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extraordinarilyextreme · 4 years

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finally watched Guardian (2018) and i need to talk

Warning: contains MASSIVE SPOILERS, probably too much music/song analysis, my poor translations from Chinese to English, and some references to the original novel (disclaimer: my novel-reading was mostly jumping around because i have a problem where I’m not fluent enough to read the original Chinese novel and I don’t usually like English translations)

1. the freakin opening theme: We Won’t Be Falling by Chen Xueran... (also I see you Tina Guo on the cello thank you queen)

the amount of chills i get every time an episode starts,,, fantastic! marvelous! the lyrics are very VERY apt to the story of Guardian, esp this drama adaptation

(“We are the one/We will be holding on/For the promise we held for life/For the people we love are leaving” ... “And the story will keep on going”)

1.1. the promise? may i direct you to novel chapter 75?

Shen Wei: “Sometimes I think if one day you can remember everything, then I will be able to say to you: look, I did it, I did all that I had promised you; not one bit did I miss, not one word did I go back on.”

they promise to keep the peace, to protect both Haixing and Dixing; and in the show, it’s a promise they keep with their lives

2. Zhu Yilong plays THREE characters and is able to differentiate them perfectly with particular microexpressions

-Ye Zun (literally, “Respect the Night”; “Lord/Master of the Night” would be a better title) sets off my fight-or-flight instincts even though i think his name tries a little too hard to be edgy; the way he sneers, the smiles that don’t reach his eyes, also that infamous tongue flick when Zhao Yunlan sees through the act... i think it’s both great and sad that Yunlan could differentiate the twins because, why, Shen Wei would never be so openly flirtatious (and wear a deep-cut shirt like that lol)... the delivery of “Xiao Yunlan” disturbed me so much—wonderful, stellar acting

-Black Cloaked Envoy: does his best to bend the rules where he can for the Dixingren because he’s just so fundamentally GOOD; he’s empathetic despite how stern and strict he seems to be, and how much he claims to enforce the clearly-cut laws... he’s an absolute babie ten thousand years ago (Yunlan, doesn’t it hurt your conscience to flirt with such a babie?)

-Shen Wei: in the novel, his name (both surname and first name) are given to him by Kun Lun’s incarnations—there’s a lot of power in naming something, in naming someone; he’s good-natured and gentle, always polite... he pushes up the glasses [that he doesn’t need] a lot, perhaps because he’s used to pushing up his mask as the Envoy

2.1. i find it very striking that Shen Wei dies without his glasses; he doesn’t die as the Envoy, he doesn’t die as the Professor; he dies as a person, as the person who loves Yunlan the most and has loved Yunlan for ten thousand years

2.2. the other notable moments we see Shen Wei without his glasses are where he apologizes to Yunlan [and Yunlan apologizes at the same time because they’re pining idiots] for not noticing the camera in his office, where he sets aside all his pride as Envoy and Professor and kneels in the rain for the man he loves (lwj kneeling after visiting the Burial Mounds, yea?), and of course after he slices up an orange [cuz food = love] only to find Yunlan asleep and drapes his jacket over the silly silly man... anyway, Yunlan is indeed the only person Shen Wei is comfortable enough to reveal everything to, all defenses and masks (literal and figurative) lowered

2.3. that last instance (ep 26) is when Shen Wei pulls out his necklace and reminisces as he gazes fondly at Yunlan; the song that plays during this is 《乱心曲》or “Chaotic Heart Song”... may I direct you to novel chapter 65 where Yunlan finds all the paintings and pictures his Xiao Wei has kept from the centuries?

“邓林之阴初见昆仑君，惊鸿一瞥，乱我心曲。” which translates to “In the shade of the woods I first saw Kunlun-jun; a glimpse of his grace wrought chaos in my heart’s song”

2.4. but also let’s not forget the [in]famous cut wrist scene of ep 23, where our dear Shen Wei, without glasses, as a person who loves Yunlan—not the aloof Envoy or the well-spoken Professor—is reduced to two words: “Worth it.” Yunlan is worth everything to him; this goes without question, without a second thought. Kun Lun (Yunlan) told him not to regret whatever decisions he’ll make, and Ye Zun scolds and laughs at his brother for giving up his life for a human/Haixingren, but of course Shen Wei doesn’t regret dying to protect Yunlan, dying to protect Haixing. (also, peep the behind-the-scenes where Shen Wei grabs Yunlan’s hand for a moment as he blocks the attack from Ye Zun)

2.5. on this same train of thought, Da Qing brings up a line from ten thousand years ago where Shen Wei claimed he would never kill unless it was for the world... and, well, he kills for Yunlan doesn’t he?

3. Bai Yu plays our charismatic Chief Zhao Yunlan/Kun Lun and hoo boy does he do an excellent job; the found family vibes of the SIU are spectacular and the way he flirts with tries to recruit Professor Shen is endearing and touching

3.1. there’s another piece from the OST called 《一点真心》, translated to “A Little Sincerity” though I would use “A Bit of a Sincere Heart” because it too references the novel

Kun Lun’s confession to Xiao Wei: “我富有天下名山大川，想起来也没什么稀奇的，不过就是一堆烂石头野河水，浑身上下，大概也就只有这几分真心能上秤卖上两斤，你要？拿去。” [I’m rich with famed mountains and endless rivers under heaven, but none of it feels rare when I think about it. It’s all just a pile of broken stones and uncultivated streams. From head to toe, there is probably only this bit of my sincere heart that is worth anything weighed on a scale. You want it? Take it.]

Zhao Yunlan’s confession to Shen Wei: “我别的��西也有，只是你可能大多都看不上，只有这一点真心……你要是不接着，那就算了吧。” [I have other things, only you probably would not think much of them. There’s only this bit of my sincere heart... If you don’t want to catch it, then forget it.)

And Shen Wei’s reply to Yunlan’s confession is of course “我接住了。” [I’ve caught it.]

3.2. the novel is a happy ending because Xiao Guo’s important role actually plays a part (i literally don’t understand why the show couldn’t do that after they built up so many expectations about his good character/merit/inability to be corrupted but ANYWAY)... Shen Wei, Xiao Wei, the little Ghost King has a soul and wow isn’t that just beautiful after everything he did to become worthy/deserving of Kun Lun’s attention and love

4. the Zhang Ruonnan and Wang Yike (death-touch Dixingren) case in ep 3 is an obvious parallel to the “brotherly” relationship of WeiLan... Shen Wei’s line of “Many tragedies were destined from the start” references the show of course but also the paradoxical precognition that marks the drama version of WeiLan; in both of their “first meetings”, one of them was always already in love with the other—Yunlan, as Kun Lun, knew he would have to return to his own time at some point and thus doom this impressionable young Envoy to ten thousand years of waiting and Shen Wei (honestly in a Code Geass Lelouch kinda style) knew he would have to die to defeat his brother

4.1. the importance of “touch” in this case alludes to novel WeiLan, where of course Shen Wei watched over all of Kun Lun’s incarnations but wasn’t allowed to get close to him because hungry ghosts would inevitably devour the essence of the people around them; similarly Yike was terrified of touching Ruonnan all this time... but Ruonnan accepted her (just like how novel Kun Lun lets this intriguing little Ghost King trail after him)

4.2. speaking of Shen Wei’s grand plans and the idea of “knowing”, Yunlan reminds him that “You are not a weapon/blade, you are a person.” and wow once again, only Yunlan can pull the humanity from Shen Wei, who has carefully crafted his disguise and personality to fit what people expect of the Envoy and the Professor... but alas, Shen Wei fulfills his promise by in fact making himself a weapon; he poisons himself to become a bomb that will take down his brother

4.3. as many qualms and complaints as I have with Chinese censorship, much in the case of WangXian, i think i prefer the drama version of WeiLan to the novel version; the plot of the Guardian novel is a lot better in my opinion (with references to mythology and legends, as opposed to, what, aliens?? mutants from X-Men? quirks in My Hero Academia??) and yea the relationship of Kun Lun with Xiao Wei is built up a lot better and makes more sense than the time-travel of Yunlan masquerading as Kun Lun with Shen Wei... but there’s an unadulterated, unconditional kind of love that runs through the drama, whereas the novel had some darker (though probably more realistic) vibes of near-possessiveness and ulterior motives... Kun Lun/Yunlan in the novel can be, well, cruel, which is not necessarily out of character; it’s just seems a little wrong to me that you could threaten your partner in a relationship (if you keep things from me again, i really will turn against you + had i known xyz would happen, i really should have killed you)... plus i’m always a sucker for love without an “i love you”, a love that’s conveyed entirely through actions and gazes

5. Yunlan asks Zhou Weiwei (the mirror case) where her jacket was bought because he “wants to get one for [his] girlfriend” and lo and behold, what similarly-styled and colored coat does our Shen Wei show up in a few episodes later? (also the fact that Shen Wei dies wearing this jade-ish-blue-ish coat)

6. boyfriend jacket during the Moutain-River Awl case... boyfriend jacket!!!! Shen Wei claims he doesn’t need it and well he still wears it anyway because Yunlan’s love is unstoppable

6.1. the way Shen Wei grabs Yunlan’s elbow before running down the hill

6.2. Shen Wei being so freaking fine-tuned to Yunlan’s discomfort/pain as always that he drinks wine for him (and passes out immediately—heroics/bde of yllz! wwx and the alcohol tolerance of our dear lwj)

6.2.1. when Minister Gao brings up Yunlan’s dad and the Chief’s hands tighten... and of course nothing can go by Shen Wei, so he changes the topic of the conversation; also the way he leans forward as if to shield Yunlan

6.2.2. Yunlan is similarly Aware of his boyfriend’s boundaries; cue him politely excusing themselves from the dinner with Vice-Minister Guo when Shen Wei (of all people!) fumbles with his chopsticks

6.2.3. Yunlan also blocks Shen Wei from Minister Gao’s sight (subconsciously?) after that wedding showdown... even though he’s unhappy that Shen Wei has kept the identity of the Envoy from him, he trusts the other man enough to recognize there must be a reason; thus he doesn’t want other people to pry into the possibility that Shen Wei is a Dixingren

6.3. also, also that Shen Wei lets Yunlan have his way and use him as a pillow in the car once again (he also adjusts the actual pillow beneath Yunlan’s head to make it more comfortable)

6.3.1 the other Shen-Wei-is-Yunlan’s-pillow scene is when the professor picks up the poor hurting Chief off the road and in the taxi ride home... apparently this was an improvised scene from Bai Yu who just wanted to mess with Long-ge and our great Zhu Yilong just stayed in character and ran with it

6.3.2. the other notable improvised scene is the cute “Black Cloaked gege~ please be careful~ there’s someone is waiting for you at home~” [sorry that i don’t remember the exact line] but once again our great leading actors just stay perfectly in character

6.4. after Shen Wei wakes up from a night of being drunk (lol) Yunlan has left a note for him “I’ve gone back first, stay in touch. -Zhao” and what’s that on the corner of the note? why it’s a winky face

7. when Yunlan grabs the fake Zhang Danni’s wrist to confirm his suspicions, Shen Wei narrows his eyes... (lol is our Black Cloaked gege jealous)

8. when Yunlan claims he can swallow the painkillers dry, Shen Wei clenches his jaw in his anger at this idiot of a man for not taking better care of himself... you’ll find that a lot of Shen Wei’s anger is directed toward his husband being a self-sacrificial fool

8.1. after Yunlan uses the Hallows again and his nose begins to bleed, Zhu Yilong in all his acting glory has Shen Wei furious to the point that his lips tremble (cue Shen Wei angrily shoving a handkerchief into his husband’s face) [i really want to know if they ever broke character during this scene due to their proximity lol]

8.1.1. Shen Wei all but invades Yunlan’s personal space (he really does stand there between Yunlan’s legs guys) and he’s so careful even though he’s angry as he tries to stop the nosebleed; he’s aware the force might tip Yunlan backwards, so he immediately rests his hands on Yunlan’s thighs/knees to steady him

9. Yunlan has claimed that he doesn’t do things for the sake of gaining anything in return and yet every time he’s wanted things from dear Shen Wei... “take off your mask and smile for me”, “join the SID”... the sexual tension is Unreal during these scenes lol, you can see Shen Wei swallow visibly in anticipation + babie Shen Wei of ten thousand years prior all but chokes on his words when he promises to do ANYTHING Kun Lun wants him to do (honey where is your mind GOING???)

9.1. Bai Yu does have a bruise on his knee after the scene where Yunlan asks Shen Wei for something... dunno if it’s the actor’s bruise or the character’s bruise, but if it’s the character’s bruise—how did he get it? what exactly did WeiLan do that evening lol

9.2. also peep the fact that Yunlan almost always has a lollipop in his mouth when talking to Shen Wei... oral fixation much? (also the whole sequence where he tries to explain how to eat a lollipop to babie Shen Wei, wow the amount of homoerotic tension)

9.3. babie Shen Wei’s ears and cheeks are SO RED when Yunlan snatches the mask off his face

10. Yunlan’s hairstyle changes after Shen Wei joins the SIU (joins his family), much like how a bride would change her hairstyle after marriage in China ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (random note but CQL WangXian does this too when lwj puts his hair down/styled over the front of his shoulders when wwx wakes up 16 years later)

11. the first time we see Shen Wei spit up blood, there’s an echo of “Xiao Wei” faintly and Shen Wei mutters to himself “Xiao Lan” before looking up and saying louder “Zhao Yunlan” (nicknames/pet names/names only your family or lover can call you... this trope is good)

11.1. i also think a lot about how in the novel Kun Lun muses before he dies that it’s a shame he won’t see this Little Beauty [Xiao Wei] grow up to be a Great Beauty

12. Shen Wei’s funny little eyebrow raise when Yunlan accidentally reveals he broke into the professor’s apartment once ( “riiiiiiiiight i definitely believe you”)

12.1. though the ep 23 scene is angsty, the fact Yunlan says “It’s the middle of the night, were you hungry?” seems to imply their relationship is a lot closer than just neighbors... they’re probably used to sharing an apartment/room at this point :)

13. when Yunlan is hurt, Zhu Hong looks to him but he only has eyes for Shen Wei

13.1. after Yunlan is blinded, Zhu Hong is the one cradling him but he calls for Shen Wei first and reaches for his hand; Shen Wei of course responds immediately “it’s me”

13.1.1. both times after Yunlan gets his eyesight back, the first thing he sees is the person who loves him the most

14. Shen Wei warms up the congee in the morning with his magic after he watches over Yunlan when his stomach pain acts up (domestic use of magic? yes please)

15. the bomb defusing scene in the hospital (video game -> reality case) really is framed like a wedding proposal... also the way that Shen Wei smirks lol he’s so proud of his husband

16. after his Envoy identity is revealed, Shen Wei all but abuses his Black Cloaked Envoy voice to stop his stupid husband from doing stupid things that will hurt himself and every time Yunlan is properly sh00k by it

16.1. we really go from Chief Zhao remarking in the Mountain-River Awl case that he’s used to ordering people around, not receiving orders to married bickering with Shen Wei to then agreeing to everything Shen Wei tells him to do

17. the fact that “Shen Wei, ah, Shen Wei... You are such a good person, how could I bear to let you go?” is an actual line from the censored DRAMA astounds me, nevermind that Shen Wei just made breakfast for his man and Yunlan is basically pouting up at him from the bed

17.1. the way Yunlan’s dad warns him to stay away from Shen Wei and Yunlan responds with something like “he’s sincerely good to me, I want to be with him”... “be with him”???? [inhales deeply] yea this is definitely a “brotherly relationship”

18. Yunlan’s “WOW” after the Envoy kills the monsters in the cave of the Mountain-River Awl case is hilarious and i dont understand how such a noise is physically possible,,, it sounds like a growl?????

18.1. Zhu Yilong was asked to mimic it during an interview (which he did not do and only half-heartedly gave a “wow”) and then Bai Yu did it again

19. also i inevitably got attached to the side ship of Lao Chu and Xiao Guo... they have so much skinship for a censored “brotherly relationship” lmao

the amount of face-touching and hand-holding that they do is unreal... they’re more canon than WeiLan in the drama adaptation methinks

20. 《时间飞行》or “Flying Across Time” sounds like Yunlan’s reply to Shen Wei’s《只是太在意》or “Just Cared Too Much”

20.1. the lyrics of both these songs really cements this idea that both of WeiLan believe the other to be too good... Kun Lun was a god in the novel, and Xiao Wei was just a soulless little Ghost King... and then we have the incorrigible Chief Zhao pining after the beautiful and kind Professor Shen... i just have a lot of feelings about them becoming better people for each other, that their love really does make each other stronger

21. my favorite two pieces from the OST are Shen Wei’s theme (arranged by Kun Luo) and Kun Lun’s theme (arranged by Chen Xueran)

head’s up: it’s been like four years since i last even glanced at music theory so a lot of this might just make no sense to an actual professional

-Shen Wei: written in 4/4 time, Ab Major, melody is primarily carried by piano + strings; the piano almost sticks exclusively to triplets whereas the strings are in steady whole, quarter, and eighth notes—which creates in interesting impressionistic effect, kind of like hazy smoke or the ripples across the surface of a lake; every single measure uses decrescendo, so the first triplet is always the loudest and the three that follow get progressively softer (mimicking an echo)... the piece ends on the seventh note of the scale, which is usually a pretty awkward place to end and yet it doesn’t feel wrong it all; the piece uses a ritardando in the last three measures, and we simply drift off with that last G... i think it’s a beautifully written piece that perfectly portrays such a complex character as Shen Wei, someone who loved with everything he had, and was just so overwhelmingly good... and then he simply disappears as if the dream has ended. it makes me think of how he guarded over Kun Lun/Zhao Yunlan for thousands of years in the novel, never ever ever daring to meet him... and yet the other man always felt like he was waiting for someone

-Kun Lun: written in 3/4 time, a minor, there’s no real complex shift in the melody although there’s brief modulation into E major (dominant/fifth note); it’s a fairly somber piece, especially when the strings join in... it’s a steady waltz, and it finishes with the scale (second to last major is g, last major is a), like a circle coming back around [like their love story perhaps?]... there’s a finality to it, a completeness, a wholeness, which makes sense in the drama-verse because the moment Yunlan takes up the name of Kun Lun is when his love story with Shen Wei all fits together. the piece feels a little lonely in its minor key and all, a little sad, indeed as if you were standing at the top of a mountain surrounded by clouds and mist... the constant meter also reminds me of like the steady drip of water, the perpetual and inevitable passage of the days and time

-i don’t really understand how because the keys of the two pieces don’t fit together easily, but somehow it doesn’t feel wrong to play the pieces back to back; the melodies of both seem to call upon each other despite the differences in key and time signature, so it actually feels right. a circle without a beginning or an ending, wouldn’t you want your love to be so infinite?

-when yunlan finds shen wei in their bubble outside of time, when shen wei is about to leave him, shen wei is wearing the outfit of their first meeting. and the lyrics go “Across time, I am in the same place”... surely, they will find each other again.

#guardian #cdrama ramblings #zhenhun #镇魂 guardian

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cynthiaandsamus · 3 years

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Custom Toonami Block Week 69 (Nice) Rundown

Code Geass: So this episode is kind of a ride, like fuck. We kinda yadda yadda how Lelouch fucking escaped from Nunally’s sinking airship and just have Rolo sitting over him in bed kind of conflicted that he’s still stuck on his old little sister, so therefore he programs the tvs in Lelouch’s train to blast Nunally’s appointment but it’s funny because he probably didn’t even have to do that because directly after that Lelouch runs into the station and Nunally shit is just everywhere, like I get it’s a metaphor but it’s just funny that Rolo had to plan for him to run into something Nunally-related only for him to run out of the plan and run into ten times more Nunally shit. Then we get Kaguya claiming herself, Kallen and CC as Zero’s harem directly followed by a depressed Lelouch hypnotizing a bunch of street punks to exercise, about to do drugs and asking to fuck Kallen, like this episode is fucking ridiculous and parts are hilariously contrived, thankfully Kallen slaps the shit out of him and Rolo’s like “yo bro we don’t need that bitch, come on and live it up in this ridiculously racist system and the one place where it’s slightly less racist with me” and then they go back to school and have the “Happiness is Like Glass” scene which is genuinely amazing and moving, like for all the weird zany stuff that happens in the first part of this episode, this is a little oasis of pure sincerity and quality where Lelouch makes a promise he knows he won’t be able to keep. Inspired by this amazing moment, Lelouch returns to the Black Knights with the thought of “Maybe there are other reasons to destroy an oppressive dictatorship aside from my one ridiculously crippled sister” which he probably should’ve thought of before. And then he defeats Suzaku’s navy with the power of FUCKING BUBBLES, like yeah, this episode is right back to being crazy ridiculous but Lelouch is back and wants in on Nunally’s special zones… okay, phrasing.

Inuyasha: So we open with a scene of Kagome playing cards with Miroku which is genuinely adorable if pointless, but it just makes me laugh that Miroku and Sango seem to know all the rules of the game but are still stumped when Kagome tells them they’re Playing Cards, probably a culture thing. Anyway, Inuyasha has to kill a Barrier Demon to get the power to break barriers, which is a bit of a conundrum because Barrier Demons have, you know, barriers, which Inuyasha currently cannot break. Worse still said demon is a little girl and a half-demon like Inuyasha which understandably puts him in quite a quandary. Inuyasha does his usual thing of “Let’s just go in swinging and figure out the rest later but Shiori’s grandfather deflects the admittedly cool-looking Water Wind Scar Inuyasha throws at them with Shiori’s barrier. Shiori’s mom is all “Gimme back my daughter you said you’d stop attacking us if I let you have her” and he’s all like “Well make me, I have a fucking barrier and can hold you hostage” so everyone’s generally pissed off about the situation and Shiori’s granddad with the long name sends all the bat demons to go destroy the village which makes no fucking sense because the only reason she’s still cooperating is so they won’t hurt her mom, without her she has no reason to keep doing it but I guess he’s hoping having nothing to live for will make her do what he says out of nihilism or some shit.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Yusuke gets to face off against Suzaku, the final boss of the Saint Beasts and the gang get to demonstrate the teamwork lessons from this arc by doing a reenactment of the jumping Bahamut scene from Advent Children so Yusuke can get up the tower to fight him. It’s really pretty cool how they splice in Keiko’s Day of the Dead montage with Yusuke fighting Suzaku, tying things together thematically and culiminating in Yusuke and Keiko both fucking decking their opponents. I also really like how Yusuke’s so confident Keiko won’t go down to a zombie hoard so easily, like she’s not a fighter but she’s smart and has got guts so he’s pretty sure she can last a while while he pretends to punch Suzaku with his shoes. Overall a really good start to the fight that means Yusuke still has to wiggle his way out after using his Spirit Gun already and Suzaku still has a lot of shit to pull.

Fate Zero: So Saber and Lancer do their fight and there’s a bunch of fightnobabble talk that someone who’s actually held a weapon in their life would probably enjoy but to me is just “Oooh cool jabbies, flashing lights” which is still fun. Basically everyone’s watching though, Kirei has his ninja squad on the job, Kiritsugu’s Black Ops is monitoring things and Iskander is watching from the Radical Highway Bridge from Sonic Adventure 2. Eventually Iskander is like “Well damn they might kill each other if this keeps up” and Waver’s like “yeah duh.” And Iskander shows who wears the booty shorts in this relationship by storming into the fight against Waver’s wishes cause he wants to fight everyone anyway. So yeah, giant lightning chariot in the middle of this First Boss battle.

Konosuba: Now that the party’s all formed the group settle into a daily routine of Kazuma being Megumin’s wheels for her Explosion training, Aqua being a waitress and Darkness doing… probably better not to think about what Darkness is doing. Anyway, Megumin bombs the shit out of a Dullahan’s castle and before the Dullahan can call his friend Celty to come kick her ass, Darkness gets hit with a death spell and he issues a challenge to Megumin to come to the tower of the Four Saint Beasts and (wait wrong anime again) but Aqua just breaks the curse on her own and they just don’t bother showing up. In the manga this is really funny because Aqua’s in a maid outfit from her waitress job and just does it like it’s nothing and then they show a panel later of the Dullahan waiting for them like “The fuck when are they getting here…”.

Sailor Moon Crystal: So for some reason even though we only have three of the five Sailor Guardians, Luna decides this is the time to give a recap and reintroduce our protagonists for the first part of this episode. Anyway there’s a big party to celebrate a dated princess Di reference that’s kind of in poor taste at this point and Usagi and friends get in based solely on having fancy dresses and being hot, man I had no idea getting in with rich people was that easy. Anyway, Usagi gets a new tiara because of love and shit and gets an upgraded Ancient Egyptian Laser Beam from the moon. The Four Kings show up to be all “Ha-ha! You defeated my demon but now there’s all four of us and even though we still think you have the crystal and outnumber you and there will never be a moment when you’re weaker than this we will now… LEAVE FOR NO REASON!” like the logic of people in this show oh my fucking god. But of course the dated princess reference’s treasure isn’t the crystal they’re looking for and Tuxedo Mask kisses Sailor Moon while she’s asleep which is definitely sexual assault there was no fucking consent there, I don’t care if they’re moon soul mates or whatever she barely knows who he is and wasn’t conscious. But yeah Luna calls him out on his shit and despite clearly being an ally he has to be all edgy and be like “Well maybe I’m a friend, maybe I’ an enemy, who knows~” because I think he gets his power from how mysterious he is, like he’s going to be utterly useless if anyone figures out who he is, not to mention Luna already knows his identity but for some reason doesn’t tell Usagi. Idk man I just have a hard time following the logic of this fucking show…

Durarara!!: So yeah, this is the “The Yagiri Family is fucked” episode Namie has a weird fucked up brocon yandere thing going on, Seiji’s an asshole that because of having two stalker yanderes going after him has become a fractured manchild that thinks love is everything and pretends he knows shit but knows less shit than pretty much everyone around him and has his sister do all the shit for him. But yeah, Celty sees Seiji with the girl with her head and freaks out, and Shinra A DOCTOR if you remember says “Hey maybe your head just attached itself to a corpse Parasyte style” like either he’s a terrible doctor and really thinks that or this is a smokescreen to make Celty think her head has moved on and she should too which is a fucked up level of gaslighting. But yeah, Mikado takes Head Girl, Seiji keeps stabbing people with pens for some reason, luckily it’s mostly Shizuo so it doesn’t do anything, and Izaya’s just like “oh shit, chaos, I’m down”. Basically everyone is awful in this episode except for Mikado who just wants to help and doesn’t know shit, Celty who’s doing her best, and Shizuo who’s just awesome as usual.

#ooc #Toonami #Custom Toonami Block #Code Geass #Inuyasha #Yu Yu Hakusho #Fate Zero #Konosuba #Sailor Moon Crystal #Durarara!!

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hamliet · 4 years

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Who are your top 10 female villains? And your top ten male villains? Thank you!

Oooooh. Well, in this list I am including antagonists (people I see as conflicted/not committed to like, the bad side, if there even is a bad side, but basically oppose the protagonist at some point). Also, they are in no particular order:

Female Villains:

Cersei Lannister (A Song of Ice and Fire)

She's sympathetic enough so that we understand how she came to be the way she is, yet terrifying and depraved enough that we fear for the characters around her. I don't think that's an easy balance to strike for a character: if you make them likable it's hard to keep audiences from rooting for them, but the balance is struck perfectly with Cersei.

Azula (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

As @aspoonofsugar wrote recently on Azula, I think she is a fantastic female villain. I think she is sympathetic despite her actions, and I wish the story had explored her redemption, which was clearly hinted.

Claudia (The Dragon Prince)

The first three seasons have kind of been Claudia's fall. While as a whole I don't think TDP is very well-written, I do think that Claudia, Viren, and Soren's family dynamic is a polished gem of writing that literally carries the story. I fully expect to see redemption for Claudia down the line, but not until she spirals further and further. At the end of season 3, Claudia resorts to killing someone to save her father's life when she has nothing and no one else left, and she makes this choice after her brother Soren (now redeemed himself) chooses to kill their father in front of Claudia, devastating her. Their choices are clear parallels and both are somewhat negative, somewhat sympathetic. Soren can't kill his past: he has to live with it, and Claudia can't cling to the past: she has to let it go.

Delores Umbridge (Harry Potter)

She is awful and I hate her, but you're also supposed to hate her. Her comeuppance is hilarious ad perfect, and just--I think she's a fantastic villain because she reminds every single one of us of an albeit exaggerated version of a teacher we all know.

Karren von Rosewald (Tokyo Ghoul:re)

Karren is TG:re's best written character in my opinion. Her tragic arc takes place throughout the first three arcs, which imo is also the highest point in the series. Karren just wanted to be loved, and if she had to die, at least she got to die as herself.

Nora (Noragami)

Nora! The reason I read Noragami is pretty much for Nora and her redemption arc. The fandom hates her for... reasons, but she's always been primed for redemption. Her name is in the title (which yes also refers to Yato, etc.) She's important. I wrote a few metas on Nora, notably here.

Enoshima Junko (Danganronpa)

Despair. It's fun to find a character who is, well, just plain fun, but who is also bored, despairing, cruel, and terrifying. She's unique and a brillaint character.

Toga Himiko (Boku no Hero Academia)

I'm not the first one to say that Toga is BNHA's best written female character, but I do agree that she is. She, like Junko, is fun and interesting, and she has an arc that is compelling. Her actions directly move the plot; she’s bloodthirsty and yet uniquely empathetic and compassionate.

Yoshimura Eto (Tokyo Ghoul)

Eto's backstory and her motivations were fascinating. She was one of the most complex characters in the entire story, and despite the fact that you understood why her father gave her up, you also understood her pain and justified anger at his doing so. She perfectly illustrated the divide between human and ghoul.

Male Villains:

Shigaraki Tomura (Boku no Hero Academia)

BNHA's best-written male character, imo. His backstory and the current chapters that focus on him are extremely well-done, thematic and full of character development, and detailed artistically. He gets so much focus that I can tell he's important to Horikoshi, and I'm excited to see where he goes.

Dabi (Boku no Hero Academia)

I'll admit there's a lot missing here. Namely, we don't know his identity for certain, but it seems basically certain that he's Todoroki Touya; however, we still don't have his backstory. Still, his fury at the presumed father who destroyed his family and yet has the audacity to be a "symbol of hope" is fascinating to me, and I'm excited to see how he develops as well. (Both Shigaraki and Dabi seem primed for some kind of redemption).

Adult Trio: Illumi Zoldyck, Hisoka Morow, Chrollo Lucilfer (Hunter x Hunter)

Am I counting these three as one so that I can get extra characters? Of course I am. In all honesty I really think all three of these antagonists are really well done, sympathetic and/or likable. They're the shadows of the three MCs they foil: for Illumi, Killua, for Hisoka, Gon, and for Chrollo, Kurapika. They represent the traits the three protagonists (sorry Leorio) don't want to acknowledge in themselves, and therefore their encounters with their shadows are particularly thematic and powerful. Also, one doesn't usually kill their shadow, but instead integrates with it, so I highly doubt the three of them will be killed by their respective protagonist.

Meruem (Hunter x Hunter)

Yes, again, HxH. It has great antagonists. But Meruem's development is literally one of the most powerful I've ever read about. I don't know anyone who starts his story not loathing him, hoping he dies, and then by the end of it, ebfore you've even realized it's happening, you're crying for him and Komugi. His arc explores human nature at its finest, most horrific, and ultimately most beautiful.

Furuta Nimura (Tokyo Ghoul:re)

Furuta's a fantastic villain whom I wish got a better ending (not even redeemed really, but just... something more). He was so damaged by the system of an unfair world that he made it his life goal to become the villain and burn the system down, destroy it no matter what it took--and also hoped to destroy himself in the process, as he was born knowing he would die young and longed for it. I wish he had been forced to live.

Mori Ougai (Bungo Stray Dogs)

Mori's utilitarianism is chilling. He's not exactly unlikable, despite being absolutely morally repugnant, and the Beast AU from Asagiri himself shows us that Mori is certainly capable of a positive life and positive change; however, within the canonical story, I don't see that for him. He's been set up IMO as the final boss of the series, and his habit of targeting the most vulnerable (especially children) to control people is almost certainly going to bite Dazai in the ass eventually.

Eren Jaeger (Shingeki no Kyojin)

I can't believe I'm writing this. I don't know what to call Eren: he's the protagonist, and he's sunk to becoming the final boss. While it's possible he, like Furuta and like Lelouch of Code Geass, is playing the villain, I really hope not, as I think the themes are much more powerful if Eren sincerely believes what he proclaims to believe. He's a kid who has always wanted to fight for freedom and for the people around him, and now we're seeing the dark side of those traits, wherein he's destroying the world via genocide to save the people close to him. He's driven by fear and by anger at the cruelty and unfairness of the world, and he's forgotten the beauty of it. I hope Mikasa can remind him before the end.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Bungo Stray Dogs)

MY BOY. Look if a character is named after my very favorite real-life author, I must stan. But actually I do think Fyodor is well written and a master manipulator. He's modeled after my favorite character in all of fiction, Dostoyesvky's Demons' Alexei Kirillov. He really seems to want human connection, to live, and has forgotten that empathy is an important and necessary part of both of those. I hope--and think it is likely given BSD's prolific redemption arcs--that he will remember eventually.

Lee Yut-Lung (Banana Fish)

Again,, he's less a villain than an antagonist. Like Ash, the main character, he is a teenage boy betrayed by the people who were supposed to protect him and abused his whole entire life. He's driven by a desperate need to be loved and jealousy that Ash is loved while he is not. His ending, when Sing finally tells him he will in fact be staying by Yut-Lung's side and will help Yut-Lung redeem himself, "because you're in pain... your soul's bleeding, even now" is literally the perfect ending for him.

Jin Guangyao (Mo Dao Zu Shi)

I've written a lot on Jin Guangyao, but he's a walking tragedy. He ties with Wei Wuxian, the protagonist, as my favorite, and the reason is because they are two sides of the same coin--in fact, they're the same side of the same coin. They're not very different, and the fact that he finally at least got empathy in the end and was able to push the person he loved most to safety because of that--well. Brb time to cry.

#ask hamliet #long post #villains #lists #faves #Anonymous

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abyssmail · 3 years

Text

Caerul Design Notes,

because I’ve actually put a lot of thought into creating Caerul’s aesthetic and I’m lowkey really proud of it. I won’t get into her actual character concept/personality/backstory/etc. since this got super long, but this is how/why I made the choices I did with regards to her name and visual design!

▶ Caerul’s color scheme started off way bluer (hence the name “Caerul,” from caeruleus/a/um - “blue”/“cerulean”/“azure”/“of the sky/sea” in Latin) and less saturated, but when I gave her a (dead) twin with a red theme, I wanted them to look more alike and made both of their hair purple (although I haven’t actually done more than sketch Roseus before... he’s got purple hair and red eyes). Purple’s my favorite color, and unnatural hair colors don’t seem to be uncommon in Orth, so why not, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The red elements in Caerul’s design are meant to represent her honoring Roseus!

All of the base colors I use when drawing Caerul! They all end up looking a bit darker once they’re shaded though.

▶ As well as shamelessly using one of my favorite Latin words (I’m a Classics major, okay ;;>~>), I also tried to pick a name that sounded similar to the ones that already exist in-universe. This was actually fairly tricky, since as far as I can tell the names in Made in Abyss have a WIDE variety of influences. Some of them seem passably Japanese-sounding (Riko, Jiruo, Kiyui, Nanachi) disclaimer I bring dishonor to my ancestors and know 0 Japanese so this is just about vibez, others seem Western-ish (Reg, Nat, Lyza, Prushka). Some are fairly whimsical (Shiggy, Maruruk, Mitty) while others are more mysterious and fantastic (Any of the White Whistles besides maybe Lyza). The only common thread I could really settle on was a general fantasy feeling to all of the names. I tried to capture that nebulous vibe with Caerul’s name, although with something so vague and subjective it’s pretty much impossible to say if I was entirely successful. I named her siblings afterward with other Latin color words and ended up with a RGB theme lol.

▸ By the way, “Caerul” is pronounced “KAI-rool.” It rhymes with “Hyrule.” The ae diphthong makes an “eye” sound in Latin #TheMoreYouKnow

▸ “Caducalae” is a portmanteau of “caducae alae,” literally “falling/doomed/futile wings” in Latin (again), playing off how pointless it is to be able to fly when the Curse of the Abyss is a thing. Originally, they weren’t supposed to work at all outside of the Abyss, but I decided that was boring for crossovers/other verses so I scrapped it. I’m not too happy with the name since it doesn’t fit the naming scheme of the canon relics (there is no precedent at all for gratuitous Latin in Made in Abyss, which is a good thing because it’s overused in fantasy, but Latin was the only thing I was good at in high school sooooo... ^^;), but I didn’t like any of my other ideas that much, either. “Wings of Futility” feels more canon, but it’s also kinda depressing :/

▶ I’ve mentioned before that Caerul’s build is based off of mine for art reference purposes (it’s convenient to just look in the mirror while making the pose I want =w=)b), but another reason she’s so short is that I didn’t have to make the caducalae quite as big since she’s smaller, so she can actually go indoors if she’s careful.

▶ Long hair isn’t super practical with mechanical wings with lots of bits for it to get caught in, but Caerul idolizes Lyza, so I left her hair as long as I could reasonably get away with.

▶ I heavily referenced the canon Made in Abyss character designs for Caerul’s clothing so she would fit into the world, but made some alterations to make everything more personal to her and accommodate for her wings. In general, I lightened everything up, since she takes a bunch of short, quick trips rather than lengthy expeditions. Her gloves, for instance, are loosely inspired by the ones we see many delvers wearing in the manga/anime, but are less heavy-duty and are convertible mittens/fingerless gloves for better dexterity with handling letters and such.

The best close up of the gloves I could find was actually a screenshot of the aftermath Reg & Riko’s orb piercer encounter, but I didn’t want to have to tag this for gore, so you get Lyza ^^; There’s a filter over Caerul here so you can see the glove better which is why she looks kinda washed out :/

▶ Her coat is heavily influenced by Jiruo’s, since he’s the only Moon Whistle we’ve seen in canon.

yeah, uhhhh, sorry to yoink your style my dude ^^;

▸ Caerul’s has a different color palette, a simpler lapel border, an extra set of outer pockets, and three separate panels in the back that button around her wings so she can put it on! I haven’t drawn it, but her shirt works similarly.

This is my favorite detail about her design tbh... it’s just really satisfying what a logical solution it is for some reason??? the original doodle is off rotting somewhere in my Modern European History notes, but I tried to recreate it just as sloppily here =w=)b

▶ Caerul’s corset isn’t just a painful fashion choice - it’s actually meant to be a(n admittedly heavily stylized) brace for her back against the weight of her wings.

▶ Since Caerul can’t wear a backpack with the wings, I had to get creative with storage options for her. In addition to an undetermined number of pockets on the inside of her coat, I gave her these two pouches on her thighs to carry more stuff.

I wonder how buff your quads could get carrying a significant amount of weight there...

▸ Messenger bags don’t seem super practical for delving, so I didn’t design a specific one for her to carry all the time, but Caerul does use them on occasion. Even with that, though, she still has far less carrying capacity than the average delver, which is a problem she has to deal with when carrying out her duties!

▶ The wings/caducalae were by far the most difficult part of designing Caerul, and it took several redesigns over 2+ years before I was finally happy with them. Their first design was deliberately far simpler in the interest of having to draw them a zillion times, but they ended up clunky and unwieldy looking:

chonky o~O

▸ The final design is MUCH more of a pain to draw (in fact, a lot of the time I cheat and just copy and paste them from drawings I’ve already done), but I think it looks much sleeker and more “functional”.

I also got better at making my diagrams look slightly more authentic ;0

▸ I knew I wanted jetpack-style thrusters to be a component of the wings to somewhat justify the shit I wanted Caerul to be able to pull with them (especially to eliminate the need for accounting for the damage landing suddenly could do to her ankles), but incorporating them proved to be one of the biggest problems of the design. At one point, they were going to have a whole separate attachment point on her back, but I finally just made them an offshoot of the first “joint,” as you can see in the final design.

A really messy intermediate caducalae sketch. The weird double pentagon shape was meant to be the part of the relic actually fused to Caerul’s back, but I scrapped that too when I scrapped the separate limbs for the thrusters.

▸ Speaking of the joints, they’re all balls so they can rotate all over and I don’t have to fuss too much about how they move. Likewise, the frame is metal, but I treat it like it’s kind of flexible, so Caerul can “flex” the wings open and closed. These wings are hard enough to draw period okay I’m giving myself every excuse to be inconsistent af on purpose.

▸ The caducalae have some “bonus” features that I’ve sketched out, but that Caerul hasn’t unlocked yet, and won’t for a while.

owo what’s this?

▸ For the wings, I think my biggest inspirations were some of the mechier Cardfight!! Vanguard dragon units (although I don’t remember which cards specifically) and the energy wings on the ninth-generation knightmares in Code Geass R2.

I’ve made a lot of OCs, and since I don’t like to use faceclaims, I’ve done a fair amount of character designing. I don’t think I’ve ever spent as much time or had as much fun with any of them as I have with Caerul, though! OCs aren’t always super well accepted in fandom roleplay, but the Made in Abyss community has been super welcoming and I’ve had a blast. Thanks for listening to me gush about Caerul if you got this far, and thank you to everyone who’s interacted with her!

The original sketch of Caerul from back in 2017. How far we’ve come :’D

#miscellaneous info #mun art #appearance #ooc #((no one cares lol))#((but I had fun putting all my thoughts down in writing ^^;))#((also! the full version of the new caerul art from the promo!))

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sol1056 · 4 years

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hey! i noticed that you’ve written a lot about how voltron fails as a mecha series, and it got me curious about what a GOOD mecha series looks like. do you have any recs for someone whose only experience with the genre, quite literally, is voltron?

note: that is NOT where I wanted the cut. who knows what the devs are doing over there at tumblr hq.

-----

Welp, there’s more than one kind of mecha. There’s super robots -- where (in general) the robots are ultra-powered and relatively indestructible. Then there’s real robots, which will break down and/or run out of ammunition at the most dramatically critical moments. And then there’s a category that at best might be nearly-sentient robots, which have minds and motivations of their own -- but I wouldn’t say that’s a true category (in terms of the genre) so much as a distinction I've noted.

I’ve never been big into the super robot series (with a few exceptions), and I mostly find the combining robot genre to be frustrating. Former mechanic and engineer who currently works with AI, so a lot of the hand-wavey aspects are frustrating for me, especially in super robots where things mysteriously repair themselves and there’s never a struggle to upgrade/repair. (And don’t even get me started on the idea of controlling a bipedal reactive machine with only two foot pedals and a damn joystick.)

Which is all to say, I suppose I should recommend that you watch the classics, except I’m not really sure what they are because I’ve forgotten most of them. And frankly a lot of them are really shoddy animation by today’s standards, and life is too short to waste time on that. I’ll need to refer you along to other mecha fans to add their recommendations, instead.

Well, I can at least recommend Gundam and Macross, but that’s kind of like saying I recommend Doc Martens and Aididas -- that barely narrows it down, since there’s so many options within each brand. Everyone’s got their favorites in each, as do I, but any mecha series that’s stayed with me is one that found a way to either twist the core trope, or explored implications that other series glossed over.

Note: I’ve never seen any version of Eva, and never felt the urge to, either. Sorry. Ask someone else for input on that. Plus there’s also ones I’ll leave off here ‘cause they’re veering over into AI/robots/tech and less what would usually be called mecha, but they’re still worthwhile: Battle Fairy Yukikaze, Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex, Broken Blade, Last Exile, and Voices of a Distant Star all come to mind.

Gundam

For me, I adore the technical geeky touches in Gundam F91, but the story is total spaghetti, so you might want to skip that until you’re more familiar with the gundam tropes. (It was meant to be a series, iirc, got shut down, and they took the pieces and made a movie from it, so it’s... kind of compressed, to put it mildly).

Gundam Wing and Gundam 00 are considerably less geeky on the technical (though they do satisfy the mechanic itch, with a bit more real robot, at least on the technicalities). I like the international core cast, and the way each series explores geopolitical dynamics. (That said, skip the second season of Gundam 00. It just goes totally off the rails into some really wild and wacky directions.)

A long-running concept like Gundam is recognizable across the series thanks to core concepts, and in Gundam’s case it’s the conflicts between imperialism and colonialism, war versus justified rebellion, and pacifism versus a first-strike as self-defense. What I liked with Wing and 00, in particular, was its central pilots felt more tied to (and aware of) the political ramifications of their actions.

I did watch about half of Iron-Blooded Orphans, which struck out in a new direction by having Mars as the colony instead of the lagrange points, but didn’t bother finishing. From what I hear, watch it with a box of tissues, as it’s a return to the classic kill-em-all perspective of the original Gundam series.

Macross

I’m sure someone else will tell you to watch the original Macross (the american version being Robotech, albeit highly edited). I know lots of people adore the first Macross series, but it’s just too late-80s for me. (The hair, my god, the hair.)

Personally, I prefer Macross Frontier -- the amination is much improved, though the fact is I also adore the voices of Yuuichi Nakamura and Aya Endō. Macross has some politics, but it’s mostly internal -- that is, the opponents aren’t human, so whatever debate there is about who’s right or wrong is mostly one-sided, since we only ever see humans doing the talking.

I tried to watch Macross Delta but it just didn’t do it for me -- and therein lies some of the issues (for me) with both Gundam and Macross. Because both have some core elements that they tackle in every series, it can start to feel a bit repetitive.

For Macross it’s always music, Valkyries (the mecha type for Macross), and a love triangle -- which sometimes isn’t even resolved. (I’ve read all kinds of debates about whether Alto ends up with Sheryl or with Ranka, but the series leaves it open.)

A good writer can explore these themes over and over, but between the two, I personally think Gundam has done a bit better of pivoting to take a new angle with each series. But at the same time, Gundam is pretty consistent about not building on a previous series -- with a few notable exceptions, most of its series are alternate-universe stories to each other. In Macross, they’re all continuations of the previous -- so if you’re not into its setup about aliens and weird diseases and whatnot, you’re only going to get more of the same in the next series.

Everything else

So here’s the series I like, but I’m not sure all of these would be counted as ‘true’ mecha by other fans (a debate I mostly ignore, so I’ll leave it to others to argue about that).

Escaflowne -- one of the rare breed of fantasy-styled mecha (Broken Blade being another one that comes to mind). The animation is strongly 80s, but the voice acting is superb, the story (originally meant to be longer, then budget cuts forced a much longer story to squeeze into half the episodes it really deserved).

[It’s also a series I’d call a harbinger, similar to tripping over little-known movies from twenty years ago and realizing every single actor including walk-on parts went on to be massive names. Escaflowne’s got that, but that also extends to its animation team, its director, its composer, on and on. All of them went onto work on some of the greatest hits of anime. That makes Escaflowne immensely (if quietly and somewhat subtly) influential, both for the genre and animation overall.]

Eureka Seven -- another not-on-Earth story. At first the mecha movement -- almost like surfing in the sky -- was odd, but they took some interesting physics concepts and made them not just worldbuilding, but integral parts of the story. Okay, I’m not keen on how the female lead gets successively down-graded as the hero ramps up, but there are some emotional implications of Massive Destructive Machines where Eureka Seven lingers that a lot of other series gloss over.

Fafner in the Azure -- another aliens-against-humans, but first off, I’m gonna say it: you either love Hisashi Hirai‘s character designs or you want to torch them with total prejudice. If you can get past that, Fafner is brutal to its characters well beyond most other series, excepting the earliest Gundams. Although (of course) the pilots are all kids, there are in-story reasons, and there are still adults running the show. And there are consequences, small and large.

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion -- because what would life be if we didn’t have at least one mecha series with character designs from CLAMP. (Which, admittedly, I loathe, but somehow it worked here.) Can’t speak for the second season, but the first season played up something a lot of mecha bypass for just plain banging on each other, which is strategy. It caught me at the time, at least.

Full Metal Panic -- watch this after watching Gundam Wing and/or Gundam 00, to get the tropes they’re playing on with Sousuke Sagara (the ostensible protagonist who just cannot seem to relate to real human beings). I saw one description of him as “about as well-adjusted as a feral child” and that kinda fits. It’s more real robots, and of course parts require some hardcore suspension of disbelief (the commanding officer who looks 14, sounds like she’s 12, and has boobs that never occur in nature on a frame that teeny). But all told, a lot of fun and plenty of explosions.

RahXephon -- this is another oddball one, because the mecha aren’t mecha, they’re golems (as in, creatures made from clay). For all that, there’s a lot of significant mecha influence and tropes at work. It’s held up pretty well, animation-wise, considering its age (from 2002). and while it’s the same ‘strange aliens attack earth’ plotline, it spins all that off in a completely different direction.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (aka Gurren Lagann) -- don’t watch this one until you’ve seen plenty of others, though, because it’s a fondly affectionate send-up of nearly every possible trope from combining to super to real robots. Cranked up to eleven.

Knights of Sidonia -- of all the ones on this list, KoS is possibly my most favorite. It was an early all-CGI series, and a lot of people were turned off by that, but once you get used to it, the story can carry you along. Like Macross Frontier, it takes place in deep space, where a colony of humans fight for survival with an incomprehensible (and nearly unstoppable) alien foe. But KoS is true science fiction, with a lot of solid science driving its dramatic points. Also--unlike most of the others series--although the characters are technically human, they’ve also evolved as a result of their time in space. For one, they have three genders, for another, they don’t eat; they photosynthesize.

#mecha #sol thinks about stuff #recommendations

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canmom · 4 years

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@birlinterrupted replied to your post “what led to the pointy 90s anime style… is it even something you can...”

probably not totally but in my memory a lot of stuff was v pointy in society generally in the 90's. I feel like maybe computer polygonal rendering-as-futurism might have been part of this?

hmm possibly! i think like pointy anime has a bit of a different appearance to polygon rendering though, like if anything it’s even pointier... take these characters from Slayers for example which inspired this post:

(thanks to @angelaoroscos-sweetassknife who was streaming a Slayers game adaptation and put this together)

now, Slayers is possibly on the extreme end of anime pointiness and other steotypical ‘anime’ styles like huge eyes... the style has very few straight lines, like it’s generally two pretty similar curves coming together to a really sharp point. even so, i definitely think you’re right about 90s styles being pointy in general? and like really harsh lighting and exaggerated proportions were also very much a thing in American comics of the time... I could probably furnish more examples but I was a baby back then.

what i find kind of interesting about this style is that the face is by far the most distorted and stylised part... with the clothing and the rest of the body, there’s some effort to represent 3D forms, there’s foreshortening and the like, clothing folds are shaded in (which gets taken to extremes in Utena official art, which usually draws dozens of dress folds around Anthy). but the face is just a sharp blob with features placed on it in 2D space! the character at the bottom even more so... imagine what that would look like as a 3D form...

probably some of this has to do with TV animation budgets often being limited around this time. if you only have three frames of animation, you have to go a whole lot further to sell a particular movement. that helps explain the exaggeration, but what leads to the pointiness..?

@edwad replied:

a genealogical critique of pointy anime

🤔

The wealth animations in which the 90s mode of drawing prevails appears as an immense collection of sharp pointy bits; the individual sharp pointy bit appears as its elementary form...

(yes i know foucault isn’t marx but i don’t know any good foucault lines to parody)

@everylimb replied:

I'd assume it was more or less random, the way trends in most media go: a break-out hit happens to do something different or look different, and for the next decade the things that get greenlit trend towards whatever it was, until the next thing

natural disaster movies in the 00s = superhero movies in the 10s = pointy anime in the 90s

I know nothing about anything I'm just thinking aloud in your reply box at this point

hehe you know about as much as me!

i think you’re definitely right, we can say that some style will catch on and become culturally dominant without necessarily naming what that style is. and it certainly wasn’t ubiquitous: the 90s also saw Cowboy Bebop in 1997-98, Ghost in the Shell in 1995, and Perfect Blue and Princess Mononoke in 1997 which all featured much less pointy, much more ‘realistic’ designs. hell, JoJo was running by then, though I don’t know what it looked like at that point.

so I guess I could then ask started the ‘pointy’ trend, and where and when it was particularly prominent? from anime I’m personally familiar with (which is a tiny subset of ‘anime in general’), you see it in Revolutionary Girl Utena (1997), and it was arguably still around by the time of Code Geass in the mid 2000s. Slayers for reference was in 1995. maybe you could count some really famous anime like Dragon Ball Z (89-95) and Sailor Moon (92-97) as well?

but this is a pretty scant list, and I feel like I just don’t know enough about the history of anime to really work out where the trend started and what could have popularised it.

#birlinterrupted #edwad #everylimb #animation #history

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ghostmartyr · 4 years

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Do you think this series will go the route of a "Code Geass" like ending? Not only am I highly against the idea, I just find it absolutely impractical when Marley has been keeping Eldians as internment slaves for the past 100 years. Just because they decide to work together and somehow beat Eren doesnt mean the world is going to see "oh good Eldians worked with Marley!". Marley already had "good Eldians" they ik influenced with propaganda. Obligatory *fuck Marley* statement.

Fuck Marley very much.

Code Geass is the only series allowed a Code Geass ending. As a treat.

I don’t know what the series has in store for us. Marley still incites a great deal of rage just by existing, and the fact that they’re getting off scot-free for everything they’ve done is... impressively Marley.

Falco, Gabi, and Annie are the main voices behind keeping Marley intact, and they’re a product of the system that makes Marley so loathsome. You don’t want their lives to suck more, but keeping a home standing when it’s responsible for throwing them into wars they didn’t ask for is maybe not a happy ending.

Code Geass has a tangible willingness to abandon the larger scope to focus on its main characters. It’s fun, but that isn’t Attack on Titan. This very chapter has Jean pointing out all the ways that they’re still going to wind up screwed if they figure out how to stop Eren.

There are no rosy glasses to be found, so I’m at a loss for what’s available. A complete downer where they stop Eren and the fallout of his mess destroys Paradis and continues the oppression of Eldians is probably most realistic at this stage.

Besides being depressing, that’s just boring.

I’m confident that something will happen to change up the options, but I have no idea what that is.

Code Geass is pretty far out as a route at this point, though. Zero Requiem references aside, the tones are now what I’d call definitively too different to allow for it.

...I’d say ‘yay,’ but Code Geass also managed to end with named characters alive and smiling.

With our current knowledge and the story’s approach, I do not see a workable happy ending that’s even possible. So I think we’re still waiting for some random something to make this worthwhile.

Thanks for the ask!

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #attack on asks #SnK 127

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atimefordragons · 3 years

Text

Get to know me tag game

thanks for the tag lovely @queen-of-salt-and-fury!

Nicknames: lol, I mean, my fake internet name is basically a nickname, also “C”, all the broski, brosauce, etc variations me and my bestie use, speaking of, could also consider Elsa a nickname, or Cristina, because we are stone cold adults to refer to each other as our respective personality double in favourite duos (Elsa and Anna, and Meredith and Cristina) - yeah, we know we are fucking lame. My sister calls me “Titly”, which means butterfly, you may now also refer to me as Your Majesty, because I bought Elsa’s crown as a birthday gift for myself and gave myself a coronation, thereby legally making me Arendelle’s Queen. This is how it works now right? Declaring something online immediately makes it true.

Real name: Clara, lol, it’s not, it’s just what I’ve been using online for nearly a decade or so now, so what’s the point? But my real middle name is “Taika”, which is a name I share with Taika Waititi, which is cool.

Zodiac: Scorpio

Favourite Musicians / Band: Taylor Swift, Dima Bilan, Sergey Lazarev, Anime OST (deep into Code Geass and Bleash OST atm, god they were iconic), OST in general, KAZKA (thank you again so much @pulltheskydown for introducing me to her), Alma, Amir, Rihanna, Polina Gagarina, been in a Britney mood the last few weeks. Idk, I just have music I like, and music I don’t like, and some people I am very thirsty for. Also, also, literally any song from any Shahrukh Khan movie. I always was, still am, and always will be, one of those SRK loving bitches. The man is ICONIC.

Do I get asks?: Once in a blue moon.

Favourite sports team: I support the national teams ‘cause Go Canada Go or whatever. Also more invested in the Raptors than I ever thought I’d be, but hey, them winning the NBA last year gave me more serotonin than I ever thought boring sports could give me. It’s still so boring, but I do follow the scores when they appear on CP24 (local news channel), feels good when your city’s teams win. Guess that means by default I also support the Blue Jays and the Maple Leafs, but whatever.

Other blogs: lol, you are talking to the Queen of Too Many blogs right here. My first ever main was @livesinabluebox (which has gone through a few url changes, namely melanin-monster and moonrxvenge, but it’s 2012 again so I switched back to my og url), I’m trying to clear out all my likes so I’m still posting there, but trying to move to my new main over @moonrxvenge. And I also have 600 million sideblogs for characters and roleplays and resources and whatever. I have so many that I need to keep a masterlist, and yes, it is HELLA out of date. (I still say hella)

Tumblr Crushes: meh, I never really befriended people on tumblr until much more recently, and like all those people are friends I made elsewhere, ie polyvore (I shy, tumblr scary and got far too many stupid peoples opinions).

Obvs, shoutouts to my loves @kzombi3 / @thots4daze @themadmonarchist @celestialfairies @alittlebitluna @eternalsailorstar @ayzrules @themonsterslut @turquoisesiren @pulltheskydown

some tumblr people who are v cool and maybe I say things or just do that whole “senpai notice me” lowkey stalking from my main, main: @queen-of-salt-and-fury @daenerys-targaryen @salty-sailors-unite @wellstartled and loads of others I’m probably forgetting rn

Lucky numbers: as a kid I considered 7 and 13 lucky, also 735 or something like that for islam reasons I forgot, but I don’t have any now. I think it’s all bull.

What am I wearing: blue pajamas. my shirt says “happy monday - said nobody ever”, it is thursday.

Dream holiday: Russia and Japan are definitely my number ones, all the historical places like the Winter Palace and Himeji Castle, and the cities.

Dream car: Tesla, it was a blue Model S, but that was 5 years ago (4? 3? idk, a time ago) and I’m sure there are newer models now that I am too lazy look up

Favourite food: Macarons

Drink of choice: Tim Hortons Ice Coffee with a shot of caramel

Instruments: I technically played the flute for a year (maybe three) in middle school music class, but it was mandated and I don’t remember. I could play the beginning of To Love’s End from Inuyasha back then, but not now. I can play the main tune, like just the first few notes, of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’s main theme on the piano, but I just memorized the keys. Idk the actual notes. F or G or E I guess? Idk.

Languages: English, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, technically French, but I didn’t really retain anything from it, like I can read French, but got little to no idea what I’m saying. Straight up surprised when I do understand. I think it’s in there, but barely. Also supposed to be able to speak Arabic, but retained less of that than French.

Celebrity crushes: Chris Evans, Jenna Coleman, SRK (lol, since I was born probably), Kajol, Bruna Marquezine, Yuki Kimisawa, and loads of others. I’m a hoe for the fictional and the theoretical, what can I say?

Random facts: Buying notebooks and using them are two entirely different hobbies, and, okay, this isn’t like interesting in the least but I am OBSESSING over the drama that went down between Salman Khan and Zayn over his cover of Allah Duhai Hai - yeah, I know I’m 2 years late to this, but whatever, no fucking told me about it and I can’t find any definitive information and I’m going crazy! Please, someone explain what happened 'cause I am dying!!! I need to know!! (also, salman fans don’t interact, vo kuni hai yaar, tu phagal hai kya?)

I’ll tag: all of you lovelies @kzombi3 / @thots4daze @themadmonarchist @celestialfairies @alittlebitluna @eternalsailorstar @ayzrules @themonsterslut @turquoisesiren @pulltheskydown @queen-of-salt-and-fury @daenerys-targaryen @salty-sailors-unite @wellstartled + whoever else wants to do it (and ofc tag me and befriend me, I am but a thirsty ass hoe for friendship)

#tag games #mine

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chibimyumi · 5 years

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How does a scythe kill a reaper? Why give a suicide victim who wants to be dead a weapon that can kill them so easily? By this logic, a reaper can simply stab himself samurai style or lie on a lawnmower to end their punishment and find peace. If this was manga canon, Alan would've died of thorns, not injuries (Grell and Ron shrugged off scythe wounds on campania like its but a scratch) while Eric is probably in reaper jail and will work overtime, and by overtime I mean his punishment extends.

【Response to this post】

Dear Anon,

That is indeed something I have been wondering about as well! “How does a reaper die?” This question is obviously raised because of MBD, but it is also a question to which an answer could help us understand the manga canon better.

1. Discussion Point: A Reaper’s Death?

The law of the universe as established in chapter 10 is very simple. “A person dies if a reaper decides so.” So reversely, when a reaper decides a person doesn’t die, they don’t die, right? Well, at least, this is the law according to Grell. (More on this later in header 3. ‘Law of the Universe. Legit?’)

Then this begs the first question: “does this law only apply to humans?”

If MBD still has any reference value left, we could say that this law doesn’t apply to reapers. Eric accidentally cuts down Alan and causes his death. Eric obviously did not ‘decide’ Alan’s death. We could argue this law does not apply to reapers, because among reapers themselves no one is ‘more supernatural’ than the other, unlike in the vertical structure of “reapers (supernatural) above humans (natural)”. This brings us to Hypothesis1: “If someone is not ‘a higher being’ than the target of murder, the reaper-privilege of deciding someone’s life or death cannot be used.”

This again however, begs question 2: “Why should a reaper be able to die?”

As I said in this post, living the life of a reaper is a very dark punishment; a psychological torture. So, like you suggested, why don’t these reapers “simply stab [themselves] samurai style” if they can be killed using a Death Scythe? As MBD suggests, a reaper can just goes to heaven when they die (again). So why is there no massive self-salvation trend going on in the Reaper Dispatch Society?

Perhaps it doesn’t work when one turns the Death Scythe against themselves, which would make sense given the fact that suicide in the Kuroverse is punishable. If suicide by reapers was possible, it would make this punishment senseless. As mentioned in this same post as above, according to MBD, assisted suicide is clearly possible as it is exactly how Eric died. But then, why don’t they just do a collaborate co-assisted-suicide like in Code Geass, and then go to heaven? The answer must be: a plot-hole written by Okada Mari caused by zero understanding of the Kuroverse.

Perhaps a reaper can ‘die’, they just can’t move on. The Kuroverse clearly has its roots in Christian lore. Since we can safely conclude reapers can’t just go to heaven and be redeemed, their souls either vanish into nothingness, or go to hell. Regardless, the consequences of them dying must be graver and more finite than the death of humans.

So, my prelimary answer to question 2 is: “reapers can die, but death before achieving full atonement will mean eternal damnation.”

2. Alan’s Cinematic Record and BRILLIANT writing

In the musical, Eric accidentally cuts Alan with the Death Scythe, and starts the cinematic record. Later, when Sebastian uses the Scythe to kill Eric, the cinematic record does not show itself. The conclusion we can draw is that a cinematic record is not automatically played when a Death Scythe hits somebody. This makes sense if we explain that only reapers can make a cinematic record play. However, the very reason reapers look at cinematic records is to ‘judge whether a person deserves to live on or not.” So why did Eric play Alan’s record?

If we look at the manga, then we get the confirmation that cinematic records need to be actively started by a reaper.

This rule is consistent, as we can see how in the earlier chapters where Grell was very interested in seeing Sebastian’s past, and activated his record. In contrast, William cut Sebastian too. But because he was not interested in seeing a vermin’s record, he obviously did not activate it. The same goes for Undertaker, who simply repelled Grell and Ronald with his Scythe, but he was not interested in seeing their records. This also tells us that the records of humans, demons as well as fellow reapers need to be activated.

IF we are going to give the musical the credit of not having broken even this law, then why was Alan’s cinematic record activated? It almost makes it look like Eric wanted to kill Alan.

So, in order to frame Alan’s murder as an accident, Eric massacred ‘a thousand pure souls’ to make people believe he cares so much about Alan he is willing to do anything, to remove all suspicion against himself. Brilliant. 👏

Honestly. I know this was not the the intention of the musical, but if this HAD BEEN, then this would have been pretty brilliant.

But it’s not… oh oh oh, musical, why are you feeding people lies that make a mass murderer look like ‘a loving boyfriend’? The power of narrative man…

3. Law of the Universe. Legit?

Okay, now comes the part that is actually applicable to the Kuro manga.

A few days ago I was talking with @akumadeshitsumon about the law of “A person dies if a reaper decides so,” and we discussed how this law would or would not be feasible.

Reapers are ex-humans and still have a lot of human mind-sets to them, and are therefore subjective per definition. Is an ex-human who was ‘guilty’ of taking their own life truly qualified to decide over life and death of someone else?

Final decisions over life and death are – according to Christian lore – something only a deity of the highest order can make. Can there be this many ‘deities of the highest order’ in the world? And if ‘yes’, then would that still make ‘punishment by working as a reaper’ a punishment?

If we accept that reapers CAN indeed decide whether someone gets to live or not, then what happens if the body of the dying human is no longer functional? (e.g. What happens to a human who ‘is valuable enough to live on’, but is beheaded?) As pointed out by @akumadeshitsumon, considering the way in which humans die, this ‘law’ is not sustainable. If it did, then the world would look very different.

If we do NOT accept that reapers can decide over life and death, then WHY are they told this lie? Or was it just Grell who lied?

If it was indeed a lie from higher up, then wouldn’t this lie be busted the moment a reaper tries to ‘restore life’ to someone, but does not succeed? Reapers all have human mind-sets, and humans just do not ‘know they have an amazing power, but never try it’. So, it is impossible that no one ever attempted ‘to restore life’ to a very broken body. If a reaper DOES find out that this ‘law’ is a lie, do they get silenced then?

What do you guys think? I’m at a loss here (@~@) It’s probably a plot-hole because back then, Yana had the tendency of not thinking everything through…

#Kuroshitsuji #Black Butler #Theory #Law of universe #Analysis #Undertaker #Reapers #Shinigami #Eric Slingby #Alan Humphries #Kuromyu #Kuromyu2 #Okada Mari - you have no talent for writing whatsoever...

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lelouche · 5 years

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Orphans of the Storm: Attachment, Trauma and the Developmental Trajectories of Lelouch and Nunnally in Code Geass

Alternatively titled, Matt Has a Lot of Thoughts About the Lamperouges. 7000+ words of thoughts, to be exact. Some of them might even be semi-intelligent. Admittedly, much of this was written from a hospital office while procrastinating writing patient journals for actual patients who are real humans and not fictional characters. Thank you to my supervisor for not supervising me very much.

I. Introduction

First, let us first briefly set the stage. The story of Code Geass is set in an alternate universe where the social-darwinist, imperialist superpower The Holy Britannian Empire is ruling large parts of the world. Lelouch and Nunnally vi Britannia are born into the royal family as children of 98th Emperor Charles zi Britannia and one of his consorts, Marianne. After their mother is assassinated in a terrorist attack at the Imperial Palace, an incident which leaves Nunnally blind and paralysed from the waist down, the two are sent to Japan as political hostages. The Britannian Empire then invades Japan shortly after they arrive, and they must seek refuge with the Ashfords, a wealthy family with ties to their mother Marianne. Presumed dead by the rest of the royal family, they take on the surname Lamperouge and begin to live in hiding in the now-colonised Japan, renamed Area 11.

These events constitute what is to become Lelouch’s raison d’être through the entire series - finding out who assassinated his mother, and creating a safer, kinder environment for his sister to grow up in. Nunnally is an extremely, and I cannot stress this enough, extremely important figure for Lelouch through the entire series (to the point where it’s kind of a joke in most spin-off material). He’s her main caregiver along with their maid Sayako, and protecting her is his primary goal - often at the expense of his own safety, his friends’ safety, and/or massive collateral damage. In this essay, I will analyse their relationship with their parents and each other through the lens of attachment theory, and discuss how these dynamics shape their developmental trajectories as they grow up. I will focus on two domains of development in particular: (1) emotional regulation and (2) identity. Based on this analysis, I’ll make the argument that Nunnally, despite being the one experiencing the most trauma, ended up more well-adjusted than Lelouch. Furthermore, although the series places much emphasis on how Lelouch is the one protecting Nunnally, he is actually more dependent on his sister than she is on him. I will also discuss how these central themes tie into Lelouch’s goals and political ideology.

II. Ode to My Family: The Fundamentals of Attachment Theory

Attachment theory is a psychological theory originating from the work of John Bowlby, concerning the bond between caregivers and their children. Put simply, Bowlby proposed that children are biologically predisposed to form deep, lasting bonds with their caregivers, and this bond has an important influence on subsequent development. In the attachment relationship, the caregiver functions as both a secure base from which to explore (for example, a child feeling safe when playing knowing a parent is nearby), and safe haven to turn to for emotional support (if they get scared or hurt when playing). Caregivers, on their end, facilitate secure attachment through moderate and appropriate stimulation of the child, warmth, mutually responsive interactions, and other behaviours that promote ‘connectedness’. Especially interesting is a trait called mind-mindedness, which can be described as a caregivers ability to conceptualise their child as an independent person, understand their mental/emotional state and respond appropriately. Important to note about attachment bonds is that they’re not “horizontal” - the caregiver and child aren’t on the same “level” as mutual attachment figures to each other, but the caregiver (as the older, wiser, and more experienced person who is able to provide care) will be a figure that the child can rely on.

A healthy attachment bond has a variety of important functions. It promotes the growth of self-reliance (which promotes independency), increases capacity for emotion regulation, promotes later social competence (such as empathy and mutual relationships), and is important for later identity development. This happens through the acquisition of so-called internal working models, that the child employs through their life. To simplify a bit, think of attachment as the mechanism by which caregivers, through their behaviour, teach children what to expect from the world around them, and what strategies to employ to best cope with it. At its core, it is about seeking security and safety - a form of healthy and adaptive dependence that provides a solid foundation and sense of security from which independence can grow

There are three main classifications of attachment bonds - secure, insecure and disorganised. Securely attached children will develop positive internal working models, where world is a fundamentally safe place, they are loved and worthy of that love. Interactions with the caregivers are frequent, mutual and predictable. For insecure attachment, there are two subcategories: avoidant and ambivalent. Insecure-ambivalent attachment is associated with unpredictable interaction styles, where some interactions between caregiver and child may be warm and mutually responsive, while others are more detached or unpredictable. This leads to frustration and confusion, and an ambivalent relationship. Insecure-avoidant attachment, on the other hand, is typically associated with a non-responsive and uninvolved form of care, or an absent caregiver. In this case, the child may feel rejected and like they cannot rely on anyone. Disorganised attachment simply means there is a lack of any organised form of attachment, but that’s not going to be relevant here so let’s ignore that one.

In summary:

Did you really think you were getting through this one without at least ONE chart? (Note: ambivalent and resistant attachment is the same thing)

Also, important note before moving on from this bit: (1) Attachment is not the be-all end-all for positive/negative developmental outcomes, and (2) I’ll obviously be a bit quicker to assume correlation and draw conclusions than I would in real life, because in my mind applying this stuff to literary analysis vs. applying it to real people are two completely different things. Fiction consists of a series of deliberate choices of storytelling and elements you can easily pick apart and draw lines between (preferably with red string on a corkboard wall, while looking slightly manic), whereas people are, like, more complicated and stuff - nature and nurture and all that.

Now, with attachment theory in mind, let’s have a look at the evil Britannian disaster parents.

III. The Mother We Share: (In)Secure Attachment in the Imperial Palace

Before taking a deep dive into Lelouch and Nunnally’s relationship with one another, it’s essential to discuss their relationships with their parents. Unfortunately for me, there really isn’t much canon material regarding their lives prior to Marianne’s death and the subsequent exile in Japan. However, even with the limited information available, I think it’s fairly safe to say neither Charles nor Marianne deserve a parent-of-the-year award - a point cleverly foreshadowed by me when I referred to them as evil disasters just a few sentences ago.

As for Charles, I hardly need to even make a case that he probably wasn’t a great father. It’s never outright stated in the series, but I’m going to assume they had minimal or no contact with Charles. The main reason behind this is: why would they? He had 108 (!) consorts with whom he had many children, and was busy ruling the largest empire in the world. And as if that wasn’t enough, Lelouch and Nunnally weren’t even particularly high up in in the line of succession and would have been unlikely to ever rule in their lifetime (if it hadn’t been for, er, circumstances). Furthermore, because of his grand plan to fuse humanity into one collective unconscious through the Ragnarök Connection, none of this would matter to him anyway. Additionally, I think his lack of contact with his children is very apparent through the way Lelouch interacts with his father when confronting him about Marianne’s death, which I’ll get back to.

So, we can reasonably conclude Charles was an uninvolved/absent caregiver. However, things get a little more interesting with Marianne.

This isn’t relevant to the topic or anything, I just think it’s neat how they made Lelouch so visually similar to his mother. In addition to physical traits, Marianne’s dress here has a really similar structure to what would later become her sons rebellion outfit of choice. She even has a chess-piece-esque hat to go with. Then again, I suppose the alternative was making him visually similar to Charles, and that wouldn’t make for a lot of good fanservice now would it. Anyway, this image description is too long.

As mentioned, avenging his mother’s death is one of the most significant driving forces for Lelouch throughout the series. Her assassination impacted him greatly, both in and of itself and through the harm it caused Nunnally. Whenever she’s brought up, they both seem to get visibly downhearted, and there’s never any indication they remember her anything but fondly. In picture drama 22.25 (from their time as children in the Imperial Palace), the Britannian siblings find a commemorative plate that belongs to her in Euphie’s room. They start to bicker over it, because Nunnally wants to have it herself, while Lelouch thinks Euphie should keep it because it belongs to her. This all indicates that the royal children admired Marianne, and she was obviously an important figure to them both. Through this idolisation, as well as Lelouch’s obsession with what happened at the Imperial Palace, the narrative seems to want us to assume she was a good parent.

However, there are a few things that call into question how reliable of a narrator Lelouch actually is concerning Marianne. Towards the end of the series, it’s revealed that she is actually very much alive, and completely on board with Charles’ Ragnarök plan - making her one of the series’ main antagonists. During Lelouch’s final confrontation with his parents in C’s World in S2 E21, she is unable (or unwilling) to see how faking her death, traumatising her children, shipping them off to a country the Empire promptly invaded without ever making sure they’re still alive, and then trying to convince them to get on board with her human instrumentality plan is wrong. As her wiki bluntly states: “She only superficially loves her children and will not hesitate to kill them if they get in her way.” Taking this information about her character into account, I consider it more likely that the reason Lelouch and Nunnally idolised Marianne was either (1) because they based their impression largely on her reputation, rather than because she genuinely was a loving mother, or (2) she was a very good actor.

At least she provided some strategies to prepare her children for having to cope with the emotional trauma she was about to inflict on them.

How to make sense of their relationship with Marianne from an attachment perspective? I think this is largely up to interpretation due to lack of pre-series material. Lelouch and Nunnally both seem to like and look up to her, but that does not necessarily indicate secure attachment. I would argue they had an insecure relationship with Marianne, and that argument is based on two things. First, her personality traits and actions (rather than Lelouch and Nunnally’s accounts of her): she blatantly uses her children as pawns for her plan, and doesn’t care all that much that they were suffering as a result. Even though she does argue all her planning was well-intentioned, this act quickly fall apart when Lelouch challenges her. As C.C. tells her, “the only people you love are yourselves”. Calling this sort of behaviour “poor mind-mindedness” or “lack of parental warmth” is an understatement - I simply don’t see a scenario where Marianne would genuinely care.

Secondly, I’d argue you can infer it from Lelouch’s patterns of behaviour as he grows older. Many of his actions, and the themes surrounding him as a character, could be seen as a manifestation of insecure attachment - his attitude towards Nunnally, attitude towards his friends in the student council, his emotionality, and the general theme of a fragmented identity, to mention some. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Point is, there is good reason to believe Lelouch or Nunnally had any form of secure attachment bond to either of their parents, and this has some implications for their development as the series goes on.

IV. Abandoned by the Empire: Trauma and Parentification

In addition to not having the best relationships with their parents to begin with, Lelouch and Nunnally were then burdened with more baggage after their mother’s death. In Nunnally’s case, her trauma from the incident was primarily physical (blindness and paralysation of her legs), due to her being literally in Marianne’s arms as she was shot. Lelouch was a witness, and escaped without physical injury. Afterwards, while his sister is still in hospital, he takes it upon himself to confront his father about what happened, and accuses him of having allowed, even facilitated, the assassination through purposefully neglecting security measures that day.

While Nunnally was by all means most harmed by the attack, it is here in the aftermath I’d argue Lelouch takes his “main blow” in the parental trauma department. When confronted, Charles gets angry and tells Lelouch that everything in his life has been handed to him by virtue of being a child of the royal family, and thus he’s never truly accomplished anything - he might as well be dead, and therefore has no right to doubt or disobey him. This is an especially cruel statement in the context of the social-darwinist Britannia, where the strength to survive by your own measures is seen as highly important, maybe even the only thing that truly is important. Lelouch then visibly flinches and falls back when Charles stands up, in a manner that seems outright terrified. Keep in mind, all this is happening in front of the Royal Court.

This scene in particular is the main reason I cannot imagine Lelouch or Nunnally having any kind of relationship with Charles prior to the incident, much less a secure and healthy one. You’d think the threshold for a young child to turn and publicly accuse his father of premeditated murder in front of the Britannian Royal Court would be astronomically high, especially if he actually liked and trusted him. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, one of the most important functions of the caregiver is being a secure base in difficult and unsafe situations, which means that children typically tend to turn towards their parents during situations where they feel scared. Flinching away (so severely he even falls back, with a horrified expression on his face), rather than seeking closure, is highly indicative of insecure attachment/parental neglect.

As if all this wasn’t enough, Lelouch and Nunnally are then separated from all their siblings to be relocated to Japan as political hostages. Again, the pre-series material is pretty thin, but throughout the series there are indications that they had good relationships with some of their siblings. For example, Lelouch recalls playing chess with Schneizel, and possibly had some kind of relationship with Clovis judging by their conversation before Lelouch kills him. Both Lelouch and Nunnally also seem to have been very close with Euphie - in Stage 22.25, they’re playing in her room and don’t want to go to sleep because they’re having so much fun. Lelouch even refers to Euphie as the first girl he ever loved (let’s just... not unpack this one). Point is, not only do they get traumatised by and separated from their parents (whom they already had an insecure relationship with), but they’re also ripped away from their entire network of social support, except for each other.

This image is so fucking sad. Fuck.

So, when Lelouch and Nunnally arrive in Japan, they’re on their own. And because he is older, and because of Nunnally’s disability, Lelouch ends up taking on most of the responsibility. He carries her up the stairs when they arrive at the shrine, washes their clothing, buys their food, and so on. In addition to these practical tasks, he also tries to comfort his sister emotionally and seems to also feel responsible for her well-being - for example, when discovering their lodgings were small and quite sad-looking, he tries to shield Nunnally from it by lying and telling her it looks like Euphie’s room. When Suzaku first meets Nunnally, Lelouch instantly runs into the room because he heard a noise, and freaks out at Suzaku because he thinks he’s going to harm her. For all intents and purposes, he steps into a caregiver role for his sister - an attachment figure, one might even say. This shift in their dynamic becomes very apparent when comparing their relationship in Japan and onwards, to the aforementioned bickering-over-a-plate incident in Euphie’s room, where they were fighting and playing like siblings.

This phenomenon is sometimes called parentification, in which the absence of adult figures providing sufficient care causes one child to bear more responsibility than is normal for the age, and step into the role of “parent”. Parentification can be adaptive and healthy with concrete/practical tasks, in small periods of time and with plenty support, for example pre-teens babysitting their younger cousins. Suffice to say, Lelouch had none of those things. He is Nunnally’s sole contact, made worse by himself by being stubborn and not wanting to let anyone else in to help. Additionally, plenty of other risk factors for destructive parentification is present - the tasks are diffuse, all-consuming and way above the level appropriate for his age, he gets no sort of recognition, reward, or help, it lasts a long period of time (permanently), generational lines become somewhat blurred, and his own needs end up taking second priority to him. And, as you’ll remember from the attachment theory section, this kind of relationship is not horizontal in nature - Lelouch and Nunnally don’t provide each other mutual support of this nature, but rather Lelouch is the one providing a function for Nunnally.

In the beginning of this section, I mentioned that Nunnally’s trauma as a result of Marianne’s death was primarily physical. However, she evidently went through a great deal of psychological trauma as well. A novel detailing their childhoods in Japan states that Nunnally privately had a terrible time coping with the changes in her life and would throw tantrums when left to her own at Kururugi residence, destroying nearly anything she could get her hands on. However, unless she secretly throws tantrums whenever her brother is off screen, this doesn’t seem to be an issue during the span of the series. I’d argue this could be attributed to Lelouch functioning as a caregiver for her - she had someone there to help her, calm her down and provide external emotional regulation, which in turn helped her learn to better regulate her emotional states on her own. Lelouch provides safety and warmth, and, in doing so, becomes a buffer for his sister.

Lelouch, however, has no such buffers. Because of this, it’s easy to draw a line between his parental problems and trauma, and his subsequent maladjusted pattern behaviour when the siblings arrive in Japan. At the Kururugi residence, both him and Nunnally are offered both food and clothing, but he is insistent on providing everything himself - he washes all their clothes, and buys their food with coupons in town, despite being beat up by the other boys there for being Britannian. He’s distrustful towards everyone there (before later warming up to Suzaku) and hypersensitive for any possible threat to Nunnally’s safety. In my opinion, it’s evident Charles’ words had an impact on him. When Suzaku asks why he is so hellbent on refusing help, he responds with: “I’ll live by my own strength, and I won’t be dead any longer!” Through caregivers, children learn what to expect from the world and their own place in it - in Lelouch’s case, he clearly sees the world as an unsafe place with few people to truly trust, and considers himself only worth something if he is entirely independent. Although independence is often seen as a “mature” trait in children and therefore indicative of “good” development, healthy dependence and attachment in childhood is crucial for the facilitation of later healthy independence. And unlike Nunnally (who has him), he doesn’t have anyone to rely on and turn to for his security.

Diverting slightly from the topic at hand, I think this highlights the interesting narrative role of C.C. as the closest thing Lelouch has to a caregiver proxy. I am in no way trying to imply she is outright maternal towards him, but she’s of help and offers practical and sometimes emotional support - a role no other person in Lelouch’s life really fills. I already explained why Nunnally isn’t a possible candidate, and Suzaku, while an important figure in Lelouch’s life, has his own essay-worthy plate of parental problems to deal with. Additionally, their whole enemy situation doesn’t make him someone Lelouch can reliably turn to for comfort and support. C.C however, is older, wiser, more “stable”, and seems to know how to offer emotional support in a way that somewhat calms Lelouch down. In turn, he occasionally tries to reach out to her in difficult situations (or at least he gives into having breakdowns in front of her), which he doesn’t seem to do with anyone else. If only she’d intervened when he was a child instead of just standing there dramatically in the background. But alas.

V. Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind: Differential Susceptibility

Earlier, I briefly mentioned Nunnally being the one most harmed by Marianne’s death. She was younger when it happened, more directly involved, and experienced a greater loss of function as a result which altered her lifestyle significantly. Based on this, I could easily argue that the incident would have far more damaging implications for her long-term psychological well-being compared to her older brother. I could, but I won’t, because it didn’t. Despite all these risk factors present in Nunnally’s case, their mother’s death seems to have made far more of a long-term impact on Lelouch. We’ve already discussed the most important reason why: Lelouch providing Nunnally with protective care associated with a secure parent, thus functioning as a buffer for her trauma. In this section, I’d like to discuss another important factor, interacting with attachment security: namely, differential susceptibility (also sometimes called responsiveness for care).

When we meet Lelouch in the beginning of Code Geass, he feels stuck and utterly powerless in his situation. He gambles on chess to pass time, but feels otherwise bored, restless and detached from his environment. When he receives the power of Geass from C.C., it gives him what he claims he wanted all along - a tool to take control of his life, get revenge on those who wronged him and actually do something. Thus, a plan to overthrow the Britannian Empire is formed and set into motion. The main targets seem to be the royal family as he struggles to systematically take down the empire and search for information - once he meets his brother Clovis, he shoots him (seemingly) without much hesitation. As time goes on, he sacrifices more and more time and energy to his obsessive goal, while his web of lies and various interpersonal becomes increasingly difficult to manage. There is a reason his character is often compared to the likes of Light Yagami (despite them having completely opposing ideologies, but that’s an essay topic for another day) - his arc follows the same downward spiral pattern, where one thing leads to another and suddenly you’re up to your ears in civilian casualties. It’s obvious Lelouch hasn’t accepted, gotten over, or forgiven his family in the slightest, and takes this anger out on those he perceives wronged him in search of an answer.

Meanwhile, Nunnally doesn’t exhibit anything close to this kind of grudge. She seems upset whenever it is brought up, but otherwise seems to have made peace with what happened and ready to forgive her family. One might argue this comes down to a difference of opportunity - Nunnally doesn’t exactly have the power of Geass, or even functioning eyes of the non-mind control variety, so it might be a bit more difficult to get certain things done. Such as killing off most of the Britannian royal family. However, even before Lelouch got the power of Geass, he expressed a wish to destroy Britannia for what they did to him and his sister. So, unless Nunnally has some secret desire to kill that was just never mentioned (in which case this whole essay is null and void, I suppose), Lelouch seems to be coping with his trauma in a much more maladaptive way than his sister, turning his sadness and feelings of rejection into anger and resentment, which ended up staying with him pretty much until the day he died.

Reach your arm out and grab the stars or whatever that quote from LoGH is.

Based on this, I’d argue Lelouch is what one might call a flexible strategist. This doesn’t refer to his military tactics (although he seems pretty flexible with those as well) but simply means that, for better and for worse, he’s relatively sensitive to factors and people in his external environment. On one hand, he seems to flourish in environments where he gets support. During his childhood in the Imperial Palace, he seemed to mostly get along with and care about his siblings (as mentioned earlier). He was also by all accounts a very bright child - he did say he never managed to beat Schneizel at chess, but to give Lelouch some credit here, Schneizel at the time would have been an adult man in his early 20s, while Lelouch was, like, 7. The fact he even stood a chance is fairly impressive. I do not want to argue chess ability is the ultimate measurement of childhood functioning, but my point here is this: he seemed to be on a decent developmental path, both cognitively and socially, all things considered. On the other hand, he tends to react poorly whenever something goes wrong. I’ll talk about this in more depth in the emotional development section, but tl;dr: Lelouch is a very volatile character, who tends to have very high highs and low lows.

While Lelouch seems to be more “formable” by both positive and negative environmental influences, Nunnally is more of a so-called fixed strategist. She, like Lelouch, seemed to be in a decent place before the incident, had a period of acting out after her trauma (throwing tantrums etc.), but got “back on track” through Lelouch fairly quickly. She seems more forgiving of her family, for example when she is instantly supportive of Euphie’s special administrative zone (which Lelouch has a very ambivalent relationship with). Towards the endgame in S2, she even aligns herself with Schneizel. As her arc goes on, she shows herself more and more capable of functioning without Lelouch’s help, and make decisions of her own, based on her own opinions. Her outlook on the world seems to be much more down-to-earth and less black and white. Even when her own brother (the only person she’s been able to rely on for most of her life) geasses her and literally leaves her lying on the floor, she tries to reason with him. This is obviously just speculation, but I think had something similar happened to Lelouch he would have, psychologically speaking, completely lost it (in fact, he does lose it multiple times, which I’ll also get back to). Additionally, from the glimpse we see of Nunnally with Suzaku after Zero Requiem, it seems like she’s been able to cope relatively well with her brother’s death. In general, she seems to find her feet much easier than Lelouch and is more stable across situations.

To summarise everything so far: I’d argue neither Charles nor Marianne were secure caregivers for Lelouch and Nunnally. This is implied not only by their traits and actions, but can be inferred from Lelouch’s maladaptive developmental path. The reason we see this pattern develop in Lelouch but not Nunnally is that he, through parentification, functioned as a buffer for her. Furthermore, this difference in trajectories is amplified by their different underlying susceptibilities - Lelouch more sensitive/formable by negative events and loss in general, while Nunnally is more resilient. From this point on I’ll focus mainly on Lelouch, and discuss how this magnificent cocktail of risk factors explain his developmental outcomes as an older teenager - in particular, how it shines through when it comes to his emotionality, identity, and goals/motivations.

VI. Thunder in Our Hearts: Emotional Development and Interpersonal Relationships

Lelouch frequently throughout the series, for lack of a better term, loses his absolute shit. For example, in the scene where he plays chess with Mao in S1 E16, he screams and dramatically falls backwards when the last piece is thrown onto the scale. He’s completely devoid of expression, and is well and truly out of it until Suzaku arrives. He ends up in a similar state of mind when he thinks Nunnally is killed in S2, where it seems like he’s completely detached from his surroundings - just repeating that he wants to speak with her. In addition to these dissociative-esque states in response to extreme stress, he has lesser breakdown and outbursts as well, such as: after Shirley’s father dies, after the incident with Euphie, when he’s flipping out at Rolo upon seeing his phone locket, etc. Additionally, he’s been shown to take stress and anger out on other people in the (kinda hilarious) scene where he goes to an abandoned street to use his Geass on random people, making them dance as he stands there being angsty. These bursts of emotion don’t exclusively concern negative situations either, as evidenced by his multiple periods of manic laughter and monologues during battle.

I once read this Geass analysis claiming Lelouch is an unemotional character. As evidenced by these screenshots, that was a correct take and not inaccurate at all. Emotions? Where?

In addition to being fairly emotional, Lelouch’s character is also very centered around the people in his life. His mother and sister are the primary motivation through the series. He uses Nunnally’s well-being to justify his actions. He let’s C.C. comfort him. He cares greatly about Shirley, and is devastated at her father’s death (though one can only assume he feels a bit better after punching a wall in the shower), to the point where he erases her memory to spare her the suffering he’s bringing by getting her involved. He obviously deeply cares about Suzaku (again - essay for another day), and orders him to keep on living no matter what, despite him being the number one obstacle for Zero’s plans. If he expresses this affection in a reasonable way is another question entirely - his main way of expressing his love for Nunnally seems to be killing thousands of people for her sake, Shirley by erasing her memory, and Suzaku by forcing him to live on at any cost, which is the exact opposite of what he wanted.

He also has a recurring pattern of requiring a lot of external emotional regulation through other people. Nunnally is the most obvious example of this (obviously) - whenever something goes slightly wrong, he usually defaults to screaming about her, and becomes absolutely devastated whenever she’s unsafe. If Lelouch functions as her buffer, I’d say she’s her crutch. He heavily leans on her for justification and a purpose in life. But, these maladaptive ways of leaning on people also occurs with other characters, such as in the scene with Kallen in the warehouse where he’s about to inject himself with refrain. Kallen takes the needle from him and throws it on the ground, and he reacts by walking towards her asking her to console him - saying “there are things a woman can do for that, right?”. Kallen promptly (rightfully) slaps him, and he seems to regain his senses.

The most frequently repressed scene by all Lelouch fans.

In summary, I’d argue Lelouch is the complete opposite of an unemotional or uncaring character. He often seems to struggle with controlling his (plethora of) emotions in healthy ways, and copes with them either through completely shutting things out, having frequent breakdowns, lashing out on others, or using people as emotional crutches. He’s also very centered around other people, but tends to express it in less-than-appropriate ways, and goes on about things in an almost childish way, at times. This, I think, is indicative of his insecure attachment and lack of sensitive caregivers. In contrast to Nunnally, who had him, he didn’t have anyone to provide safety and externally regulate his emotions, meaning he was never able to internalise such strategies. Thus, there is a pattern of unhealthy (lack of) regulation of emotional states, leading to these stark contrasts between high and low points, and the quite bad ways he deals with them. Years of stress, repressed restlessness and unhealthy coping mechanisms for trauma certainly didn’t help either. Put simply - he’s a bit emotionally immature, and this is a significant aspect of his character.

VII. Reflektor: Identity and Projection

One of the most prevalent motifs in Lelouch’s arc, save for the chess symbolism, is the theme of masks and a fragmented identity. Throughout the series, he uses different identities to fill different roles in his life: Lelouch vi Britannia the prince, Lelouch Lamperouge the student, Zero the terrorist/freedom fighter and eventually Lelouch vi Britannia again, the tyrannical 99th Emperor of the Holy Britannian Empire. This switch is the most obvious display of the fragmented identity theme, as he is quite literally changing his name and masquerading as different people. With his Zero persona he even puts on a literal mask to conceal his face, but he also uses subtler, figurative masks for his other personas in order to achieve various goals. Additionally, there are also subtler role shifts at play within these identities: Lelouch Lamperouge exists as Nunnally’s caregiver, a student council member, Suzaku’s childhood friend, etc. (as with all people, fictional or not).

It is here his main ideological conflict with his parents arises. Charles and Marianne wants, through their Ragnarök plan, to abolish all “masks” and fuse mankind into one collective unconscious. Their reasoning is that if everyone were honest and there were no separation between people, the world would be a better place. Lelouch, however, finds the concept of identity masks useful and even defines himself by them. This is clearly shaped by his own experience - in order to survive in Area 11 and protect his sister, he had to change his name and lie. In order to gain real power and influence to overthrow Britannia, he had to change his name and lie. This modus operandi goes straight to the heart of his identity, because it is the reason he is able to exert his will over the world in any meaningful way - which, as we discussed earlier, is the reason he is “not dead any longer”. His core idea is that those who are privileged enough to be able to tell the truth about themselves, have no right to deny others the right to lie for their own survival or to achieve their goals.

Carl Jung arguably had a much more significant impact on anime than he did psychology. Actually, this isn’t even arguable.

Another, subtler way the series conveys the theme of fractured identity is Lelouch’s projection of desires and wishes onto others. This is shown quite literally through how the Geass gives him the power to command anyone to do anything. But not only does he impose his will onto others through verbal command, he also projects his more abstract goals and desires into the people in his life. Again, Nunnally is the most obvious example of this: Everything he does, he claims is for the sake of Nunnally. It’s interesting he never outright says that he wanted to do any of this for any personal reason - it’s all about a kinder world for Nunnally, Nunnally’s smile, and how their parents abandoned them. In the final confrontation with Charles and Marianne, Suzaku asks him if he used Nunnally as an excuse to justify his actions. Lelouch confirms this, and then says he fought to protect everything he wanted to protect. Still, he never mentions he feels rejected, or that he would want to grow older in a kinder world, even though it’s obviously more his own wish than hers (as Nunnally mentions during Zero Requiem, she would have been happy just being with her brother). In a way, he considers himself two steps removed from his desires - only working against Britannia on the basis of what he imagines the people in his life would want him to do.

Lelouch also has a tendency to view his own identity(-ies) through abstract symbols, rather than as a concrete human being with a backstory, grudges and motivations. In exile he expresses frustration at being a pawn of Britannia, as Zero he functions as a faceless symbol of Japanese liberation and a rebellion against the establishment, and as Emperor he aims to become a symbol of people’s hatred towards their oppressors. Even the orchestration of his life’s ending is primarily a symbolic act to him; with the world’s hatred focused on a tyrannical Emperor, the world can be peaceful when that symbol disappears. Lelouch seems very aware of this himself: that he is past the point of no return, and destined to become someone who will bear the burden of sacrificing his own identity, morals and character to play a part. He, in a way, seems more comfortable in this realm of abstraction - in being more of a symbol. However, if we try to strip away his rather grand narrative for a second, we’re left with a person committing suicide at 19 because he thinks the world will be a better place for it.

Black king captures e1, checkmate.

VIII. Pity the Child: Politics and Spite

Lastly, I want to make the argument that the parental abandonment Lelouch and Nunnally experienced, and the subsequent cascade of issues is the most important aspect of the series. Even more so than the central ideological conflict of working against versus within systems of oppression. As I’ve already touched on a fair bit, I think Lelouch’s circumstances growing up and the experiences arising from that was the very foundation for his later ideology and hatred for Britannia, rather than his ideology in and of itself being the reason he hates his parents and the system they represent. This is best represented by the climax of the scene with Charles and Marianne in C’s world, where Lelouch speaks not of systems of power, racism, oppression, politics, etc. - he speaks of abandonment and hurt.

In my opinion, there’s reason to question whether he would have gone to the same lengths to destroy Britannia if he’d not been exiled from the system himself. In one of the picture dramas from his summer in Japan as a child, he lectures Suzaku on Britannian and Japanese foreign trade policy, making the argument they’re both unethical. This indicates he already knew of and disagreed with the actions of Britannia, but it’s only after he’s exiled and war is declared on Japan he begins talking about enacting revenge. Additionally, he has some truly magnificent displays of hypocrisy throughout the series that (in my unpopular (?) opinion) puts Suzaku to shame. Even the very act of him using Geass is contradictory to his fundamental belief: that opposing a well-intentioned act upon others is no different from an evil act. During their confrontation, he is very concerned with expressing this ideology to his parents, before promptly turning around and making his brother a geassed slave forever, two episodes later.

Not to completely undermine his ideological streak; I do genuinely believe he is anti-Britannia, and I do genuinely believe he values personal freedom highly. However, based on everything discussed so far, I’d argue he would perhaps not have cared as much, or at least been more open to a more Suzaku-esque approach, had he not had deep personal trauma connected to the whole situation as well. So, his main motivation isn’t to “bash the fash”, as it were, but rather bash these few specific fash who traumatised him and his sister before shipping them off to a foreign country they then immediately declared war on. Revenge, spite, and pure, childish anger towards a family that wronged him is a much more useful lens through which to view the series, rather than an ideological conflict per se.

IX. The Conclusion Bit, Finally

To summarise this entirely too long essay, Lelouch and Nunnally both suffered from insecure attachment and later trauma and parental abandonment. Nunnally’s main protective factor/buffer for this trauma was Lelouch, which gets her “back on track” towards becoming an emotionally stable and independent girl. Her brother, however, doesn’t have anyone to fill this role, and this cascades into dysfunctional behaviour and strategies across different domains: his trust issues as a child, obsession with revenge, immature emotionality, poor handling of stress, projecting onto others, and a fragmented concept of his own identity. Lastly, I think these personal issues constitute the crux of his motivation throughout the series - Lelouch’s arc is about trauma, parental neglect and spite more than it ever was about politics.

#code geass #lelouch vi britannia #lelouch lamperouge #nunnally vi britannia #@ everyone who's ever wanted to read a Long essay on code geass and developmental psychology: you're welcome #I hope some of it is understandable or even interesting #my essays #.........that's a VERY optimistic tag but I feel like I have to tag it with Something #analysis

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