YMMV / Code Prime

YMMV tropes for the Code Prime series

Tropes with their own pages:

• Hilarious In Hindsight

---

• Epileptic Trees: Some readers who still hope to see Superion show in in-story have come to the conclusion that Superion will be reformed by having another Autobot with an aerial alt-mode join the ranks of the Aerialbots after being subjected to the Enigma of Combination. General consensus is that it will be Windblade.
• Evil Is Cool: The fanfic provides what could possibly be one of the most successful iterations of the Decepticons period. This iteration of Megatron gives his Animated version a run for his money, posing to be an intelligent strategist meant to rival Lelouch. Aside from that, various fan favorites are also in the roster as well, and all prove to be rather strong fighters in their right. Their biggest claim to fame, where they manage to wipe a human empire off the map, is definitely a really big feat to behold.
• Friendly Fandoms: This work seems to be part of a trifecta of Code Geass crossovers/fusion fics with similar concepts and tropes thrown around: consisting of this, Code Geass: Paladins of Voltron and Code Jedi. Iron117Prime has commissioned covers and fanart for both fanfics, and all three authors of those respective fics seem to praise each other's work.
• Harsher in Hindsight
  • Taking note of Suzaku's behaviour and how he's a Foil to Optimus, it's hard to imagine how similar he is to Optimus' WFC incarnation, also characterized by his difficulty to accept his mistakes, having hesitance to execute certain people, and also dealing with a sorrowful Love Interest.
  • Playing Fall of Cybertron during the observatory scene is one thing, considering the events of Transformers Prime depicting it as a serene peaceful scene, with Prime not too hampering on the situation of Earth. Replaying the scene with the events of this story in mind only makes a peaceful scene much harsher; ultimately, the situation of the Code Geass Earth is just as, if not worse, than the situation on Cybertron.
  • During the SAZ Massacre and the Decepticon attack on Britannia, Soundwave mimicks the voice of Charles zi Britannia to order the Knight of the Round to kill off the Japanese, then uses this voice mimicry to bring all of the royals into Pendragon in order for them to fully witness the Decepticons slaughter their empire. All of this would slowly turn into real-life Nightmare Fuel with the advent of AI voice technology being more advanced than ever in the real world.
  • Everything that happens to humanity since Britannia's fall, with them being at the heels of the Decepticons and enslaved to serve only them is the exact kind of thing Sentinel Prime would have deeply wanted.
  • PRAISE BE TO DECEPTICON, the supposed Leitmotif of the Decepticons in Animated sung by JAM Project, features the last line in the final chorus foreshadow one of the biggest Wham Episodes of the fanfic:
  PRAISE BE TO DECEPTICON
  Grasp eternal life with those hands
  • The loving relationship between Suzaku and Euphemia which makes it to the endgame becomes this when it's revealed that his Japanese VA Takahiro Sakurai had an extramarital affair with another woman after it's revealed that he was married.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight
  • As listed in the original trope page, Relena served as the basis for both Nunnally and Euphie. This ultimately comes full-circle when they inherit her Character Development.
  • Overlapping with Hilarious in Hindsight below, the prominent Britannian family members all denounce Charles in his Dark Geass-induced vision, claiming that the Autobots would be a better family to them. Take a guess at what one of the core themes of the then-upcoming Transformers Earthspark is, which comes out not quite long after the conclusion of R1.
• I Knew It!: Readers had suspected that the fic’s version of Geass had originated from Unicron. The chapter The Origins of Geass in R2 would reveal them to be half right, for while Unicron didn’t create Geass, he did however, create the corruptive influence of Geass.
• Improved Second Attempt: The fic borrows elements from Worlds Collide (TMNT) and improves on them here.
  • Worlds Collide notoriously kills off the rest of the supporting antagonists from ATLA as soon as the Foot Clan takes hold of the narrative, effectively diminishing the antagonistic drive of the ATLA universe in the story and shifting it towards the TMNT world. The only ones still in by that time are Azula and Hama, though it's now the Foot's show. Code Prime, while it does kill off some minor villains, manages to keep more major villains from Code Geass alive and still give them some plans to do in the second cour even after the Decepticons take over. And even if much of the CG antagonists are already dead, the significant damage done by the heroes force the Decepticons to take the route pursued by the minor universe: unleashing Neo Ragnarok. This means that while the newer villains take over the story, the old villains still have some fight left in them.
  • Worlds Collide sets the ATLA universe after the events of Book 1: Water and into Book 2: Earth. This isn't necessary a bad thing, but the intention of the Turtles mentoring Aang somehow wouldn't feel connected to the story's beginning, especially since they just came and knew of the situation, leading to some Infodump from the Turtles' perspective. Here, the story begins at the very start of the Code Geass series proper, allowing the Autobots' mentorship to feel more natural and the canon to flow more naturally, and thus, much exposition is saved regarding the matter. Both J-WITCH and A Red Rose In the Blue Wind would follow this, the latter even using the same setup as Worlds Collide albeit starting earlier so as to follow Team RWBY and JNPR's character. The author even stated this in his reason for discontinuing Avengers of the Multiverse, preferring to start the story at the start of their character development.
  • The reason for Shredder attempting to take over the Fire Nation is merely "I cannot share power because I only rely on myself" which, while solid, feels more like a rather flat For the Evulz moment. Here, Megatron's motivations are more solid regarding his Pretext for War against Britannia: Charles had been planning the Ragnarok Connection behind his back for somewhat noble reasons, and Megatron, clearly not a fan of the motivation itself, decides to take over in his stead, even reworking Ragnarok in R2 to fit his overall vision.
  • While Worlds Collide massively shook the status quo by having the Fire Nation be usurped by the Foot Clan, the canonical endgame is still the same (defeating an oppressive force and restore the world to the heroes). Here, the canonical endgame for Code Geass is MASSIVELY changed due to the rise of the Decepticons, allowing for a more unpredictable and engaging story long after the midpoint.
• Les Yay: Nunnally and Alice's subtext carries over from Nightmare of Nunnally. In particular, R2 Chapter 30 where she mentions Alice is important to her, causing Alice to blush.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Did you seriously think Megatron would be out of the picture in R2 Chapter 29, with how much the narrative emphasizes how impossible it is for him to break out? Yeah, no. Next chapter shows it only took a week for Soundwave and Shockwave to get him out.
• Love to Hate: The Decepticons in this iteration embody Evil Is Cool to a complete extent. But Megatron in particular gets a tone of praise from the readers, from being the one calling out Suzaku on most of his wrongdoings and questionable morality, to being a worthy opponent for Lelouch for everything he's done throughout the story, down to the very destruction of the Britannian Empire itself. One could say that Megatron is the embodiment of the kind of person meant to represent the kind of person Zero Requiem is meant to host the world's hatred, the only difference being that Megatron actively relishes in it. It's because of these that Code Prime's Megatron is an archetypal Iron117Prime villain fitting the qualities to a T.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Airachnid already showed her true nature after what she did to Arcee, but Chapter 19 certainly tops it when she slaughtered dozens of Japanese civilians just out of boredom.
  • No one feels a shred of pity towards Mao when he receives a Fate Worse than Death after he nearly had Nunnally killed and expressed his intention to making C.C., Cornelia and Euphemia as his sex slaves.
  • Megatron crosses this when he engineers the SAZ massacre to prevent peace between the Autobots, Black Knights, and Britannia. The fact he uses a Pretender version of Euphie to do so just twists the knife even further.
    • He later finds new lows to sink to when he uses Marianne's own preserved corpse as a battery for the Dark Queen. Lelouch completely breaks down over this, Optimus is absolutely livid, and Marianne herself is completely horrified.
  • The SAZ massacre also counts as one for Dorothea Ernst, Luciano Bradley, and Bismarck Waldstein, as the former two take part in it without any hesitation or remorse, while the latter not only gives the order for the Britannians to participate in the slaughter but ignores the carnage in order to fight Optimus.
  • In the Demon and Dragon Cometh, Schneizel and the rest of the royals and nobility show how complete bastards they are when they make their intent clear to help Starscream in using Damocles base to wipe out a majority of the human race and allow the rest to fend for themselves in the soon-to-be wasteland.
• Older Than They Think
  • Megatron taking in the orphaned Suzaku is quite a new thing for some readers, however, this isn't the first time the Decepticons ever inducted humans into their ranks. In the Transformers Victory manga, Deathsaurus (who, despite hating humans, has an affinity for children) adopted the orphaned Solon and raised him into the Decepticon ideals. And just like Suzaku, Solon too turned against them thanks to convincing from the Autobots.
  • This isn't the first fanfic wherein the human protagonist of a Transformers crossover fanfic ascends to the rank of Prime. Code Prime's spiritual predecessor, Transfomers: Avatar Chronicles has its endgame entry in New Iacon Chronicles do the same for Korra, who turns into Korramus Prime. There's even a catalyst character who commits to a Heroic Sacrifice; in New Iacon Chronicles it's Rodimus Prime, and here, it's Marianne vi Britannia.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The author has said in several of his notes that he intends to improve on characters who were not well received by fans in Code Geass, such as Villetta, Suzaku, and Nina. As for the results:
  • Suzaku has been somewhat better received, both because there are more characters around in this story who call him out on how hypocritical he is and because he makes a Heel–Face Turn in Chapter 32, which the Autobots and Black Knights accept, though with shades of Forgiven, but Not Forgotten in play.
  • Viletta has yet to regain her memories, but her conscious decision as Chigusa to join the Black Knights as a way of making up for her crimes as a Pureblood are a step in the right direction, and warmly received by fans.
  • Shirley managing to talk down Nina did a lot to help both characters, with Nina further redeeming herself by being the one to suggest a method for how to contact additional Autobots to help in the upcoming war for Earth. Also, the lack of the Table-kun scene helps.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • Despite the Britannian Empire being A Lighter Shade of Black, many rather enjoy how often the Decepticons humiliate them or call them out on their hypocrisy and valuing social elitism and pedigree over actual merit. In fact, when the Decepticons wipe Britannia off the face of the earth, Laila is the only one who sheds a tear.
  • While Megatron is a sick piece of slag, no one actually minds when he brutally chews out Suzaku, deconstructing his entire character and lastly, blackmails him into compliance. Many fans including the writer actually enjoyed seeing Suzaku squirm.
  • As with Suzaku in Chapter 29, no one complained at Megatron completely dismantling Charles's hypocrisy and childish ideals in Chapter 34.
• Salvaged Story:
  • As R2 continued, many fans felt increasingly dissatisfied with Schneizel's performance, feeling that for someone touted as The Chessmaster superior to Lelouch, he seems to have much less success than his brother. The Reveal that he's planning to overthrow Megatron alongside Starscream, and is essentially using the heroes as a distraction against the Decepticon leader greatly alleviates this, throwing each 'loss' into a new light and setting the stage for whatever his true plan is. Even In-Universe, Cornelia is shaken to realise that their 'victories' against him don't matter to him in the long run, and Word of God outright stated his specialty lies in playing the Long Game. Even his eventual death in The Demon and Dragon Cometh was well accepted, as by this point his endgame had finally been revealed, and it helped cement Megatron as the ultimate villain of the story.
  • C.C. getting amnesia following her sealing Megatron in Shadowzone might generate some concern due to her positive Character Development throughout the story being somewhat wasted. Thankfully, Chapter 35 has Shockwave subject her to the Cortical Psychic Patch and even regains said memories in the process, thus making her development stick.
• Signature Scene: The battle between the Lancelot and Bumblebee in chapter 3 in R1. Not only is it the most remembered part of the series, its also the Establishing Series Moment, as it is the first time a sentient Mechanical Lifeform Transforming Mecha does battle against a Humongous Mecha.
• Signature Series Arc: The last chapters of R1 from the SAZ Massacre to the Decepticon invasion of Britannia, which evokes the feeling of a climax from the live-action movies series and the comic story All Hail Megatron.
• Spiritual Successor: Larger-scale battles, Fix Fic elements, Canon Welding, characters being spared or killed in the adaptation are all prevalent in the fic. Clearly, Iron117Prime wants to put Transformers into Super Robot Wars. It helps that Code Geass shows up often in various games, as well as the various Brave Series anime (which was developed thanks to Transformers). Adding to this is the fact that both T and 30 were released during the series' publication period, the latter including the series. To top it off, the game that predates the fic earliest, X, ironically had the Code Geass characters being the ones helping fix the story of Cross Ange (with Lelouch playing a significant role), as well as the presence of the Gundam Wing characters, which gets homaged in the story a fair amount (and coincidently shares its world with Code Geass in X's story).
  • Special points go to the Spared by the Adaptation factor. Euphie and Shirley are spared in Saisei-hen, but come with somewhat questionable methods. Euphie only appears at the end unexplained and requires a Golden Ending to do so. The same is true of Shirley's fate, requiring a set amount of points to ultimately spare her. Rolo dies both in-story and in Saisei-hen. After that entry however, most of the games featuring Code Geass never opt to start from the beginning and leave all three dead (although with 30 choosing the film continuity, this means Shirley is alive). And this would be the same series to follow through Rayearth's storyline through from beginning to end.
• Take That, Scrappy!: A big part of the reason that no one really objects to Suzaku having his ideals, methods, and actions deconstructed by Megatron in Chapter 29 is that he's still firmly in his R1 characterization, where he had an epic case of Never My Fault and Honor Before Reason.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Code Geass is known for having a large cast, so it's inevitable some would fall to the wayside. These are some of the more notable ones, either for seeming to be set up as important, or for being given less than in canon. By the events of Damocles Rises, it seems like many characters from the Expanded Universe were only brought in to serve as Cannon Fodder.
  • Despite being an Ensemble Dark Horse in his own series and his brother Dreadwing being a major character, Skyquake gets even less here than he did in canon, suffering Death by Origin Story on Cybertron. Making this worse is that he's posthumously revealed to have had a case of Adaptational Heroism, forgoing his Undying Loyalty for Megatron upon seeing him try to poison the core of Cybertron only to be fatally poisoned with Dark Energon, forcing Ratchet to give him a Mercy Kill when the Autobots found him, details that feel like they should have been explored in greater amounts, and would make for an interesting contrast with his brother who still had Undying Loyalty for Megatron until the end of R1, but are instead told about rather than shown due to his being long dead.
  • The Glaston Knights have even less time here than they did in the original series, being totally wiped out after only two battles. At least some fans have expressed annoyance that they died without any character development at all. Special mention goes to Claudio, who was the Sole Survivor in canon, yet here is one of the first to die. Their father doesn't fare much better, being unceremoniously killed during the Black Rebellion by an Insecticon.
  • Despite actually joining the Autobots this time, Dreadwing still dies shortly after, just via Heroic Sacrifice rather than being shot In the Back, not even getting the chance to face Megatron for Skyquake's death despite Megatron having a much more direct hand behind it here. Any potential in seeing him actually working alongside the Autobots or being able to bond with Suzaku, Euphemia, and Cornelia further is in turn wasted, made all the worse when Airachnid, who his sacrifice was partly meant to take out, ends up surviving anyway.
  • R2 would see many characters from both sides of the Expanded Universe included. Of these characters though, a good chunk of them, particularly from Oz, end up no better than mauve shirts.
    • In canon, the only member of the Asura Strike Force that dies was Johanne Fabius, Taking the Bullet for Ashley during the confrontation at Slonim, the others all joining Ashley in deserting Euro-Britannia and joining wZERO in living with the gypsies rather than remain in the war. Here, Jan Manes, Simon Mericourt, and Rene Laurent are all Killed Offscreen too, their deaths only being revealed after the battle was already over. And to add insult to injury, Ashley doesn't go on a revenge quest for them like he did in canon, and they're pretty much forgotten about after his offscreen Heel–Face Turn. The ones who survived, Kuzan Montoban, Alan Necker, and Franz Vallo, don't fare any better, all Killed Offscreen during Damocles Rises, which isn't even revealed until the following chapter The Demon and Dragon Cometh.
    • The beginning of R2 has the Decepticons taking care of the remaining Britannian forces, a point being made that Castor and Pollux rui Britannia surrendered and were made into pilots for the Dark Knights. Neither of them do anything of note before they are Eaten Alive by an enraged Grimlock.
    • Despite both Peace Mark and the Glinda Knights joining the Black Knight-Autobot alliance, only Orpheus, Wizard, Misty, Oldrin, Marrybell, and Toto have any significance. Schwarzer dies in his only appearance covering the rest of the Glinda Knight's escape, Zi Dien is killed by Bruticus, Tink is killed facing Devastator, and Leon and Marika are killed in the Damocles' attack. Sokkia and Ganabati meanwhile are heavily Out of Focus compared to their contemporaries.
    • Among the many Autobots that join during the timeskip, Prowl, Chromia, Hot Shot, Silverbolt, Air Raid, and Perceptor get little to do outside of fight scenes for the majority of them, Prowl and Hot Shot faring the best by getting some characterization. With the exception of Perceptor though, they're all dead by time of Damocles Rises, either killed in the attack by the Decepticons, or caught in the blast of the Damocles.
  • Rolo dies after only appearing in two chapters in R2, without ever interacting with anyone besides C.C. and Grimlock.
  • Early on in R2, it is mentioned that the Aerialbots can combine, but only Silverbolt and Air Raid have the ability, and the other three are missing. In the chapter "The Valley of Kings and Titans", the Black Wyverns obtain the Enigma of Combination, which turns their knightmares into combiners. This lead to many readers to anticipating the possibility of them fighting along the Aerialbot Combiner, Superion, but come the very next chapter, "Broken Walls", Air Raid is killed, thus meaning that Superion will not make an appearance, leaving many readers disappointed. And any chance of Superion being reformed using the Enigma of Combination took a significant hit when Silverbolt was fried in Damocles Rises.
  • Despite all of them surviving the Black Rebellion this time around, the Kozuki cell outside of Kallen, Ohgi, and Tamaki all end up dying with little fanfare throughout R2. Yoshida is offhandedly killed facing Springload in Nerves of Steel, while Inoue, Minami, and Sugiyama are Killed Offscreen in Damocles Rises, something that isn't even revealed until the following chapter The Demon and Dragon Cometh.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • A lot of readers felt that Mao should've met and allied with Airachnid, as both characters enjoy psychologically tormenting their victims and have very similar personalities.
  • While Chapter 32 has been generally well-received, there are some who feel that having Suzaku defect from the Decepticons along with Dreadwing rendered the scene in Chapter 29 where Megatron blackmails Suzaku into compliance, and by extension the entire subplot of him corrupting Suzaku into a "human Decepticon", completely pointless.
  • Readers who were wondering how the Ragnarök Connection may be connected to Unicron were disappointed with how Chapter 34 ended, namely Pendragon being destroyed along with its Thought Elevator and Charles Killed Off for Real by Megatron, completely discarding Charles's plan in the process. That, however, doesn't entail the mystery of what Megatron may do with it, now that he has knowledge of the entire ordeal. Fully mitigated with the reveal of "Neo Regnarok".
  • One of Ashley Ashra's bigger characteristics in canon was that he was A Father to His Men, nearly going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge after Johanne got killed defending him from Akito while refusing to drag the rest of his team down with him, and his first act after defecting from the military was to go protect them from Smilas. Here, with not only Johanne but Jan, Simon, and Renes all dying against the Autobots and Black Knights too, you think he'd have even more incentive to want revenge for their deaths than he did in canon. Instead, his role piloting the Ahuramazda is taken by Marrybell while he is Demoted to Extra, and since it was that incident that led to his Heel–Face Turn in canon, he instead undergoes one offscreen here, and never goes against the Autobots and the Black Knights, nor shows any outward display of anger at his comrades deaths after joining them.
  • Early on in R2, C.C. tweaks Suzaku's "Live" Geass so that he can turn it on and off at will. You'd think this would lead to him using his Geass in exciting and clever ways to gain an advantage in combat, but he gets hit with the Geass Canceller during the Iacon Relic hunt without using it beyond the initial showing.
  • After Megatron is trapped in the Shadowzone behind the Thought Elevators, Starscream and Schnitzel propose a new governance structure for the Cons in the aftermath. One where Scream would still head military affairs, but the other decepticon squad leaders would also have a voice in what strategies to use in the future. This idea would be interesting to see an evil council of sorts to preside over the weakened cons, and might be a good spot for some robot politicking or new character dynamics between cons who hadn't interacted yet. And yet, at the end of the chapter Megatron is pulled back out thanks to Soundwave and Shockwave. While not necessarily a bad plot, it seems like a wasted opportunity to create a new dynamic amongst the bad guys.
• Unexpected Character:
  • No one expected Megatron to use a Pretender to initiate the SAZ massacre, in part because they were never featured in the Aligned continuity.
  • Many fans were surprised at R2 bringing in Sky-Byte and T-AI, as well as Doctor Arkeville.
  • Colonel Madd's debut in the first chapter of R2 was surprising, as the author originally had no intention of using characters from Nightmare of Nunnally.
  • No one was expecting the Driller from the Michael Bay film series to be the Relic in Ghosts.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: While the author does acknowledge valid points both in favor and against Suzaku, him calling out Suzaku on not taking responsibility for killing his father rings somewhat hollow due to Suzaku being a child at the time, and it's clear he was extremely stressed out by the actions Genbu was going to undertake to resist Britannia. Additionally, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, as opposed to all the other faults he's called out on in the story, which are deliberate ignorance of the very real atrocities that he is complicit in. The sheer amount he gets dumped on can also wear thin on those who aren't so giddy about seeing his early character get knocked down. It takes until chapter 33 for people to finally start trying to build him back up and help him be better instead of just insulting him.

---