#pacific rim meta

[avelera]

I think the term, “flaws” as a necessity for writing well-rounded fictional characters is often misunderstood. It can lead to new writers thinking these flaws should be in a laundry list alongside their OCs hobbies, eye color, and favorite food.

All of the above traits shouldn’t exist in a vacuum. They all need to serve the story in some way, usually by illustrating plot, character, or themes in a way that enhances the story.

Saying a character’s flaw is that they’re “clumsy” isn’t really a flaw unless this trait stands between them and what they want in a meaningful way. Being clumsy is an obstacle for a dancer, or for a teenager who will be socially judged and derided in a meaningful way to the story. Even still, it’s a somewhat shallow and overused flaw.

What got me thinking about this is the fanfic characters I tend to enjoy writing are flawed people. The more flawed, the better.

I struggled to write Nicky and Joe in The Old Guard because they don’t really have any flaws. They’re never stupid, or selfish, or awkward, or mean. I couldn’t really write them until I wrote a story where the plot is that one of them gets returned by amnesia to his pre-character development Crusader self, back when he was prejudiced, quick to anger, and provincial in his world view. Then I had somewhere to go with them.

By contrast, Newt and Hermann from Pacific Rim are riddled with flaws, and it made them not only popular characters, but a blast to write. They’re rude, loud, snarky, selfish, self-involved, self-important, arrogant, and mean. They’re also both sincerely trying to save the world and willing to sacrifice themselves to do it if necessary. It makes them a wonderful mass of contradictions and it makes them feel like real people.

And recently I wrote about my desire to write Dream and Hob from Sandman as more like their comic selves, with all the rough edges and taciturn misanthropy and selfishness and rudeness that implies. I don’t want to write perfect people.

I saw a post that imagined Hob as passionate about returning artifacts stolen by the English to their country of origin. It was a very sweet post and fun, don’t get me wrong. But as a perverse creature, my first thought was, “Ok, but what if he wasn’t? What if he, as a former bandit and soldier for the Crown, wasn’t in favor of the artifacts being returned? What if he was the opposite?”

Now to be clear, I think it’s more in character for the brief glimpse of the Teacher Hob we see for him to be more worldly, more in favor of repatriation. I genuinely think that take is probably more accurate to the character.

That’s not the point.

The point is that I think one way to avoid creating these sort of perfect shiny soft characters with all the rough edges sawed off is to ask, “Ok but what if they didn’t do the right thing here?”

What if they don’t have perfect, up to date progressive political views on all possible topics? What if they weren’t always altruistic? What if they don’t always say just the right thing to their lover when that person is feeling down? What if they have moments where they’re stupid, selfish, insensitive, prejudiced, rude, awkward, or off-putting?

Personally, I think that’s how you get more interesting characters, who are more like real people and, more importantly, have room to grow or sometimes not grow in a way that better serves your story.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

I don't know if this was asked before, but could kaijus realistically exist in the Twilight world? Or would Aro have considered them too much of a threat and wiped them out alongside other threats to humanity?

Man, I remember seeing this, but for the life of me I can't find it on the blog either so I may have just let it rot in the inbox. Oh well, we can do this now.

Can Kaiju Realistically Exist

Yes. Absolutely

The thing about the whole backdrop of Kaijus (I'm assuming from Pacific Rim) is that they're extradimensional creatures designed for warfare. They're not the true enemy but also they're not from here. The aliens showed up during the Triassic Age, looked around, went "ah shit, we can't actually survive here" and then waited for millions of years until we'd polluted the planet and made it habitable for them.

Namely, they showed up before human history, and the kaijus only appeared extremely recently in history (2013) with no way of the Volturi having been able to predict their appearance or close the interdimensional portal deep at the bottom of the ocean where they purposefully put it to avoid discovery/closure.

Aro would certainly have considered them a massive threat, especially since we find out their M.O. is actually to wipe out the dominant sapient creatures (humans) in order to colonize the planet and that these creatures are actually just designed weapons. The entire point of Kaijus is to exterminate mankind. That's a big no for the Volturi.

Would Pacific Rim Happen?

I imagine Aro's funneling all the money he can into the R&D efforts to stop these fucking things and would very well be trying to figure out where they're coming from, what are they, and how the hell do we get rid of them?

The Volturi may or may not find out about the rift as humanity does and they may be able to survive getting much closer to it without equipment than humans can.

Pacific Rim ends the Kaiju attacks initially when they nuke the portal, so the Volturi may be able to send someone to the other side before this point and kill everyone over there but given that the environment is likely markedly different (as the whole point is earth had to be polluted to a certain to degree to be remotely livable) I don't know if even vampires could do well over there.

But I imagine there's a lot of looking for "close the fucking portal" gifted vampire on Aro's end or "blow up giant lizards" gifted vampires. Both of which, sadly, Aro does not have in his arsenal (I doubt Jane and Alec would be effective as Kaiju brains != Human/Vampire brains at all)

[riafunnel]

Oh my god I just realized that aside from giant robots beating up Kaiju another reason I fucking love Pacific Rim is that Mako & Raleigh in the drift is pretty much similar to what Van & Hitomi have!!!!!

They're so in sync that they can sense each other's thoughts/emotions!!!!

[monsterblogging]

Narratively, I think becoming a Jaeger pilot should be treated the same way Star Trek: Deep Space 9 treats becoming a Starfleet officer.

Like, there's nothing necessarily wrong with it, but it's not inherently good, either. Starfleet isn't some immensely evil oppressive force or anything, but it's not infallible, and it's not some ultimate force of goodness. And it's perfectly fine to want to do something else with your life.

[kaijuposting]

Ghost Drifting: Does it exist in the Pacific Rim film?

Now some of you might read the title of this post and think, "well of course it does, it was in the novelization and in that Tales From The Drift comic." Thing is though, canon and continuity within the Pacific Rim franchise has always been a bit of a mess, full of inconsistencies and contradictions. It's never really safe to assume anything. So, the concept of ghost drifting goes all the way back to the Pacific Rim draft script written by Travis Beacham, and it appears as he originally intended it in both the Tales From The Drift and the Tales From Year Zero comics, both of which he wrote. One could argue that it even appears in Pacific Rim: Uprising and in Pacific Rim: The Black, in the sense of human characters becoming part of the kaiju hivemind, although this is most definitely not what he originally had in mind with the idea.

So where does the original movie stand? Does it exist here? And if so, in what sense?

I would say that there is circumstantial evidence that it exists.

One piece of circumstantial evidence actually comes from very early on in the film. You can hear Yancy scream after Trespasser rips him out of the jaeger. Later on, Raleigh tells Pentecost that he was still connected to Yancy when he died. Because Yancy was ripped clean out of the jaeger before he died, he could not have been connected to the pons system. This would suggest that Yancy and Raleigh were actually ghost drifting when Yancy died.

On the other hand, five years have passed since Yancy's death, and it's extremely likely that Raleigh does not have a clear recollection of the event, and is remembering incorrectly.

After Mako and Raleigh's first drift, we see them get the same food in the mess hall, which could suggest that they are somehow synced or linked:

But while this is clearly meant to be significant somehow, there's no specific indication that this is caused by ghost drifting. They could have just swapped food preferences or cravings in the drift.

Another thing that could suggest its existence is how easily Otachi finds Newt. Like, when you're a giant monster there's not a whole lot to distinguish one guy from an entire crowd, and yet, Otachi finds him in a kaiju bunker anyway. One might argue that Otachi was tracking him by scent and/or taste, having a general idea of what Newt smells and tastes like from his memories of how things in the k-sci lab smell and taste. And one thing about Otachi is, she's the only kaiju with actual nostrils, and there's definitely something special going on with her tongue.

On the other hand, the novelization does have Newt experience "drift hangover" with the Anteverse, and with Otachi specifically. But of course, the novelization also says that Hermann is blond, so we can't assume that anything the novel says also applies to the movie. So does Newt experience ghost drift here, or is it all down to Otachi's nose and tongue? At this moment, it's a tossup.

One last thing that could maybe, possibly suggest ghost drifting is Stacker Pentecost's strange line toward the end of the film before he dies: "I will always be here for you. You can always find me in the drift."

This line could just be trying to convey a sentiment similar to "I'll always be here, because I'll live on in your heart." But that's not what Pentecost says, and what he does say implies a different kind of continued existence - one that's perhaps a bit more metaphysical. Though I do have to admit, it's not much. It really could've just been trying to convey something similar to "I'll live on in your heart." Looking at the movie from a writer's POV, I feel like if ghost drifting was actually intended to exist in this story, it would've been made more explicit. On the other hand, it feels to me like this story doesn't quite want to rule it out, either. In particular, the mess hall scene actually made me think ghost drifting was happening when Raleigh's voice started talking before switching to the scene in which he was actually talking. It's only just speculation, but I think it almost feels like foreshadowing for an actual appearance of ghost drifting in a sequel that never manifested.

[chibi-chaos]

I’d like to take this my dear @eadrey-the-iptscray​ and raise you.

Pacific Rim uses bridges as their thesis. It is the core concept that they expand on, which you give several good example of.

Bridges, let’s go specifically involve the drift, is about connecting two people who may be very different (ie. how we have Raleigh the seasoned American veteran with trauma, Mako his opposite in several ways, nationality, time in a Jaeger, much more academically smarter than him.) 

We can point out how many other Jaeger pilot pairing so vividly different and one other example I want to say is Kaori and Duc Jessop where literally Kaori doesn’t know English and Duc doesn’t understand Japanese but after the drift Kaori starts speaking in English - a first step into bridging the gap the two have.

But what is a thesis without it’s antithesis?

In this case I want to argue the antithesis is walls.

Where bridges connect two places, two people and so on. Walls do the opposite. They block.

In Pacific Rim there are a few walls I want to raise.

1. Anti-Kaiju Wall (alternatively the Wall, Coastal Wall or the Wall of Life) - how many times in history has the apparently solution for some been “we’ll build a wall”.  The wall literally splits Sydney in half, and as we see in the movie living conditions on the wall and likely around it are bleak. There is no hope in walls like there is in bridges.

2. Societal walls (barriers) following on from the failure of the Anti-Kaiju wall we have another form of a wall we can find in a news report (I love how this move puts so much lore like this). One politician claims the UN are moving millions of people to safe zones following the walls failure with Mutavore - but what is noted by the reporter is only the rich and powerful are being moved. Once more another divide of society thanks to a wall.

3. Mental walls - I don’t remember if this is one that could be explicitly pointed to, but I am going to say that it is hinted to more than once. What is a threat to a successful drift (or relationship) is walls, mental walls from trauma and hurt. We see several characters who have built walls to ignore the pain (some more literally than others in the case of Raleigh I’d argue)

The movie shows that bridges are needed, some purposely seeking to destroy them, they connect humanity but literally and figuratively. While walls divide or block of things that will inevitably breakthrough, which only delays that one needs to focus on as to be able to move on.

It’s a simple message perhaps. But it’s one that I feel is needed.

going absolutely FERAL thinking about all the circular storytelling in Pacific Rim.

like........

bridges

Trespasser destroys the Golden Gate Bridge on K-Day

Caitlin Lightcap invents the Pons system (pons is Latin for "bridge"!) to help fight kaiju

Newt uses the Pons system to drift with a kaiju and becomes a bridge between humanity and the Precursors (also narratively bridging the gap between Pacific Rim and the sequel but I digress)

Newt and Hermann also use the Pons system to drift with the baby kaiju and learn how to destroy the Breach that way

aaaaaand G. Danger jumps through the Breach (a bridge between Earth and the Anteverse!) to kill the Precursors & kaiju and everything comes full circle with the destruction of ANOTHER bridge

[mollyencrypted]

Thesis: Alien Vs Predator (2004) is good because it asks 'what if the horror movie monster decided not to kill you and instead helps you save the world and maybe crushes on you a little?' and Pacific Rim (2013) is good because it asks 'what if the mortifying ordeal of being known gave you the ability to inflict science-fiction violence upon representations of modern dangers?', and Venom (2018) is good because it makes each of these questions the answer to the other.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

ok so i was actually kinda surprised to find that looking at the ao3 stats and adjusting for how long ofmd’s existed (a year and a half) vs how long the stucky fandom’s been around (coming up on a decade), not only is gentlebeard on par with stucky but it actually beats stucky for amount of fics written. but i’m making a prediction now just based on how i’ve observed fandoms to work: i do think the gentlebeard popularity will peter out faster than stucky did

i’m not saying bc i think gentlebeard is worse or the ofmd fandom is weak or anything, i’m saying this bc in fandom it seems like the white masc queerbait ships* have like, an absurd amount of longevity that goes way beyond the general fandom surrounding whatever media said white masc queerbait ship hails from. im thinking abt the protagonist/rival ship from the TERF wizard series that nobody decent talks about in public anymore. before we all cut jkr out of our lives, people were still churning out fics abt the main character and that racist blond kid pretty regularly. and another example, we have those scientists from pacific rim that are more popular than any of the main characters from that movie. it’s been years and the newt/hermann fandom is still going strong.

and i say “newt/hermann fandom” intentionally, bc that’s the thing that i think actually gives these ships their longevity: when there are fans who are primarily invested in a piece of media because of a noncanonical masc4masc queerbait ship, they’re not really fans of the media itself. i mean, some of them might be, but if they are then that’s in addition to being fans of this alternate queer interpretation of the media in question. they’re a fan of the fandom mass hallucination that the fans collectively and collaboratively invented of a romantic/sexual/homoerotic relationship between two guys who on-screen might hug like once or twice (or sometimes even never)

and i’m pretty sure the reason this sort of fandom phenomenon tends to have so much longevity is bc the fans have already created this whole extensive romantic storyline using what is often some pretty minimal canonical material to work with. so when the movie franchise or the tv show ends and the shippers no longer have any new canonical material to work with, they can keep going for years because really, they were already making shit up from the start.

so compared to that, gentlebeard is way different bc everything the fans might have invented on our own the show pretty much already did for us, and anything the show didn’t do yet is probably coming for us this season (or in s3, fingers crossed). i’ve mentioned before how a lot of fanfiction seems to fall on a spectrum between “fix” and “expand,” and by the end of ofmd i doubt there’s gonna be a whole lot that gentlebeard fans feel like they need to “fix.” versus stucky, where there’s so much that needs to be fixed that you might as well just throw the whole canon out.

i don't really mean any of this as a criticism or an attack on fans of queerbait ships like this, im just pointing out fandom trends that i've noticed. i myself have been deeply invested in stucky, newmann, and the gay wizard boys at different points in my life. like there is something very fun abt putting on slash goggles and making queer content out of nothing. personally though, now that we're in an age where we're getting canon queer content, im not so engaged in a lot of the ships i used to care so much about, but i don't think it's inherently wrong** for people to still enjoy some classic fandom queerbait ships. it's just a very different thing from enjoying canonical queer ships like gentlebeard

*im using “queerbait ships” loosely to include popular gay ships in media that was never in a million years going to make these characters gay.

**a clarifying point: i don't think it's inherently wrong, however there are a lot of problematic elements to this kind of fandom activity, namely the way a lot of these queerbait ships will dominate a fandom while other characters who are important in canon get completely sidelined (and yes, the sidelined characters are often women/poc). also, less importantly, when people's primary media consumption revolves around strip mining canon for shipping content, this absolutely destroys their media literacy and critical thinking. again, im not saying this to attack ppl who engage in fandom primarily through fic/art of noncanonical gay ships, i myself have done the same thing. but i think ppl who do should also make a conscious effort to also engage with fan content that centers women/poc, or at the very least need to be aware of the issues around this kind of fandom activity.

[foursaints]

genuine question.. what media, literature, etc are you consuming engaging with? because i read your asks and its like your brain is operating on a fundamentally different level than everyone else. im literally reading "barty crouch jr fucks like a starving persistence predator on the savanna who sunk his teeth into a wounded antelope" nodding my head agreeing EXACTLY but... how do you think of these things fr

anon you’re too nice to me i don’t know how to answer this. i’m an english lit major & all i consume is like. books nobody cares about and jstor scholarship on my highly specific stupid interests . for class

[unkindcorvid]

Ten movies I think Dean would've watched (and liked) that weren't referenced on the show. What movies do you think he'd like?

[irisbleufic]

So, I spent the last 5 days of sitting around with this serious arm injury rereading the very first epic fic series I ever wrote. Although the posting dates on the below chapters are all 18 November 2013, the reality is that these were originally posted as individual stories on LiveJournal throughout the entirety of 2004 and into the spring of 2005. Those were my junior and senior years of college. This series was the last thing I relocated from LJ to AO3, and I was too exhausted to do a proper comb-through for typos and minor formatting issues.

Well, that state of things is no more. I cleaned up all of the editorial issues during this week’s rewatch-the-film-and-reread-my-fic binge. I also changed the names of a few of the chapters (they’re really stories strung together), although not drastically. The chapter called “Clippings” used to be called “Business,” “Spiral” used to be called “You Must Listen to Me Now,” and “Closer to Fine” used to be called “The Middle of Things.”

I had an ask a few days ago along the lines of: What the hell is Toy Soldiers, anyway? On the surface, it’s a 1991 action movie/teen drama. It stars a young Sean Astin and Wil Wheaton as Billy Tepper and Joey Trotta, the central protagonists among the cast of younger characters. At the time I saw it in early 2004, I had only ever seen Sean Astin in The Lord of the Rings. And, incredibly, I didn’t even know who Wil Wheaton was.

That might be one reason I was able to take this film to heart so earnestly (i.e. I completely lacked knowledge of Wesley Crusher, Wheaton’s Star Trek character from around that time who it was traditional to mock, although I still don’t get why). However, the primary reason this film wrecked the back end of my 2004 spring break was that I had watched The Celluloid Closet for the first time only days before watching Toy Soldiers.

I challenge any queer person to watch this documentary (about the Hays Code and the horrible fate met by queer-coded and queer characters in cinema) and this under-appreciated action film back to back and come out of it without feeling devastated and furious about what happens to Billy and Joey. Especially to Joey. And now, in an era of rampant school shootings and hostage situations, Toy Soldiers hits with even more gravity than it did in the 1990s and early 2000s.

These boys are where it started for me. Every every horrific canon media ending that has ever made me furious, every hundreds-of-thousands-of-words long fix-it series I’ve written in the past 19 years, can be traced back to this moment. This string of stories was what I wrote before I ever wrote the likes of Crown of Thorns (Good Omens), Anthology (Pacific Rim), and Delicate, Dangerous, Obsessed (Gotham). Hell, one of my instrumental original characters in CoT appeared for the first time at the end of Book of Hours before I ever thought to use her in a Good Omens context.

This story has meant the world to me even though the fandom around it at the time of writing, and even now, was never more than about 20 people. Most of those people are still with me, the dearest friends I could ever hope to have 💙

*

Chapter Index for The Series / Book of Hours by irisbleufic

1. Stereotypical (2013-11-18)

2. Persuasion (2013-11-18)

3. Taste Testing (2013-11-18)

4. Leaving a Mark (2013-11-18)

5. Trick or Treat (2013-11-18)

6. Omerta (2013-11-18)

7. Translation (2013-11-18)

8. Sketches (2013-11-18)

9. Falling (2013-11-18)

10. Caught (2013-11-18)

11. What It Takes (2013-11-18)

12. Noteworthy (2013-11-18)

13. These Shadows Have Offended (2013-11-18)

14. Love Never Did Run Smooth (2013-11-18)

15. Within Reason (2013-11-18)

16. Composure (2013-11-18)

17. Clippings (2013-11-18)

18. Without End (2013-11-18)

19. Prologue: Every Hour (2013-11-18)

20. Book of Hours: Part 1 (2013-11-18)

21. Book of Hours: Part 2 (2013-11-18)

22. Flashback: Spiral (2013-11-18)

23. Flashback: Silver (2013-11-18)

24. The Orchids (2013-11-18)

25. Closer to Fine (2013-11-18)

[measuringbliss]

Pacific Rim Masterpost

Because I really needed to organize myself better.

Video essay about lesbian car ads and those gay scientists

Meta:

Hermann's outfits in PRU

Looks and Confrontation ~ PR1 Mako & Raleigh's fanservice + PRU Newt and the Mega-Kaiju

Ramblings:

PRU: Newt Geiszler needs love

The hug

They had to remove Charlie Day's tears in *that* scene

The reason PacRim hits so hard

PRU: Fixation on the gay scientists makes sense and shouldn't be blamed

PRU: These two scientists are not cishet

PR1: Herc, Newt, Stacker and Raleigh

Miscellaneous:

PR3 as a musical

PRU novelization readthrough

Neat PRU Newt & Liwen concept art

PRU Slug Meme

Newt "Straight Straight Heterosexual Straight" Meme

(Writing) Charlie Kelly meeting Newt Geiszler

Bisexual lighting in the PRU artbook

PRU artbook: mentions of script writing

Newmann gay af (see: Chaos Walking)

I doodled Newt

Pacific Rim 3: DeKnight's plans for Newmann

About Newt Geiszler and Wanda Maximoff...

I was NAWT invited for the 10th anniversary zine

[wingbcrn]

the gist of dick’s pacrim verse:

his parents died during a kaiju attack while haly's circus was performing in san francisco when dick was fifteen. bruce wayne has taken him in after the tragedy. as the jaeger program started, dick started training to it with the help of bruce and when he was nineteen he joined the jaeger academy and was one of the very few that finished it with success, and became a jaeger pilot. 

[surfkng-archive]

PACIFIC RIM AU

Color coding these AU bullet point things now apparently! ANYWAYS!!! Thoughts on both ideas I have; both of Billy being PART of the Jager program, and thoughts of him initially being a mechanic but getting inevitably dragged in.

Being a Mechanic:

Billy is 23 in this AU. He was born around the time of the first attack.

He's almost ALWAYS covered in grime.

He dropped out of the Jager program the first month he joined, not wanting anyone to see his memories.

Opting to be a mechanic instead, he has done plenty of work on all sorts of Jagers since then.

He has a gut wrenching fear of the Kaijus ever since he had been injured by one when he was 18.

His range of motion is limited from that attack, as is the amount of physical strain he can put himself through.

He will absolutely push his limits, though, working through the night most days.

When he gets unwittingly dragged into the Jager program again, it's because he had been found compatible with another pilot. A STRONG connection.

He regrets joining the program again, but he knows that in the end, it's for the better.

His memories are mostly of the ocean, his mother who left, and a father who could never be proud of him. No matter what.

Being a Pilot:

He joined the program early by lying about his age. He is still 23 in this one.

He started because he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, despite being told he never could.

Despite being injured in a Kaiju attack when he was 18, he still pushes himself to perform at full capacity.

He has pushed himself past the point of exhaustion before and has some brain damage from pushing himself so hard.

It's difficult for him to let people drift with him, and can only work with specific partners because of it.

He has an anger control system, but he's known as a severe hothead amongst his peers. Most people know he can be rude as fuck.

He likes being terrifyingly efficient with his Kaiju kills. He never goes overkill anymore.

He has solo piloted before, but hasn't since being reprimanded for it; the other pilot thought Billy had gone too far during a mission and tried to stop him.

more to come as i rewatch the movies and series again

[kaijuposting]

I feel like The Avengers (released in 2012) might have played a role in shaping how people perceive stuff in Pacific Rim (released 2013)? Like, Raleigh Becket has this reputation as a himbo/"golden retriever man" even though he's really just... not that. It's like people just kinda projected early MCU Thor onto him because he also happened to be blond and muscled. And then it's like people kinda see the PPDC working kinda like the way the SHIELD in the early MCU was presented, with the jaeger program being equivalent to superheroes in general and the k-sci lab being the PPDC equivalent of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. (Hell, some people even referred to Newt and Hermann as "science bros," which was literally how some people were referring to Tony Stark and Bruce Banner.)

People also kinda treat the crusty old farts at the beginning of the film as if they're like the World Security Council from The Avengers; basically an outside organization trying to interfere with and undermine the PPDC's efforts, when said crusty old farts are actually the leaders of the PPDC itself. They treat the Wall of Life as if it's the nuclear missile the World Security Council lobbed at New York, when the Wall of Life is also a PPDC program. And they kinda act as if the jaeger program would have been able to keep on going forever if only these crusty old farts had just gotten out of the way, when like, a major plot point was that the jaeger program had begun to fail spectacularly, to the point where they were losing jaegers faster than they could build them. (Not to mention, the crusty old farts didn't even try to stop Pentecost; they let him take what's left of the jaegers to Hong Kong and give him eight months' worth of funding.) So yeah, I think The Avengers has kinda influenced the way some people see Pacific Rim, and that this influence continues on to some degree in the fandom today.

[prowlingthunder]

@mtraki @mandakatt @azems-familiar @medic-6116 @ann-i-inthestars @lavenderhimbo @linwyrms-lair

Links to Pacific Rim creator Travis Beacham's own posts on drift compatibility and drifting

Drift compatibility is psychological, not genetic

The better you know someone, the more likely you are to be drift compatible

Drift compatibility is potential, not fate

Drift compatibility can be a choice

Friendship is the foundation of drift compatibility

The drift requires trust

Trust is fundamental; also drift compatibility can be determined with anything that tests how well you can anticipate each others' moves

That even includes multiplayer video games

Many cadets wash out during Pons training when secrets come out in the drift and shatter their relationships

A lot of pilots get messed up by flinching over sexual thoughts

Trying to avoid thoughts just makes them worse

Not everything you see in the drift is always real; also the way to deal with thoughts is just let them flow by

Pilots communicate through "headspace"

Illustration of a conversation in headspace

First drifts can be very confusing, because partners don't understand each others' minds very well yet

The drift exposes pilots to each others' raw, unfiltered thoughts

Raleigh knew what Yancy was going to say

The drift doesn't let you read your partner's mind like a database, and you may not necessarily understand what you see. Also when Pentecost says he carries nothing into the drift he means he's calm and stable.

Pentecost gained this calmness through meditation

Trying to block your partner from your mind will make you lose control of the Jaeger

Pilots who fall below 90% sync will be in trouble

General information plus info on RABITs

You can chase your partner's RABIT

Another post confirming you can chase your partner's RABIT

More RABIT info

More general information

Travis Beacham defines ghost drifting

Partners' personalities can rub off on each other

Neural overload doesn't hit you all at once; it accumulates

The time a pilot can go solo varies, and it's a steep curve from fine to dead

More info on solo piloting

Being high in the drift probably makes it harder to avoid chasing the RABIT