Victory Road App! [BIG Pacific Rim Uprising spoilers within]

[kscience]

Player
Name: Nick
E-mail: PM if you need it :0
Preferred Contact: glitchbirds on plurk, The Muppet Man#0922 on discord
Timezone: central
Current Characters in Victory Road: none

Character
Name: Dr. Newton Geiszler
Series: Pacific Rim
Timeline: Post-Pacific Rim Uprising
Canon Resource Links: http://pacificrim.wikia.com/wiki/Newton_Geiszler, http://pacificrim.wikia.com/wiki/Newton_Geiszler/Uprising
The Uprising section of the wiki is a little off/unpolished, but essentially what you need to know about the Uprising part of Newton's canon is:
-It's ten years after the original Pacific Rim.
-At some point, Newt began to pull away from his friends at the Shatterdome, including Hermann
-Newt has been drifting regularly with a secondary Kaiju brain throughout those 10 years, named "Alice".
-Over time, these drifts began to corrupt his mind, and the Kaiju's Precursors[the aliens that control the Kaiju and influenced them to attack] began to possess him.
-After 10 years of this, Newt helped the Kaiju to return, effectively betraying humanity while under the control of the Precursors.
-It is shown that Newt does not at all want to do this, as the Precursors' control slips once while they force him to strangle Hermann. At this point, Newt apologizes before being taken over again.
-At the end of the movie, Newt is captured before he can set the backup plan in motion, and imprisoned as the Precursors controlling him threaten that more Kaiju are coming.


Personality:

Not every man can say they've helped save the world from certain destruction. And very few can say they've proceeded to nearly destroy it. You either die a hero, or live long enough to become the villain... Or, in Newt's case, live long enough to slowly become fully possessed by a volatile alien race that plans to wipe out all of humanity.

Newt's got some issues, to put it simply.

He's a hard man to pin down. On the one hand, he's very extroverted and comes off as friendly- especially in direct comparison to his lab partner and not-friend, Hermann Gottlieb. On the other hand, it doesn't take him long to get on the bad side of anyone that doesn't have an excessive amount of patience.

Newton Geiszler is a narcissistic, rude, stubborn bastard of a man who is frequently overwhelmed by impulsive decisions, manic episodes, and a deep-seated need to add a little chaos where there's order. He's loud, he's boisterous, he's destructive, and he's on the shitlist of more than a few people. The one person in the entire world who knows what the inside of Newton's brain is like is the one Newt spent years arguing with, day in and day out.

Newt's pride is shown in multiple ways throughout the original Pacific Rim. For one, he immediately shows off his Kaiju tattoos when prompted, not bothering to stop and think about who he's showing them to. It never occurs to him that Raleigh, an ex-Jaeger pilot who felt his own brother die due to a Kaiju, might be unsettled by tattoos of the same creatures that he and his brother fought.

When Newton doesn't get the approval he wants for his idea to drift/mind-meld with the Kaiju's brain, he does it anyway behind everyone's back. He does this for two main reasons: spite and his faith that he's always right. As he records his message to the tape recorder while preparing the experiment, Newt makes sure to specifically blame Hermann for "driving him" to do the experiment, just in case he dies in the attempt. This means he is explicitely saying, in a recording that Hermann would only hear if he found Newt dead on the laboratory floor, that it would all be Hermann's fault. That's an immense amount of baggage to just. Give to a person because you're angry with them.

But Newton doesnt bother to think of that, because he's too busy thinking about himself, his anger, his belief in his own cunning, his superiority. Not only that, but the entire decision to drift with the brain against the Marshall's orders is an impulse. Newt very likely has some mental health issues- frequently speculated to be ADHD, bipolar disorder, and/or manic depression. He's very clearly shown in the first film to act on impulsive decisions["That's classified, so I couldn't tell ya even if I wanted to. But it is pretty cool. So I might tell ya. ... I'm gonna tell ya."]. He's easily distracted, quickly moves from one point to the next, takes his time to get to the point.

Newt can be seen as immature by some, especially Dr. Gottlieb. He has a tendency to sound like a frat boy at times- clamouring about the Kaiju being awesome, referring to himself as a rock star, and so on. This, when combined with his self-absorption and impulse isues, can make him seem foolish, and much younger than he actually is.

But despite this, he is incredibly intelligent. He canonically has six doctorates, for God's sake. Even before the Kaiju attacked, Newt was making massive breakthroughs in science. After the giant monsters began destroying cities? Newton spent every last second of his time in trying to understand these completely alien life forms, designing and inventing new ways to study them despite dwindling resources. In essence, Newt is a brilliant man, and fully aware of it to the point of overconfidence.

His overconfidence and aforementioned pride, of course, are part of why he is so argumentative. Newt is a man with few friends- as mentioned before, he finds a way to immediately alienate Raleigh upon meeting him, without even realizing where he went wrong. Not many people are willing to put up with someone so blunt, rude, self absorbed, and careless. He starts arguments wherever he goes- especially with Hermann. Hermann is the closest thing Newt has to a friend- and in fact, they were close friends once. They spent years keeping up with each other through letters and messages, all the way up until the day they met in real life. Ever since then, they became bitter enemies, unable to tolerate the other's attitude. And of course, once they began working together, their shared lab became a warzone. Outwardly, the two appear to despise each other, arguing constantly about the other's theories, attitudes, personalities, et cetera.

With that said, when Hermann finds Newt siezing on the ground, he immediately rushes over, not caring about his bad leg whatsoever. When Newt needs to try drifting with a Kaiju brain, Hermann offers to share the neural load, essentially melding his mind with Newt's in order to keep Newt from overwelming his mind again. In Uprising, though they have clearly drifted apart(Likely due to the Precursors controlling Newt), Hermann still cares for Newton. Hermann's shown opening up to Newt about his nightmares from the Kaiju brain, embracing him tightly despite his disdain for public displays of affection, and he refuses to accept the possibility that Newt is too far gone under the Precursors' control, saving Newt from being shot or hurt despite the massive risks to everyone's safety.

It's hard to say how Newt would act in this film if he weren't under possession, but given Hermann's own attitude, Newt would likely be more affectionate and mellowed out as well.

As mentioned, it's important to keep in mind that most of the above is based on observation from the original Pacific Rim movie. This is because it's difficult to truly say how much of Newt's actions in Uprising are his own. In Uprising, Newt acts more serious less argumentative, and cooler headed. He has his outbursts of vitriol, but his actions and words are more calculated.

On a first viewing, this may appear to just be expected character development after ten years. However, it is more likely that the Precursors slowly taking over his mind have merely altered his outward actions to better accomadate their plans. Controlled Newton Geiszler still has some of the regular Newt's quirks, but it feels... faker, as though the Precursors are acting off a script.

It's also hard to say how aware Newt is of the Precursor's presence. Clearly, they have enough control to prevent him from giving anything away, and he has enough presence of mind to occasionally slip back into control- Newt is shown to apologize when he's forced to attempt to strangle Hermann, for example.

Most likely, Newt's mind control is of the "boiled frog" type- over ten years of continuing to drift with the Kaiju brain, Newt slowly lost more and more autonomy, likely not even realizing something was wrong until he was unable to even try to warn someone of what was going on. By the time of Pacific Rim: Uprising, he might be able to influence some of what he says or does, but the Precursors clearly have enough control to have secretly set up and built their world domination plans, physically attack Hermann and others, and so on.

[Note: A fair chunk of the following is headcanon, but it's all heavily based on the canon information available about Newt's parents, his academic accomplishments, and his personality. I'm just taking those things and bringing them to a logical conclusion as to how things like his parentage might have affected him, and made him the person he is now. The fact that it's headcanon-based is why I have placed this part at the end of the whole personality section, instead of a spot where it might fit better[IE during discussions about Newt being rude and immature.]

A lot of Newt's problems stem from his messy childhood. Knowing you're the son of a nearly ten-year long affair between two people married to other people isn't exactly fun for anyone. Being abandoned by your mother so she can continue to pursue her music career- also not great. He was raised mostly by his uncle and occasionally his father, ignored by his father's wife [and later ex-wife], and only met his mother a few times throughout his childhood. And his mother's husband made it clear that he wasn't welcome, as a living reminder of his mother's "mistake".

What's a kid to do in a situation like that? First of all, you crave attention. Desperately. Both good and bad. On the good end of the spectrum, Newt poured his heart and soul into learning about engineering and electronics from his uncle, the only family figure who really stood by Newt all his life. He consumed himself into learning more and more about all kinds of science from a young age, excelling academically, eventually earning six doctorates by the time he's 25.

But at the same time, he learned that to get noticed, you had to get loud. Even as he aced his classes and got moved up grades, Newt got himself in detention more often than not for causing disruptions in the classroom. He'd never focus on the material, having already read ahead, and instead distract his fellow students and piss off the teachers. For a while, this worked in his favor, despite the disciplinary action and the shouting matches with his father over getting in trouble yet again. His classmates liked him! He was being noticed! Yes!

And then his father moved him to a strict boarding school where he was already a few grades ahead of his age. Now getting attention wasn't even worth the effort- anything was better than nothing, but the odd stares and scoffs from his fellow students was beginning to hurt his ego more than lift it. He got a reputation as the weird kid among his older classmates, and wound up isolated more than ever. By the time Newt graduated, he was horribly attention starved and socially stunted in ways he couldn't even begin to figure out.

And there was no time to try to figure it out, as he started college as soon as possible. Getting admitted so young gave him back some of the positive feedback he needed, so he began to focus all his efforts on his studies. Doctorate after doctorate piled up, and the only people he really spoke to was his teachers. Attempts to communicate with classmates led to more weird looks and further isolation, and Newton learned to accept it and even appreciate it. If no one gives a fuck about you, then you can be as loud and obnoxious as you want, right?

And then, of course, the Kaiju attacked while he was midway through his fifth doctorate and teaching three advanced biology courses and one freshman mechanical engineering class. So that sort of threw a wrench into everyone's way of life. He began writing letters to one Hermann Gottlieb by chance, making his first friend in years while they swapped ideas as to what the hell was going on.

The rest is history. Newton continued to have no idea how to be an actual person outside of his studies and being a rude egomaniac, Newt ruined his only genuine friendship by meeting him in real life, eventually teamed up with him to try to stop the Kaiju, fell in love with him, saved the world with him, and then ruined it all over again.

You know, as one does.

Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Trainer
Starter: Tynamo
Password: Atomic Fireball!

Samples
RP Sample: ryslig tdm thread toplevel! [first thread has the mandatory 5 comments]

Victory Road Sample: [The video begins with Newt's face entirely too close to the camera. He winces, leaning back.]

Shit, so, that's on now- uhhh, hi? I was gonna like, prepare something to say first so it's more professional or whatever- it's fine, I know how to wing it! We're all good!

... Uhhh. Hm. Ok, so, I just like, woke up here, got kicked out by someone calling herself my mother, got handed a little eel thing, all that good stuff, I really don't know if this is like- real? Is this real? Is any of this real right now? To be honest it feels a lot like this has to be, you know, some generated situation made by the things in my head to try to keep me happy and occupied while they keep trying to kill all my friends-

But if this is real then I probably just like confused the hell out of anyone listening. Unless no one's watching this and I'm just talking to myself? And this is all an illusion, and-

[A Tynamo appears in the corner of the screen while Newt continues to go off on tangents. The Pokemon nuzzles up to Newt's face, distracting him for a moment as he breaks out into a huge grin and pets it.]

Right, this is my girl! She's the eel thing. I dunno what to call her yet- she is mine, right? And she's like, really sweet and cute, look at her face.

[He gently holds the Tynamo in his hands, pressing her face closer and closer to the camera.]

Isn't she so cute? I love her! Best thing about waking up here so far.

What was I talking about? Oh, right. I think I broke my leg and I don't know where I am. Can someone come find me?

[There's a long pause while Newt thinks over what else he was going to say.]

OH- and my name's Newt. Newton Geiszler. Forgot to mention that.