Drew a lil something of my fave girls from sports mangas, the blonde/brown trio :D (left to right: Hana Ichijo, Natsu Takasaki, Monami Suzuki), Colors are a little weird due to eyedropping from official pics lmao

The Legion (86) AKA how to make your villain terrifying

Even if you don't know about 86, please hear me out.

And obligatory spoiler alert down to the light novels.

I've been reading and watching 86 for a while now. I've seen all 2 seasons released as I'm writing this, and read up to volume 11, so I like to think I'm up to date.

A villain is a key part of a story, and 86, being a sci-fi military light novel, took a gamble by having machines- a "thing" with no personality to speak of to serve as the enemy. A villain with no personality might be boring to the reader and or have no charisma or sympathy, but 86 manages to avoid this trap. How? By making them horrifying.

But let's roll back and refresh memories, who are the Legion and where do they come from?

The setting of 86 happens on a single continent (as giant sea creatures stalled any sea navigations), and on this continent stood the Empire of Giad. A scientist, named Zelene, put together the concept for an automated unmanned force by taking an AI concept from the Kingdom of Roa Garcia, and the "spider tank" design from the Alliance of Wald, neighbors of the Empire.

Zelene wished that war would not involve the loss of human life anymore, and made the Legion as a replacement of humans for warfare. However, she implemented a single hard rules into their programming: No flying units, a restriction born from her own trauma of bombing raids.

Alas, the Empire started a war with their neighbors, but it also sparked a revolution within the Empire, which cornered the royal family, and in an attempt to defend themselves, activated the Legion to destroy any enemies that weren't the Empire. But they did not coordinate well with human soliders, and the revolution was successful with the (apparent) death of the royal family.

But the Legion was left behind, and with their masters dead, Zelene herself having perished, and the Empire fallen, they now stand as the enemy of all that is not the Empire: Humanity as a whole. By the time the story starts, the war had been going on for 10 years.

Sounds cliché? Understandable. But I've only told their origin, not their inner workings. Speaking of which...

The Legion had been programmed with another hard limit: a 50 000 hour limit. The Legion had been modeled after the human brain, and, were they to go rogue, this time limit was put on their programming to shut down once reached. The first country we follow, the Republic of San Magnolia, found out about this limit, and thus banked their entire victory on surviving passed that time limit.

Thinking their victory was assured, they focused their "war" more into committing genocide by proxy on their Colorata citizens than actually attempting to push the Legion back.

Info: in 86, race is determined hair, skin and eye color. The Republic only gave rights to Alban citizens (silver hair, silver eyes, white skin), and everyone else (The Colorata) had been booted to the 86th district. Ence the title. With luck, it's possible for an individual to inherit a "power" linked to their race from their bloodline. More on that later.

We're introduced to a country who took victory for granted. It's only when we see the 86's side that we get to behold the Legion in action.

They are composed of many different units, all bearing various names, all more of less insect like. The Ameise, small scout units, the Lowë, tank units, Eistaflage, butterfly like jammer units, Dinosauria, heavy tank units... I've barely scratched the surface. Thanks to the author, Asato Asato's deliciously detailed descriptions of the models, military and gun geeks can behold the firepower packing in those robotic insects.

But you're gonna tell em again, it's a freaking robot army. Where's the scary part? Well, let me put you in the mood for the first big revelation of the show.

Female Alban protagonist, Lena, an advocate for 86 rights and a Handler (gives orders to 86 via a sensory connecting device which by passes jamming, the PARA-RAID, which specifically shares auditory senses), connects to her squadron as the Legion launches an attack.

Male 86 protagonist, Shin, who has a reputation of making his Handlers want to quit out of fear of some curse, recommends Lena to not connect her senses to his, as they are "Black Sheep" among the Legion today. She insists, and he only says: "Don't say I didn't warn you."

This comes from a stoic child soldier, from a show that did not shy away from showing the audience the bloody horrors of war.

Everything starts as planned, until static worms itself into the communication. Lena realizes that it's not static she's hearing. It's words. Dying words.

<Mom> <I'm scared> <It's so hot> <It hurts> <Help me> <So cold>

Lena panics, sparing her the pain, Shin cuts the connection as one last echo sounds: <I don't want to die>

The same last words and voice as another 86 who perished earlier in the show.

Huge credit to the anime's delicious audio direction which made this scene pure nightmare fuel as dying wails whispers in the viewers ears. Absolute pants-pissing material. Horror movie shit right there.

This is what the Handlers were so horrified of, the voices of the dead echoing through the line. Oh boy.

After being haunted by those voices for a while, Lena calls back Shin for some well deserved explanation of what the fuck was that. And Shin drops on us why the Legion is a force to be feared.

Remember when I mentioned that some can inherit "powers" from their bloodline? Shin is a Pyrope (red eyes) and Onyx (onyx hair) mix. His Onix blood granted him superior physical capacities, as well as the skill of not making a sound when he walks. An indirect help to him becoming a great soldier. But the star of the show, the Pyrope blood, who are always linked to some kind of Telepathy, granted him the power to hear what he calls "Ghosts. Dead souls wandering this world."

Those dying screams were the Legions. And he hears them. All the time. Even hundreds of kilometres away, and in his sleep.

But you're gonna ask me: How the fuck can robots have human voices. Good question, Shin once again explains to Lena:

The Legion are modeled after the human brain, and made to fully autonomous: From constructing factories, to come up with tactics, etc. The Legion themselves are aware of the timer put upon them, and thus, sought a way to surpass it. And they found it. They decided to scavenge and copy the best neural system on this planet they had easy access to in the war.

Human brains.

The dying screams are those of the unfortunate soldiers whose heads were taken, their minds mimicked, assimilated by the machines forever stuck and repeating their moment of death on loop.

This right here, changes everything.

The Legion are not just machines. They directly stole the ability to think from dead humans, scavenging for corpses and brains to further their processing capacities.

You don't "die" to the Legion, you're TAKEN. The 86s carry guns with them into battle. But they're not to shoot the enemy, they're for themselves. They shoot their own heads off to escape the assimilation, and you get to see that practice more than once. Even after their death, Shin will walk to their corpse, and put a bullet in their brain. "I can't let them be taken." He justifies. Earning him the nickname of the kind and gentle Reaper.

But that's not all.

The so called time limit? It's gone. The Legion has surpassed it in the worst way possible. The one thing the Republic has banked victory on is gone. Their soldiers are overwhelmed and scavenged, and the military is more concerned with exterminating the 86 than listening to them.

Shin tells Lena cash: The Republic is going to lose this war and be assimilated.

We also meet the Shepherds. Legions who has assimilated intact brains. Those do not just think, they possess the memories and personalities (minus all that the Legion deemed useless aka the parts of the brain that feel empathy) of those they assimilated, making them frightful opponents in their own right. And through the power of POV shifting, Asato lets us hear what they sound like when they communicate with each other.

Of course they're robots, so most of their conversations between non-sheperd Legions look like this:

Looking over the uneasy description of extermination of humans in deadpan robotic words, it's very cut and dry.

Shepherds are special. They still have that cut and dry robot speech, but somehow, the person they used to be, still bubbles up in their conversations.

This lands it on this disturbing uncanny valley in between human and robot, where you're undoubtedly fighting a machine, but holding the memories of a dead man who used to have a personality.

And speaking of that specific Legion, the screenshot above is a conversation from the POV of the Morpho, a giant railgun on rails.

And it is responsible for another one of the most pants pissing moments of the story. Now you know that the Legion keeps repeating their last words in our poor Shin's ears and anyone connected to him, imagine:

A giant, and I mean GIANT ghost colored centipede railgun welding tank, looming above you, charging his blast that could wipe out thousands in a second, while spitting with hatred endlessly in your headphones: <I'LL KILL YOU I'LL KILL YOU I'LL KILL YOU>

The godlike audio mixing sells it so hard. I still remember the chills.

The series is full of those spine chilling moments, perfectly fused with the tone and characters. From them creeping like predators, introductions of new unit types, the micromachine liquid that the Shepherds can turb into HANDS... But there's one specific moment that, if one day adapted in an anime, I can garanty, is gonna get censored to shit.

And huh... Huge trigger warning for very gory implications.

Imagine this:

What would a robot made factory where human organs are treated like machine components would look like?

If you thought long conveyor belts of gore, piles upon piled of headless, emptied human bodies rotting, and white cold empty rooms upon rooms filled to the brim with starving dirty prisoners steaming in their own sweat and escrements, waiting their turn to be sent to the dissection table to have their organs harvested, congrats, you're right!

And now that they have more than enough brains to power their ranks, they can hunt. Truly hunt. Aim for the strongest soldiers amongst the human ranks to convert their skills to their side.

They have three high priority targets, all with a special codename. The first two are scientists, to assimilate their knowledge and further their own technology, the last one is codenamed "Baleygr". A soldier whom the Legion had noticed has the uncanny ability to detect their presence.

But we also know him as Shin. Ho-oh.

And even worse, they already custom made the unit for his brain to be put in. How courteous. That for will be known as the Phönix, and does its great entrance by casually slaughtering an entire squadron of 86. Oof.

It's not the only reason they want him so badly aside from being an hyper competent super soldier, Shin carries mixed Onyx and Pyrope blood, he is a direct descendant of Giad nobility that eloped to the Republic. To the Legion, who obeys the order of the Empire of Giad, he is the perfect candidate to become the Legion's Supreme Commander: The Legion unit at the top of the Legion network.

Now, I would be lying if there wasn't a greater scope villain within the Legion. Surprisingly, it isn't Zelene, but the Legion's CURRENT Supreme Commander, the tactical head of the entire network, only known by its codename: No Face.

Not only is that Legion a very talented strategist, but it is ruthless, even by Legion standards!

No Face disagreed with the Commanders below him in assimilating Baleygr (Shin) and making him the new Supreme Commander, instead, justifying it that BECAUSE he is such a perfect ruler to them, he NEEDS to be killed.

And the Commander who proposed the assimilation in the first place: Mistress, the Legion who inherited Zelene's mind, who went through with the assimilation plan and the Phönix anyway?

He PURPOSELY fed her FALSE information and BAITED HER into being captured, and interrogated by the humans (communication with Shepherds is possible, but only when they are cut off from Legion network and therefore the Kill All Humans order), to keep the humans busy with smaller plans while No Face, unbothered in the back, cooked up a HUGE offensive using SATTELITES AS MAKESHIFT BALLISTIC MISSILES.

No Face doesn't just want to kill us all, it wants its rule over the Legion to be absolute. Going as far as to throw away his robotically devoted subordinates. And it's damn good at it.

And the final nail in the coffin, unlike all of its fellow Legion, who are twisted into bloodthirsty war machine, sometimes filled to the brim with their personalities' hatred (like Pale Rider), No Face is COMPLETLY SANE. No frustration, no spouts of hatred, no irrational decision making based on raw human emotion, the closest it got to was mocking his nation, and approving a complete MASSACRE of it proposed by its most revenge fueled subordinates (Sheperds who died with nothing but hate on their minds). It's hard to describe this uncanny valley mix of robotic decision making and ruthlessness, mixed with the tyrannical almighty need to rule of a human.

And we do learn who was the original person behind this Legion. And it makes it all the more screwed up.

And yet, the why, why is this Legion so fixated on ruling and our extremination and assimilation, is still shrouded in mystery. And I'm SO looking forward to finding out to gasp in horror at it.

I love the Legion. It combines the ruthlessness of machines, no mercy, no prisoners, brutal efficiency, and the uncanny valley of human inspired AI to make an antagonist you can truly fear.

And it's but one of the things that make 86 absolutely amazing. The tone, the characters, the world (holy shit the world building is delicious), the horrors of what war does to soldiers, nations and people...

Read/Watch 86. You won't waste your time.

today im thinking about the huge buff bread guy from kikis delivery service. highly underrated guy

Genuinely just a good man. Wife adopts teenage witch that needs a place to stay in the city? Sure. Even though you got a kid on the way? That’s fine. Cat too? Love cats. 

My favorite moment with him is when he goes to get some prepped baking sheets and he does this fancy twirl with them in front of Jiji. Like, there’s no other people in the room, he does this to impress a cat.

Originally posted by koyo-koyo

I don’t think he ever says more than a whole word the entire movie, and I still love him more than most Disney princes based on this one moment alone.

the forger mama/daughter pair throughout the years 🥺

It's that confession scene from Pride and Prejudice but set it in 1800s Spanish colonized Philippines

I really wanted to redraw this scene, but I didn't know which pairing I could use, since most of my ships already have this redraw.

Then someone on twitter mentioned that Filay (Fidel and Klay) would fit this scene and I couldn't agree more. So here.

Also English version:

Keep reading

One of my fav drawings <3