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Fanfic / Arctic Rim

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Arctic Rim is a Frozen and Pacific Rim crossover by Genghis Quan. Set in a slightly altered timeline of the Pacific Rim universe wherein the Scandinavian nations pooled their resources and constructed the Jaeger Frozen Heart, stationed at Vladivostok to guard against the possibility of a kaiju moving north of the Arctic Circle and then sweeping west into Europe. Standing in its Conn-Pod are the Queen Regnant and Crown Princess of the Kingdom of Norway, Elsa and Anna of House Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg.


Arctic Rim provides examples of:

  • Alternate History: Kaiju attacks aside, in this continuity Crown Prince Haakon of Norway had two daughters born slightly earlier than his real-life progeny.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Characters occasionally speak in their native languages, mostly Russian, Norwegian, Swedish. Some weapon system names are also rendered in their home languages as well. A line spoken by Kristoff early on makes little sense unless you know that "in i dimman" is Swedish literal for "into the fog" and slang for "let's get wasted."
  • Call-Forward: Being set near the tail end of the Golden Age of Jaeger Combat means that they encounter much of the difficulties in fighting kaiju that would become more pronounced in Pacific Rim the film proper.
  • Chainsaw Good: Frozen Heart's right arm close-quarters weapon is a circular saw in its right elbow. Subverted when it's shown to grant an advantage in grappling but lacks penetration and thus the ability to cause sufficiently traumatic damage to end fights.
  • Downer Ending: Anna's either brain-dead or in a coma, Jaegers and Rangers are dropping like flies, and the Kaiju are only getting stronger. Of course, this leads straight into the events of Pacific Rim proper.
  • Eye Scream: Kristoff inflicts one on Bilgesnipe with a Barrett M107CQ, and the effects of an anti-materiel round bouncing around its orbital cavity are described in some detail.
  • Field of Blades: The Field of the Fallen in the Ranger Memorial in Oslo. The Weapon Tombstones are arranged in a spiral starting from the centerpiece, one for every destroyed Jaeger.
  • Fusion Fic: The Scandinavian countries take the place of Arendelle, while the most of the Frozen characters get real world counterparts. Many of the songs from Frozen also made it in, either as dialogue or descriptive prose.
  • Hypocritical Humor: "It is not nice to throw people!" Anna shouts after being thrown by a kaiju. The next thing she does? A seoi-nage judo throw.
  • An Ice Person: One of Frozen Heart's ranged weapons is a cryo-cannon in its right arm that freezes kaiju, which is described as a compact version of the ones that Horizon Brave has.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The chapters are named after different acts of Wagner's Ring Cyle.
  • Ironic Echo: When Elsa recovers from chasing the RABIT to reclaim mental control of her Jaeger, the scene ends up being a reverse of the "Let It Go" sequence from Frozen. Instead of running across an ice bridge while tossing aside the symbols of her royal responsibilities (raising an ice castle, tossing aside her crown, letting her hair down, creating the ice dress, etc), here she embraces her responsibilities via Suit Up Sequence which ends in her braiding up her hair and putting on the helmet again before running across an ice bridge into the head of her Jaeger.
  • Kill It with Fire: Frozen Heart's other primary ranged weapon, a flamer in its left hand.
  • Lighter and Softer: Than Frozen, kind of — the lack of magic powers means that there's no accidental childhood injuring to drive a wedge between Elsa and Anna, and they go through life as loving sisters. On the other hand, Darker and Edgier also applies, what with the kaiju attacks and all.
  • Parental Abandonment: Elsa and Anna lost their parents in the third kaiju attack on Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Elsa is more analytical and cautious in her fighting style, while Anna is more instinctive. They pass greater or less amounts of control to each other depending on the situation; Elsa handles more of the longer ranged weapons, outfighting, and ground-grappling, while Anna handles the Kinetic Strike Module and clinch fighting.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Piloting a Jaeger to fight kaijus, as Queen Elsa and Princess Anna do, would count as "do something". Elsa and Anna are also compared to historical examples of this.
  • Shoulder Cannon: Frozen Heart used to have this, before being switched out for Angel Wings due to ranged weapons being more and more insufficient to put down kaiju before they close to melee.
  • Shout-Out: In addition to the many to both universes:
    • Xanatos Industries exists, and not only did they provide Frozen Heart's operating system, but they also provided Dr. Anton Sevarius as Vladivostok's head of Kaiju Science.
    • Frozen Heart's left arm weapons are a "Megadeus" Kinetic Strike Module and a Perdition Incendiary Gauntlet.
    • The Marshal of Vladivostok Shatterdome has the bloodname - er, surname - of Kerensky.
    • Vladivostok's chief armaments officer, on the other hand, is a soft-spoken Texan named Dell Conagher.
    • The kaiju itself is codenamed "Bilgesnipe".
    • Various aspects of the novelization and side material are also referenced, namely "Drift hangover" and the initiative to launch a fallen Ranger memorial.
    • The sisters play Left 4 Dead as adolescents. Being a game that punishes players for lone wolf tendencies, this is meant to highlight their rapport with each other.
  • Shown Their Work: Author's note — "I have learned a lot more about Norway than I will ever need to know for the rest of my life." Generally, every proper noun referenced actually exists and does what it's supposed to do in real life.
  • Take That!: On a very slight level, Elsa and Anna have some distaste for America's Eagleland tendencies, at least at first. Segments placed later chronologically shows them as getting along quite well with the American Jaeger pilots, strongly implied to be the Becket brothers.
  • Technology Porn: Descriptions of the Jaeger deployment is filled with technical buzzwords, most of which are gleaned from the Pacific Rim wiki.
  • The Dead Have Names: The Fallen Ranger Memorial in Oslo has a Weapon Tombstone for every destroyed Jaeger, along with the names of the Rangers that have died in the cockpit.
  • Theme Music Power-Up: due to originally coming from a Disney musical, Elsa and Anna are rather adept singers, and part of their pre-deployment psych-up ritual involves a modified duet on "Do You Wanna Build A Snowman".
  • Weapon Tombstone: The Fallen Ranger Memorial is a field of this. It's a sword instead of a rifle, a Conn-Pod instead of a helmet, and in place of boots, a slab of debris from whichever city the Jaeger fell defending.
  • What's Up, King Dude?: Due to spending all that time in the Shatterdome, Elsa and Anna are a lot more informal than heads of state usually are.

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