#basically he gets halfway through the villain speech but is cut off before going full manic

[lucky-clover-gazette]

volo gets a flash lecture on transcendentalist philosophy in the third chapter of this fic

[queenmorgawse]

transmigration for dummies

chapter four. mdzs scum villain au. concept credit to @lee-luca. read on ao3 for end notes.  previous | first | next

About halfway ( according to his questionable sense of direction, anyway ) to Mo Village, Lan Fan catches up to him, hovering about five feet away. Jingyi sees her lips moving, but her words are lost to the whistling wind. “What?” he screams back.

She makes a face and shouts at him, in defiance of at least three Gusu Lan rules, “Mom came back yesterday, she told me to tell you you’ve got to look after me and also share your food!”

“Mom?”

“Yeah! Just because I see her more than you do doesn’t mean you don’t need to listen to her!” She points a threatening finger in his direction. “I’ll tell her if you bully me!”

Jingyi’s only half listening to her. His head is reeling. Since when does the original have a little sister, or a family at all? Whose headcanon is this?!

Lan Fan is still looking at him expectantly, though the effect is a bit ruined by the way the wind keeps whipping her long hair back in her face. “Got it,” he manages to garble out after about thirty awkward seconds of silence. Satisfied, she pours another load of spiritual energy into her sword, willing it to go faster. She catches up to her friends in the front in no time, leaving Jingyi to his existential crisis.

Come to think of it, it’s not that weird for him to have an entire sister he didn’t know was his sister, even though they’d only met about four days into his new life. They don’t look that much alike - he and Lan Fan must take after different parents, even if he doesn’t know who they are either. Plus, with the way the Lan clan literally has the girls and women living in an entirely separate part of the Cloud Recesses, the two of them probably never spent much time in the other’s company outside of training.

The thought makes Jingyi’s stomach churn with unease. Up until now, he only had to worry about not looking too suspicious in front of his fellow disciples. He can probably manage Lan Fan too, if the way she acts towards him is any indication. It’s relatively safe to assume he doesn’t have a father either : if they live in the same part of the Cloud Recesses, they would have run into each other by now, right?

He can fool his friends. He can even fool Lan Sizhui, who knows him best out of everyone here. But can he really look a mother in the eye and pretend he’s her son?

They’re not real, Jingyi tells himself. They’re just people the System created. But even as he repeats this mantra, he knows he’s not convinced. Everyone is too fleshed out, even compared to their novel counterparts, for him to treat them like they’re disposable.

It doesn’t matter, he ultimately decides. He won’t have to get used to having a dad, at least. Lan Fan, though ⎯ he can’t just brush her off. They have a mother, even if he doesn’t know her name yet, and she’s counting on him to protect Lan Fan.

Well, in light of their comparative fighting prowess, she might have to be the one doing the protecting, but it hopefully won’t come to that.

Jingyi spares a thought for Nie Mingjue’s dismembered arm waiting for them in Mo village, and silently revises that statement.

-

Within five minutes of knowing her, Jingyi can safely say this : Madam Mo reminds him of his least favorite middle school teacher. Granted, Mrs Robin didn’t dress this fancy, but she certainly sneered down her nose at people a lot and never pronounced Jingyi’s name right, despite it really not being as hard as it could have been. About halfway through the year, Jingyi had given up and started calling her by her full name, Mrs Robin-Banks, which had earned him about a month of scraping the undersides of tables clean of bubble gum.

Exactly like he used to do in class, he tunes out of her speech about how her son definitely has the potential to be a cultivator, if only a great clan - any of them, of course not theirs specifically - would notice him and take him under their wing…

On his left side, Tao Ming rolls his eyes so hard they actually go white for a second, right before Lan Fan discreetly elbows him in the ribs. It takes all of Jingyi’s self-control not to do the same.

He may have been watching the door for Mo Xuanyu’s arrival, but it still doesn’t prepare him to the chaos that erupts when the man himself barges into the hall.

Jingyi isn’t sure how much of the effect can be chalked up to his own knowledge of the character, but Wei Wuxian is a riot from his very first moment here. While the other disciples look on, half fascinated and half appalled, he leans forward, following the other’s movements. Energy runs through Wei Wuxian like a wire, whether he is scampering about the room to escape the servants or taunting Mo Ziyuan and his parents. Saying he can’t stay still would be an understatement.

As entertaining as the situation is, it is also highly awkward, especially when one of the girls reaches for Mo Xuanyu to help him to his feet, revealing the red footprint at the center of his chest. Despite knowing this beforehand, the sight makes Jingyi sick.

“Did everyone see that? Did you? The burglar is also beating someone up! How heartless!”

While he was lost in thoughts, Wei Wuxian dusted himself off, and is now pointing an accusing finger at his ‘cousin’. Before Jingyi can remember his mission or say anything, Sizhui’s calm voice cuts through the commotion. “Please calm down. Words are more powerful than weapons.”

Yeah, but it’d help a lot if I could punch this guy in the face. If he thought watching or reading about Mo Ziyuan going on his mama’s boy spiel, the entire thing pales in comparison to real life. Jingyi is itching to leap across the tea table and throttle him with his bare hands so he’ll just stop talking, but that might be an infraction unforgivable even for the most un-Lan Lan to ever Lan.

Sensing the shift in atmosphere, Wei Wuxian stays behind Sizhui, peeking out from behind his shoulder with all the offended dignity of a jilted maiden.

Madam Mo’s smile looks plastered on, like the smallest tug would be enough to peel it off her face. “This is my younger sister’s son. He’s not so bright here ; everyone from the Mo Village knows that he is a lunatic, and often speaks strange words that shouldn’t be taken seriously. Cultivator, please…”

“Who said that my words shouldn’t be taken seriously? Next time, try stealing anything from me again. You steal once, and I cut off one of your hands!” Wei Wuxian interrupts. Jingyi winces. Of course, no one here can possibly know the weight these words carry, but let him cringe in peace, okay?

Lan Fan chances a glance towards Sizhui. “Shixiong, should we…” In an attempt to be subtle, she glares towards the fuming members of the Mo family, then schools her expression into a serene one when turning to their leader again.

Sizhui clears his throat. “We will borrow the West Courtyard for the night. Please remember the things that I’ve talked about—after nightfall, close all of the windows, don’t come outside, or worse, walk toward the courtyard.”

Nice try, dude.

To be fair, Jingyi feels a little mean, just letting things happen. Plot-essential as they are, this night did result in the death of four (he thinks?) people.

【Canon events must proceed as they were written,】the System pings, sealing the debate.

-

Things cool down after that. Their little group files out of the hall in their usual orderly fashion and gets to work, evacuating the last of the servants from the West Courtyard and unpacking their supplies. It’s almost pastoral.

Trouble finds them all the same, while Jingyi is checking on the position of the last of the Spirit Attraction flags.

He spots Mo Xuanyu’s ghastly makeup from a mile away. Telling the protagonist off is useless, he knows, but a good little Lan disciple would have to enforce the most basic of the instructions they gave. “Hey, you! Go back, alright? No one’s allowed here until we’ve dealt with the corpses!”

As expected, Wei Wuxian ignores him, hopping up on the roof and making a grab for the nearest flag. Even if Jingyi wanted to catch him, he couldn’t have ; for someone who was dead twenty-four hours ago and received a nasty beating since, the man is surprisingly nimble.

“Give it back!” he still shouts, chasing after him. “Weren’t you a cultivator once? You should know better than to mess with that!”

“I’m not giving it back, I’m not giving it back! I want this thing! I want this!” Wei Wuxian sing-songs back, sticking to his role as the local madman. Where’s the guy’s Oscar, huh? This is Amy Adams all over again.

Fortunately, all his flailing about gives Jingyi time to catch up. He grabs him by the arm, shaking the flag out of his slackened grip. “There!”

“Jingyi, don’t hit him. He’s not feeling well.” Sizhui must have been drawn in by the ruckus, leaving his own side of the flag formation.

“I didn’t hurt him!” Jingyi protests. “He was the one making a mess first!”

Sizhui gave him an understanding look, then turned back to Wei Wuxian. “Young master Mo, it’s getting late, and we’ll start capturing the walking corpses soon. For your own safety, please return to your room. The flag…”

“It’s just a flag, so what’s the big deal?” Wei Wuxian cuts in with a huff. “I can draw way better than this!” Before the other juniors’ astonishment can manifest, he’s sprinted off, leaving the discarded flag lying in the dust behind him.

Lan Fan and a few of her friends giggle from their own positions on the roof, while Tao Ming glares at the direction Wei Wuxian disappeared in. “What a maniac! Why can’t these people even follow simple rules?”

“It’s all right, A-Ming,” Sizhui soothes. “We still have time, so let’s just fix it up before sunset. As long as he doesn’t come back, everything will be fine.”

“Back to work, everyone!” Jingyi adds. It earns him a 【Uncharacteristic willingness to follow orders : -5 points.】alert, which he responds to with a classy middle finger behind Sizhui’s retreating back.

The OOC function really can’t come a second too soon.

-

The rest of the evening goes by uneventfully. Once it’s clear that Mo Xuanyu will not be coming back before dawn, their group wastes no time fixing the flag formation and preparing their weapons. When dinner comes around, Jingyi dutifully shares half of the veggie buns the Mo family servants bring them with Lan Fan.

To his relief, it doesn’t prompt any family bonding for them. Not that they would have had much time to talk, since his little sister spent most of the meal trying to fit as many baozi into her mouth as she could, which would surely not be as tolerated in the Lan clan dining hall.

The handful of corpses that do show up, hooked in by the flags, are more than easy to dispel. Even Jingyi, who can admit he chickens out easily, feels almost bored chopping the slow, clumsy undead to pieces. It’d be a peaceful night, if not for his knowledge that sooner or later, they’d all be summoned to the main hall again to be witnesses to a murder.

-

Bingo, Jingyi thinks when a young serving girl bursts into the West courtyard, shaking like a leaf. Her sobs wake up the few disciples who dozed off following their watch schedule ; they reach for their swords in no time, expecting another wave of corpses. It does nothing but scare the poor girl further.

Jingyi reaches her first. “What happened?” he asks, knowing full well what just went down.

The girl sniffles. She’s really a child, possibly younger than Lan Fan. “I-Madam Mo told me to call you because, because…” She cuts herself off with another sniffle, curling into herself.

“Breathe,” he advises her. “With me, okay?”

She follows suit, obediently inhaling and exhaling in sync with him, until her shaking has subsided enough for her to form a coherent sentence. “Cultivators, Mistress wants to see you as soon as possible. She said…” Another hiccup. “She said the lunatic killed her son!”

[sieben9]

“best laid plans” impressions

{Quick request to anyone reading: I’m watching OUaT for the first time, and I want to avoid spoilers. So, if you want to discuss something spoilery, I’d be grateful if you could start a new post for that. Thank you!}

Right. So. This episode, hm?

Short version:

What the fuck, Snowing.

Long version under the cut.

Yeah, OK, that was slightly reductive. There's actually quite a lot going on this episode. After all, we're halfway through the season; time to pick up the pace and all that. But can you blame me? What the hell was that, Snow? How did this ever seem like a good idea? Apart from the actual baby-stealing, that whole "oh, she's a monster, so the egg is bound to be one, too" speech was horrifying. I can't quite get the quote together, but there's this bit in Small Gods that basically goes "there's nothing more terrifying than people who are completely sure of themselves."

And holy crap, did Snowing ever live up to that one.

Now, I will concede that we don't know exactly how much of that was their own impulse and how much was fabricated by the Author. That "it makes for a better story" comment makes it seem like something he would do.

also, he looks like someone animated a comic book. nothing to do with the topic at hand, but it had to be said.

But the scene with the Apprentice made it sound like someone being made to act outside of their nature notices that something is going wrong. Soooo... yeah, I'm still holding them responsible for this one.

and oh, look, another portal. probably a bad sign that i'm not even annoyed anymore, isn't it?

For those who don't know what I'm talking about: Snowing kidnapped Maleficent's child and transferred Emma's potential for darkness into her, so that Emma would be less likely to turn out evil, thereby heavily manipulating (and possibly ruining) two lives with one stroke. Well done, "heroes."

I do have to apologise to the show, though--apparently, while the potential for good and evil is present before birth (hence the judgey tree), free will is still the determining factor. Since the whole "Chosen One" trope is alive and well in this universe, I shouldn't be surprised that said Chosen One has greater innate potential for both light and darkness than the average person. Not saying I'm 100% happy with this, but it works in-universe.

So, yeah. Snowing done screwed up. I'm really glad that the show presents it that way, too. No pussyfooting around it. They did a terrible, despicable thing, and they were about to compound their villainy (if you'll pardon the word) by harming other people to cover it up, but luckily, they called themselves on their bullshit. Good for them, I say. Mind you, I'm still pissed, and I'm not the only one...

get some sleep, woman. you look like death warmed over

Still. Good thing they finally decided to spill that particular can of beans, though I think it might have been more interesting to learn about what they did an episode or two ago, and then cringe while watching them try to cover it all up. Just my two cents. This show thrives on dramatic irony, so why not lean into that a little?

I also want to give a shoutout to the scene where Snow and Charming actually steal the egg. Maleficent's look of utter despair when they made off with her child... yeah. Ouch. That one's going to haunt me for a while.

"Mother to mother..."

it's fine. this is fine. (it's not.)

Yeah, I'm with Mal on this one. What is wrong with you people? No wonder she sided with Rumple if it meant possibly getting her child back. In unrelated news, I have a sudden premonition how Mal's subplot is going to be resolved.

Oh, and yes, Maleficent's daughter was Emma's first crush. I'll spare you my attempt at fake shock that Lily turned out to be from the Enchanted Forest, too.

Horrible baby-stealing aside, this episode had some solid scenes between Regina and Henry. I didn't even realise how much I'd missed them.

still the best hugs, honestly.

And they actually work together, and do it well, too. I'll admit, I was more than a little nervous when it became clear that Henry was also immune to the sleeping spell, and that they'd have to get the page from him. Because let's be honest--that scenario had a lot of potential to go wrong. Instead, I got a pretty amusing full-name-ultimatum. Seriously, did Henry even know he had a middle name before this? ("Daniel", huh? ...yeah, somehow, I'm not surprised.)

Obviously, Regina still got found out, but at least the villains didn't get the Author.

Nobody did, in fact, get the Author. Because why would you open the door that contains a being of immense and unknown power in a secure place, when you can do it in a room with more windows than a greenhouse? ::shakes head:: Amateurs.

Also, someone remembered that motivations are a good thing to have for a villain, but because this team of villains doesn't talk to each other, Rumple has to go and monologue his at a sleeping Belle.

you need more friends, my guy, and fast

So. Rumple is not quite as interested in getting the Author to write him a happy ending as he is in getting out of having to pay the price for his magic. At first sight, that doesn't look much different, but you know what? Considering what 95% of that magic was in service of (getting back to Bae) and how that ended... Yeah, I get it. I'd want out, too.

Unfortunately, there's that whole pesky "darkening Emma's heart" thing to consider. Whatever loophole he's found, it comes at cost to others, which... ::sigh:: yeah, is on brand for him, but I really wish it wasn't. Hey, Rumple? Ever thought about asking Emma for help? Nah, course you haven't, because that would remove conflict from the story, and god forbid we try to have drama without conflict.

::deep breath:: OK. Enough bitterness on that front. Overall, I really did like the episode. Things seem to be accelerating somewhat, but again, the pacing on this show is an ever-evolving mystery, so I won’t make any calls on that front.

And, as a somewhat non-sequitur addendum, my little fan-heart grew about three sizes during the scene where everyone is rifling through Snowing's apartment and Cruella makes a not-even-really-serious comment about wringing Emma's neck...

...and Regina immediately goes into full-blown "TOUCH HER AND DIE" mode.

Oh, how the turns have tabled.

Bonus for everyone else's reactions.

yeah, don't expect these two to figure it out by themselves. a boat and singing crabs may be in order.

[stillness-in-green]

Human Debris Masterpost (4/?)

Holy crap, you guys, I have got a lot to say about Episode 13.  The other episodes, somewhat less so.  Shall we?

EPISODE THIRTEEN — Funeral Rites

We pick up where we left off last episode, wherein Masahiro, despite his brief turn to the terrifyingly prophetic, finds himself stricken with a memory of his and his Akihiro’s younger, happier days, and is unwilling to help Kudal with murdering him. He pushes his brother away from Kudal’s blow at the last moment, and Gusion’s hammer has way too much momentum going to turn away, if indeed Kudal would bother to try (unlikely).

Mikazuki is still hot on Kudal’s trail, however, and the brothers are left alone again.  Akihiro doesn’t have a tremendous amount of real mobile suit experience at this point, but with his history piloting mobile workers (coffins on wheels in a fight with a mobile suit) and the simulations run against Lafter, and from the wordless scream he makes as he returns to Masahiro’s side, I suspect he already knows his brother is done for.

We return briefly to the ship infiltration Shino is leading, which does indeed include Dante.  I include this screenshot for two reasons. Firstly to note how much better armored they are this time around—I imagine that since they were specifically trying to keep their clash with the Turbines as bloodless as possible, as they’d been planning to ask for Teiwaz’s help, they geared up as lightly as they could to keep themselves light and mobile.  Here, on the other hand, there’s no such need to hold back, so they’re wearing the bulky armor.  Secondly, and completely unrelated to the scope of this project, to note that yes, just like his mobile worker and every mobile suit he gets his grubby hands on, Shino has painted his helmet visor pink.  Ryuusei-go Mk. 1.5, perhaps?  (This does mean that the shot from the last post that I thought was Dante was indeed Shino; the visor was pink there, too.)

The two of them and the rest of the team find a group of red-stripes cowering in a dark room, glowering and braced to get shot to pieces.  And here I’ll point out something that I somehow missed in the previous episode—all of the Brewers’ Human Debris are still wearing a manacle on their left wrists. These kids, Masahiro’s group, even the ones on the bridge—every one of them whose left wrist is visible (it doesn’t show under the long sleeves and gloves of their flight suits, for example) has a huge chunk of metal fastened around their wrist.  I wish we had just a little more context for this so we could guess at whether the Brewers or CGS are a bit more “typical” of red-stripe existence, because holy hell, CGS was bad, but at least Akihiro and the others there weren’t actively shackled.  Something to keep an eye out for when we get to the Dawn Horizon Corps stuff in the second season.

In any case, Shino gives them a few pacifying lines and heads on his way, waving his group after him. If the subtitles are to be believed—“It’s all kids here, too,”—it would seen that this is not the first group they’ve found, which might explain why neither Dante nor the other two in Shino’s team show any hesitation at leaving the kids be.  In this case, though, this leniency gets one member of the team immediately killed, when the kids prove to be hiding some fairly heavy duty firearms and very panicky trigger fingers.

Shino freezes, but Dante, in what’s probably one of his more revealing moments, doesn’t even hesitate in swinging back in and unloading the contents of a high-powered magazine into a room full of children in exactly the same child slavery position he himself was once in.

It does make me wonder how much resistance he was expecting the Brewers’ Human Debris to be putting up, though—was he relieved that Shino decided to leave that unseen first group alone, or was he reluctant?  Did he say anything at any point, or keep his opinions to himself mid-mission? Whatever the case was, this is a shockingly dark thirty seconds of screentime, though as ever, the show doesn’t linger on it.   

We return instead to space, where Akihiro has left his mobile suit and is trying to reach Masahiro in the latter’s crushed cockpit.

Masahiro, despite having saved Akihiro’s life in an almost involuntary spasm of remembered love, remains fatalistic, bringing up Derma’s reincarnation story, and his certainty that Debris like him die in space, asking if Akihiro understands now. Akihiro, of course, protests, yelling that Masahiro will be reborn and will come back to their home.  I have difficulty believing Akihiro’s even thought much about such things before now; this sounds very much like he’s just desperate to give his brother even a scrap of hope in his dying moments, and will seize on anything presented to him to do so. 

Masahiro, though I don’t think he believes it, smiles ruefully and says he’ll go first and see, and finally reaches out to take Akihiro’s grasping hand.  In that last moment, too, he switches from “aniki” to “nii-chan” in addressing Akihiro.  He’s been using the former since their reunion, but rewatching Akihiro’s flashbacks, he used the latter when they were children.  “Aniki” is not exactly formal itself—it’s the same word Orga uses to address Naze; it’s kind of boyish and slangy, and frequently heard in the context of gang hierarchy (like, again, Orga and Naze)—but “nii-chan” is far more childish and intimate.  In its usage here, we can see Masahiro allowing Akihiro back into his heart, and perhaps forgiving him, as he passes away.  

The world is full of less-accepting red-stripe children, though, we find as we return to the ship, heralded by the shot of a drifting child’s body and blood in the air, and Shino cursing on the vocal track, wondering why these kids won’t just give up and surrender.  It all seems to go back to a recurring theme in the show’s more frontier organizations—that there is strength in the group you’re with, and even if life with that group can be cruel and unforgiving, it is still life, and therefore more to be trusted and believed in than the uncertainty of trusting outsiders.  

In that regard, if there is one thing I appreciate about Kudan and Brooke Kabayan, the Brewers’ horrible orcish captain, it’s the way their design reflects how completely they’ve thrown off the social mores of the setting.  You see this a bit with the Turbines, with their skimpy clothes and Amida’s loud makeup, and a little bit with Tekkadan, who have hygiene priorities somewhere on the level of Lord of the Flies, but it’s most obvious with the Brewers.  They’ve completely forsaken any chance of being accepted by society, and therefore have rejected any morals society might have about (most obviously) child abuse, and damn if you can’t see that in their design: the extremely dyed hair, the piercings, and some fairly extreme body modification in Kudal’s Joker-esque slash of a mouth and Kabayan’s bizarre nose.  CGS had some transparent villain designs, but Todo and the other First Division guys had nothing on these two.  

Getting back on track, though, we hit the opening—the last episode to feature Raise Your Flag—and we return to a glance at what high society looks like via a fancy party thrown by some combination of the Bauduin and Fareed families.  By the time we get back to the main characters, combat has finally been quelled, absent a few pockets of activity, and we get our last major red-stripe-centric scene of the season. 

Someone—I’d bet on Orga, Biscuit or Chad—has had the good sense to post red-stripe guards around the rounded-up batch of Brewers’ kids. Aston’s in this group, as is Derma, which kind of begs the question of how they were made to stand down from mobile suit combat, particularly given the pure venom in Aston’s eyes here. 

Dante gets about half of a warning out to Orga about them, having just had some up-close-and-personal experience with their willingness to keep fighting even in battles deeply stacked against them. He’s clearly had a bit of time to reflect on it, given his expression here. 

Orga claps a hand on his shoulder reassuringly, though, and gets down on the kids’ level to talk to them, very pragmatically opening up with talk about basics of life like better food than the Brewers are (plainly) providing to these malnourished children. He’s talked to Naze already, and says that Tekkadan will be taking care of the surviving children. 

Derma has the swiftest reaction, looking around while Orga’s still talking, but Aston is the one to openly ask—why?  When we were just now trying to kill you?  Orga reassures them that he knows it was just their jobs, and that it isn’t as if they particularly wanted to do it, right? Aston flares up with a response affirming that he didn’t, that he’d just never thought about it before, for himself. 

We get a few very understanding looks from Chad and Dante as he’s talking— 

—up until Orga cuts him off with by far the nicest spin on Human Debris anyone in the show will ever put forth.

“Born in space, and not scared to die in space.  You’re the proud, chosen ones.” 

And my god, the look Dante is giving him here just kills me.  He’s clearly never heard anything this life-affirming about his existence before, and while the other two Tekkadan red-stripes here (Chad and one of the unnamed ones) take it pretty straight-faced, the kids break down immediately when Orga finishes by saying that Tekkadan welcomes them all. 

Derma actually had tears in his eyes by halfway through this speech, and is the first one to begin audibly weeping, and man, I didn’t realize until this rewatch what a total sweetheart this kid is.  Ugh, I love Derma; I love Derma so much. 

Dante speaks, probably, for the group, thanking Orga for the olive branch, which draws the scene to a close. (I’d been thinking, incidentally, that the one red-stripe with glasses was the third Tekkadan Human Debris here, but we never get a clear look at the unnamed red-stripe’s face here, so I guess I was mistaken.  Ah, well.) 

A bit of bargaining with the defeated Kabayan later, we return to the Hammerhead to discuss what to do with the spoils of victory, after which the conversation turns to the titular funeral rites, and we get a particularly interesting look at the more spiritual side of the setting.  I could talk about it pretty extensively (I, er, kind of have 500 words written up about it that I had to cut out of this post), but it would take us way, way off-topic, so I’ll save it for another time.  

Shino opines that he’d like to hold one of these funeral things, and is seconded by Akihiro.  Both of them are clearly distraught at the idea of the spirits of the dead lingering or suffering, so grab at the idea of a funeral to ease both the dead and, subconsciously, their own consciences. Orga, a bit put-out by it all, nonetheless agrees. He stays on the ship for the event itself, as does Chad, back in his normal place at the helm.  

Akihiro can be seen outside, as well as some kids who might be the Brewers kids or might be Yukinojo’s hangar helper lot—their features in the helmets are too indistinct to say for sure, and they’re shown from an angle that would hide Aston’s scar.  Given their enthusiasm about Yamagi’s flower fireworks, I’m inclined to think they’re the Tekkadan kids, though. 

Much as Shino did before the combat, Eugene goes specifically to Akihiro’s side to offer him a bit of commiseration about the brevity of death compared to the long racket of life, in what’s probably his most openly sensitive gesture in the whole show, and it’s really sweet.  It speaks, I think, to some of the extra-canonical information about Eugene being the leader of the Third Division kids before Orga and Mikazuki started working there—though they interact far less, he clearly has a much less confrontational relationship with Akihiro than he does with Orga.  He keeps his arm around Akihiro’s shoulders for the rest of the sequence.  You can catch a brief look of Dante out on the hull as well, just before the scene ends. 

We close out the red-stripe stuff this episode with Akihiro requesting that Orga let him keep Gusion. He says that he thought about the departed at the funeral, that even those with Tekkadan that he rarely talked to, he has bits and pieces of memories of.  For Masahiro, though, he has only his childhood memories, with the strongest and most recent one now being his brother’s death.  At least, then, he wants to stay together with Masahiro’s memory from now on.   

I’m inclined to call this a pretty strained bit of writing—the advertisers needed another Gundam for the home team, and obviously no one but the Brewers’ ace was going to be piloting any Gundams the Brewers had, so the writers had to come up with some kind of reason for Akihiro to want to keep the specific machine that slew his brother.  What they come up with is—well, it’s pretty morbid, but it’s certainly an interesting bit of characterization!  

I’d love to see more ghost-in-the-machine type fanart for it, though.  

And thus, we reach the end of the Brewers arc.  Thankfully, the next batch of episodes will require far less writing on my part, so lets get right to it, starting with the new opening!  

OP 2 — Survivor

So Dante and Chad are much more prominent in this intro, and it makes me happy.  Where in the first intro, you have to be keeping a pretty close eye out for them, here, they’re much closer to the screen.

In the opening shot, Akihiro is in a separate shot from the other two (reflecting something that will not really be true of the show until the second season), but they’re in the shot immediately following, very clearly displayed.  (I mention this mostly to complain some more about no one seeming to remember who they are, because come on, they’re right there.) 

There’s also this rather nice shot of the three of them in some dimmer area indoors.  More than the more “posed” shots, this one looks very much like something that could have happened, a shot out of some serious conversation they were having among the three of them.  I freely admit, though, that my opinion there is probably colored by how much I wanted to ever see the three of them actually talk amongst themselves about their situation.

If you’re extremely quick with the pause button, you can catch this shot of the bridge during a fast zoom-out from Orga’s face to show the exterior of the Isaribi:

I left out the mecha shots, as I did last time, but here is Akihiro getting shouty, sandwiched between similar shots of Orga, Biscuit, Eugene, Shino, and Atra: 

This opening closes on Kudelia, rather than a group shot, so that’ll be it until the closing.

EPISODE FOURTEEN — Vessel of Hope

We have a brief shot of the bridge crew+Atra looking at the approaching Earth, which it’s very possible none of them but Biscuit have ever seen in person before���even Kudelia, in that conversation with Mikazuki about the moon way back in episode four, only talks about it in secondhand terms, as something she’s heard/read about. 

Akihiro, meanwhile, is hanging out in the Hammerhead bay, watching the Gusion get stripped down and getting lightly poked-at by Lafter who, like the rest of us, is having some trouble processing Akihiro’s decision.  He seems at peace with it, though. 

After dropping off the shopping group, the Isaribi is hailed by a guide ship sent to escort them, the speaker on which calls them young heroes.  Eugene and Chad are puzzled by this designation.   

So, this takes us into the beginning of the Dort Colony material, and one thing I’ll note now is that Dort has no red-stripes on it anywhere.  I suppose it’s possible that the signature red stripe is just much more subtly displayed in the Inner Sphere, but we never see any indication of Human Debris on Earth, either, and this suggests that the practice is largely kept to the Outer Sphere.  I suspect the slave trade is quasi-legal at best, and I’m certain wealthy people from Earth would consider it unsightly.  However, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that there’s a certain amount of illicit slave-trade going on in the Inner Sphere—the sort of thing that we see today in first-world nations, of people being brought to e.g. the United States on false pretenses and then getting locked into menial, ill-paying jobs as personal servants or worse in the homes of the wealthy, threatened with deportation if they try to speak out.   

On a total side note, we do at last begin to see a bit less gender segregation, which is a nice change of pace—Gjallarhorn is 100% dudes with the sole exception of Carta Issue, a special case, and likewise CGS was all-male.  The upper leadership of Teiwaz is entirely male, with certain members actively scorning Naze for “using” women to rise up; the long-distance freight shipping business is, according to Amida and Naze’s flashback, almost entirely done by women.  Dort and Earth are the only places we see a bit more mix—the uprising has the intermittent female face, and the politicians on Earth have, likewise, a few women mixed in. I think there might be a little mix at the agricultural plant Hashmal destroyed, but on the whole, this setting is pretty badly gender-segregated, though comments on it are rare and oblique.

In any case, once the uprising breaks out, Orga contacts Merribit on the ship, where she’s going over the shipment manifesto on the bridge, with Chad hanging out on the helm as usual.   

It strikes me that this is probably the first time Chad’s been alone with Merribit (or, like, any woman ever) in the show, and I wonder if this is where he started developing his (implied in season two) crush on her? ��I’ll be keeping an eye out for other openings for this going forward.

Orga tells them to get the blazes out of there, presumably concerned about the whole ship getting compounded, and the two of them comply.  This brings us to the end of the episode, and with it, the new closer.

ED 2 — STEEL ~Iron-Blooded Bonds~

The second intro has a bit more going on in it than the pan-arounds of a single image in the first one, though not more of our red-stripes than one would reasonably expect. Starting off, we have Chad and Dante examining the murals that crop up all over the Isaribi with increasing frequency as the show goes on. Chad has no particular expression, though it’s a little telling, perhaps, that he’s crouched down to look so closely.  Dante, meanwhile, looks pleased enough, smiling slightly as he walks along the hall. 

On an unrelated note, it’s a nice detail that you can see Ride with a paintbrush in the background here. He’s the one who designed the Tekkadan logo to begin with, and is apparently behind a lot of the onboard graffiti, too; I kind of wish the show allowed him a bit more attention for his artistic streak.

Again with the kids (just the normal kids we tend to see hanging around Yukinojo or Kudelia’s reading classes, not the Brewers kids, who’ll have to wait for next season), we get our trio and a Random Brunette red-stripe.  It looks like the kids have finished their own food and came over to chat? I wonder what the topic is?

You can spot the group in this picture in the wide shot that Orga and Mikazuki begin to walk towards at the end, but they’re pretty tiny, and not differently posed than they are here, so lets move on, to…

EPISODE FIFTEEN — Trail of Footprints 

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! As mentioned before, there aren’t any red-stripes (at least not openly marked ones) on Dort, not in the crowd scenes nor in the slums.  Likewise, we didn’t see any of the Isaribi in this episode. In lieu of the usual red-stripe stuff, then, have one small observation about the unusually clever use of non-Japanese language in this show. If you want to read about world-building minutiae, read on.  If not, feel free to skip ahead.

So, this is a bag from a rather upscale-looking clothing and accessory store Kudelia was shopping in while Fumitan and Mikazuki were having their conversation about responsibility. The Dort colonies are a project of the African Union, which like all the show’s economic blocs encompasses a great many places, but the pertinent one to this aside is modern-day France. Lefebvre is a French name—a fairly common surname in the north of the country.  

I did a touch of digging, and turned up a few persons of interest.

This is a French model and actress, one Germaine Hélène Irène Lefebvre.  She’s more commonly known by her stage name Capucine, pictured here in The Pink Panther (1963).  She modeled for Givenchy and Christian Dior, and was close friends with Audrey Hepburn.  I’d consider her to be the most likely in-world reference, though I doubt very much that records of old Hollywood comedies made it out of the Calamity War in anything even vaguely resembling wide circulation.   

Interestingly, though, there is one other Lefebvre who’s significant to the themes and events on Dort—Henri Lefebvre, a French Marxist philosopher and sociologist, active in the mid-1900s.  He had a great deal to say about the problems of capitalism, and how the intersection of autonomy, helplessless, natural bodily rhythms and social routines he called “everyday life” had to be revolutionized, lest rampant consumerism lead to consumptionism, a diminishing quality of life, and a decline in self-expression.

More pertinently, he was a respected professor who both influenced and analyzed an upswelling of civil unrest in 1968, starting with student protests and sit-ins, leading to widespread strikes, and culminating in violent clashes with the police, with suspected undercover police slipped in to provoke protesters.  In the end, the political party in power at the time strengthened their hold on the country, but it did herald a new push for social progressivism.  Sounds a bit like the Dort Uprising and subsequent fallout, no?

As ever, I remain thoroughly impressed with IBO’s canny use of language in the setting.  The grammar, the spelling, even things like general readability of large blocks of text feel very naturalistic, and the deployment of terminology—like the stuff above, but also all of Gjallarhorn’s Norse references, the Gundam naming scheme, and even the consistency of the fishing and nautical names you tend to find associated with the non-Gjallarhorn spaceships. It’s all exceptionally strong worldbuilding.  

In any case, lets move on. We’ve got exactly one relevant scene in the next episode! 

EPISODE SIXTEEN — Fumitan Admoss

Our only bit of red-stripe activity here is Akihiro in the Turbines’ bay, bleeding from the nose and straining against his Alaya-Vijnana hookup.   

Based on what we’ve seen from him to date, I expect Akihiro was planning on spending the Dort visit learning how to handle Gusion by sparring with Lafter in the Turbines’ simulator.  The schedule for being able to do so on demand just got pushed ahead somewhat, so he’s straining under all that Gundam information overload in the same way we usually see pilots reacting the first time they get in a Gundam, especially one that hasn’t been tuned up for their own tolerance levels.  We saw it with Mikazuki early on, with Akihiro here, and there’s another instance I’m looking forward to that we'll be seeing in the next episode.  Look forward to it next time!