Code Geass: Mao of the Deliverance/YMMV

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Subverted in that its portrayal isn't so different from the show, but merely elaborated upon. Seems to take the position that Mao is a Tragic Woobie Anti-Hero with a Jerkass Facade.
• Anvilicious: When Mao is forced into a Refrain addiction, he spends two days going through severe withdrawals before he gets better, culminating in a line that reads like a drug rehab success story advertisement.
• Non Sequitur Scene: The entirety of Chapter 20.
• Complete Monster: Doctor Huai, and the scientists from the Rosenberg Institute who experiment on C.C. are hinted to be this as well.
• Cow Tools: There are quite a few details scattered throughout that appear to be nothing more than this, seemingly added for atmosphere or flavor.
• Crowning Moment of Funny: Mao trying to steer an airplane for the first time, screaming at the top of his lungs as he attempts to fly through a frickin hurricane!
  • Also, the awkward dialogue Mao employs when he tries to explain what he needs to buy the chainsaw for.
  • Special mention goes to the bit in Chapter 20 when the Black Knights show up and start singing a variation on the Team Rocket theme song for no apparent reason!
• Crowning Moment Of Heartbreaking: Chapter 1, when C.C. abandons Mao whilst he calls out to her, culminating in his collapse at the side of the road because it's just too damn loud.
  • Also several flashbacks of him as a little boy, playing with C.C., as contrasted with his present circumstances.
  • Then there's the time he gets shot by a firing squad while C.C. screams his name
  • And the time in the airport when he and C.C. embrace after he's asked her to help him commit suicide!.
• Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: A Refrain induced flashback where Mao and C.C. happily cover each other in newborn butterflies.
  • Also in C's World when they share The Big Damn Kiss.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: Mao kicking everyone's ass at his first game of poker while the Rolling Stone's "Sympathy For The Devil" plays in the background. Hell yeah!
• Draco in Leather Pants: The entire story itself is the product of a member of the Broken Base that seems to view Mao this way, though in this case, it's more of a Draco In A Leather Coat, see Badass Longcoat. Played straight when many side characters ruminate over how sexy he is or how cool his clothes are, including hotel staff, prostitutes, Prince Clovis’ security guards, and students at Ashford Academy.
  • Interestingly, in the story itself, Mao gives C.C. this treatment, refusing to believe that she did anything wrong, even by giving him his Telepathy in the first place , making him completely dependent on her (though this wasn't entirely her fault, she certainly didn't help by promising to be with him forever or having sex with him at such an early age, which the work implies features ( though when C.C. admits that she really does love Mao near the end, it makes more sense), selfishly asking that he kill her, despite knowing how much she means to him and trying to manipulate him into doing so, cruelly abandoning him for refusing and almost attempting to kill him when it becomes apparent he poses a serious threat to her plan to use Lelouch to kill her instead. Pays off in the end though when C.C. finally admits that she loves him too and pledges to keep her promise to stay with him forever through the medium of C's World. Mao does slowly come to think of her as a Broken Bird though as he contemplates her Death Wish and even slightly subverts this trope when he admits that though she lied to him, he doesn't care.
• Fanon: While the work borrowed some novel ideas concerning its titulary character from older fics about Mao, it applies them in original ways and introduces even more new material, which has started to appear in later related stories.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: For awhile, Mao only seems to use his Geass to attack those who threaten him. Later, however, he shoots up soldiers and researchers and plays to the fears of innocents without a care.
• Love Martyr: Mao admits to himself that C.C. lied to him by breaking her promise to be with him forever, but decides he doesn't care and loves her anyway.
  • Pays off in the end when she reaffirms her promise to him in C's World though.
• Moral Event Horizon: A few things could qualify. His brutal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown of Rupert Deneuvre. His coercion of Brantley Hall by threatening to kill his son Willy. His More Than Mind Control of Shirley. Mao himself, however, justifies it as the surest way to kill Lelouch at the time and thus save C.C.'s life. Also his later abduction of Nunnally in order to get revenge on Lelouch.
  • • Although, his treatment of Shirley is undone when Lelouch makes Shirley forget all of it afterwords. As cruel as it was, the damage wasn't permanent.
    • And with Nunnally, it only seems that way at first, until it's revealed it was all part of a larger Xanatos Gambit and the bomb was a fake!
  • C.C. herself arguably suffers one in the first chapter due to the callous way she abandons Mao, so much so that much of Mao's subsequent pining after her can make him seem like the Love Martyr.
• Moral Myopia: Mao often berates others for doing (or thinking, or remembering doing or thinking) things that he sees as evil. While it's affirmed that he begins the story thinking his actions are a irreproachable demonstration of Black and White Morality, he later acknowledges his slip into Grey and Gray Morality, remarking that he really doesn't care what the world does to itself, so long as he can find a quiet place to be with C.C. away from it all. To the reader, however, it is a stark case of Blue and Orange Morality. Yeah...it's complicated.
• Nightmare Fuel: Mental patients being experimented on with highly addictive drugs, Rolo's uncanny ability to effortlessly switch personalities when he's dealing with children, and some of the gruesome experiments Code-R performed on C.C., and recorded for Mao to view later.
• Not So Different: Several times Mao notes the similarities between other characters and himself, including the arms dealer Doragoniki who is haunted by the loss of his wife, Shirley Fenette for not hesitating to kill someone to protect Lelouch (even though he still More Than Mind Controls her without a care so he can use her against Lelouch), Nunnally for considering Lelouch the only thing that matters and excusing his actions therefore, and finally, even Lelouch himself, for being willing to commit any atrocity in order to ensure Nunnally's happiness.
• Out of Character: The story interprets certain characters somewhat liberally. Some of this is justified in that it's seen through the eyes of Mao. Others, though, such as how Lelouch is assumed, by both Mao and C.C. to have been using a Freak-Out to convince her to kill Mao, rather than being merely obsessive and viewing C.C. as a sort of Freudian fill-in for his mother, which is the arguably a more canon interpretation are more original.
  • Mao's unusual mercy towards Nunnally, by not actually putting her under a real bomb, too. Mao simply isn't that nice of a person.
    • There are actually several small moments scattered throughout the story, however, where Mao takes the time to at least attempt to do something unusually kind, such as scaring away an overbearing Britannian jerk from that Japanese girl or scrawling the words 'thank you' in soap on his hospital mirror, serving as a reminder that deep beneath the insanity and self-adopted evil, is a sweet kid.
    • Neither. Mao's use of a fake bomb whose radius Suzaku deduced to be over 500 meters was a careful trick to deceive Lelouch into thinking Mao was outside of his Geass' range, when in fact, he was not.
  • Lelouch and C.C.'s final talk in the story is pretty standard at the start: Lelouch is worried that C.C. might have spared Mao, and that he may come after Nunnally again. But then, Lelouch takes the opportunity to threaten C.C. out of some head trip, even after Suzaku's break down has knocked him out of it. And worst of all... C.C. gives him the finger. What!? What sort of crazy alternate world is this where C.C. shows emotion!?
    • Well, C.C. in the original show did have her moments Beneath the Mask where she displays curious and unexpected emotions at memorable times, although admittedly anger isn't often one of them.
• Ron the Death Eater: As the story is told from Mao's perspective, Zero/Lelouch comes across this way, at least until Mao himself loses it even more.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: This plays in the background while Mao is cutting C.C. up into manageable portions with a chainsaw during the Indulgent Fantasy Segue.
• Squick: Frustrated by the lack of space on his airplane, Mao’s desperation causes him to come up with the idea to use a chainsaw to make C.C. more compact for the trip.
• Stalking Is Love: Mao travels hundreds of miles to find C.C. again while listening to her voice constantly on his headphones. Although he is really just trying to save her life (albeit against her wishes).
  • And C.C. ends up agreeing with him!.
• Tear Jerker: C.C.'s abandonment of Mao.
• Unreliable Narrator: The story is told from a third person rendering of Mao's perspective. Thus, Mao's personal bias ends up, depending on your point of view, coloring descriptions of other characters, i.e. He = Knight in Shining Armor, C.C. = Not So Stoic Purity Sue In Leather Pants, Lelouch = Ron the Death Eater, Suzaku = Hypocritical Death Seeker, Shirley = Fatally Attracted Manipulative Bitch, V.V. = Wicked Cultured Creepy Power Nullifier, Rolo = The Soulless Stepford Smiler Tyke Bomb, Kallen = Racist Genocidal Terrorist, and Nunnally = Incestuous Clingy Jealous Spoiled Brat.
  • It should be noted that his evaluation of others is often justified by the fact that he can read their minds, although his interpretation of the information he learns this way is sometimes skewed.
    • It should also be noted that some of those descriptions are pretty accurate.
• The Woobie: If ever there was a story that made you feel sorry for Mao....