceful moments are rare, but cherished and so welcomed. In these instances, he lets his guard down, breathes deeply, and allows himself to think of anything other than training or fighting.

One of his favorites is somewhere in between Striker’s fourth and fifth kills: a lazy afternoon in bed with your back against the headboard and his head in your lap, sunlight streaming in through the windows with your fingers carding lightly through his hair.

“After this war is over,” he declares, imagining a life without the chaos and destruction that comes with being a Jaeger pilot, “we’ll buy a nice house in the suburbs where we’ll live blissfully for the rest of our lives.”

“The suburbs are nice,” you contend, “but how about a beach house on the Gold Coast? Or Port Douglas?”

He chuckles at that, picturing what living by the ocean without the fear of a Kaiju attack would be like. He would spend his mornings engulfed in the soothing murmur of the sea, gazing out at the unbroken horizon. His afternoons basking in the warmth of the sun, feet buried in the soft sand. His evenings surrounded by music and your melodious laughter, trying not to step on your toes while you lead him through a dance in your living room.

Quiet, he thinks. Serene. The only unrest would be the waves at high tide or the gulls swooping down to steal his food.

“Wherever you want, as long as it’s you and me. And Max. Right, bud?” he grins at the bulldog lying at the foot of the bed. Max lets out a little grunt. Chuck takes that as a sign of agreement.

“Sounds lovely,” you reply, your hand moving to rest against his cheek. He turns his head to kiss your palm, heart soaring at the way you smile softly down at him.

All Chuck knows about Raleigh Becket is that he quit the Jaeger Program. That information alone is enough for him to dislike the guy. He doesn’t trust some washed-up pilot to run defense for him while he carries a 2400-pound bomb on the back of his Jaeger. Doesn’t care that his father fought alongside the guy in Manila or that he single-handedly piloted his Jaeger back to shore. Doesn’t bother to hold back a grimace when Raleigh tells him that he’d been working on the wall for the past five years.

“If you slow me down, I'm gonna drop you like a sack of Kaiju shit,” he hisses at him in the mess hall. He ignores the way his father watches him with disapproval as he stalks away.

His bad mood turns worse when Mako Mori is named Raleigh’s copilot. 

He has known Mako for years. They had grown up in Shatterdomes together, met a few times when the Marshal had brought her to Sydney, and briefly bonded over their love of dogs. He’s close enough to her to know that she can fight well and that she has one of the best simulator scores he’s ever seen. (Better than his, although he’d never admit that.) But, she has no experience in a Jaeger and no understanding of what a drift is actually like, which, in his eyes, makes her no better than Raleigh. He isn’t surprised when they’re both out of alignment during their test run, your concerned tone alerting the rest of LOCCENT of the deviation, or when Mako begins chasing the RABIT, raising apprehensive murmurs from the crowd of onlookers. Or when it ends in Tendo pulling the plug on Gipsy’s power.

“Worse mistakes have happened,” Tendo sighs as Gipsy’s plasma cannon goes offline. Chuck scowls. There is no space for even a single mistake in the plan to attack the Breach, especially amateur ones like chasing RABITs. He knows that the Marshal understands this, too.

Later, as he paces in the Marshal’s office, still brimming with anger from Raleigh and Mako’s failure of a test run, he snaps, “He's a has-been. She’s a rookie. I don’t want them protecting my bomb run. sir.”

His father stands across the room, arms crossed and mouth set tightly in a frown. In the corner, you and Tendo are huddled over a tablet, discussing the drift results in hushed voices. The Marshal warns him to watch his tone. Chuck rolls his eyes in response and thinks to himself, He knows I’m right.

He finds Raleigh and Mako standing silently in the hall outside after his father kicks him out of the room. He rounds on the former, seething and jabbing an accusatory finger into his chest, “I want to come back from this mission, ‘cause I quite like my life.”

He turns to Mako, sneering and spitting out some distasteful things, ignoring the feeling that he’ll regret it later. 

When Raleigh’s fist makes contact with his jaw, Chuck sees red.

On bad nights, he wakes up in a cold sweat, plagued by nightmares of being painfully ripped to shreds by sharp claws and teeth. Some nights he wakes up angry, frustrated with himself after overanalyzing his fights. Other nights, he relives the moment when he found out about his mother’s death, shaking with body-wracking sobs and shuddering with each intake of breath. But you hold him through it, your soothing hands on his back and comforting words in his ear. He focuses on your voice, steady and calm, and syncs his breathing with yours.

“You’re okay,” you murmur. “They’re just nightmares. You’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” he repeats.

On bad nights, you confess your fear that the war will never end, or that you’ll burn out before it does. Some nights, you feel that you’re not doing enough, that you need to get back to work even though it’s past midnight. Other nights, you worry that you’ll spend your entire life fighting, that you’ll never be able to rest. But he holds you through it, his calloused fingers on your cheeks wiping away your tears. You focus on his touch, firm and resolute, and rest your hands on top of his.

“It’s okay,” you contend, voice shaky but certain. “I have you. This is enough.”

“This is enough,” he repeats.

Yet, he can’t help but want more. He wants the beach house instead of the cold metal walls of the Shatterdome. Wants to wake up to the sun, your smile, and Max’s whining for food instead of doomsday alarms and Kaiju attacks. Wants you to be able to sleep in for once. Wants to spend his days sunbathing and learning to surf instead of training in combat drills and preparing for another attack. Wants to give you some peace, and to find some of his own.

He tells Raleigh, “I want to come back from this mission, ‘cause I quite like my life.”

He means, There’s still so much I want to do, so much I have to do.

Chuck has only felt true fear a few times in his life. Standing on top of his disabled Jaeger with only a flare gun in his hands is one of them. In the moment, he tells himself that he isn’t afraid, that a double event isn’t any different from any other Kaiju attack, and that Striker will come back online in just a second. The adrenaline coursing through his veins overpowers the feeling of impending doom anyway. But, later, as he reflects on the feeling of relief that had washed over when Gipsy’s fog lights enveloped him, he admits that he had been scared shitless. And, he admits (only to himself) that he’s thankful for Raleigh and Mako, even if they’re has-beens or rookies.

He holds you closer that night and knows that you’ve already picked up on all the details of his uneasy expression. Still, he musters up the strength to confess aloud, “I thought we were gonna die.”

You’re silent, responding only by rubbing your hand across his back and hugging him a little tighter. The heavy weight of his lingering fear sits in his chest as he continues, “Dad had injured his arm, our comms were out, Cherno and Crimson were gone, and there was a fucking Kaiju ready to swallow us whole. Shooting that flare at it made it even more pissed off.”

“Not your best idea,” you remark playfully. “You’d think all that training to prepare you for situations like this would help you keep calm and think of something rational to do.”

“It was Dad’s idea, not mine,” he shrugs.

“Well, I’m glad the flare managed to keep it occupied long enough for Gipsy to get there,” you reply, a soft smile tugging at the corners of your lips. “And I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“Me, too,” he sighs, the weight in his chest lightening slightly.

When he drifts off to sleep, he dreams of the war ending and a house overlooking the shore.

If, a year ago, you had told Chuck that he would be piloting a Jaeger with the Marshal Stacker Pentecost, he would have laughed in your face and asked why the Marshal wasn’t off doing better things (like convincing world leaders to keep funding the Jaeger Program or figuring out ways to increase pilot recruitment). And, if you had told him that he would hear the phrase “there’s a third signature emerging from the Breach,” he would have rolled his eyes and declared the situation impossible. (“I’d still kick its ass, though,” he would have probably said.)

Yet, here he is, strapped into Striker with the Marshal as his copilot, only three hundred meters from the Breach, watching a category five Kaiju materialize in front of him. He feels his stomach drop as he lays eyes on Slattern’s angular head and the sharp spike protruding from its chest. When it roars, the water around them ripples, and the ground beneath shakes. He barely has any time to think before the massive beast rears its head and charges, swinging its heavy leathery tail directly at them. 

The hit knocks Striker off her feet and sends her crashing into a nearby hydrothermal vent. He winces and swears, body aching and head beginning to throb as streams of water push and jostle the Jaeger. Slattern prepares to charge again just as Striker regains her footing and he easily falls into a fighting stance along with the Marshal, fists clenched and ready to strike. This time, when it attacks, they’re ready—dealing out swift punches that send the Kaiju reeling.

He isn’t sure how much of it is the Marshal and how much of it is himself, but the exhilaration that rushes through him as one of Striker’s sting blades slices across Slattern’s throat reinvigorates him. The other blade cuts into its arms, blue blood spilling from deep gashes. It screeches, and he expects it to rush at them again, but it swims away, blood trailing eerily in the water.

He takes the moment of respite to breathe, and to survey the damage. The harsh red light of the many, many warning messages flashes across his vision. He fiddles with some controls, watches as the Marshal does the same, and sighs heavily when neither of their attempts fixes anything. He resigns himself to hoping that Striker can hold on a little longer. She had gotten him this far, surely she could see him through to the end of this war—and to the beginning of his life at peace.

But–

“The attack jammed the bomb release,” he notices. “We’ll have to manually override–”

A yell from LOCCENT cuts him off. Chuck’s stomach drops even further when he hears someone say, “Striker, you have two Kaiju converging on you fast!”

He curses loudly and immediately knows, There’s no time for a manual override.

The Marshal is on the intercom before Chuck can even begin to formulate a plan, shouting to Raleigh and Mako. 

“You know exactly what you have to do,” he declares. “Gipsy is nuclear, take her to the Breach.”

“What can we do, sir?” Chuck asks, bracing for the hit.

“We can clear a path,” the Marshal answers firmly, a slight smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, “for the lady.”

Even without the drift connecting their thoughts, Chuck understands.

“Well, my father always said, ‘If you have a shot, you take it,’” he remarks, knowing that, on the other end, his father is listening with pride. Chuck can admit that he was an arrogant dickhead with no respect for any of the pilots around him and that he never bothered to hide his resentment for his old man, never gave him a reason to like the man his son had become. Yet, he knows—and has always known—that his father is proud of him. (He is proud of his father, too, for what it’s worth.)

In the final moments, his thoughts drift to you: swathed in blankets and gathered in his arms on cold winter nights, perched on the seat of a stationary bike and reading reports while keeping him company in the gym, wrapped in his brown leather jacket with Max’s leash in your hand while accompanying him for walks around the Shatterdome. He recalls your bright laughter when he’d crack stupid jokes, your serious voice you’d use only over the intercom, and the mischievous glint in your eyes when you’d pretend you hadn’t given Max extra treats.

“I love you,” he had said before entering the Conn-Pod, so quietly that only you could hear him, holding you tightly and kissing away your concerned frown. The warmth of your hands against his cheeks had lingered as he had stepped away.

“I love you,” he says now, loud enough for you to hear him over all the noise, swallowing the lump in his throat and blinking away the tears threatening to spill from the corners of his eyes. “I’m sorry we’ll never get that beach house.”

“But, I had you,” he says. “It was enough.”

When the bomb detonates, he’s surrounded by blinding light and a deafening boom. And, finally, peace.

In his dreams, he can’t tell where he is, only that Max is sitting at his feet, his father is somewhere in the distance, and you’re next to him with your hand in his, fingers intertwined.

[horns-the-demon]

thinking ab pacrim again

pls may we reread :)

*slides in like a month later*

I'm so sorry, please take this as an apology for while AO3 is down

It happened for the first time when Seb’s parents were still children. A massive monster the size of a small mountain rose out of the sea, like something from humanity’s collective worst nightmare. It attacked San Francisco in the United States, and destroyed so much. For six long days, it carved a path of destruction, killing millions and flattening three cities. At first it was just the American armed forces trying to bring it down, but then it became everyone. Desperate to stop the loss of their people and country, the Americans accepted help from any military that would send it. Everything imaginable was thrown at it: troops, tanks, artillery, jets.

It still wasn’t enough.

In the end, the only things that brought the gigantic beast down were a series of nuclear bombs. They killed it, but made the entire area around where San Francisco had once stood uninhabitable. Even worse was the monster: it was destructive even in death. Its blood proved toxic, poisoning the environment and causing sickness to break out across the western coast of North America.

Still, the monster was dead. The world grieved, buried what few toxic bodies remained in welded-steel caskets, and attempted to move on.

But then six months later, it happened again in Manila, devastating the Filipino capital. And then four months after that, in Cabo San Lucas. And then in Sydney.

It became evident that wherever these monsters were coming from had many more to send. It was clear that whatever had caused this wasn’t a one time thing: it wouldn’t stop happening.

Countries bordering the Pacific Ocean banded together to create a solution. While nuclear bombs and armies could bring the monsters down, those took time that they didn’t have (not when every minute they spent on dry land was measured in tens of thousands of deaths), and destroyed almost as much as the monsters- dubbed Kaiju by the Japanese, which stuck- did. It would be different, maybe, if the Kaiju ever went ashore in unpopulated areas, but they didn’t: every time one appeared, it made a bee-line for a major population center right on the coast.

Those countries created a new organization: the Pan Pacific Defense Corps, tasked with one goal: to kill Kaiju and stop their destructive rampages by any means necessary.

The means that they came up with, initially, seemed stupid.

The PPDC brought forward the suggestion of building massive mech-robots to fight the Kaiju. It was deemed laughable by many countries around the world, especially those not bordering the Pacific, who pulled out, claiming that the matter clearly wasn’t being taken seriously. And yet, there was a spark of brilliance in the idea: robots that large would be capable of going toe-to-toe and blow-for-blow with a Kaiju. They could kill Kaiju without spreading nuclear radiation all over the surrounding area and necessitating the creation of another exclusion zone where it fell. And by relying on bludgeoning and heat-based weapons, the robots could even kill Kaiju without spilling their toxic blood.

The nations around the Pacific were not dissuaded. The idea was the best they had, so the project was greenlit and the robots- called Jaegers, meaning ‘hunters’- were built. At first, it was decided that a single person would pilot them, but the neural load proved too strong for them to carry on their own. So instead, a two-pilot system was implemented, with each one controlling one half of the Jaeger. 

In order to ensure the pilots stayed synchronized, they began to use technology to allow pilots to Drift, temporarily melding their minds so they could share their memories, instincts, and emotions with each other, acting as one cohesive being to control the Jaeger. And, amazingly enough, the Jaegers worked. They stopped the destruction of Seattle in its tracks. They pushed the Kaiju back, and for the first time since San Francisco was destroyed, people on the Pacific coast could breathe a little easier.

The rest of the world got a firsthand look at the Jaegers in all their glory when Seb’s parents were teenagers. He couldn’t count how many times they’d told him and his siblings about it when they were growing up.

A Kaiju emerged, but left the Pacific without attacking any cities so no one realized. It travelled all the way to the Atlantic, where its presence became known when it leveled Lisbon and then moved further inland.

At massive cost, two teams of Jaegers were transported to Portugal to put the Kaiju down, and put it down they did.

That was when Europe bought into the Jaeger program, and when the world saw what Jaegers could really do.

(Seb realized, when he was older, that apparently the world didn’t sit up and take notice when they saved Ho Chi Minh City. Or Kuala Lumpur. Or Taipei, Tijuana, Shanghai, Lima, or Davao. Jaegers were only a big deal, apparently, when they were stopping a continent who had called their creation a disgrace from being flattened.)

It was European nations re-entering into the PPDC who raised the idea of creating pilots, just the same as much of the world had pooled their resources to create the Jaegers in the first place. Building pilots who were built from the ground up for combat, who could drift with each other as easily as breathing. Pilots with faster reactions, better instincts, and more endurance.

Living weapons built to use the metal ones that had already been built.

Monsters, to match the monsters that had been invading Earth.

They mixed animal DNA into human genomes, and then edited out the things that weren’t necessary to piloting a Jaeger. Sure, this new wave of pilots were shaped like humans, and kind of looked like them, too (allegedly- no images of the pilots were ever made public), but that was only so they could fit into already-existing Jaegers better.

And the hybrid pilots were good. Better than the human pilots had been, even. It took about a decade to get them up and running, but the first generation of them had excellent results. Jaegers were only as good as their pilots, of course, and hybrid pilots were the best.

They felt nothing, knew nothing outside of fighting Kaiju, and would rather die than risk defeat. They were hardy enough to handle the physical strain that came from piloting a Jaeger without even thinking about it. They went after Kaiju, actually living up to the Jaeger name- part soldiers, and part hunters. It was decided that it was more humane to phase out human pilots: why risk human lives, when the hybrids were right there? They fought Kaiju better than people did, and at the end of the day, they weren’t people.

Individual countries sponsored the creation of hybrid pilots, just as nations would shoulder the load of designing and building Jaegers. Germany made one of the first, and hands down the best: designated Michael Schumacher, a synthetically developed human mixed with a Tibetan mastiff. He started killing Kaiju right about a decade before Seb was born, representing Germany in the war against the Kaiju just like the American-, Chinese-, Japanese-, Mexican-, Canadian-, Peruvian-, Vietnamese-, Philippine-, Taiwanese-, Malaysian-, Russian-, and Australian-made Jaegers did.

That was the balance, it was decided. Countries that had more to lose spent most of their money on building Jaegers, while countries further removed from the risks funded the creation of their pilots.

Monsters built to fight monsters.

Very fitting.

Or it would be, if it wasn’t all based on a lie.

Mark returns to himself slowly.

It takes time, coming out of a bad Drift like that: hearing takes about a minute, vision takes longer. The nausea lasts for anywhere from one hour to twelve, and if the skin-prickling sensation of wrongness fades, it takes longer than four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately twenty-one minutes, give or take a few.

Mark would know.

He remains stationary on the hard metal slab he’s laid on. It isn’t comfortable- his tail always ends up getting crushed a bit, no matter what he does. That’s to be expected: Mark is a Jaeger pilot. He wasn’t made for comfort, he was made for fighting Kaiju.

Mark hasn’t fought a Kaiju in four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately twenty-one minutes, give or take a few.

Absentmindedly, he listens in on the conversations around him: they talk over him, about him. He gives no indication he’s listening. They don’t like it when he does that. But he has better hearing than they do, and they talk about him less than fifteen feet where he lies. He can stop the ears on top of his head from twitching or swivelling to hear them more clearly, but he can’t stop himself from hearing.

“That’s the eighty-third failed Drifting attempt. What happened this time?” says one of them. That voice is harsh, the lingering scent of cigarette smoke curls in the air around him. The man is a Marshall, but typically Mark just calls him ‘Sir’.

“I don’t know, sir,” says another, audibly frustrated. A scientist, one of the higher-ranked ones. Mark usually calls him ‘Doctor’, or ‘Sir’. It’s hard to tell what he’s going to want any given day. “He was designed to be easy to Drift with. This isn’t supposed to happen at all. We’re pairing him with police officers and enlisted personnel from every military branch we can tap from. They know how to follow orders, he doesn’t even have any feelings to get in the way. It couldn’t be any easier, but he still keeps messing it up. I think it’s time for us to pull the plug and admit that he’s just admit that he’s unsalvageable.”

“Come on, Dr. Tetzlaff. You must admit he’s been around for a while. The newer models have plenty of advantages, but money can’t buy experience like his.”

“Sir, does it matter? All the experience in the world is useless if he is, and if he can’t Drift he’s useless. Worse than useless, actually. He’s just siphoning resources that could be better used. I don’t even know why we bother feeding him. What a waste!”

“So your recommendation is that we scrap him?”

“Yes, sir,” the scientist says without hesitation. “At least then we can dissect him and see what the issue is. If there’s a fundamental flaw we’re missing with the designated pairs, we need to know as soon as possible.  We can't lose the whole advantage of hybrid pilots just to make them work a bit better. Yes, the designated pairs synchronize better and that synchronization is great, but they were designed to be easy to drift with first. We still need them to be able to pair with a different asset if told to. We can’t risk losing a whole team if one of them gets themselves killed.” Ah, yes. The reason Mark is here. Four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately twenty-two minutes ago, give or take a few, Mark’s other half died. They had been together forever- they were made for each other, made to work together. But four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately twenty-two minutes ago, Mark got blindsided while fighting a Kaiju.

It wasn’t fair- he was the one to make a mistake. It was Mark’s hemisphere, his half of the Jaeger. He should have paid the price.

But he didn’t.

Because Jenson took the blow meant for him. Jenson died terrified and in agony. And Mark felt it all.

Jenson died four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately twenty-two minutes ago, give or take a few, and Mark may as well have died with him.

“Alright,” the Marshall says, followed by the sound of a finger tapping on a glass screen. “It’s decided, he’s getting decommissioned tomorrow.” “Do we have to wait that long?” asks the scientist. His tone is almost a whine. The chip in Mark's back has zapped him for much less.

“Yes. You know how Pacific countries protest when we decommission one of theirs. The Australians are going to throw enough of a tantrum as it is, even once we explain the situation to them. Christ, if only they could all be as easy to work with as the Germans or the Finns.”

Then, the Marshall raises his voice. They never seem to realize that they don't have to, that Mark can hear them even if they whispered from across the room. It always seems strange to Mark that they designed him with better hearing but only ever seem to use it to hurt him.

"Hey, Webber! Heel."

Mark opens his eyes and sits up mechanically. He doesn't waste any extra movement getting his tail out of the way, though the motion crushes it further. What does it matter if he bruises it? He'll finally be dead by this time tomorrow.

He stands up and follows the pair of them back to his quarters, his back straight and his eyes pointed straight ahead the whole way. Despite the fact that they've just signed his death warrant, he maintains a proper heel- just behind them to make it clear that it's them who are leading him, but not beside and not in front.

He’s only ever in front if there's a Kaiju in the way.

As they walk through the Shatterdome towards the small, cramped rooms where the pilots are kept when not in use, the other humans who work in the Shatterdome stare when they pass. They stop and watch as the Marshall and the Scientist walk by, and watch Mark, too, as he walks behind them. He doesn’t know why they watch him- he’s just a sad excuse for a hybrid. Nothing more to see.

Heedless of the stares, the pair of humans in front of him continue to talk.

“Well, even if they drag their feet on scrapping him, this at least means we don’t have to feed him any more, right?”

“Unfortunately not, sir. Lethal injections don’t work well on an empty stomach.”

“Ah, well, that’s still just one more meal and then we can divert those resources elsewhere and get what we can from what’s left of him. Although, to be honest, I’m not quite sure what you’re looking for, Doctor,” the Marshall said. “From the looks of things, Button was malfunctioning at the end there. There was no logical reason for him to have taken a blow like that.” “What can I tell you, sir? They’re just dumb animals. We do our best to get them to act right, but sometimes all the training in the world can’t completely beat that into their heads. I will say, though, that Button’s malfunction just makes Webber’s body more valuable. If there’s any pilot that’s going to have the same issues, it’s the other half of Button’s pair, especially since their minds were linked at the time he did.” “Shame there was nothing of Button left to recover. If only the stupid thing drowned himself or died in the Jaeger so we could have taken a look at him.”

Mark has to fight to keep his steps even and his breathing level. He can’t let his heart rate rise, he can’t let the chip in his back shock him again if it gets too high. If Mark starts letting it, he’ll never stop.

It’s difficult, though, when they talk about Jenson. Mark has no issues being talked about himself: they’re right, he is useless like this, and he has been malfunctioning for four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately twenty-seven minutes, give or take a few. 

But Jenson didn’t malfunction. Jenson was good- the best of them. Jenson was the best thing in the world.

It wasn’t Jenson’s fault he died. Mark was there with him in the Jaeger, it was his job to keep Jenson safe like it was his job to keep Tokyo safe. Mark had failed and so Jenson had died.

The only malfunctioning one is him.

He doesn’t like it when they talk about Jenson like this.

But they don’t like it when he talks back.

He can’t do anything to them if they do something he doesn’t like. That was the first thing he learned when he was small, with too-large ears and too-bright eyes and a too-long tail clutched in both hands for comfort: the humans will do what they want to do. It’s best to just go along with it. Things will go back to being sane once they lose interest and leave you alone.

If he does something they don’t like, they can do quite a lot to him. They can shock him hard and make him scream. They can send a light electrical current through his body to freeze him in place and leave him there until they think he’s learned not to do it again. They used to be able to take Jenson from him, or him from Jenson.

Mark was good. Mark never let that happen.

There was no revenge or vindication that could ever feel good enough to justify being separated from Jenson.

That was what he told himself his entire life, only to bring that habit to an abrupt halt four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately thirty-seven minutes ago, give or take a few.

“Hey, animals are going to do what animals do,” the scientist sighed, shrugging loosely. “They’re going to die in stupid, illogical ways. It isn’t all lost, though. Webber could have the same problem, and this malfunction he’s exhibiting could just be that.”

They draw closer to Mark-and-Jenson’s quarters (it will never stop being Jenson’s, not so long as Mark lives) and Mark thinks he is nearly safe. The Shatterdome is a massive building and its layout was designed to make things easier for leadership first, scientists second, and the massive teams of people that kept their Jaegers repaired and in good working order third. Hybrid pilots came last. The trip from the Drift theatres to the pilots’ quarters has taken a while, but it is nearly over, and then Mark will be able to lie down, close his eyes, and wait for tomorrow.

Nearly safe isn’t safe, though. Mark should know this by now.

“You know, the more you talk the more interested I am in seeing the results of Webber’s autopsy,” the Marshall says. “He was always a bit stronger than Button, and could’ve overpowered him physically if he wanted. Do you think there was any way he could have done that in the Drift?” “I don’t quite understand what you mean, sir.” “Well you said Button taking the hit for Webber was illogical, but from where Webber is standing, it wouldn’t have been. If one of them was guaranteed to die, why not make sure it’s the other guy, right?”

Mark needs them to move faster. His stomach is turning, and he’s going to start heaving soon.

“You know, that makes sense,” the scientist says, “and it is possible. Honestly, it’s what I would do if it were me.” Mark would never do that. Ever. Even if he was willing to sacrifice another person’s life to save his own (he isn’t), he would never trade Jenson’s. There is no force on the planet that could make him, especially not fear for his own life. That is why it is Mark, and not the scientist, in the Jaeger. That is why they don’t put humans in Jaegers.

“Honestly, I think if he was smart enough to figure something like that out on his own, I’d actually have to respect him a bit.”

They’re at his-and-Jenson’s door. The Marshall opens it, though he doesn’t need to: Mark can do it, as can anyone else on base. It’s an illusion of privacy, nothing more.

“Webber, in. Stay,” the man barks, once again much louder than needed, and in Mark goes to stay.

And then the door closes and he is finally alone.

Mark sinks down the wall, tilting his head back against the solid surface once he’s seated and closing his eyes. It’s both easy and hard to be back in the room.

On one hand, it’s the one place in the entire Shatterdome that’s his. This is his territory, this is where he can relax as much as he ever can. He doesn’t have to stop his ears from swivelling or his tail from twitching. He can show as much tooth as he wants, he can let his shoulders slump.

There are no eyes on him here. According to Michael and Mika, they used to monitor the pilots everywhere, but eventually stopped when they proved to be incredibly boring when left to their own devices. Apparently, there are only so many times you can watch something sleep, or eat, piss, or stare at a wall before it starts to be excruciatingly monotonous. Go figure.

To be fair, they’re a fairly boring bunch, the hybrid Jaeger pilots of the Tokyo Shatterdome.

Occasionally, when it’s quiet, they’ll hang out- they have to go into their quarters if they’re told to, but they only have to stay there if they’re ordered. They’ll get shocked if they try to leave the general area, but the chips can’t differentiate well between individual sets of quarters.

Mark hasn’t hung out with the others too much in the last four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately thirty-nine minutes, give or take a few. It’s fair. He’s been rotten company.

And he’s been deteriorating in front of all of their eyes. They all know he’s been dying for months, has been since Jenson died. They didn’t need to go through this whole farce with police officers and military personnel from the outside world. If anyone had thought to ask the other pilots, they all could have told them that Mark would never be able to Drift with another person, so they should euthanize him now and save time.

It’s the truth: Mark was made for Jenson. He was made to be Jenson’s. They were a pair- a designated pair. Everything about them had been tailor-made to complement the other perfectly.

No one else can be inside Mark’s head, not once he’d had Jenson in there.

Mark can’t do it. Furthermore, he won’t allow it.

So if he didn’t just die, he was going to be decommissioned soon, anyways. They’d all known it right from when he’d woken up after losing Jenson. The others had to emotionally detach themselves from him during his last time alive in order to stay sane. It’s fine. It’s exactly what Mark would have done, too, if faced with an unfixable basemate.

It’s nice to be alone, no matter how loud his own thoughts are. It is still difficult to be here, though.

Mark has barely cleaned in the last four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately forty-one minutes, give or take a few. He’s lucky they don’t have any janitors for the pilots. They’re responsible for keeping their own quarters in whatever level of cleanliness they desire. 

Ordinarily, it’s somewhat difficult: they live in the bowels of a building right on the coastline, in a deepwater harbor. It’s cold no matter what. The ceiling and the walls all leak. They have to be careful to avoid mold.

But the lack of cleaning, other than what Mark has dragged himself into doing over the last four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately forty-two minutes, give or take a few, means that he’s been able to leave their room the way he wants.

Almost everything is exactly the way they left it that night, when the alarms sounded and Mark and Jenson suited up, were strapped into their Jaeger, and set out to fight a Kaiju. It was the exact same thing they’d done hundreds of times: the Tokyo Shatterdome is the closest one to the Breach, and the busiest by a good margin.

Except what had happened out there hadn’t been like any of the other hundreds of times they’d done it. Mark and Jenson in their Jaeger, Horizon Watcher, had been running point. Fernando and Stoffel had been there as backup in Wicked Wildcat, under orders not to engage unless the situation was critical. That was all routine: no use in causing combat damage to two Jaegers if not strictly necessary.

The Kaiju had been called Edgehunter. It was slippery and serpentine. Hard to nail down. It had limbs, but didn’t use them much, preferring to swim like a massive, wickedly-fast eel. It was badly suited to Horizon Watcher’s strengths: Mark and Jenson were best at hand-to-hand combat, and had a plasma cannon as backup. Using a Jaeger with a blade somewhere on it would have been the smarter option.

It wasn’t like bad strategic matchups were out of the ordinary, though. They were good at what they did, the expectation was that they would adjust and win anyways.

Bhat wasn’t what had happened that horrible day. They’d had Edgehunter in a hold between their mech’s giant fists, and then it had slipped out.

Mark is a hybrid. A wolf hybrid. He is supposed to have good vision. 

But there was no moon that night. The sea was dark, barely illuminated by the floodlights on Horizon Watcher’s head and shoulders. It was stormy, too. With the rain soaking their visor the way it was, the visibility was too low for even Mark to function. He lost track of the Kaiju somewhere in the ink-black waters of the Pacific Ocean.

And then it had exploded out of those waters, finally using its limbs to power a massive leap and taking him completely off-guard. It had landed on Horizon Watcher before they’d had a chance to do much more to raise an arm to try and shield themselves, an effort that had failed completely. The Kaiju latched on with its legs, clamping down and hanging on, while clawing ferociously at the Jaeger’s head.

Titanium screeched as it was rended open, and Mark and Jenson both screamed with it, feeling as though it was their head having a hole ripped into it. It was always like this- they linked together in the Drift, yes, but they linked with the massive robot they piloted, too. Most injuries were easy enough to ignore: there was always pain when the Jaeger’s knuckles met the tough flesh of a Kaiju, or when they were hit or knocked over or bitten or scraped or clawed, but it was low-grade. If there was one upside to the chips implanted in them it was how familiar those made them with pain. Most things, they could shake off as if nothing had happened.

This wasn’t like that. It was horrible, so agonizing that Mark couldn’t even think straight.

But then it got worse. The Kaiju reached into the cockpit, and then the Jaeger pitched sideways, and then-

And then even though it had jumped on Mark’s side, even though it had made a hole on Mark’s side, the Jaeger throwing its entire weight to the other side meant that he wasn’t the one speared by its claws and dragged, screaming, out of the cockpit.

Mark and Jenson were more than just Drift Compatible- they’d shared each other’s minds and memories hundreds of times. Mark knew Jenson’s brain as well as his own.

That must have been why he felt everything that happened after that, even though the neural handshake had been broken and they were no longer actively Drifting. That must have been why Mark still felt Jenson’s stomach-turning mixture of mortal terror and acceptance of his own end.

And then he felt it as the Kaiju pulled Jenson off its claw and into its massive mouth, taking so much of Jenson’s blood and skin and organs with it. Once it bit down, Mark didn’t feel anything else.

Afterwards, he heard secondhand about what he’d done. How he’d taken control of the Jaeger solo, used one hand to wrench Edgehunter’s jaw open, before grabbing Jenson’s side of the controls to unload Horizon Watcher’s entire clip of plasma cannon shots down its throat with the other, frying the Kaiju from the inside out.

How he’d walked the Jaeger, alone, to the nearest patch of shoreline, and come crashing down just outside some tiny Japanese fishing village he still didn’t know the name of once he couldn’t take it any further. How he’d terrified civilians by staggering his way out of the still-open head of the Jaeger, passing out on the beach about fifteen feet away from it.

Mark doesn’t remember any of it.

All he remembers is waking up in the medical bay, alone and in pain. He still felt where Edgehunter’s claw had pierced Jenson’s body, still felt an ache in his bones from where the Kaiju’s teeth had grinded his co-pilot, his partner, his other half into bloody paste. Worst of all, he still felt the empty hole in his mind where Jenson’s warm, comforting presence used to be, even outside of the Drift.

Mark was alone in his head for the first time since he met Jenson.

Over the next four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately forty-six minutes, give or take a few, none of that has faded. Even now, his bones still ache, his torso still stings, and his head still screams over the loss of Jenson. It all still feels just as agonizing as the first second: not dulling, not going away, and definitely not getting any less persistent.

Mark has spent four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately forty-six minutes, give or take a few, going through life as a walking, talking echo of his other half’s last moments.

He doesn’t know how he could possibly learn to function like this. He doesn’t want to find out. All he wants to do is get one last injection, and then fade away to nothing. Even if there is nothing after that, it will still be a lot better than living life without Jenson by his side.

The room is strange to be in. Though he can’t stop physically feeling the lack of his partner, if he uses his sight alone, he can almost pretend it’s like he never lost Jenson. There’s the shirt Jenson had flung over the emergency light and then left there- he always hated to be woken up quickly, regardless of whether they were being deployed or not. There is his pillow, arranged the way that the fox hybrid had preferred it. There’s his pair of dog tags, hanging off the end of the mirror above the sink- Jenson almost never wore his, no matter how many times it got him in trouble. True to form, he’d left them there as they got changed out of their pyjamas and then ran to suit up, neither of them knowing they were doing it for the last time. There are the two beds they’d pushed together to form one, with the sheets and mattresses and pillows still rumpled from how they’d left them that night.

Mark hasn’t touched the bed since. He knows, even without trying, that it will be too big for him alone. He can’t sleep on it, but he can’t disturb it, either. The faint outline of Jenson’s body preserves the illusion that the man that made it isn’t gone. If he pretends hard enough, it almost looks like Jenson has only stepped out for a moment, and will be back soon to make more noise, more messes, and more imprints on their bed.

If he sleeps on the floor, he can preserve the sight a little longer.

The problem is (always is) that Mark is a hybrid. His senses are excellent. He can’t stop himself from using his other ones.

The room is far too quiet to have Jenson anywhere in the vicinity. If they didn’t have someone around who could make him hurt for it, he was always talking, laughing, or humming to himself. Jenson had snored, too. He was comfortingly noisy even in his sleep.

Moreover, Jenson’s scent has faded so much that it only barely clings to anything any more, covered up by Mark’s own. That alone shatters any illusion that Mark tries to cling to.

Already, things are starting to dwindle from Mark’s mind, mundane little things that he didn’t appreciate nearly enough while he had them. He can’t remember quite how many freckles Jenson had on his nose. He can’t remember what the exact shade of blue Jenson’s eyes were, or the specific way his cheeks scrunched when he smiled, really smiled, big and beautiful and all for Mark.

How can Mark not remember that smile? He had treasured almost nothing in the world more than that- not his life, not their Jaeger, not his own body. Nothing, outside of Jenson himself. How is he already forgetting it? How can he even dare to continue breathing, how can he think he deserves it after-

There is a knock at Mark-and-Jenson’s door.

At first he thinks he’s imagining it.

But no, it happens again: a light knock-knock-knock from the metal door to their room.

This isn’t normal. No one knocks, outside of the other hybrid pilots, and there’s very little chance they come and talk to him tonight. The Marshall and the scientist weren’t quiet when they’d walked through the pilots’ quarters. They’d discussed their plans for Mark loudly enough that the others would have heard. The only reason they’d be here now would be to see Mark one last time, which is unlikely. 

Michael and Mika probably won’t: they’ve seen so many pilots die over the years. Doing things like saying goodbye if given the chance will only drive them insane. Lewis and Nico likely won’t, either. He and Jenson had been friendly with them, but that team is younger, and less used to loss. They will take cues on how to deal with it from Michael and Mika, the two oldest hybrid pilots remaining in the world. That is a good choice. They need to keep their heads focused as much as possible, especially since they’re the only other designated pair at the Tokyo Shatterdome: like Mark and Jenson were made for each other, so too were Lewis and Nico. They need to be on their A-game if they don’t want to end up like he has.

Fernando and Stoffel probably won’t. It doesn’t matter how many times Mark tells Fernando that he doesn’t blame them, that they’d been too far away to help and that the situation had gone sideways too fast for them to have any hope of responding. That they had been following orders just like every other time they’d done this, and there had been no indication that this time there would be a price to pay for obedience.

Mark doesn’t blame them. Mark blames no one but himself.

But Fernando feels too much, he always has. He takes losses personally and internalizes them. Stoffel is often good at pulling him out of his spirals, but against something like losing another pilot he’d known for almost a decade he won’t be able to do much.

Fernando doesn’t believe Mark when he says he doesn’t blame them. Hopefully he can start to believe it one day, but Mark doesn’t think he’ll be alive to see it.

Still, it could be Fernando at the door. Mark won’t turn down a chance to console his closest friend still living.

He opens the door.

It is not Fernando.

It is not a pilot at all.

The person standing at the door is small and slight. He’s shorter than Mark or Jenson, perhaps around the same height as Lewis, Nico, Michael, or Mika. He is taller than Fernando, but that isn’t surprising: everyone is taller than Fernando. Honestly, his height isn’t unusual for the black-haired humans that work all over the Shatterdome, but his hair isn’t black- it’s golden in the light of the hallway, and curly. The eyes looking up at Mark are blue, somewhat like Jenson’s but a little less grey, and wider, too.

He has no ears poking out from underneath his hair like most of the pilots do. It doesn’t look like he has a tail, either. There are no markings on his skin, no claws in the place of his fingernails, and his jaw doesn’t sit like there he has any fangs.

There isn’t anything to distinguish him from humans, to mark him as humanoid but not all the way there.

That’s because he isn’t just humanoid. He isn’t a hybrid at all, he’s a human.

And yet.

“Hallo,” he says, in a soft voice. “I have something I’d like to discuss with you, if you have time. Can I come in for a moment please?”

His voice is strange. He speaks similarly to how Michael does. Mark focuses on that, rather than how taken aback he is by the whole thing. This man in front of him is clearly a human. And yet, despite his obvious humanity, he hasn’t barged into Mark-and-Jenson’s room, even though it’s technically his right. He isn’t speaking around Mark, or giving him any orders, really. He’s looking Mark in the eye. They never do that.

[optikes]

Klippel with assemblages in his studio

Number 1060, (1995) painted wire, tin  22.5 x 7.6 x 7cm

Number 714 - Prototype for Adelaide Plaza (1988)  Construction of brazed and welded steel, geometric sections, found objects, formed sheet metal. 69.5 x 64 x 49.5 cm without base

Number 329, (1977) assemblage of collected wood parts  300 x 350 x 135cm

search @www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

A Klippel's practice exeplifies the interconnectedness of the conceptual and the material. His bodies of work explore the relationship between the organic and the mechanical.

B By the time Robert Klippel died in Sydney in 2001, aged 81, he was critically acclaimed and well collected in his home country. But as with most Australian artists, although he had lived for stints in Europe and the US from the 1940s until the 1960s, his work was largely unknown abroad.

Eleven years on, his son has secured a blue chip shot at changing that. Klippel junior has signed Galerie Gmurzynska in Zurich as the sole representative of his father’s estate worldwide, catapulting the artist into the company of Pablo Picasso, Yves Klein, Alexander Rodchenko and David Smith, whose estates the gallery also represents.

  Some of Klippel’s large wooden sculptures have already been on the Gmurzynska stand at Art Basel, Art Basel Miami and ArtHK, and a substantial publication and exhibition is being planned for the coming year.

  Klippel is the only Australian artist to have been taken on by the 50-year-old gallery, which is best known for introducing the Russian avant garde to western Europe and for representing modernist artists working up to 1980.

  “We have a solid reputation for ­scientific research, and for promoting interesting, important historic figures who have created something authentic but who have not had the exposure they should have had,” says gallery co-owner Mathias Rastorfer.

  Klippel, an abstract artist and loner not easily slotted into one particular movement, was loosely influenced by surrealism, cubism and constructivism.

  According to Deborah Edwards in the 2002 Art Gallery of NSW retrospective catalogue, “his attitudes to art making were grounded in European modernism and postwar intellectual thought”. It is for this reason, in part, that Gmurzynska was interested in taking him on.

  Rastorfer says: “We found him very interesting due to his connection to the constructivists, his Polish ­origins, his time in America. The more you go into Klippel, the more modernist links you find.

“We will introduce his work in the context of those peers, taking him out of the Australian context and putting him into an international one. We want to show where he fits in worldwide.”

  Klippel’s bronze sculptures have been the most collectable in Australia. They appear regularly on the secondary market and can fetch more than $100,000. The top price paid at auction – $507,800 – was in 2006 for a miniature steel, tin, acrylic paint and coloured paper collage.

  Gmurzynska plans to use the large, wooden sculptures and tiny coloured plastic ones that Klippel did in the late 1980s and early 1990s to introduce him internationally. This is in part for practical reasons, because this is most of what is left in the estate, but also because he thinks these will work best there.

  Rastorfer expects to take at least three years to achieve traction internationally for Klippel. “One of the biggest temptations is to sell the four or five most important works straight away, because that’s the easiest thing to do,” he says. “But then the estate is left with the lesser known work and often doesn’t know what to do with it.

  “It’s about placement in museum collections, in significant private ­collections, and with opinion makers, not just about selling. If we show him in the context of his better- known peers, the rest will follow.”

  There are no guarantees the strategy will work, but Andrew Klippel is quietly excited that his father, to whom he was very close, is getting a posthumous chance at an inter­national career.

After years in the music business, where things happen very quickly, his foray into the visual arts is teaching him a new virtue: patience. “This is a long play.”

  Katrina Strickland http://www.afr.com  (2012)

[goodbysunball]

Fresh trimmings

Alienator, World of Hate 7" (Convulse)

New recording from Portland, OR's Alienator following a 2021 demo. The band plays a sort of mid-tempo hardcore, burly almost-metal riffs and gruff vocals filling out the space afforded by the lower speeds. Passes surface level inspection, especially "I'm Nothing" or the stomping outro of "Social Disease," but all of the parts here don't really coalesce into the total package as advertised. Lyrics are clunky and hackneyed, even by hardcore's low standards, and I'm annoyed on each subsequent listen at how chugging death metal riffs are teased at the beginning of "Senseless Violence" and the title track but not fleshed out. It's all competent and fashionable, from the artwork to the execution, but doesn't really distinguish itself and, at worst, inflicts some secondhand embarrassment.

Delco MF's, March of the M.F.'s 7" EP (MF Records)

Seems recently any hardcore that catches my ear has to be verging on grindcore tempos, and Delco MF's do it better than most. The first 7" was great, and March of the M.F.'s continues the winning streak. There are some strong riffs on here, most potent on the title track, but this is a band primarily carried by the vocals and the drumming. "Future World" is a prime example, the vocals and violent tom fills racing and tripping over each other, until "Death of Me" pleases the crowd waiting to mosh. Six songs in six minutes, no room for filler (or, perhaps thankfully, a lyric sheet) - almost makes me agree with the "Hardcore Rules / Fuck Off" banner pictured on the back of the sleeve.

Mark Van Fleet, Vordenal CS (Refulgent Sepulchre)

I saw Mark perform as Face Place a few years ago, and it was cool, but felt very restrained and almost academic in its approach to noise. I was hoping for something a little closer to the heaving noisescapes he created as 1/2 of Sword Heaven, and now Vordenal comes close to fulfilling that wish: syrupy thick loops are urged to disintegrate, harsh sounds reflect off thin metal walls and a general unease presides. There are tracks, but this works as two side-long pieces. Side A's a little roomier, sounding like a high rise construction site on a windy day, creaking metal-on-metal and eerie whistling, until bolts shear and welds fracture during the swirling fever pitch of "Vordenal Slurp." Side B is just two tracks, and here's where the anxiety begins to burrow under your skin. The chomping and pounding of "Volume Fog" is particularly effective, and its guts are poured into the atonal drone of "Dungeon Summer," a drone that begins to pile on itself and buckle. When I listened to Vordenal on an airplane recently, it felt as if the plane were being ripped apart until the abrupt end of "Dungeon Summer" allowed the oppressive hum of steady cruising back in. What Mark's doing is in the league of Tom Darksmith and Aaron Dilloway, albeit a bit less polished than their recent works, but the stitches showing works in Vordenal's favor.

Life Expectancy, Decline CS (Iron Lung)

One of maybe three hardcore releases to leave a mark this year, Life Expectancy's Decline is a cavernous, feedback-ridden bullet train ride, except you're strapped on the outside like Mad Max in Fury Road. Plenty of noise here, including intro/outro on/off ramps, but the middle section is a pretty potent slurry of metal and punk, a combo that just doesn't add up for most bands. Vocals are a vicious black metal caterwaul, becoming more and more prominent as the tape plays, fully emerging on "Liquidated Flesh" and "S.M.R.A." where the tempo slows just enough for things to get really grimy. Blinding, blown-out, bleak: all applicable here, even if they curiously titled a track "Eggz." Completely unassuming packaging and quietly released, Decline sets a new bar for the skulls-and-chains crowd to gawk at.

Romance, Seven Inches of... 7" EP (self-released)

Hastily assembled sorta-supergroup from Sydney mows down the corny "murder punk" genre tag and reclaims the violent moniker for themselves. The band plays well - bass and drums thump and wallop, guitar slashes with abandon - but the draw here is the feral vocals of Jane, who must've had blisters on her vocal cords after the performance here. "Romance," "Fast Car" and "Surprise" are almost uncomfortable, blurring the line between performance and actual malice, and it's chilling in the best way. Nothing polished here, and all the better for it; you can definitely see why the band chose to self-release these tracks even after a couple of years. There is a palpable ferocity and recklessness across Seven Inches of..., and whoever says "fuckin' nailed it" at the end of "Sex Pact" ain't wrong.

Tàrrega 91', Fill de la Merda 7" EP (La Vida Es Un Mus)

The punk LVEUM mines from Spain almost always hits home with me, and Tàrrega 91' aren't about to break that streak. Fill de la Merda sports a bass-heavy recording, Discharge-style ripping guitars, but makes plenty of room for a prominent Rudimentary Peni influence to show its head, too. Not sure that there's anything groundbreaking to be heard across Fill de la Merda, but it's all performed as if they were the first band to stumble onto this confluence of sounds; that genuine excitement pushes a track like "Autoproclama De L'esclavitut Total" into a burner. Nice quick-hit 7" that checks a lot of boxes for me, especially that little guitar solo on the title track. Yeah, it's comfort food in a sense, but who better to serve it than one of the preeminent labels in punk and hardcore worldwide?

[mitchelindustri]

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[pegunicent]

Things Fandoms do to you

So @misstrips and I have a nice little DC/Pokemon AU thing going with a splash of Vagrant Story and today as I was suffering the heat and welding together an after burner for a smaller sized crematory I had the thought of Jason, Roy and Sydney from that cross over ending up in Genshin Land.

You see the thing is Roy grew up in the Titans. The original Titans you know, with Dicky boy. And Short Pants was a feral monster with a smile that made you forget about the blood on his knuckles and the steel in his pixie toed boots. Roy was putting his arrows through people's joints before he could *roll* a joint, and he was there for all the stupid shit a bunch of teenagers with little parental oversight and way too much hero worship for their 'mentors' got into from orgies to war crimes to alien war crime orgies. He was there right at the start when they had to actually *vote* for the worst mentor in the League, before it became Ollie's official unofficial title for all time.

And he was there when Jason became Robin and the feral Dicky grew up and mellowed out and turned all that anger into a more positive 'I'm gonna big brother so hard Bruce chews his face off' direction, because what the Bats have is complicated and messy and a bit incestious at times but Bruce *started out* trying to be Dicky's big brother. Not his father. And then he *adopted* Jason. And none of the assholes ever sat down and actually talked about any of it.

But Jason was a good kid up until the whole thing in Africa. And now he's a feral monster of a vigilante and a half decent guy the rest of the time. Still an overly dramatic theater kid like, living undeadish proof that you can beat a kid to death with a crowbar and a bomb but you can't make him give up the *drama*.

Roy is an old hand with feral Gothamites though. He's got this. Between him and Lian they've got their gun loving muscle man on something of an even keel.

But then there's Sydney.

See Dick and Jay, they're feral. Domesticated species that went off the rails and have to be treated with care and respect until they remember that warm homes and hot baths and regular meals are all good things they can have. Sydney is wild. Sydney was never domesticated. Sydney has to be shown, and convinced, and reassured over and over that living inside walls is safe, that food he didn't gather himself isn't poison, that clothes are actually a requirement for dealing with humans. That humans are worth dealing with. Sydney will probably never *be* domesticated, but in a pinch and with some hard bribery he can fake it long enough for a pokemon tournament, or a trip through town, or even one time a visit to Lian's daycare.

And humans are just smart enough to look at Roy's wicked grin and Jason's bulging muscles and decide this is trouble they don't want to bother with most days, but Sydney tends to evade direct notice. He looks like a kid. He sounds like a kid. If you don't stare into pokemon crimson eyes and realize there's something completely inhuman staring back, you might be forgiven for accepting the evidence that Sydney is a kid.

Which is why when the three of them stumble out of the sudden wormhole in the woods, onto a perfectly picturesque dirt roadway leading to a city straight out of one of Lian's story books, Jason curses and Roy sighs. Because Roy was a Titan and this isn't his first alternate dimension, and Jason's been worse places. They aren't that troubled.

Until the guy with the huge sword and his friend in the eye patch give them the usual once over, stop at Sydney staring at a glowing little roadside statue, and all the alarm bells start ringing. Because they look at Sydney the way people who haven't seen the kid 'squish' Cypher agents, but have heard the horror stories and maybe helped clean up the residues do.

And *that* makes Roy want more explosive arrows.

[santanastudwelding]

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