#gundam white doll

[amalgamasreal]

Turn A Gundam homage to Ukraine - by 1lfD6laDrSS8sAd

Source

[kalechipslives]

recent piece for the sun and moon edition zine de nuit

[tinyozlion]

“And Its Name is επυον”: Where Did Epyon Come From, Literally and Figuratively?

On the pillars before the Oracle of Delphi, the navel of the ancient world, an inscription carved read: “know thyself”. 

Inside the Oracle’s inner sanctum sat the Pythia, bent over smoking fissures in the temple floor, breathing the sacred poison that would let Apollo in. It is a dreadful ecstasy– dangerous, body-wracking; gaining knowledge of the future shortens hers. 

Far in the future, a man exiled to a gilded oubliette speculates his own worth and relevance to history, surrounded by ghosts, becoming a ghost himself. Alone with his doubt, he looks for the god in the machine, seeking answers: “Why do we fight? For what should I fight?”

But the god he built is silent.

The world of automated warfare becomes increasingly bleak and devoid of reason. He is terrified that the pilots who so inspired him will lose their purpose just as he has, and join him in miserable freefall. 

Out of this wild abyss Treize builds the Epyon. Not for himself–  he will never pilot it. There is almost nothing of Treize in this suit, not that we can recognize from its exterior. It is not the heroic Tallgeese with its Attic crest– it is something clawed, stygian, one of the bat-winged Erinyes with a torch and whip. 

Epyon is not a weapon; it is a punishment. It is retribution for a world that has forgotten its humanity, its rites, its propriety. For its pilot, it is a scourge– the cracking whips of the Furies in their brain, driving them into a frenzy. Madness. Holy poison, to let the future in. 

Its name, επυον, is meant to mean "Next", or “After”. 

To guide the future, you must shorten yours. 

You must not be a victor, when you pilot this suit. 

Where did Epyon come from, in the mind of its creator? Everything we see of Treize forms a cohesive aesthetic: Roses, swords, romanticized old-world decadence, heroic motifs, gold, blue, white, red. Where did this thorny, tyrian-purple chimera live in him? Shouldn’t we have seen it lurking somewhere? Or does it seem to come out of nowhere precisely because he designed it to be his antithesis? 

Whether or not “Frozen Teardrop”, the novelized sequel to Gundam Wing, can be considered canon is a source of contention amongst many fans, but looking at it purely as a way to judge script-writer Katsuyuki Sumizawa’s intentions when he wrote the series, I find many parts of it to be informative. 

To paraphrase the fan-translation, it states that Treize found blue and white to be emblematic of heroism, colors associated with victory, and so their complementary opposites, black and red, could be seen as the colors of the defeated, associated with loss. For Treize, defeat and loss are tied inexorably to his vision of the future: “it was the defeated who changed the era and began the next”, as it says in the novel. 

Epyon is meant to negate the ideal of the conquering hero, the counter for a world beset by victorious cowards who command legions of dolls to do their killing and dying for them. As Treize designed it, Epyon has no projectile weapons; it is a suit purely for one-on-one combat, a suit that demands you risk everything when you fight.

No surprise then, that he gives it to the first Gundam pilot he meets– remarkably, the one whose self detonation caused everyone in his orbit to question their involvement in the war-- though one gets the feeling that any of the pilots would do. Treize hopes that Heero will use the Epyon to navigate the chaos to find the true purpose he is fighting for, and determine what course the future will take. 

But Heero has never been concerned with this sort of navel-gazing, and has no interest in discovering whether or not battle itself has a grander purpose or ultimate meaning. He fights the enemy in front of him and will continue to do so until either his life, or the supply of enemies, runs out. Heero does not overthink the future; he does not dwell on consequences. Treize does nothing BUT overthink the future and consider the fractal spread of consequences. They are mutually incomprehensible to each other, but perhaps not at cross purposes. 

Heero enters the cockpit convinced that he is expendable and redundant, that his only goal is to survive. When he returns from his test flight in Epyon, he can barely stand or speak. From that point on, he thinks about the future, about who and what will be important for what comes after the fighting has ended.

Eventually, the Epyon passes to the only person more disillusioned and estranged from his sense of purpose than Treize is– to Zechs, where it seems it was always meant to go.

• How And When Was Epyon Built?

Whew! Now that the metaphysical stuff is out of the way, let’s talk about the physical development of Epyon, and how that must have come about.

As we know, after his confinement by Romefeller, Treize, lurking around with the lights out and questioning his place in the universe, uses his now copious free time to build this gundanium dominatrix using only his laptop and the power of depression.

Now, even if we are to accept that Treize is a programming and engineering savant on top of all his other accomplishments, it would still be beyond even His Excellency’s considerable talents to pull an entire Gundam out of a hat in the basement of an abandoned Disney castle. 

Where did he get the gundanium? The crew? The construction equipment? Isn’t he under house arrest? Why would Romefeller leave him unsupervised to build a demon robot that predicts the future? 

These questions have been annoying the fandom since 1995. But, if you look carefully (VERY carefully, one might even say obsessively), it's possible to find the connective threads that make Epyon’s construction less of a magic trick. 

--Let’s go through the list of these unclarified canonical whoopsie-daisies in order of most to least glaring!:

If Treize is being kept in confinement in the Romefeller headquarters, why is he allowed to design and build a mobile suit?

*:･ﾟ✧ Our princess is in another castle! *:･ﾟ✧

The mansion that Treize goes into during episode 27 is NOT the castle that we see him in during episode 34. This switcheroo would probably have happened sometime in the MIDDLE of episode 27– which I guess might as well be the case, since episode 27 is a dreamlike, nonlinear stroll through Treize’s spiraling existential crisis.

Between Treize being confined in the Romefeller headquarters and developing the Epyon, Treize is in fact liberated by the Treize Faction and moved to the blue-roofed castle in the middle of the forest near the Luxembourg Base, which is where the faction has made their headquarters.

Presumably the crew and equipment needed to actually manufacture a new mobile suit were available at the base.

Treize’s confinement at this point is largely self-imposed; he could rally the factions loyal to him and make a move on Romefeller (as he does later), but he doesn’t believe he has the ability or the right to do so. Instead, he builds Epyon, and just kind of winds it up and lets it loose on the world to see if anything interesting happens.

And it does! The interesting very much happens.

Where did Treize get the gundanium alloy to build a Gundam?

The shipment of gundanium that Heero destroys in episode 4 was being transported on an OZ carrier, and it had to have been going somewhere. This gundanium was ordered WAY before Zechs’s gundam rebuilding project, so its purpose is left unidentified– someone in OZ clearly wanted to experiment with this new material for developing mobile suits. 

Adding to that, the gundanium that Zechs had access to when he was rebuilding the Wing Gundam had to come from somewhere, and that somewhere was probably the very deep pockets of a guy who likes to keep his best friends happy.

Regardless if any given shipment of gundanium made it home in one piece, what it means is that OZ has a way of obtaining gundanium, and if OZ has it, then Treize has it.

How would Treize know how to build a Gundam?

During the process of rebuilding the Wing Gundam from the ground up, Zechs and his engineers would probably have kept extensive records and made new Gundam blueprints that Treize would know about. Also by this point in the series, several Gundams and their pilots have been captured, and the Gundam’s engineers forced to build Vayeate and Mercurius for Lady Une. OZ would therefore have all the data they need to build a fresh Gundam, and once again: if OZ has it, then Treize has it.

Okay, but how would Treize know enough about the ZERO system to be able to reverse engineer it?

As mentioned in the entry about the ZERO system, the AI of the Taurus mobile suits eventually becomes the Mobile Doll AI. This is a predictive battle algorithm OZ already had in the works long before the Wing ZERO was discovered. 

Additionally, Treize is likely to have had access to the data being recorded by Trant while his team was researching the ZERO system, even if he was getting it covertly via a Treize Faction infiltrator, or a member of OZ who was still loyal to him. 

How does Treize know so much about designing mobile suits and their cockpit systems?

One has to remember that Treize was the instructor at Lake Victoria Base (the same position Noin holds when we first meet her in the series), responsible for training OZ’s elite pilots, and (according to “Frozen Teardrop”) involved with crucial tactical developments and improvements to OZ’s lineup. 

Yes, he’s a fancy-pants aristocrat, but you can’t say he doesn’t know his way around a mobile suit. He’s best friends with Zechs, after all– nerds of a feather flock together.

But how would he know to program the security system to accept Heero Yuy?

Well, ever since he was captured and hospitalized Heero’s biometric data would have been on file with the Alliance military, and therefore available to OZ, and therefore (again) available to Treize– so by now His Excellency will have certainly been made aware that Heero’s bones run on a third-party Adobe Photoshop plug-in.

But who cares about that crusty old data? All of the Gundam pilots have been accounted for and fingerprinted and scanned and microchipped up in Fortress Barge! They could probably 3D print Heero Yuy out of PLA and sell action figures if they wanted.

As to why Treize picked Heero specifically, I have two theories:

The first is that he simply programmed the computer to accept any and all Gundam pilots that might want to drop in for tea and assassination (and probably Zechs too, just in case he was in town).

The second is that Dorothy’s presence in the Sanc Kingdom means that Treize has a little bird keeping him informed about everything happening there, including that both Heero and Quatre are attending the Peacecraft’s School for Wayward Radical Pacifists. 

True, Dorothy is technically there to be her grandfather Duke Dremail’s little bird informant, but Dorothy’s loyalties are her own, and she very much likes and respects her cousin Treize. She’s probably beaming news of the Gundam pilots directly to him on their shared eyebrow-frequency the whole time she’s there.

Eyebrow-to-eyebrow communication.

As one final note– I’m aware that the more recent manga adaptation, “Glory of Losers”, contains its own version of events that attempts to reconcile the building of Epyon with other events in the series. However, while I appreciate that they made an attempt to resolve the big, lingering Epyon Questions, I find that like most of their retconned material involving Treize, I… 

I don’t like it. 

Or to put it less personally, I think it creates an even more dubious timeline of events that is somehow less credible than the original. In this version, Treize begins the planning and construction of both Epyon and Tallgeese at the beginning of the series, before the original Tallgeese has even been brought into play and LONG before the ZERO system is introduced– somehow with the foreknowledge that these suits will be vital for the development of the new era. 

I think this is a contrived way of making Treize into an omniscient puppet master who was retroactively steering everything in the correct direction from the very beginning, and was therefore always right and always assured of his role in the future– and I think that does his character an incredible disservice. In a story about the deep significance of changing people’s hearts and minds, the fact that Treize is retroactively scrubbed of his flaws and morally questionable decisions runs counter to the central thesis of Gundam Wing, and what has made it such a memorable story. 

“Glory of Losers” is a beautiful manga and I do think it does an incredible job of presenting the rather garbled narrative of the series in a new light, with some truly masterful tweaks that add depth to the characters and story. But it’s also guilty of some egregious changes to canon that serve no purpose other than to reconcile the main series with the events of “Frozen Teardrop”, and as an excuse to redesign all the mobile suits to be cooler and sell more model kits.

…On the other hand, in this version of the story, Treize was already familiar with Tallgeese from his earliest days in OZ. 

This is obviously another very unnecessary and suspiciously convenient retcon that I feel is in dubious taste– HOWEVER: it does mean that Howard gets to meet young whippersnapper Treize Khushrenada, who just so happened to be the one to ask him to paint it white because he thinks one day he’d like to pilot a Big Damn Hero Machine himself, and he wants it to be a more "elegant color." 

And that is the funniest shit I can possibly imagine. So I’ll give it that.

I'd like it to be at least 20% more elegant

[gerogerigaogaigar]

Oh man this baby boy is absolutely the best build I've done. He's so sparse. Only three stickers on the whole thing and most of him is stark white. I really love Turn A's design but I was definitely scared to try him until I got better at panel lining. This was a really good build, the weirdest Gundam design gets an equally weird master grade kit. The legs were fantastic to make and if you enjoy panel lining then this is the kit for you. I especially enjoy the detail that went into the leg joints so that they could get that kinda cartoon arc that you see in the show. Plus it comes with the cow from episode 8. I love you White Doll! Mustache Boy!

[chubby-kiyo]

Okay. Time to do Goodbye Despair edition of appearance headcanons

Teruteru Hanamura - (He/Him Hyper pan sexual) I don’t actually hate his design, he looks like the plump chef decorations everyone had in their kitchen in the 90s. He has thick hair and uses a ridiculous amount of pomade and hairspray to style it. (How he doesn’t catch on fire doing flambé is beyond me)

Ultimate Imposter - (They/Them intersex pansexual) They have to hide all of their natural features as part of their talent, but I feel like they probably have a somewhat feminine build. Due to their weight, they can pass more easily as any gender without being questioned (and maybe with some shape wear to help seal the deal) and this is pretty gender affirming for them.

Mahiru Koizumi - (She/They, Lesbian) She is midsized with a small tummy pooch and kind of pear shaped. Her freckles extend to her shoulders and back, and she has somewhat crooked teeth, but in kind of an endearing way. Has a small nose ring.

Peko Pekoyama - (She/Her, grey asexual) Slim and muscular with very little curvature, not that she needs a big pair of jugs to slow her down. She has really long thin fingers, and 9 times out of ten they are ice cold. She also has several scars from weapons training.

Ibuki Mioda - (They/She, pansexual) Built like a board. Just no hips or chest to spare, but they prefer a more androgynous style anyway, as is popular in the scene. Always has raccoon eyes, and will rub or picked at her face, smearing them in the process. Septum and tongue piercings and stretched lobes. Also has light acne scars.

Hiyoko Saonji - (She/Her, Lesbian) Looks like she’s 12. Her hair is very reactive to humidity and she is prone to turning into a poodle if it gets wet. Has a sizable front tooth gap, which only serves to make her look more childish.

Mikan Tsumiki - (She/Her, bisexual-female pref) She is plus sized and has wider hips, which she bumps into stuff with all the time. She has a round face and a button nose, which are always rosy pink, because of how often she is crying. Just chronically puffy eyes.

Gundam Tanaka - (They/Them, pansexual) They are kind of average/slim and don’t have much in the way of muscle. There’s just not as much under those robes as you might expect. Wears corpse paint and other trad goth makeup often but hates going out without at least using a light/white foundation. Black lipstick is a must for special occasions, and they always carry at least one lint roller to maintain their perfect black clothes with the hammies. Has a septum piercing and stretched lobes.

Nekomaru Nidai-(He/Him, Bisexual, female pref) Obviously built like a Greek god. Is very particular about his manscaping, and you bet your ass his fades are always on point. His hands are so fucking huge and blocky that it’s almost comical to see him holding someone else’s hand. His chest is hairy, and he has eyebrow and nipple piercings.

Nagito Komaeda - (He/They, gay) The man is dying of cancer. He is deathly pale and skinny. If he wasn’t a wacko, any sane person would be concerned for him. His hair is dry and coarse, in an over processed bleach kind of way. Has dark circles and yellowing teeth. Somehow though, he still manages to have a smooth, soft baby face and unnaturally clear skin. Is lacking in the eyebrow department, but has white double lashes on Satoru Gojo’s level.

Chiaki Nanami - (She/Her, pan) She is chubby. Like not just on the cusp of plus size, but a few sizes deep. Has stretch marks on her hips, chest, and stomach. Pale skin and puffy eyes from poor sleeping habits. American girl doll teeth and frizzy hair from falling asleep on random surfaces.

Kazuichi Souda (He/They, bisexual female pref) Has a bit of pudge from eating processed junk all the time, but doesn’t seem to mind. He had braces as a kid, so his teeth are perfectly straight and really the only tight laced thing about the guy. Has shaved sides and hates washing his hair, so he uses the beanie to cover up the greasy bits and his little black roots when they grow out. Breaks out easily, and has some acne scars. Pierced nostrils, tongue, and stretched ears.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu - (He/Him FtM, ace spec?) Kind of scrawny and will just never be tall. Freckles on his shoulders and back. Has a tiny amount of peach fuzz over his top lip and is really hoping it will start to fill in. Blonde eyebrows that are barely visible to begin with, that he still insists on shaving slits into. Pierced ears.

Sonia Nevermind - (She/Her, pansexual) Petite all around. Dainty little hands and the softest skin. Very fine hair, and like Fuyuhiko, she is a bit lacking in eyebrow definition, but she has to fill them in. Has a small upturned nose and definitely does the princess peach lip thing.

Akane Owari - (She/Her, pansexual) Muscular and thick all over. As much as she definitely has abs, having them visibly defined is generally speaking, not healthy for most women, so they’re under a smooth soft tummy. She has a wider button nose and full lips that she would love to put gloss on if it didn’t interfere with her snacking. Has somewhat crooked teeth and her hair is consistently tangled.

Hajime Hinata - (He/Him, pansexual) Buff arms. All around pretty stocky but not fat. Stubby thick hands. Tans easily and has the worst farmers’ tan from his stupid polo shirt. Gets freckles across his nose when he’s in the sun a lot. He has bushy eyebrows that could use some attention and thick lips.

[samusmaximus]

THE PILOT OF THE WHITE DOLL

@starlightnoelle my good pal who you should all follow drew me a wonderful little sketch of number 1 gundam protagonist Loran Cehack and I coloured that thing the hell in.

here's the original sketch btw

[epicocat]

I realized i haven’t been giving any GunplUpdates to the, like, 3 people that care, so I’ll just do a quick review of the nine kits I’ve built since the Zeong

Real Grade Sazabi

Probably one of the best RG kits I’ve built so far, at least in recent memory. It’s big, it’s articulate, it’s detailed, I love it!

High Grade Gundam NT-1, AKA Gundam Alex

This one was certainly an older kit. It builds the same as any other HG RX clone, and absolutely needs panel lining with all the molded details (good thing I picked up a pen recently). However, despite all its limitations, the HG Gundam Alex turned out better than I expected, and poses quite nicely!

I’m not at all biased because we have the same name :P

High Grade Mobile Doll May (Gundam Base Color)

This is probably my first official step into the Mecha Masume genre of model kits, but not my first girlpla (I’ve built the Figure Rise Sulleta Mercury the Artery Gear Fusion Guard Spider Feidy kit [highly recommend] before either of them). I doubt I‘ll end up buying anything more scandalous than this, I really don’t care for the half naked robot girls of Frame Arm Girls or Megami Device.

That all being said, this was a really fun kit! It was my first run with waterslide decals, and I think they turned out… mostly ok. The articulation is really good, the sculpting is well detailed (especially in the areas meant for other fans) and I just like kits that come with stands.

I will say, i do not and will not understand the appeal of battle stilettos (it’s hard to see in the pic but her feet are basically pointed straight down in the heels she’s wearing)

Sakura’s Edge

Another of my few non Bandai kits, Sakura comes from the Armored Puppet line of kits from Number 57. It’s another 1/24th scale kit, which means she is very very smol. Her most stand out feature is her third giant buster-arm, capable of wielding a sword twice her height. The bright pink, gold, and white go really well together, and she just looks really nice! Unfortunately her armor is more of an afterthought from the creators, as some parts need to be filed and trimmed excessively to get them to fit (I was in a VC with a friend, he can testify I was almost brought down by the shoes), and other parts just sit loose, ready to pop right off after the slightest tap, touch, or pinch.

30 Minute Missions Spinatia (Commando Type)

This kit was my intro to 30MM and I wish I bought more of them sooner! It was a cheap impulse purchase from a “local” hobby store I was checking out and it was a really enjoyable experience! It was simple and relatively fast (I failed the mission, it took me an hour), but using all the extra parts and mixing and matching equipment was so fun to play around with and experiment with what looks cool, something I hope to see more of as I build more Hexa Gear kits. In the meantime though, I have a 30 Minute Custom to plan >:3c

Transparent SD Gundam and Char’s Zaku II

I dont own many SD kits, and I think these are some more I’ll snag more of as I shop around. They’re simple and cute! They’re both Cross Silhouettes, but only the Zaku came with the CS frame, so the Gundam is just really squat and even more chibi in comparison. Overall not much to write home about, but still fun!

High Grade Gundam Maxter

The only red white and blue I’ll ever stand for

That being said, this was a really great kit! It’s a shame it’s P-Bandai limited, along with Gundam Rose. It absolutely needs panel lining for its literal abs of steel and face, but it still looks quite nice. It’s very articulate and it was hard to pick just one photo that truly sums up the insanity of Gundam Maxter, perfectly captured in gunpla form. It comes with everything seen in the picture, along with its flying surfboard shield, guns, and an effect part for its bursting machinegun punch. It is such a great kit, and comes with enough ham to justify its $30 price tag, despite the fact that Maxter is in fact very small.

High Grade Messer F-01

I love The messer’s design. It feels like a true successor to the Zaku series of suits. I know canonically it’s built off of the Sazabi, but it’s design is 100% Zaku. It’s got that respirator like mouthpiece, and the spiky asymmetric shoulder armor. Is just so cool! And did I mention this things size yet? It, like it’s predecessor are big boys, snd both stand almost as tall as many master grade gunpla in my collection. Overall an amazing kit!

[wolverinedoctorwho]

[ID: several images of Gundam Calibarn, a white mobile suit with red, yellow, and grey accents, as well as rainbow shiny components. It also has a large gun and a blue lazer sword. The first image is just the Gundam in front of my Minecraft Creeper minifridge, while the rest are either taken without a background or in front of the box or instruction manual which have an image of the Calibarn on them. The last image is the Calibarn on my toy shelf, next to Gundam Aerial and Guel's Dilanza. Behind the gunpla several dolls from the LOL Surprise line can be seen. /end ID]

---

I made another Gunpla hehe. Fucked up some of the stickers (that small one on the torso got put in the wrong place at first 😔) but I think it came out well overall.

[rojedir]

Currently watching Turn A Gundam, and I love how the characters in-universe acknowledge that the White Doll's face sort of looks like it has a moustache.

[himedanshilaunching]

The pose here is mimicking one of the example poses.

Buster Doll Knight's "Costume Mode" is done. It's... a lot. The reason I got the kit was absolutely 100% the embarrassed face plate, but the thing that makes me embarrassed is this outfit.

I mean, it's cute, and it's absolutely some of my best work on a model kit ever - all the white trim is paint, and I'm thrilled with how good the detailing on button-up went. But if someone I just met wants to see an example of my hobbies, I'm not exactly going to be leaping at the chance to show them the combination sexy school girl / stage magician Halloween costume model kit. As a side note, I've been using a brush with the paint from a matte topcoat Gundam Marker, and wow! I think this is probably my preferred method. It's extremely easy to both tell and fix when there's too much pooled at one spot. And because it's just a topcoat, any brush strokes aren't visible anyway.

[motionjames]

TRUE LOVE IS POSSIBLE FOR NEW PEOPLE, PT.1

or

char and amuro, snowden, mr.lawrence, the asteroid, the boy, and the place we were born

In the Snowden chapter of Catch-22, Yossarian wakes up in a cold sweat surrounded by probing doctors after getting stabbed multiple times in his side. The doctors ask:

‘Where were you born?’

The fat, gruff colonel reminded Yossarian of the fat, gruff colonel who had interrogated the chaplain and found him guilty. Yossarian sat up at him through a glassy film. The cloying scents of formaldehyde and alcohol sweetened the air.

‘On the battlefield,’ he answered.

‘No, no. In what state were you born?’

‘In a state of innocence.’

Before this it was all comedy. After this– after the knife comes down, after the woman cries for her lover, after Yossarian shrieks and falls to the ground in genuine terror as the past blooms in his side for an uncaring audience– it dies. From now on, there will be nightmares. It won’t stop until the end.

+++

I started watching Mobile Suit Gundam in middle school on the library computers and then I began saving the battery on my school-issued laptop so I could watch it on the bus as well. I loved the mechs and grand, sweeping arcs and most of all Amuro Ray, curled up with whited-out eyes in a near vegetative state as the world orbits around him. I drew him clumsily with a mouse in mspaint and made it my icon for various online activities. His hair was nice. I didn’t understand what I wanted for or from him, but I knew I wanted to watch.

At some point I began to question where exactly it is that Amuro gets doomed. We already know how it ends– in that brilliant burst of cosmic light, the sky painted with shooting stars– but when did it start? When did he lose it all? Amuro is so withdrawn, so singular, so depressing to watch in action, he’s nothing more than a doll for another doll, some flesh and bones that bring a killing machine alive when somebody else tells him to. There’s nothing left. Amuro believes in compassion but it’s too late for him. Maybe it wasn’t always like this.

Following the thread, I found it: It wasn’t in the burning cockpit at the end of CCA or in the elevator in Zeta or through the endless battles of ‘79, it was when he entered the mech. The RX-78-2, a tool for war and a plastic toy I have lovingly placed on my shelf. A machine his father built. His father is thrown into space. His mother rejects him for his atrocities. Amuro is effectively orphaned by the machine and pulled apart and reconstructed and told to continue onward. He despises it, and then he lives it.

Before this it was comedy. After this, it dies.

+++

Char Aznable never really existed. Because of that, nothing he says or does really means anything, no matter how much others would tell you otherwise. Quess adores him for the promises he feeds her, Garma latches onto his support, the world revolves around him. He has an undeniable magnetism. And yet, when he is up on a podium speaking to an audience, he fails. Char is a terrible politician. He has so much charisma but no real ideals– He was a boy with a gun and he’s been coasting ever since then.

A man who has spent his life under a mask will know the script by heart. These are not words of his own but he speaks them like they are, not because he means them or even that he wishes to but because it will advance him to the next scene. The play will keep going. He started this as a means of revenge but his role became too large and now everyone is watching, waiting for his next move, and frankly, there isn’t any reason why he shouldn’t continue. Casval never got to be a person. It’s just the mask and uniform now.

Unable to exist, there isn’t any reason why he shouldn’t destroy everyone around him. Quess is so easy for him. Nanai, too. He’s been doing this his whole life. Incapable of treating his fellow man with any sort of respect, how can he be expected to craft a better future for humanity? Only in the very end in tears and a burning cockpit does he realize something so simple– “Humans, who possess warmth, are still cruel enough to destroy Earth” – and the mask is gone at last. What was he doing this entire time? What was the point? Casval’s eyes open and he cries.

Hatred is so easy. It’s just nightmares to the very end.

+++

“How can you aim a gun at someone like that, and fire?”

Amuro’s mother asks this when they meet for the first time since being separated by the war. Amuro looks panicked because he doesn’t have a good answer– He’s been told to do this, to survive, but death is still death, except he never really wanted to hurt anyone, not really, they would’ve died if it wasn’t for him– and his mother cries and rejects him for what he’s become. She’s so ashamed of him. You’re no longer my son, she says. He’d lost his place in the world as soon as he’d entered the mech but now he really knows it, that the one place of unconditional love he could ever hope for has officially run dry. He is taken away by the White Base and the two strangers never see each other again. Somewhere, his father is melting away in a colony tinkering with trash trying to make gadgets of war just like the old days.

Amuro speaks to his mother in a foreign language. It is a language of violence. It was how he was taught to live. But there is no response and there is no love here; there are no words or violence that could possibly express how alone he has really become. The world revolves around him but he sits at the center unmoving and unchanging, tinkering with the toys that ripped him out of time. It’s the last place he has left to go. It’s too late for people like him.

+++

Amuro and Char are trying to craft a new world. They are the only people who could understand each other because they were both born on the battlefield and remember there must’ve been innocence once, if not in them then around them, and somehow it was lost along the way. If they saw something beautiful they wouldn’t know it because they only know how to speak in guns and swords and nights preparing for something terrible to happen, probably by their own hand. The story makes circles around them and they get closer and closer with time. In their final battle in the original series, Char tries to kill Amuro but then suddenly suggests they run off together instead. It’s such a selfish action. Humanity’s future lies with them.

It is too late for either of them and no matter how pure Amuro’s heart is or how powerful Char becomes, the future will never be born with them or anything they do. They cannot picture a world unlike the one they live in now. White Base’s beloved crew will grow up serving the government without question and have happy families and live in a hell they inherited but nonetheless perpetuate. Somewhere on the battlefield, a boy is born. He does something terrible. He’s given a medal. His father will kill him one day. He watches two pilots burst into light and the galaxy glow with the souls of a hundred mobile suits. With blood on his hands, he catches sight of a future where none of this has to happen.

It was always too late for Amuro and Char. But for the boy–

+++

At the end of Merry Christmas Mr.Lawrence, POW Jack Celliers is dying in the sand. He has been a rebellious spirit for the entire story, pushing back against the senseless cruelty with harmless acts of humanity . He has kissed the Captain of the camp and he is going to die for it. His head lays in a miniature desert with the skin flaking off his sun-scarred cheeks.

The Captain appears. He saws a small lock of hair from the man he’s sentenced to death before bowing and leaving forever. Jack dies. The Captain dies. The Sergeant beneath him is executed years later for his war crimes. Earlier, a young man bit his tongue out and bled to death. Emaciated prisoners collapsed to the ground after being forced to walk from their beds. So much death all around, and for nothing. All of the kindness was crushed underfoot and left behind in the march.

The dread is overwhelming but there are flashes of crimson throughout the film; there are sprouts of kindness between the blows that appear beautiful and bright before they are stamped out. Sergeant Hara gets drunk and hand waves the execution– a move that would normally get him shot– but the usually so venomous Captain Yonoi lets him off with a slap on the wrist and a cigarette with a notable red flower mark on its side. The red flower is not unlike the one Jack offered to him scenes ago and the deliberate act of unprecedented kindness has a similar ring. Hara, years later in his cell before his death day, looks up to his old friend and brings up a joke from the night he was drunk. Yonoi kills Jack but takes a lock to remember him. Everybody dies. Somewhere, there is love.

The sprouts are plucked out time and time again but they keep pushing out from the cruel earth regardless. Jack knew he would die when he stole that kiss, but he planted the seed regardless. It is too late for us, but true love is possible. Just not here. Not for me.

+++

+++

The only thing left for the two men is to die.

The Axis is coming down and it’s going to end at last, finally the play will be over and we can stop reading the lines and pretending like we mean them, but soldiers fly up in their war machines and try to push it all back. They dissolve due to the overwhelming temperature and vanish into stardust. Amuro screams for them to stop. But this is a radical movement of selflessness that will save them all and in the end the two men die and become a part of the green aurora that swims around the earth like a halo. The children look up at the sky and point to the light and smile. It was the best thing they could ever become. And it only lasted a night.

–When people speak of happiness, they almost always refer to the near-impossible everlasting kind, the one that you spend your whole life chasing. But it is easy to forget there were small moments as well; everyday occurrences or inexplicable happenings that plant a seed in us before being swept away forever. They’re a peek into the future. Somebody left it there for us to find. It was impossible for them, but for us…

+++

The moment Jack holds forth his flower is no more than 3 seconds long. But I can take that reel and I can find that frame and I can see it was there and alive and that it meant something. Things never really go. They just sit in a sequence of many other moments, and sometimes– hopefully– they’ll repeat.

+++

Amuro and Char and 100 other pilots become a green moonlit mist that the children of earth wish on. A boy in his mobile suit watches in horror and inherits this moment in all of its love and hope and pain forever and ever. He has killed someone and he is about to get a medal. The earth is saved. The children watch and send their wishes to the sky. For a moment before their evisceration, the centers of the universe saw the world they could never build themselves. It is too late– It is too late– It is too late—

Seeds are planted. True love is possible. A boy named Hathaway watches the dream of thousands pour out from the precipice of the new world.

Somehow, it repeats:

Humanity's future lies with him.

thank you for reading.

[amalgamasreal]

Dark History - by RintaroKomori

Source

[kunosoura]

gundam white doll 🤝 yuyuko saigyouji

[stupidstupidratcreatures]

any gundamheads out there how much does gundam go in for the "what's the weak point of a mech" thing as a rule. this is about the white doll's cockpit (teehee) in Turn A. trying to determine what specific kind of symbolism i should ascribe to that placement

[fallenwingzero]

New Mobile Report Gundam Wing Timeline

I redid the timeline again but this time with pictures! This is my take on what order all the anime/manga/novels/radio dramas take place in the Gundam Wing universe. For a quick recap, this is the order and dates:

Episode Zero (sans Preventor epilogue) - AC 187 to AC 195

Anime (sans epilogue) - AC 195 April 06 to AC 195 December 24

Chronicle of the After Colony Era - AC 195

Odds and Evens - AC 195 December 24

Anime Epilogue - AC 196 April 06

Battlefield of Pacifists - AC 196

Blind Target - AC 196

Ground Zero (sans epilogue) - AC 196

Endless Waltz - AC 196 December 24 to AC 196 December 27, Epilogue - AC 197 January 01

Ground Zero Epilogue - AC 197

Frozen Teardrop Preventor 5 part 1 - AC 197 March to AC 197 April 07

Episode Zero Preventor 5 epilogue - AC 197 April 07

Frozen Teardrop Preventor 5 part 2 - AC 197 April 09

Frozen Teardrop - MC 22 Next Winter

Frozen Teardrop Epilogue - MC 23 Summer

The full explanations for the order of the timeline as well as pictures are under the read more:

Episode Zero: AC 187 to AC 195.

Obviously places first, being a prequel. For the specific dates mentioned we have -

Duo’s Backstory:

AC 187 - Duo is taken in by the Maxwell Church.

AC 188 - Father Maxwell and Sister Helen are killed in an attack.

AC 192 - Duo meets Professor G.

Heero’s Backstory:

AC 175- Odin assassinates Heero Yuy

AC 188- Heero travels as a hitman with Odin. Odin is killed by Dekim Barton. Heero meets Doctor J.

Trowa’s Backstory:

AC 190 - No Name (Trowa) meets Middie Une. Heads for outer space looking for a “home”

Relena’s Backstory:

AC 191 - Alpha Yuy enrolls at her school. Zechs saves Relena and realizes that she is his long-lost sister.

Quatre’s Backstory:

AC 193 - Quatre meets the Maganacs

Wufei’s Backstory:

AC 194 - Wufei marries Meilan

AC 194 - Meilan dies.

Episode Zero Operation Meteor: AC 195 April 06

2. Anime Series and Light Novel Series (sans epilogue): AC 195 April 06 to AC 195 December 24

Anime series begins on Relena’s Birthday, April 06 and ends Christmas Eve. The final battle later becomes known as “The Eve Wars”. The novelisation I believe is similar to the anime so for now I'm listing it as concurrent instead of an alternate interpretation.

3. Chronicle of the After Colony Era: AC 195

Takes place during the anime series, after Heero wakes up from his coma and is travelling with Trowa. Duo is still travelling with Quatre, and Relena has just revived the Sanc Kingdom.

4. Odds and Evens: AC 195 December 24.

Takes place immediately after the final battle of the anime series.

5. Anime Epilogue: AC 196 April 06.

Takes place on Relena’s Birthday the following year with her being too busy as Vice Foreign Minister to attend her birthday party. She also receives the bear and card gifts from Heero.

6. Battlefield of Pacifists: AC 196

For the three midquels, I put this one first. My reasoning is that Quatre first comes up with the idea to send the Gundams into the sun, to the surprise of Duo. Wufei realizes that he still has to fight for justice despite the war ending.

7. Blind Target Manga and Radio Drama: AC 196

This is the second on the timeline for the three midquels. The need to destroy the Gundams becomes more apparent for the boys as the remnants of White Fang use the Gundams protecting peace as a point for why the UESN cannot be trusted with total disarmament. Wufei meets up with Mariamaia and Dekim Barton.

8. Ground Zero (sans epilogue): AC 196

The final of the three midquels. After agreeing to destroy the Gundams, Duo, Quatre and Trowa suspect that Heero is secretly planning to continue to use Wing Zero and devise a way to learn his intentions. Wufei is already wearing the Mariamaia Doll uniform showing it takes place after Blind Target.

9. Endless Waltz Movie and Novelization: AC 196 December 24 to December 27 /Epilogue: AC 197 January 01

The Mariamaia Incident starts on Christmas Eve, exactly one year after the Eve Wars, and ends on December 27. The Epilogue takes place on New Year’s Day.

The Endless Waltz novelisation is concurrent with the movie. I also listed it in the same timeline due to not contradicting canon. It follows the same story with added extra backstory for characters.

10. Ground Zero Epilogue: AC 197

The epilogue for Ground Zero states that it took place in AC 197 making it take place after Endless Waltz. Heero also promises to stay by Relena’s side.

11. Frozen Teardrop Preventor 5 part 1: AC 197 March to AC 197 April 07

March- Heero is staying at the Darlian Estate by this point with Relena tending to his wounds that had accumulated over the series. Relena is planning to run for president of the UESN.

April 07- Relena throws a campaign party on the day after her birthday. Sanc Kingdom is under attack by a terrorist organization. Wufei and Sally gather the Gundam Pilots to carry out a rescue mission.

12. Episode Zero Epilogue: AC 197 April 07

Concurrent with Frozen Teardrop Preventor 5 part 1. Relena throws a campaign party on the day after her birthday. Sanc Kingdom is under attack by a terrorist organization. Wufei and Sally gather the Gundam Pilots to carry out a rescue mission. Quatre devises a plan for them to rescue the hostages without anyone dying, enemies included.

13. Frozen Teardrop Preventor 5 part 2: AC 197 April 09

The new Preventor 5 team carry out the rescue mission. The mission doesn’t go as planned and fails. Relena sacrifices herself to save the Sanc Kingdom and is cryogenically frozen. Heero is also frozen sometime later.

14. Frozen Teardrop Light Novel series and Picture Drama: MC 22 Next Winter to MC 23 First Spring

25 years later Heero Yuy awakens to fight a new war on Mars along with the old and new Gundam Pilots.

There’s a full timeline for the events leading up to current day Frozen Teardrop that I will translate as a later edit for this post. It covers all the backstories as well as important historical events of the Mars Colony Era. I will also add the extra dates mentioned in Frozen Teardrop as I translate the series.

15. Frozen Teardrop Epilogue: MC 23 First Summer.

Heero and Relena have been married for 5 months and peace is slowly coming to Mars.

I looked over all my manga and light novels to check dates so hopefully this is all accurate. It all surprisingly fits in nicely too, so I guess the writers were careful not to contradict each other’s extra stories.

Content that doesn’t fit on the timeline or is contradictory to canon:

Glory of the Losers - This is a reboot, so it has its own timeline and canon with different versions of events from the GW series.

A Scythe in my Right Hand, You in my Left - This story is… odd, to put it nicely 😂. It’s a good story but it doesn’t make sense in canon at all, so it goes under the “Duo’s weird catholic fever dream” category of the timeline. It also didn’t have anyone from the show work on it, unlike the rest of the media, so it’s not considered canon in that regard and that’s also probably why it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the canon.

Operation Preventor Radio Drama Cassette - It’s a crack scenario revolving around the boys hosting a radio show that takes place sometime after Endless Waltz. Although the boys hosting a radio show is an unlikely scenario 😂, it does have good characterisations and hilarious interactions between the G-pilots.

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing Manga by Koichi Tokita - This is a retelling of GW and contains vastly different scenarios so it’s its own canon. The writers of GW also didn’t work on it so it’s not part of the main canon in that way too.

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing Endless Waltz Manga by Koichi Tokita - The sequel to the Mobile Suit Gundam Manga and the same deal as before where it didn’t have any of the original writers work on it. Although it really doesn't differ from the movie at all so it could also work as concurrent to Endless Waltz movie and novels.

[furubaycrossing]

Top 5 songs that you never get and/or have gotten bored of. Music that always gives you that "feels like you've heard it you the first time" sensation. :)

Ohhh god ok I really had to think this one through

1. Iris or Slide by the goo goo dolls (makes me cry)

2. Smooth by Santana and Rob Thomas (a bop if I ever did hear one)

3. You Found Me by The Fray (makes me sob tbh but anything by them from around that time)

4. Anything by PVRIS but specifically their White Noise Deluxe album I can listen to it on repeat

5. Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift (need I say more?)

Also honourable mention to every opening and ending song from the Inuyasha anime they all scratch my brain real nice and that one specific song from the Gundam Seed anime by See-Saw i think it was an ending song (あんなに一緒だったのに Anna ni Issho Datta no ni <— that one) heard it as a young teen and its stuck with me every since