Fanfic / Codes And Geass: Embracing Your Inner Megalomania

Codes And Geass: Embracing Your Inner Megalomania is a Code Geass Self Insert fanfiction on Questionable Questing. The first season (R1) finished in December 2018, and the second season (R2) began in March 2019.

The local god has randomly decided to toss the writer into the role of one Lelouch Lamperouge . . . the resulting being has the memories and traits of both, including the author's knowledge of canon. Sure, he can Set Right What Once Went Wrong for a while, but before long the butterflies start piling up.

This story is also uploaded on FFN and AO3.

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Codes And Geass: Embracing Your Inner Megalomania provides examples of:

• Actually Pretty Funny: Cornelia tends to actually enjoy Zero's flirting and odd sense of humor, if only for the uniqueness of it, such as declaring he would "hit [her] ass like an airstrike".
• Adaptational Sexuality: Trollouche is bi and fine with it, as evidenced by his relationships with CC, Kallen, and Suzaku
  • Suzaku is also bisexual, given his relationships with Euphemia and Lelouch.
  • Nunnally is lesbian in this story, having a Bodyguard Crush on Alice Hargreaves.
• Affectionate Nickname: Trollouche used to call Euphemia "Pinky Princess" when they were younger. His using it again when they find each other warms her heart. Though he also uses it when he's exasperated with her antics.
• All According to Plan: There is a lot of scheming going on in Area 11.
• All There in the Manual: There are comments between chapters containing information about the backstory and in-universe history, often narrated by the various characters from the story.
• Arch-Enemy: Contrary to canon, it is Schneizel el Britannia, not Emperor Charles, who has Trollouche's undying hatred. However, Charles is the one person Trollouche considers as his true equal in the world.
• Arc Words: The Divine Ambition. This term is mentioned by various characters in reference to Trollouche. The term is finally explained to Kallen as the Audience Surrogate by the man himself near the end of R1. Quote, "To spit in the eye of God. To do what no man has achieved before. To rule the world," unquote.
• An Arm and a Leg: Kusakabe has all of his limbs torn off, as part of his Cruel and Unusual Death.
  • Ohgi loses his left arm in the failed Siege of Tokyo. Luckily, Rakshata's other speciality of medical cybernetics means he gets a replacement shortly thereafter.
• The Atoner: Joseph Fennette. His work for Code-R was reluctant at best, however witnessing other dissenting scientists being turned into Human Resources had forced him to stay quiet. Thus, when being captured by the Black Knights allows him a chance to make up for his deeds, without putting his family at risk, he immediately goes for it. Troullouche even compares it to the idea of penance.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: The author, and thus Trollouche (by dint of being part SI), has a pretty strong case of ADHD.
• Badass Cape: It's Code Geass; even the giant robots get capes. Though one of the readers comments that Zero's cape doesn't make sense in how it fits and thinks it's non-Euclidean.
• Badass Creed: 天下布武 (Tenka Fubu) (roughly "Spread military rule across all under Heaven"), the war maxim and Badass Creed of Trollouche's predecessor, Oda Nobunaga himself, now the creed and Battle Cry of the Black Knights.
• Berserk Button:
  • Trollouche has SEVERAL. Mostly related to his past, justice, and Britannia. Interestingly enough, Charles zi Britannia himself is NOT one of these; while Trollouche certainly hates him, it's not something that he will fly off the handle about, unlike canon!Lelouch.
  • Never insult Darlton's adoptive sons. According to Cornelia, he's beaten several officers unconscious for doing so.
• Big Entrance: Trollouche and CC crash the SAZ inauguration in the Gawain while singing O Fortuna as a duet. Doubles as a Genius Bonus Stealth Insult toward Schneizel and Britannia as a whole, for its themes about impermanence and the fickleness of fate.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Britannian Royal Family. What's worse is that they are actually aware of it yet don't care.
• Bilingual Bonus: Kanji are frequently used for titles and some speech, though there'll usually be an English translation right after.
• Blood Knight: Trollouche has shades of this.
• Blowing Smoke Rings: Cornelia does this on the occasions she smokes cigars, something she picked up from Marianne, who was able to puff out small clouds and hit the "bull's-eye" in the ring.
• Bodyguard Crush: Alice for Nunnally. Arguably Kallen and Suzaku for Trollouche as well. And, Cornelia for her mentor Lady Marianne, who gladly reciprocated.
• Breaking Speech:
  • Trollouche hands out some pretty epic ones. The writer has joked that this might be his actual Geass, rather than Absolute Obedience.
  • As Nunnally proves when she rips Cornelia a new one following the siege of Tokyo? It runs in the family.
• Break Her Heart to Save Her:
  • Played with. Trollouche confronts Nunnally about her willing ignorance and hypocrisy, precisely because he believes she's stronger than that, and because he isn't willing to lie to her. The resulting argument, though painful, causes Nunnally to confront some truths about the world and herself and OPEN HER EYES.
  • Played painfully straight when Trollouche breaks Shirley's heart to ensure she gets the hell out of Area 11.
• Break Them by Talking: Trollouche tries this on Suzaku with the Geass command, "Be honest with yourself for one hour." It doesn't go well. But? In a huge divergence from canon, Suzaku's subsequent psychotic break ironically leaves him in a much healthier state of mind. Suzaku's behavior from that point in the story, despite his huge number of remaining issues, is still sadly an improvement over what he was like in canon.
• Brick Joke: During the operation to steal the Gawain, Zero and CC's banter over certain aspects of its design leads it to being semi-seriously declared a "flying codpiece". Several chapters later, that joke has caught on to the point that "Zero's (Flying) Codpiece" is now the Gawain's official Fan Nickname among the Black Knights.
• The Bus Came Back: In a rare villainous example, Kewell Soresi of all people comes back for the R1 finale… as a crazed cyborg piloting the Siegfried.
• Butt-Monkey: Ohgi, Asahina, and Chiba all are on Trollouche's shit list because he remembers who was responsible for the betrayal in canon. Ohgi appears to have made his way off of this as of Narita, much to Trollouche's pleasant surprise. The two Holy Swords are another story.
• Cain and Abel: Played straight with Trollouche and Schneizel, who are sworn enemies. Averted with Euphemia, who is more sympathetic to Zero's aims, and ultimately defects to his side. Played straight with Cornelia and Trollouche, though she's unaware of his identity at first. Finally averted in R2 after various people call out both of them for acting badly and hurting each other pointlessly. The first time they meet without the masks on, Cornelia finally buries the hatchet and commits full time to the Black Knights. In return, Trollouche apologizes for his brutal taunting during the Siege of Tokyo.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Averted with the main character and CC. Played straight with Kallen, who's blatantly in denial about her feelings. Subverted with Suzaku, because the Geass that Zero used on him appears to have made him more emotionally honest.
• Casual Kink: Trollouche and CC (so far) are very kinky at times. And judging by her reactions in the comments between chapters, Kallen has more than a passing interest in Shibari.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Lampshaded with Code Geass' resident superhuman, Suzaku. Nobody knows why his physicality is so ridiculous, it just is.
• The Chew Toy: Trollouche goes out of his way to provoke people he doesn't like, particularly Chiba and Asahina of the Four Holy Swords. YMMV as to whether he's justified in blaming them for the events of the original timeline or not.
• Chivalrous Pervert: The main character, very much unlike canon. One of the first things he said to CC was a comment on how nice her ass was. She found it hilarious.
• Composite Character: Trollouche is a mix of canon!Lelouch and the author himself.
• Cruel and Unusual Death:
  • Kusakabe is literally torn limb from limb, before being beheaded with his own sword.
  • Atsushi Sawazaki is executed by being boiled to death in a cauldron of oil, in a deliberate homage to Ishikawa Goemon.
  • Anyone who argued with Prince Clovis against Code-R received such a death, such as a man who was covered in animal fat and locked in a room filled with rats.
• Cruel to Be Kind: Trollouche's modus operandi for why he's so hard on people he cares about: it's so they can stand up TO him and survive the battles to come.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Invoked by Trollouche regarding CC. According to her, it comes with the territory when managing megalomaniacs.
• Darker and Edgier: Subverted subtly. The story is darker at times, but as the writer has pointed out, most of those are things that are drawn from real-life history, or can easily be extrapolated logically. Essentially, details that the original series' rating didn't allow it to explore are left uncensored here.
• Dark Messiah: Subverted. Trollouche explicitly embraces the darker aspects of being a messiah, unlike canon!Lelouch who tried to keep them under wraps. This version of Zero took up the mantle of the Buddhist King of Hell and is very upfront about performing evil acts for the sake of the greater good.
• Deadpan Snarker: Suzaku and Kallen take turns vying for the part.
• Deal with the Devil: Diethard Reid says this verbatim after being "recruited" at gunpoint by Zero. Subverted in that he not only doesn't care, he's excited for the opportunity.
• Defector from Decadence:
  • Upon realizing the failure that the SAZ would've ended up being, Euphemia gives out a speech that can basically be summed up as openly defying Britannia and begging Zero to save her people from themselves and the ideology of her Father. Cornelia does not take it well.
  • As of R2 Interlude 8, Cornelia and the Daltons have jumped ship to the Black Knights as well.
• Demoted to Extra: Rolo was effectively a main character during the events of R2. Here, he's offhandedly mentioned to have been killed during a confrontation with C.C. and Iah'bahad. Word of God is that there were originally bigger plans for Rolo, including his own character arc, but due to scheduling issues it had to be cut.
• Determinator: Joseph. Bloody. Fenette. The man goes above and beyond to redeem himself for the sins of the Code-R program.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • Even with the author's knowledge, there's still stuff that might be altered from what he knows...
  • Schneizel backed the SAZ, because he thought that any response Zero could make would only weaken him. His discovery after the fact that the crazy SOB actually had a third option to take is this trope in spades.
  • NOBODY saw Kewell fucking Soresi coming back, let alone taking Jeremiah's place as a cyborg or the Siegfried's pilot.
• The Diva: CC is a woman of class and refinement. And, rarely for this trope, is an ACTUAL diva, because she's had a long and illustrious career as a world class operatic diva.
• Domestic Abuse: Trollouche strikes CC across the face several times at one point. However, the situation is complicated by WHY he does it – namely, CC's prior abuse of Mao.
• Door Stopper: 112 chapters and counting.
• Dragged into Drag: Trollouche, much like his canon counterpart, is absolutely gorgeous in feminine dress. The only difference is that he doesn't actually mind it, so long as he's not being pressured into it by people like Milly. Unfortunately, he looks and sounds just like his mother, Empress Marianne, when he's acting as a girl, a fact that absolutely horrifies Milly and Nunnally the first time he does it.
• The Dreaded: Zero's reputation is grim enough that even some Japanese people are terrified of him. And despite not appearing in the story yet, Luciano Bradley's reputation as the Emperor's hatchet man makes people terrified.
• Easy Logistics: Averted. Not only do the Black Knights make raids for supplies, they bring checklists in order to make sure they get exactly what they need rather than just grabbing stuff at random.
• Ethical Slut: Trollouche and CC. They not only had sex after saving Suzaku, they're sharing the harem that's popping up.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Schneizel is quite composed and collected most of the time. But even he has limits to his patience and self control. Dealing with VV and being forced to inform Cornelia of her demotion in favor of Luciano Bradley following the siege of Tokyo clearly has put him on his last nerve.
  • Charles may be launching a world war to enact the Ragnarok Connection, but even he cannot stomach Luciano Bradley. The only reason he hasn't had him drawn and quartered is because Luciano is too useful an asset to let die. That doesn't mean he won't severely torture him though. After learning Luciano had kidnapped and raped Kallen for 10 days, Charles had him flogged until his back was bloody, and ordered Kallen not be touched further, even apologizing to Kallen for what she suffered, much to her bemusement. However, by direct word of the author himself, the only reason Charles intervened was because it was Kallen.
• Everyone Can See It: CC has Trollouche by the balls and is practically his wife. To that the point that even Nunnally calls her the Queen of Hell. Subverted in that Trollouche more or less acknowledges it yet doesn't particularly care. Averted as of the end of R1, when Lelouch proposes to CC, and following his incapacitation at the hands of the Siegfried, CC is now openly calling herself his wife.
• Eviler than Thou: Trollouche plays up this image, but he's really on the side of justice, or so he says.
• Evil Laugh: It's Code Geass, it's practically required by physics. Although CC will be sure to smack Trollouche if one of his goes on for too long.
• Expy: Trollouche is starting to look like one for the last guy who held his self-claimed title... and recently in-story, he's been compared by Tohdoh to the infamous "Falcon of Darkness" himself, Griffith.
  • Out of story, he's been compared to Baron Klaus von Wulfenbach as well.
• Eye Scream: Senba loses an eye in the Siege of Tokyo.
• Fake Memories: Charles zi Britannia erases the memories of Lelouch, Nunnally, and the Black Knights from the minds of Rivalz and Milly after the Battle of Tokyo, though not before leaving a message for Zero whom he expects to retrieve them. Nina escapes this fame by mere chance of being overlooked while hiding in a closet.
• Forged Message: The scroll Trollouche got from Kyoto to let him assume command of the JLF? A forgery, albeit one done with the willing aid of Taizo and Kaguya. Trollouche reveals the deception to Tohdoh shortly before the Siege of Tokyo.
• Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: Several comments on QQ have been responded to by the author using the characters themselves. Which also serves as outside character information.
• From Bad to Worse: At the start of R2, the Black Knights are demoralized and wounded from the Siegfried's rampage and Zero's downfall. How can it get worse? Enter Prince Schneizel, who orders the entire city bombed and shuts down the Lancelot in midair.
• Generation Xerox: The change in personality that effectively created "Trollouche" has actually resulted in him being a lot more like both of his parents, compared to canon. CC has remarked that his Blood Knight tendencies and high sex drive, however, are traits "clearly inherited" from his mother Marianne.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Trollouche and CC are unrepentant potheads, and occasionally get others in their group to join in. Meanwhile, Cornelia smokes cigars, a habit she had picked up from her idol Empress Marianne. Given that Code Geass takes place in approximately the 1960's, however, and with a very different culture, smoking doesn't have the same stigma attached to it.
• Guy on Guy Is Hot: Suzu and Lulu get hot and heavy at times. Much to the delight of Milly, Kaguya, CC, and possibly Kallen. Also according to CC, she and Marianne used to watch gay porn together.
• Heavy Metal:
  • Trollouche is a huge fan of the genre. (This is a case of Author Appeal, as the writer freely admits to being a metalhead.)
  • And now he's gotten Kallen hooked on it, as well.
  • And apparently the Darlton boys (a.k.a. the Glaston Knights) are fans as well, having complimented Zero's "good taste" following a battle where he had flooded the comms network with music.
• The Hedonist: Anyone who is Britannian or C.C.; Cornelia even admits it's part of their culture for threesomes, swinging, and other forms of sexual pleasure. It's only because of their current governing system that Britannia can't be considered an ethical hedonist state.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Trollouche indulges in this occasionally, largely due to stress. Suzaku is far more prone to it. However, this is not played for laughs and taken deadly serious in-story, due to awareness of Suzaku's unstable mental state and suicidal tendencies.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: The author is a trained swordsman in an unnamed school of swordsmanship, thus Trollouche is a skilled swordsman. Albeit not enough to defeat true masters like Tohdoh or CC.
• Hidden Depths:
  • After having a sit down with Tamaki, Trollouche comes to realize he's not actually that stupid, he tends to just be very blunt and lacks a filter. He's also very streetwise, and while it may take him a second to put the pieces together, he actually can figure things out on his own. He was also apparently a Student Council member in High School, but also worked as a bartender, pot dealer, and helped get his classmates things they needed. Learning this gets Trollouche to consider him a gold mine and elevates his position in the Black Knights.
  • Diethard used to be a lot more idealistic and believed in using journalism to propel the truth. After meeting Edward R. Murrow however after a lecture, he came to learn the truth about Britannia's stance on journalism, that it's just a Propaganda Machine, and that those who try to speak the truth are silenced, aided by his later learning Murrow died in a fatal car accident that same year and fearing he may have been Killed to Uphold the Masquerade. After years of being forced to propel Britannia's Bread and Circuses, Diethard truly just wishes to see a new and magnificent world. Trollouche uses this to gain his loyalty like in canon, but unlike there, this time it's Undying Loyalty under threat of death should he break from the path of justice, Diethard openly comparing it to a Deal with the Devil... and he couldn't be happier.
  • As the Cardemondes are a business family and not nobility, Rivalz is attending Ashford on a scholarship, hence his part-time work as a bartender. He also doubles as a drug dealer with anything outside of Refrain, and isn't blind to the injustices of Britannia. So when Trollouche is forced to spill the beans to him after he's kidnapped by Mao, Rivalz ends up becoming another contact of Tamaki's for drug trading.
    • Rivalz later admits that he actually was nobility at one point, until his parents divorced when he was five and his mother took him with her. He even considers himself to have gotten the better deal out of it, considering how much of an asshole his father was.
• High Times Future: Due to different cultural mores, there is no stigma on drug use of any kind, with the sole exception being Refrain, which is largely marketed to Numbers and people down on their luck – the primary reason for the exception being the horrific and crippling nerve damage resulting from habitual Refrain use. Zero goes out of his way to put hits on Refrain dealers and destroy their stockpiles, while making sure evidence implicating their backers in the upper echelons of society makes its way to Princess Euphemia.
• Hollywood Cyborg: Shows up considerably more than in canon. Besides the canon Code-R, the damage that Trollouche suffers in the failed Siege of Tokyo requires him to have his entire nervous system replaced, and the research done in order to facilitate this ends up unlocking the technology for Brain/Computer Interface.
• Honor Before Reason:
  • The Yamato Alliance refuse to listen to Trollouche when he tells them they'll die if they pursue Cornelia's forces rather than retreat. Appropriately, they're wiped out to the last.
  • The commanding officer of Akihabara Base decides to destroy the entire base, rather than let the Black Knights capture it. Cornelia is furious afterwards, as Zero wouldn't have had the forces to hold the base once captured, and the infrastructure itself was far more valuable than all of its contents, major supply depot or not.
• Hope Bringer: Trollouche is this in a deconstructed manner for CC. CC's many contractors, including Trollouche's predecessor Nobunaga, never knew CC in as intimate a manner as Trollouche does, thus CC is worried that she will be hopeful again about living a life which she can enjoy only to have it taken from her once again. Hope Is Scary, indeed.
• Idiot Ball: Defied. The writer has insisted that no Idiot Balls will be thrown out, aside from those unavoidable in canon, such as Clovis's piss-poor tactics in Shinjuku.
• Infectious Insanity: The reason that the Royal Family's insanity can't even be explained by inbreeding is that anyone who marries into the family is either already insane themselves, or were else already on the knife's edge and marrying into the family had them gleefully jumping off the edge of that cliff.
• In Spite of a Nail: The Black Knights' attack on Tokyo still fails, due to the sudden appearance of the Siegfried, and Zero still disappears for around a year afterward. The only differences are that Jeremiah isn't the Siegfried's pilot, and Zero's absence is due to being left comatose from his injuries (plus the rehab period once he recovers), rather than being captured and Geassed.
  • Jeremiah still becomes a Hollywood Cyborg, however this time it is at his own insistence, in order to act as a testbed for the technology needed to revive Zero.
  • Suzaku still becomes the Knight of Seven, however here it was not by his own choice.
• Insult of Endearment: Trollouche and CC do this to each other often. She calls him "Asshole", he calls her "Bitch Tornado".
• Intimate Psychotherapy:
  • Averted and played with. Suzaku is better, but still horribly screwed up despite the sex that Trollouche and CC are having with him.
  • Averted once again in Interlude 15, Suzaku finds out he is loved by both Lelouch and Euphemia who are more than alright in sharing him with each other, as well as being involved with each other, however his loyalties are still torn and Euphemia still believes that there can be a peaceful resolution, a delusion even Nunnally has woken from.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Zigzagged. Trollouche can be kind of a bastard at times, but Code Geass Earth is not a nice place, and he's ultimately working toward a better world.
• Large Ham: This is a Code Geass fic; the characters are contractually required to be as hammy as possible.
• Let's Wait a While: Kallen asks this of Trollouche, part of it is that she is somewhat reluctant to let down her guard in intimate moments; Trollouche agrees and will ensure that CC knows of it too.
• Little Miss Badass: Though she hasn't shown it directly, Alice is implied to be a skilled combatant by several people, who wonder where she acquired such abilities. Turns out she's the niece of a retired OSI Lieutenant Colonel, SD Robert Snake Plisskin.
• Living Legend: Taizo Kirihara proclaims Zero to be this upon their meeting.
• The Mad Hatter: It is becoming increasingly obvious that Trollouche actually IS insane and doesn't particularly care about hiding it.
• Mangst: Trollouche suffers from a massive guilt complex over the events of the original timeline, which he views himself as responsible for, and is inferred to have given him PTSD. Subverted in that he isn't as stoic about it when he's in private.
• Mind Rape: Charles' Geass still lets him mess with people's memories, but the more the new memories go against the person's being, the more likely they are to be tortured by it. Most evident with Suzaku and Kallen.
  • Suzaku is made into his Knight of Seven, a Char Clone with only one purpose in life: killing Zero for murdering Euphemia. He has no memory of Trollouche, Kallen, C.C., anything really, and when Kallen sees his face beneath the mask and hood, his eyes are bloodshot, and in Bismarck's own words, he's nothing more than a Living Weapon now.
  • Kallen has her identity as a Kozuki erased, now being solely Kallen Stadtfeld, a stereotypical ojou in the making and Vice-President of Ashford's Student Council. Marianne herself points out that after what Luciano did to her and how ingrained her Japanese heritage is in her, to use his Geass on her would likely require Charles rewriting her entire being extensively, so they only did just enough to keep her out of the way until Trollouche could come to save her. As such, despite being Geassed, Kallen regularly feels like something is wrong, and nearly has a mental breakdown when C.C. comes to save her.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Kallen states this trope verbatim after Trollouche accidentally makes her realize why her mother chose to stay in the Stadtfeld house as a maid.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: 大六天魔王 (Dairokuten-Maou), the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven. Trollouche claims this title after the Lake Kawaguchi incident. Both as a symbol of his ideals, and as an emblem of terror and inspiration.
• Necessarily Evil: Trollouche recognizes that many of his actions are evil. He just feels they're necessary to accomplish his goals in the service of a greater purpose, much like canon!Lelouch spoke about with his "Paradox of Evil".
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Joseph Fennette has this deliberately inflicted on him, primarily to made it look as though he had lost his memories of Code-R by being caught in the Narita avalanche, but also due to his status as The Atoner. Trollouche, in particular, likens this to the idea of penance.
• Nostalgia Filter: Deconstructed, the Britannian oppression of the Japanese left the populace with rose-tinted glasses about Japan, but Kallen and Kaguya realize that in some parts it were no better than the former, especially in its treatment of women, especially so in the nobility.
  Fuck Old Japan.
• Old Master: CC, surprisingly enough, fits this trope as it's revealed she not only has centuries of warfare experience, but that she is the one who trained Marianne "the Flash" vi Britannia.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Some of the other resistance groups were stealing food and medical supplies from helpless civilians. Does Trollouche put up with this crap? HELL NO. See also: the treatment he gave Clovis right at the start, and the later execution of Kusakabe during the Hotel Kawaguchi Incident.
• Pet the Dog: Charles says he would have been proud to consider Millicent as Trollouche's wife and that she was worthy of being called an Imperial princess, had Trollouche stayed in Britannia.
• Phrase Catcher: Trollouche gets called an asshole A LOT. He doesn't deny it.
• Politically-Active Princess: Nunnally is shown to have the potential for this, though she doesn't exercise it much. Kaguya Sumeragi, on the other hand, is a ruthless political operator and acts as the direct representative of Zero. And then, of course, there's Euphemia.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Darlton privately disparages Britannia's racism, citing that the Empire loses out on a lot of potentially outstanding soldiers by doing so, citing Suzaku as a perfect example.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Mao, with especial emphasis on "child". When he lost control of Geass at the age of six, the trauma it induced was so great that it stunted his emotional and cognizant development, to where he identifies more as a twelve-year-old despite being biologically 5-6 years older than that. In fact, he never saw CC as a potential lover or anything of that sort, but rather as his mother.
• Put on a Bus: Trollouche didn't just get put on a bus, he got tied to the back of a Greyhound and dragged down the road. His crash and burn from the failure of the Siege of Tokyo was so bad, he was out of action for three whole months. The Bus Came Back thanks to Rakshata's tech and CC engaging in a Battle in the Center of the Mind.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil:
  • Even just implying the idea of raping Princess Euphemia is enough to earn Kusakabe the miserable death he suffered.
  • Luciano Bradley partakes in raping numerous victims of his, but doesn't limit it to just them. He also subjects the Valkyrie Squadron, his own subordinates, to his vileness. Kallen is subjected to 10 Days of endless rape and torture after he gets his hands on her, an action that enrages Charles enough to order Bradley flogged as recompense and personally apologize to Kallen. Despite being ordered by Charles to not touch Kallen further, Luciano still forces her to watch as he rapes and kills Liliana Vergamon as she's helpless to stop him.
• Realpolitik: Referenced and utilized by various characters.
• Refuge in Audacity: Trollouche gets away with a lot of things, partially because of how brutally honest he is about what he wants and how far he's willing to go for it.
• Reluctant Psycho: Suzaku is very much mentally ill and aware of it, and depends on Lelouch, Euphie, and others to keep him on an even keel.
• Rousing Speech: Zero's speech-making is nigh-supernatural. Even his enemies like Cornelia acknowledge his incredible charisma and presence.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: First we've got Lelouch trying to bring down the empire he formerly hailed from, Cornelia defending said empire, and Euphemia trying to find a more peaceful solution to things... and of course, there's Charles and his plotting, somewhere in the background.
• Ruling Couple: Unlike canon, Trollouche treats CC as an actual equal, even making her co-second in command alongside Ohgi. This trope is what separates him from all of CC's other contractors, because he is the only one who ever treated her as an equal ruling beside him, rather than as a subordinate or accomplice. Which in turn leads to him figuring out CC's actual wish, which was to love and to rule.
• Screw Destiny: Canon? What's that? Trollouche will happily set fire to those bits of canon he doesn't like or won't turn out in his favor.
• The Scrounger: Tamaki turns out to have connections to the black market and other things, via his old buddies from when he used to deal pot and bartend.
• Self-Demonstrating Article: Trollouche
• Secret-Keeper: Thanks to a painting by the late Prince Clovis, Nina figures out who Lelouch and Nunnally REALLY are. She chooses to keep quiet about it out of friendship.
• Sex for Solace: Kallen does this for herself, finally having sex with Trolluche as a way to regain her sense of self-worth and remove her Internalized Categorism from being raped by Luciano Bradley. Acknowledging that doing it in a bed wouldn't help, she instead has them do it where she feels she has the most power, the Guren's cockpit while doing training maneuvers and it works. According to the Fourth-Wall Mail Slot, the maintenance crews found them the next morning still going at it, with Leoluch admitting that his new cybernetic prosthetics were all that were keeping him going.
• Shown Their Work: The writer has extensive knowledge about Japanese culture and the backstory of Code Geass, and it shows.
• Shout-Out:
  • During Lake Kawaguchi, Trollouche thinks of CC as his favorite bitch tornado.
  • Kallen is sometimes called "Kallen Kasshu", with Trollouche once deliberately taking the place of Master Asia in a simulated battle against her, the two even quoting the show as they fight.
• Shrine to the Fallen: Trollouche performs the most famous scene of Atsumori at the grave of Oda Nobunaga, located in the enormous graveyard of Okunoin on Mount Koya. (This is a real place and is located 100km roughly south of Osaka, which the author himself has actually been to. Likewise, Nobunaga was historically well-known to be an avid fan of Atsumori, the verse that Trollouche quotes even being the same one that Nobunaga famously recited during his death at Honnouji.)
• Sibling Incest: The likely conclusion to the more sexually liberal setting of the story added with the canon Incest Subtext. Although Euphemia and Cornelia are initially the only confirmed duo that commits the act. Later Trollouche and Euphie are added to the list.
• The Social Darwinist: Britannia, natch. But in a shocking twist from Canon, Trollouche himself is actually not against Social Darwinism as a concept; rather, he despises Britannia's execution of the idea.
• Spanner in the Works: Euphemia li Britannia. To the point where Trollouche himself is calling her this in the comments while rolling his eyes.
• Spin-Off: Taking place in the Middle East with a different main character, Laila of Arabia.
• invokedSquick: CC has quite a bit of fun telling Marianne all about her new lover and all the things he does to her, then informing her that it's Lelouch, Marianne's son.
• Succession Crisis: The Emblem of Blood in the backstory, which lasted 30 years and caused Charles and VV to begin their mad quest. And the main reason why neither they nor Schneizel will reveal Zero's identity once they figure it out/the thought occurs to them. Revealing that Lelouch vi Britannia, a prince even if exiled, has assassinated Clovis, would immediately start a new Emblem of Blood and throw the Empire into chaos. Something Schneizel considers as an unthinkable outcome.
• Supporting Harem: Hilariously subverted by the 'main' girl, CC, who states that it's HER harem too.
• Sword Fight: Trollouche convinces Tohdoh to support him by dueling him with shinai. It's also how Trollouche and CC finally settle the epic fight they had over CC's treatment of Mao.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Kaname Ohgi. Ohgi sadly has no grasp of Realpolitik or propaganda and questions most of Zero's more controversial (albeit necessary. from a pragmatic viewpoint) decisions. This is a source of immense frustration for Trollouche, who's trying not to just demote, fire, or outright kill him. Most of this is caused by Trollouche taking a much heavier hand in controlling the Black Knights and seizing control/killing other resistance groups.
  • General Katase. His broadcast in the middle of the Narita battle destroys the Black Knights momentum, costing them the battle. A fact that an outraged Zero plans to use to villify the JLF and ruin what's left of the organization.
  • Ohgi appears to have wised up abit, publicly backing Zero to the hilt in the Narita battle post-operation address. Time will tell if it sticks.
  • A general repeatedly commits lèse majesté by insulting Euphemia in front of both Suzaku and Cornelia. Unsurprisingly, he gets a bullet to the brain for his trouble.
• Took a Level in Badass: Trollouche starts working out at the gym, in order to make up for/fix Lelouch's canonically horrible stamina.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Played with. In order to help Joseph Fennette escape from his "employment" at Code-R in a way that doesn't put his entire family at risk, the Black Knights arrange to make it look like this happened to him – the amnesia itself is actually caused by CC very carefully using her Code on him to break up and scramble his memories.
• Troll: The main character, obviously; it's explicitly part of his Fan Nickname. CC is just as bad. Surprisingly, Suzaku is turning into one when it comes to Trollouche.
• Tsundere: Kallen, of course. To the point that it's CC's nickname for her. Though to be fair, Trollouche is a hilariously dickish troll to her at times.
• Undying Loyalty:
  • Trollouche inspires absolute loyalty among the Black Knights. Notably, not only is Tamaki one of the ones to draw a gun on a dissenter who threatens Zero at Narita (rather than being the dissenter himself), but all of the Black Knights get ready to attack the Four Holy Swords when Chiba makes an aggressive move against him.
  • It turns out Bartley Asprius really was that loyal to Clovis. To the point of threatening to shoot CC in the head when she insulted the man's memory, even as she was holding him up by the neck.
  • Jeremiah, unsurprisingly. The difference between his canon self and this version is chalked up to Trollouche grabbing him much earlier, and naming him his Knight of Honor alongside Sayoko. He even volunteers for a version of the cyberization he underwent in canon, this time to provide research data to save Trollouche after the failure of the Siege of Tokyo.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: C.C. treating Mao, who is biologically in his late teens, like a child. Justified, however, as most key members of the Black Knights have been told the bare bones about Mao's condition.
• Uriah Gambit: Asahina's role during the Battle of Tokyo, sent to take out the city's anti-air defenses. Unusually for this trope, Zero not only openly admits to pulling this (as both men already knew that Asahina was on his shit-list for conspiring with the Chinese), but also admits that, while still dangerous, the odds aren't actually so bad as to call it a suicide mission, and that Asahina has a decent chance of coming back alive. Unfortunately, neither of them counted on him encountering the Siegfried...
• Villain with Good Publicity: Played straight with Britannia and their citizens, given the nationalist fervor that is part of their culture, but outright defied with Zero who, though using propaganda and publicity for his own methods, cares nothing for the whims of the body public, and is actually outright contemptuous of pure populism. Quoth the man himself, "A Demon King does not bow to popular opinion. A Demon King is a symbol of fear, as well as hope."
• Villainous Breakdown: Cornelia collapses to her knees in tears, her poise and confidence completely destroyed, after Nunnally scourges her for letting her and Trollouche be exiled, and betraying her oath to protect them that she swore to their mother, Empress Marianne.
• Villainous Respect: Considering that the only reason Charles had Kallen released from Luciano Bradley's clutches was that she is Kallen shows that he and Marianne have this for the Ace of the Black Knights. In fact, according to Marianne herself, Suzaku being Geassed into the Knight of Seven was the backup plan; Kallen was originally the one slated for that role.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Shortly after the Siege of Tokyo ends, a few Black Knights catch a glimpse of Zero's face and attempt to kill him due to seeing his purple eyes and realizing that he's Britannian royalty. A furious CC turns into a screaming madwoman and tears them apart with her bare hands.
• Visionary Villain: Charles zi Britannia, obviously. But as in canon, Trollouche is technically one as well. Taken further with the latest reveal of his full ambitions.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Averted with Zero. He's not going to put up with petty infighting, so he's going around seizing control of various resistance groups and/or exterminating the ones who are a problem. This ends up backfiring on him later, as the lack of small fry to exterminate frees up Cornelia to attack Narita much sooner than Trollouche was expecting.
• What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Invoked by Kallen before the Akibahara raid… which turns almost immediately into a clusterfuck of nigh-Biblical proportions.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Trollouche was rather livid with CC for what her actions did to Mao. Namely the fact she was callous enough to give a child Geass to satisfy her death wish, then abandoned him when he couldn't go through with killing her.
  • A meta example occurs when this Euphie, noted to be a little more savvy than her canon counterpart, still attempts the SAZ.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Rather than chase after Zero at Narita, Cornelia instead calls in an airstrike. It only fails because of a risky bluff by Zero.
• Worf Had the Flu: Downplayed, while it's implied that Plissken would still have defeated Sayoko, she does much worse than she should have due to being in the beginning stages of her pregnancy with Jerimiah's child.
• Worthy Opponent: Cornelia considers Zero to be this, following his letter asking her to destroy the JLF for him; the sheer audacity of his request both amused and intrigued her. It also causes problems later when she blitzes Narita earlier than in canon. Unexpectedly, Charles himself considers Zero this, given his comments about kingship and Zero.
• World's Best Warrior: Unanimously agreed upon by everyone in-story to be Marianne vi Britannia. However, CC claims Kallen has the potential to reach that level.
• Would You Like to Hear How They Died?: Zero slams on this button, invoking his and Nunnally's supposed deaths, both to hurt Cornelia, and also to enrage her so that she'll make mistakes during the Battle of Tokyo.
• Written by the Winners: An unusually romantic example. As CC explains it, Marianne's royal surname, "vi Britannia", was explicitly chosen by Charles as being short for "victory", to signify that it was she (and Bismarck) who won the Emblem of Blood that put Charles in power.
• Yandere: It's not always apparent, but Trollouche is a bit of this, particularly when it comes to anyone hurting Suzaku.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Trollouche only calls Milly "Millicent" when things are dead serious.

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