Red Euphemia Lily

When I first started this project, the concept was as simple as the original title – Red Euphemia. At that time, this project was set to be done before I got around to the Euphemia Alter one. It was as simple as Alter’s – Euphie in Nero’s dress, that’s all. But once I latched on to the Euphie Alter project and started the R3 Alter story alongside it, this one took a backseat. By the time I came back around to it, my theories for how to manage her color scheme shifted. I wanted to so something a little more, a little different.

My idea shifted to cladding Euphie in white. My original thinking was that red was a fitting color for Euphie as a variation on pink. But that was “wrong” in the sense that as much as pink might seem to be the color most fitting for Euphie, she never wears it. And conceptually, Euphie would probably want to avoid red as much as she could. I even considered in R3 Alter if she might not have wanted to dye her hair another color just for how traumatized by the color red she would possibly be after reincarnating. Even if not traumatized per se, if she had any real cognitive recognition of the title thrust on her, she would likely, if even on a subconscious level, likely avoid wearing anything red, let alone a red dress.

But I was also resistant to the idea of having her either in the bondage dress of the original Nero Bride, or the somewhat less BDSM newer version.

First, given the similarity to straitjackets of the Geass universe, I wanted to careful about the context for using that design. While not terribly large, the chance that this concept could become a part of the R3 Alter story meant that I might be remiss to carelessly use up that possibility here.

Second, the bride motif didn’t fit any ideas I had going for Euphie. I certainly wasn’t about to have her marrying Suzaku, nor did I have any metaphysical, spiritual, or ideological marriages to throw her into, so I didn’t want to suggest that I did by having her in that situation visually.

That all considered, I ended up back at original Nero’s dress. If I wasn’t going to use Bride – and given Sports Nero from Nerofest, and Caster Nero, were out of the picture of consideration – that was the only one left. That made the most sense anyway since I was aiming for this pairing purely on Red Saber’s aesthetic, not on any affinity between the characters. As such, looking to deviate from that dress itself would have been odd.

That is what led to the idea to do white for her dress. That, in turn led me to consider white for the sword…

Color of the Sword

From a rhetorical standpoint, the Aestus Eustus wielded by Nero is red and black by default. This can be considered its natural color. When she switches over to Nero Bride, the bond she has with the sword reflects the change in her mentality and countenance, therefore it purges its red color for silver/white.  Thus, the white Aestus Eustus visually represents a purer and more innocent wielder.

In transferring the sword to someone else, this can be viewed in a couple different ways. First, with a subjective view you can say that the person holding the white sword is purer than they otherwise would be. Red would be their default self, while white is their more innocent self – the same as with Nero. For Euphemia, that is hard to imagine. To get “purer” than the default Euphie would mean she’d have to be preaching total pacifism or something like that.

The second view, which would work better in the Euphie case, but is a little stranger as a concept all to itself, would be the objective view. Here, the red sword is an external assessment; a universal basis not unlike a general definition of good and evil. The white, therefore, would be only reflecting where the individual falls on that spectrum, namely the fact they are on the other side of the median. This would somewhat subvert the lore on the sword, implying that the sword has some sort of good/evil bias unto itself rather than merely reflecting the user’s will. 

I get into all this because this implies a certain message for the Euphemia image as a whole. If the second model is chosen to explain Aestus Eustus’s form, then there’s not much to read into Euphemia’s appearance; she becomes no different than she normally would appear. If the first model better explains the sword, however, then that would imply that this Euphemia, despite wielding a sword, is somehow more innocent and pure than the iteration of Euphemia seen at almost all other times. How, then, do you explain what a “more innocent” than innocent Euphemia actually is? That would help tremendously to frame the connection to Jeanne d’Arc if you start pushing Euphie into saint territory, but it becomes hard to frame.

If I give her the red sword, the question ends up turned a bit. Not quite a full flip, but close to it. Following model one would thereby imply one of two things; either that there is a purer Euphemia that is possible, or that she could never wield the white sword. If the existence of the white sword is acknowledged, then it would mean that there is something about Euphie that is at the very least less pure than Nero Bride, which is a difficult thing to frame. But if you say that she simply can’t wield the white sword, that implies that not only is there something lacking in Euphemia, but that somehow there is a person in the Geass universe more pure and innocent than Euphie. Short of children too young to even touch a sword, who in the Geass universe would that even be?

Going with the first model, the switch from the white sword to the red doesn’t change outcomes much, if at all. It would still imply that, like the second model, there is a purer version of Euphie to be seen. But, this model is a little more forgiving so long as you adjust your perspective just a little. If instead of viewing the potential of a purer Euphie you view this one as darker, you satisfy all considerations. Now, this Euphie can be seen as something closer to the Geass controlled Euphie that was Princess Massacre. Of course, that raises the specter of declaring that the Euphie who gunned down all those people is the “real” Euphie. That could be mitigated by viewing Princess Massacre as an outer extreme. There’s no saying that Euphie with the red sword is not as innocent as the Euphie we see all the time, but isn’t as terrible as Princess Massacre. But, this would imply that we have never seen the “real” Euphie, since the model presupposes that the red sword represents the default persona.

Part of the issue is that there is no darker Nero or Aestus Eustus that can be seen in the lore. Unlike with Artoria and Excalibur, we don’t know of a darker Nero wielding Excalibur Morgan while also knowing a lighter Nero wielding Caliburn. We’ve yet to see Nero Alter or Berserker Nero, so we don’t know what form Aestus Eustus would take for her.

In any case, discussing a darker Aestus Eustus escapes the immediate point.

Regardless the outcome, the first step is to select the model that best aligns with the reality. Therefore, model one makes the most sense. The lore makes it clear that the sword only responded to Nero’s will. It isn’t so sentient as to weigh the will of the world, nor is it otherwise implied to have a static barometer on the relative will of its wielder on a broader level. Therefore, model one makes more sense.

That means the issue is whether this is the default Euphemia or a more innocent Euphie. The leading impression is that this is default Euphie. Although the dress is obviously different from anything she normally wears, it is the default dress of Nero. Further, the colors are that of Euphie’s own default dress. This would lead to using the red sword.

At the same time, if Euphie is ever to wield white Aestus, there isn’t a lot left to do in color to match. Though there are colors, the paleness of those colors is such that switching to white is likely to carry limited impact. And again, not completely foregoing the earlier discussion of implied meaning, what is the alternate Euphie, either implied to be currently holding the white sword, or that we haven’t seen holding the red one?

It’s at this point that the discussion turns to potential original colorations. This wouldn’t necessarily refute or debase the working model. Remember, the model simply says that red is the default color but that it changed color to match its wielder’s personality at the time. Functionally, the red parts of Aestus change to white. This isn’t quite the case for Nero’s dress. Her dress isn’t merely a white version of her red one, but an altogether new dress.

By shifting perspective once more, you get a simple solution. Regardless of the reasoning or the method, the fact remains that Aestus Eustus changed to match Nero, whose own clothes were changed to fit the style she desired to reflect that persona. So if you work in a slight bit of reverse, Aestus Eustus is white because Nero is dressed in white. So, if I have Euphie in a light-yellow dress, then Aestus Eustus should respond and assume a color that matches the dress she chose to reflect her inner self. In simplified terms, for Nero Bride Aestus Eustus is white because her dress is white. For my image then Aestus Eustus should be light-yellow because Euphie’s dress is light yellow.

This answer is more elegant. It nullifies all that questioning of purity and whatnot, and adds a touch of personal taste beyond a simple recitation of Nero’s design. It matches her dress precisely, which makes far more sense here than the red or white options. It would be one thing if the other elements of this crossover were too slight to be so easily picked up on, but that isn’t the case. Using some nonstandard color isn’t going to risk throwing anyone off and losing the impact of having a crossover.

Pose

The idea was to have her appear somewhat “flighty” or uninhibited. The concept behind Nero’s appearance is that she is boundlessly self-confident. Despite how others might attempt to criticize her, or what doubts she may have inside, she faces it with determination and certainty that her skills and abilities will pull her through. When questioned about the fact that you can see through the front of her dress she replies that it’s not that you can see through it, but that she is allowing you to see through it. In other words, things are the way they are not by chance, but because that is the way she wants it.

That is a marked difference from Euphemia. Euphie isn’t nearly as confident as a person as Nero is, despite holding many similar self-doubts. It could even be considered a tad bit of a stretch for her to be so bold as to wear something so revealing.

In which case, if she is to wear something like Nero’s dress, there are two directions you can go. You can have her curl up and be in a very closed off, shy, stance, or you can have her embrace that more open and less modest appearance. I decided I’d rather show her embracing it, and so I chose an image of her more in keeping with that. She’s not overly expressive, but you do get a sense that she is at least comfortable here, not shyly or embarrassingly forced into this sort of dress.

I also considered having her in a more combat-ready pose, but I actually have yet another Euphie image planned along those lines. That one is canon to R3 Alter, so the planning is a little more detailed. This one is definitely more to show off Euphie and this aesthetic more than anything else.

Background

As usual, I didn’t have a very clear concept for a background. I always knew what I wanted for the background on the C(li)ne and Alter images, but this one was not so. Ultimately, since this Euphie has a similar feel to the C(li)ne Euphie, I decided this image should have a background that had a similar vibe too. The addition of the sea back there was accidental. When I was doing the gradation of the sky, I ended up with a light blue strip on one of the revisions. I decided to just keep it and adjust the color a little.

The grass is nothing spectacular; not as good as some of my other projects. I wanted to take a more muted approach to the background – less detailed – to keep focus on Euphie as the subject. I’m not too happy with the result, so I’ll likely go back to my usual way of doing things next time.

On the other hand, I do like the cloud. It came out exactly as I wanted, so I’ll likely repeat the process for similar style clouds going forward. I didn’t want to add too much of a cloud layer, but I also didn’t want to leave the sky too barren. Having the sun back there, or switching to some nighttime scene, would have thrown off the lighting I had already applied to Euphie.

The rose petals and the rose stem were sort of late additions too. I wanted to add some flowers. In retrospect, I don’t regret going with roses – they are fitting for the royal subjects of this piece. But, I do think I should have paid more attention to color choice there. Yellow or white roses would make all the sense in the world. Even blue roses would have had a nice supernatural touch.

Canon v. Non-Canon

The question of if this image is canon or not to the BotS in some sense, specifically R3 Alter, was potentially fluid throughout, but never really shifted from a “no” in any major way. While my logic in the choices for color was based on the idea of it being R3 Alter specific (possibly R4), the conditions that originally made it a no never really shifted enough to make a yes.

The first real hurdle was that I never intended to make this a story-specific piece. This as part of a minor series of images I arrived at the idea of while musing a story idea for Cromwell. In the same vein as Euphemia Alter, this Euphie here was conceived of as a possible identity for a Fate crossover in Cromwell whereby the heroes summoned for a grail war were all based on the Two-Six. Considering if Hime might fit into a role or another, Nero was considered, and therefore Hime in Nero’s garb surfaced as an idea.

But the plans formed in the fevered state under which I massaged the edges of the concept didn’t lend to any decision on Hime’s inclusion in any real way. And as a consequence the end result was for my attention to end up drifting to Euphie Alter, for whom the outlines of a story had emerged.

I revisited the idea of a Nero/Euphie mashup again, imagining that it would be an intriguing idea, but thematic concerns and barriers emerged and that idea lost steam. For one, and this is particularly glaring in some of the Nero stories in FGO, Nero is Roman, while, at least as far as her lineage goes, Euphie is British. Now, this has a lot of room to fudge some facts on the Euphie side of the equation, what with the schism between Britannia and England that is the backbone of the world-building in Code Geass. But even there little doubt remains that Euphie is “British” and therefore from a FGO standpoint would align far more with Artoria or Boudica than Nero. This is in part what makes the Jeanne/Euphie pairing also a bit circumspect, since chances are that the Britannia of Euphie’s lifetime was likely to commit some act akin to the Britain of Jeanne’s.

Thematically having a Roman, one of the most well-known, as the representation of a Britannian trying to reclaim the fictional heyday of Great Britain, would not make much logical sense. Given that all other linkages between Nero and Euphie are threadbare at best, there wasn’t a lot of reasoning that would make a thematic approach to such a pairing work in any real sense.

If nothing else, the argument can be made that Artoria and Euphie are of the same blood. Even if you want to go off-the-wall and say that Euphie awakened dormant Artoria blood in her veins and transformed into dark Artoria, that insane concept holds more water than the same revolving around Nero, or most any other concept centered on Nero pairing to Euphie. Much of the histrionics of Britannia centers on the idea that Camelot and King Arthur were real enough for Britannia to fashion almost all of itself after that era.

Which runs to the second issue – a lack of a story. When I started R3 Alter, the basic concept was always that she was adorned in the regalia befitting a return of Britannia to the days of Camelot. Who else to dress like than the “once and future king” if she’s going to be reclaiming Britannia?

Having Euphie in Nero’s regalia in any acknowledged way in a story would require some form of justification for why she would choose a Roman over a Brit. What is there about Rome, and Nero in particular, that would so inspire that pairing over an Artoria? Certainly there is not obvious alignment in their personalities or life stories to warrant such a cross. With no basis to serve as the base of a story, that option leads nowhere.

Yet this is because I am talking about aligning Nero and Euphemia. If we step back out of the R3 stories, you get an entirely different picture, and that is because you are dealing with a character that is herself only in part based on Euphemia, not wholly Euphemia herself. Hime of the Two-Six may share Euphemia’s appearance, but persona wise could be a dead ringer for Nero. And that works. That’s because the Euphie that is descended from Artoria is just one version of Hime, one of her past lives in the wide multiverse.

This in turn defines how this image of Euphie could potentially be canon to the BotS, just not R3 and its progeny. If Euphemia as a descendant of Arthur is just one possibility of Hime’s past lives, there is little to say that Nero is not simply another. That is indeed what I do for Hime, including Nero as part of her pantheon of personas. As such this image immediately becomes viable as a part of Hime of the Two-Six.

In that backward sort of way, this makes this image eminently plausible for R3, or more likely R4, just from the fact that Hime would always have the potential to show up as a part of Euphemia, or as a summoned servant in R4.

But that is a kettle of fish of circuitous logic that I rather avoid. That becomes less about wanting to tell a story and more about wanting to force a story into being. So, to reiterate the answer to the basic question, no, this image is not canon to R3 Alter, or R4 Alter. It is potentially canon to the Third Moon Saga or Overture, more likely Third Moon.