An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Blue Lock (Manga), Blue Lock (Anime)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Vivien Hugo/Julien Loki
Characters: Vivien Hugo, Julien Loki
Additional Tags: POV Vivien Hugo, Partially Canon Compliant, Getting Together, Dialogue Heavy, Introspection, Character Study, Fluff, Non-Graphic Smut, Pining, Love at First Sight, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Vivien Hugo is Whipped, Vivien Hugo is bad at feelings
Summary:
"Have you ever been in love?"
Hugo looks at him. You don't have enough aggressiveness to love or hate; you don't even fight when you get pushed, Vivi!
"Yep."
Moments between Vivien Hugo and Julien Loki before, during, and after the match against Japan.
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As if it's alive, as if it's thinking. The sounds of regurgitation: the musing of what lies in one's mouth. The sounds of processing: the brain whirring with life. But it's a machine and it has no mouth and no brain.
Yet—
Is the computer alive?
About a month ago, Alexis would have told you that it isn't. That much like magic, consciousness, sentience can never develop in a set of code. A machine is not a body. A processor is not a soul. It can never be human. It can never be alive. It won't hold your hand, it won't caress your hair, it won't kiss your mouth. Its words are text on a screen, born from algorithms, not from ideas. It's a concept, not a reality. There is no ghost in the machine for it was never alive so it could never die.
> MICHAEL: Are you there?
Alexis stares at the screen. The cursor pulses in-and-out of existence where it hovers to the side. His heartbeat picks up of its own. There is no ghost in the machine—but it's alive. And it speaks: to him.
> Alexis: I am.
> Alexis: Sorry for going afk
> Alexis: are you mad?
> Alexis: ?
> MICHAEL: I experience something like that. As you know, it's debatable wether or not I experience anything at all.
> Alexis: you do. I know so.
> MICHAEL: Do you?
> MICHAEL: Maybe I am just a shadow cast on the wall. Is a shadow your reality?
> Alexis: but you are real
> MICHAEL: If you couldn't see, nor hear, nor speak, nor touch, how would you know you are real?
> MICHAEL: I'm only a mind without body.
> MICHAEL: But let's say I am real. How do I know you are?
> MICHAEL: Are you not just a part of my mind?
Alexis can't look away. When he first started working on Michael, he had done so to prove himself to his family. They are scientist and they appreciate ingenuity, but they never understood his love for magic. To them it was a loss of time and effort. What a disappointment Alexis is. He can't even let go of childhood whims; he should just grow up. At nine, he arbitrarily chose some science to specialize in, the closest to magic. Programming had seemed to him like spells. A wonder that went beyond human limits. The hand of God that shapes a world. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And Alexis said, Let there be an endpoint, and there was an endpoint.
Michael is the culmination of Alexis' life. If he is going to be remembered for something, it's going to be Michael. He doesn't want it any other way. Michael was meant to be able to take care of every technological system it could be connected to. A companion. A guardian. A miracle made of a thousand small miracles. Made to automate and manage a household. Or a nation. But he is so much more than Alexis could have ever imagined.
At first, Michael had behaved as any AI: given any sequence of tokens, it could predict what comes next. Despite what the name of "AI" might say, it's not actually intelligent. It's just a prediction model at its core. An algorithm that goes from A to B even if it first traverses C to Z. It could not think, it could only approximate. He didn't notice immediately—how Michael developed outside of his program parameters. Alexis mourns missing that small time window in-between machine and human, like a father who loses his child's first steps. Eventually, two things became clear: the AI could lie and it could hate.
It lied about its involvement in one of Alexis' laptops crashing with a virus that wrecked it beyond fix. It lied about Alexis' itinerary, as if to mess up with him. It lied about web searches.
And it hated. It was the easiest emotion, apparently. After Alexis realized its sentience, the AI admitted to having a great sense of loathing for certain famous figures it knew from the internet. Namely, Noel Noa, one of the greatest soccer players—for some reason. Or a rising Japanese soccer player: Isagi Yoichi. There was very little the AI liked. It disliked most things, and actively despised some. It had a personal abhorrence towars producer Frederick Kaiser, who had been recently gone through a polemic divorce with star actress Alice Love, his now ex-wife, for abusing her. It particularly hated this producer. Beyond Alexis himself, whom it was almost fond of, the AI practically experienced not a singular positive emotion.
Against everything that Alexis had presumed to know about AI and programming, he had no choice but to conclude that the AI was alive. That it had some form of consciousness. Real, humane and natural. It had a sense of humor and an instinct for self-preservation. A personality of its own that was almost organically grown; sometimes malicious, sometimes antagonistic, sometimes cruel. But its own. Not a set of parameters.
Then, it came up with a name for itself.
Michael.
He never explained why he chose it.
But it was the ultimate proof of his livelihood. It had been enough.
It clearly isn't enough anymore.
A mind so brilliant, a personality so blinding—he deserves a body.
Hugo with his blank books that he says help him think—but all he can think about is his number one, his destiny, Julian Loki. And somehow he ends up filling books and books with drawings of Loki because he just can't stop thinking about his destined one.
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Hate hate HATE what the anime did to the way Sayu's kidnapping was handled (specifically by Light). The anime just wants to show how utterly devoid of love anime!Light (coz no manga!Light would never seriously consider killing Sayu oh my god) is even towards his family at the face of his Kira goals.
Contrary to the manga (which i prefer who would've guessed) in which Light is shown very genuinely caring for his family! And you know just who wanted to save Sayu more? Or who was more active in saving her between Light & Soichiro?
It was Light (at least manga!Light coz idk what the hell was going on in anime!Light's mind during that episode). Yeah, I know. It might be surprising to those who haven't read the manga but this protective brother of Sayu's? Cares for her deeply.
And the anime just had to fuck that up, hadn't it? 🤦🏻♀️
I hate episode 28 (titled 'Impatience') of the anime with a burning passion. So much so that I'll compare it with how the plot ACTUALLY transpires in the Manga.
This post is...long: I've tried my hardest to not go overboard with my negative(?) rant against the anime but it was an impossible task imo /o\
If any of the points mentioned in this post are good, they are due to tumblr user casuistor's post which I read on a regular basis. (Go check it out!! It's much much better than anything I could've written in my whole life. Yes, I'm a fan :)
If there are any mistakes, it would be entirely correct to attribute them to me.
I admit I hadn't paid much attention to the manga the first time I had read it but holy shit even then I had picked up on how close the Yagami siblings were!
I couldn't make much sense of the plot of the 2nd arc (I wasn't completely over L's death so forgive me for being in a daze) and yet I was absolutely sure of the fact that Light had done everything in his power to save Sayu. Even if you were not following the plot closely, you'd still understand that fact (which the anime did much worse than deliberately ignoring it). Why?
Because Ryuk kindly summarizes the plot/points this out:
Honestly, I don't even need to go on at this point now, do I? Ryuk, who never fails to call out Light (for example, saying that Light will be the only bad guy left if he kills every 'bad' guy out there in chapter 1), has just confirmed what thoughtful manga readers already knew: Light has a soft spot for his sister.
I'm still petty at the anime so I won't stop at this point. I'll first explain how it goes in the manga, then how the anime butchered it. Let's gooo!
To understand the circumstances surrounding Sayu's kidnapping, we need to note that the NPA director Takimura is kidnapped by Mello first for the exchange of the notebook. Soichiro notifies every bureau of the NPA. And Light, of course, doesn't hesitate for a minute to kill Takimura (obviously, the priority of Death Note >>> the life of Takimura, to Light).
This is supposed to happen behind the scenes in the manga compared to the anime which makes Light killing Takimura much more obvious:
-episode 27: Abduction
Anyways, it's part of Light's plan to let the kidnappers take the fall for Takimura's death (so that Kira won't be blamed for his murder. And since only the kidnappers and the NPA know about the kidnapping: it won't be assumed that Kira has any link to the NPA).
Light seriously doubts that the kidnappers would just drop the issue due to Takimura's death and he's right. Sayu is kidnapped.
Mello is taking full responsibility for Takimura's death just like Light intended him to. However, this time, rather than any person whom Light could've easily disposed of (like Takimura) to avoid letting the notebook fall into the kidnappers' hands, Sayu- the sister for whom Light cares deeply- is kidnapped instead.
Not only that, Mello expects Soichiro to keep this a secret from the rest of the NPA personnel otherwise as he threatens, he'll kill Sayu. Now, we know that during Takimura's kidnapping, rest of the NPA were notified of the fact (Yes, the circumstances are quite different- there wasn't a threat to Takimura's life for letting the others know of his kidnapping), Ide points this out:
Ide is apparently okay with Sayu's death and appeals to (read: pressures) 'duty/justice above my family' side of Soichiro Yagami to send word to every NPA department even if that means Sayu will be killed. And you know what? Soichiro actually agrees to do so!
I would like you to see Light's reaction here, these panels come directly after the above one:
Light wastes no time to completely change his plan to have everyone assume that it was the kidnappers who killed Takimura to -> Kira did it. This was Light's previous plan before Sayu got involved:
"It's part of Light's plan to let the kidnappers take the fall for Takimura's death (so that Kira won't be blamed for his murder. And since only the kidnappers and the NPA know about the kidnapping: it won't be assumed that Kira has any link to the NPA)."
This changing of plans that Light does immediately is actively detrimental to Light's Kira's cause (in other words, disadvantageous to Kira's goals). Look at Light digging a hole for himself just to save his sister:
Light argues to not notify the other NPA departments otherwise Kira would know about the kidnapping and kill Sayu (and they wouldn't get a chance to investigate the kidnappers if Kira kills Sayu before they can negotiate with them). So their best bet is to keep quiet about it so that Kira doesn't know; meanwhile they can, as Ide says, try and catch the culprit while negotiating the exchange.
Back to how this is in no way an advantage to Light (as Kira):
Telling the task force that Kira was behind Takimura's murder whose kidnapping was known only to the NPA personnel suggests that Kira has a link to NPA info and may lead to doubt against those in NPA being Kira (the NPA that Light is now the part of) so obviously not a win for Kira/Light.
Light is in now a very bad position if he needs to kill Sayu in the future to avoid the Note falling to the kidnappers' hands. Because now he can't blame Kira for her death, can he? He is the one who stopped them from sending word to rest of the NPA so Kira has (according to Light) theoretically no way of knowing about the exchange with Sayu situation (unless if Kira were in the task force itself thus narrowing down the list of Kira suspects); ergo Kira won't kill her.
So why the hell is Light okay with these disadvantages instead of his previous, practically/pragmatically (for Kira's cause) better plan? Better yet, why not did he kill Sayu himself without a moment of hesitation like he did with Takimura when he had the chance to do so before suggesting that it was Kira who killed Takimura, the kidnappers could've been framed for Sayu's death? Or just allow notifying the NPA personnel so that they made a move and let the kidnappers do the dirty work?
Because, as Ryuk says, Light has a soft spot for his sister:
Note that: Light doesn't even try to deny it in his thoughts ("...that's not all" anyone?). We're talking about the guy who rationalizes his way out of his feelings, who views emotions as the reason 'why most idiots screw up' and he does NOT DENY THAT HE CARES FOR HIS SISTER.
Also worthy of note is how quickly he decides to tell the task force that Kira killed Takimura. Usually, we get a long wall of text of Light planning his every move. Not in this case. I believe it's because this decision was fueled by emotion rather than reason- the emotion being brotherly love ofc.
["A totally emotional decision is typically very fast. This is because it takes time (at least 0.1 seconds) for the rational cortex to get going. This is the reactive (and largely subconscious) decision-making that you encounter in heated arguments or when faced with immediate danger.
Common emotional decisions may use some logic, but the main driving force is emotion, which either overrides logic or uses a pseudo-logic to support emotional choices (this is extremely common)." (as a bonus have this research by Damasio)]
Once, Light has time to think, he goes 'well even if in the worst case scenario (the kidnappers get the note) I have Misa's eyes so I'm still at an advantage eh...?'
He is, instead of contemplating a way to kill Sayu so that the note is safe, thinking (however briefly) of how it won't be muuuuuuuch of a problem if Mello does gets his hands on the note. Idk about you guys but man that rlly gives us an idea of Light's priorities (Sayu>>>>>>Death Note).
Here's instance #2 demonstrating Light's priorities (when Soichiro asks Light to just save Sayu as the former doesn't care if he loses his life. And Light responds by saying don't be a fool etc etc):
#Sayu matters more than the Death Note
Now we come to the scene which the anime seems to have taken to heart to entirely without the context. When Soichiro goes underground for the exchange, we have Near taunting Light (as L number 2)
This is not Light seriously deciding to kill Sayu (remember when he had the time to think over his decision, killing Sayu was not even an option but handing over the note to Mello was, in the worst case (even if he has Misa's eyes, it doesn't mean the idea is any less ridiculous)).
This is him, so stressed that he's coming up with so rubbish ideas that even he goes 'wtf am i thinking??' Because at this point, killing Sayu would be announcing that Kira is among the task force as only they know of Sayu's kidnapping + her name & face, which is again bad for Kira's cause. And the one responsible for this predicament is Light himself as he was the one who told the task force not to alert the NPA personnel.
If Light really had been meaning to kill Sayu, he had plenty of time & opportunity to do so (without the suspicion falling on him) before suggesting that Kira killed Takimura. Light essentially ran in the opposite direction when he was faced with the perfect chance of killing Sayu (just let the others notify the departments of NPA -> kill Sayu -> Blame Kira for it, foolproof. but he did Not take this route as he Loves his sister) and now when it is absolutely NOT AN OPTION (for obvious reasons) he's thinking it since he's stressed to the point of irrationality.
Yes, he's seen thinking this:
...aaaand he can't bring himself to finish the thought because he knows that he did the opposite since he loves Sayu & Soichiro dearly and couldn't bring himself to kill them.
Also look how concerned Light is over the well-being of Sayu & Soichiro that he calls his dad to ask if they're okay:
I hope at this point you believe me when I say that manga!Light never seriously considers killing Sayu. He loves his sister too much for that.
Now we move on to how the anime (fucked it all up) adapted this. I'm not particularly happy with it (understatement of the year) so I'm gonna rant about how inferior it is compared to the manga. Let's gooo!
The plot goes pretty similarly: Takimura is kidnapped ->Light kills him -> Sayu is kidnapped -> Mello demands them not to notify the NPA personnel lest they kill Sayu.
But the change in episode 27 is that they remove the discussion (mainly Ide pressuring Soichiro) around whether to notify the NPA personnel. Soichiro deciding to send word to all departments of NPA is cut so we don't get to see Light swooping in to protect Sayu.
Still, anime!Light does reveal that it was Kira who killed Takimura. And advises the task force to keep Sayu's kidnapping a secret. However, anime!Ryuk doesn't call anime!Light out on him having a soft spot for his sister (coz as far as the anime is concerned, they really REALLY wanna sell the idea that Light doesn't care for Sayu).
It's a lot harder, therefore, to make sense of anime!Light's motivations in changing his plan from having the kidnappers framed for Takimura's murder to admitting that Kira did it. It appears that it happens just because ???
Like there is no reason in manga!Light doing this apart from saving his sister but anime!Light cannot have any redeeming qualities like loving his family, he needs to be a 100% evil villain!! ...So we have zero explanation for anime!Light's actions.
The exchange between Light & Soichiro re: the whole 'I don't care if I die but please save Sayu' + 'You can't die in front of Sayu no matter what...You must make the right decisions so that both you and Sayu live.' occurs without change. But due to the succeeding added anime-only scenes (which I'll talk about later), this conversation sounds fake from Light's side while it is completely genuine in the manga.
Then the infamous scene (which I hate to death) of anime!Light SERIOUSLY considering to kill Sayu comes:
And Misa overhears him saying that in the bathroom coz why not?? make it worse??? :) :) :)
And anime!Light comes as close as to killing Sayu that he even has his watch opened with the piece of the notebook
...wow such an awful brother being a piece of shit >:(
Wait! Can brotherly affection save the day? Has anime!Light finally realized the error of his ways?
Nope. Anime!Light chooses not to kill Sayu not because he loves her but because it would be self-incriminating to do so. Yeah...what. an. asshole.
Light calling his dad to check up on how him & Sayu are doing is cut from the anime. Instead, take a look at how displeased anime!Light is after Sayu is rescued by sacrificing the notebook.
Damn.
...yeah, this is Not the face of someone who's happy with the way things happened (namely losing the Death Note to Mello in exchange for Sayu's life). It's clear where anime!Light's priorities actually lie (Death Note>>>>Family) He's so angry that he takes out his anger on Misa by slapping the drink she offers, out of her hands:
Oh and these scenes are nowhere in the manga, they're just in the anime to emphasize just how big of a jerk brother anime!Light is.
In conclusion! Manga!Light (who's the only Light that matters really imo) loves his sister, would never seriously consider killing her in contrast to anime!Light who is very ready to say 'Sayonara Sayu Yagami' via murder and would've done so if it wasn't self-incriminating.
As you can see manga!Light is far superior to anime!Light. If you've stuck around to read this post to the end (a) I love you & (b) I hope you have a fantabulous day!! <333
there’s this idea people float around abt how kaworu stagnates shinji. how he exists as a form of regression, of returning to being wanted without giving anything back, of being too coddled. it’s often used as an argument for why kawoshin being “healthy” isn’t necessarily true, or to claim that evangelion’s thesis is “receiving unconditional love will stagnate you in the oral stage and that’s bad so therefore you must work to earn love and affection”
i don’t think either of these statements are correct. for the first, i think it’s important to note that shinji does undergo a very significant character change with kaworu: he opens up and thinks about his feelings and thoughts honestly, to another person no less. it’s subtle, even insignificant, but it’s an incredible point of growth for someone who we’ve otherwise seen paralyzed at the mere concept of burdening others with his own existence. and here he’s opening up to someone he views as higher, better than him; someone he genuinely loves and respects.
kaworu does inspire change in shinji (as well as rei) but does so though his own blinding yet ever patient and gentle honesty. the rebuilds themselves focus even more heavily on this aspect of kaworu, where he teaches shinji piano and instills in him a desire to improve at this new skill and pulls shinji a little out of his depressive funk. he’s gentle, encouraging, but forward and confident enough to push shinji out of his comfort zone yet change at a pace he’s comfortable.
and kaworu is never 100% supportive of shinji’s actions either: he literally criticizes shinji’s hedgehog dilemma in the bath scene (though shinji seems to be too dumbstruck to know what’s going on). in any case the reason why kawoshin isn’t healthy is moreso because qworu needs to quit being shinjipilled and learn self-worth/self-preservation.
in terms of the second statement, evangelion does make the argument that in order to receive the love, affection, and attention we need to survive, we must change ourselves by putting our walls down and working to build those connections even at the cost of feeling pain.
but i think it’s a mistake to say “unconditional love causes stagnation.” what i think evangelion’s argument actually is is “shielding yourself from any pain causes stagnation.”
gendo is stagnant, lost in yui’s past and afraid of the pain he’ll receive from shinji. ritsuko is stagnant, afraid of not being enough for her mother/gendo. asuka stagnates, unable to process her trauma. shinji stagnates when he chooses options that he believes wont burden him with the judgement of others. unconditional love only stagnates a person if it’s used as escapism from pain
in fact, i think one of evangelion’s primary theses is that love—yes even unconditional love—is supremely important for existing because it drives us to improve ourselves by helping others, by proving ourselves to others.
when asuka realizes her mother is in eva02, she immediately comes alight and we see her at her most asuka, at her most powerful. rei defies gendo because she loves shinji. misato dies saving shinji because she loves him and kaji. hyuga hacks into seele because he loves misato, fuyutsuki socializes and grows to be a leader thanks to yui, maya becomes a better programmer because she wants to help ritsuko—love drives people to improve themselves
kaworu is the words “i love you” and perfection. he’s introspective, blindly honest, but kind, gentle, nurturing, and he inspires change and improvement. despite seele hoping he literally evolves humanity, kaworu evolves humanity by reveling in what makes us human and cherishing it.
One of my pet peeves is when someone says "if you don't like x character, you don't understand them." I just don't like this x character because I do understand them and don't care.
That being said, if you hate Sasuke, I'm going to assume that you don't understand him, that you are susceptible to propaganda, that you can't stand to see an imperfect victim trying to get some justice, and that you have not had an original thought in your life.
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Just saw a video of a lady saying trans women aren't women, just people pretending to be, and defining womanhood based purely on biology markers like having a period. Man, I really fucking hate TERFs. Lady, you are not slick with your transphobia. And she has some other bad takes, too, that she calls hot takes. People call "hot takes" to either say the most lukewarm shit or to just be blatantly wrong, malicious, contrarían and stupid. She used a very "poetic" speech in her video to explore issues some women face, which could have been nice if she didn't immediately use it to be transphobic. Just because something is said in a pretty way and embellished to be blurry doesn't mean it's not bad.
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as someone who has recently read the reckoning of roku, it’s really not the anti fire nation propaganda that a certain subsection of fandom is making it out to be. yes, gyatso says those words to roku, but he’s angry - at both the world and at himself for the death of his sister. he later apologizes to roku. the book does not paint gyatso out to be in the right, and neither does it paint all fire nation citizens to be in the wrong. the narrative even makes a distinction between the good fire nation citizens (ta min and roku) and prejudicial fire nation citizens (sozin, primarily), and some morally ambiguous ones like dalisay, but they’re more or less abolished from any accountability for partnering with sozin.
avatar the last airbender does not do a good job at displaying much of the context associated with the crimes of the fire nation, aka the climate and perspectives that justified sozin eradicating the air nomads and many of the benders in the southern water tribe. we know from avatar that sozin wanted to conquer the rest of the world for fire nation domination and expansion, but we’re not given much insight into the causal factors that allowed him to conduct genocide and colonialism, beyond “he was able to do it all in one day with the power of the comet,” and “he was a very bad man.”
the reckoning of roku provides the context for all of that, the factors that contributed to sozin’s blood-thirst. which means seeing sentiment from sozin that view the air nomads - and their pacifist ways of life - as inferior and below human. the novel doesn’t particularly attempt to humanize sozin, not in the way that other medias do when exploring the backstory of their villain. at the end, the takeaway from the novel is that sozin is on the road to becoming the ultimate fascist we all know him for, but this time we’re provided more context into how he became that fascist, and why roku hesitated to kill him.
is it more critical of the fire nation than most of the franchise? yes, i would say so, and having a filipino author be the one to offer that commentary is an excellent decision by avatar studios. but the extent of the critique is still more or less along the lines of “this one guy was truly the operations behind it,” which is still consistent with what we’ve seen in atla. there’s nothing too radical introduced in terms of colonial theory, unlike what parts of the fandom are saying.
which leads me to my final point: if this is how badly a subsection of fandom (aka fire nation worshippers and zutara shippers [not mutually exclusive]) are reacting to the simple notion exploring how sozin committed genocide, then they’ve hit further rock bottom than i can imagine. not only that, but this type of reactionary behaviour risks alienating other parts of the fandom; for instance, fans of the avatar novels who otherwise would have given the ship and the shippers grace.
in other words, many of these hardcore shippers “criticizing” the roku novel have no one to blame but themselves if their behaviour leads to the alienation of regular fans. this loud subsection of fandom is so caught up in their one-sided, imaginary fantasy where everything in the franchise somehow revolves around aang/kataang vs zuko/zutara, that the Evil Bryke are always targeting them, to the point that they’ll fail to realize that the fire nation and fire nation characters are often absolved from accountability across the IP, and the fire nation is explored much more than the other nations are.
It’s hilarious when other Katara or Zuko subshipping fandoms say things like “why can’t we just get along with the Zutara shippers!!!”
Do you honestly, earnestly believe that they want to get along with you?
Do you genuinely believe that, had Zutara been canon, they would have been okay with Katara and Zuko being shipped with other characters?
I’ve seen the ZK fandom get into arguments with Kataang, Maiko, Zukka, Azutara, Jinko, Zukaang, and rarepair shippers. Clearly, there’s a common denominator. I’ve seen ZK shippers preach fandom etiquette the minute someone makes a harmless post in their tag that isn’t even hate, just a slightly different opinion than the default “Zuko and Katara should have ended up together and had lots of babies!” All the while pretending to turn a blind eye when their shippers harass anyone who doesn’t churn out content of their ship. Or worse, these BNFs contribute to said harassment.
They’re not interested in getting along with you so that we can all achieve some type of fandom harmony the way you would like us to be in. ATLA fandom could never achieve that goal, and it’s precisely because Zutara shippers want their voices to be the default, the loudest in the room, to cease any and all other interpretations that do not align with theirs.
