#I FEEL FUCKING INVULNERABLE ITS GREAT

[the-personiftranslator]

THE BEST PART OF THE ANDOLONT HYPERFIXATION IS THAT MY OLD HYPERFIXATION MADE ME CUT MYSELF AND THIS ONE DOESNT AND SHE MIGHT HAVE SAVED MY LIFE IM NOT GONNA LIE

[linde-writes]

Alright. Time for the conspiracy theory I came up with to cope with my dissatisfaction with the ending of season 2, which I guess will never be debunked now.

TW: Discussion of a Suicide Attempt

Izzy knew Ricky had the gun, and let him keep it because he's still passively suicidal. After his speech to Ed he passed out from blood loss. His speech makes the crew realize just how fucked up everything still is, and that they can't truly heal while Ed (and, by extension, Stede) are still on the ship. So they patch Izzy up, hide him on the ship, and fake his death by burying either an English corpse or just wrapping a bunch of junk in a burial shroud, in order to convince Ed and Stede to...retire.

Support:

For all my gripes about s2, the writing was still competent enough that its flaws were able to be overlooked until after I was done watching and actually thought of the bigger picture. Not so with Izzy's death. I wasn't even to feel properly sad at Izzy's death, because the holes in the scene itself were so big that I just felt angry.

We get some hints that Izzy is still not doing great. The shark thing is never addressed, he's still drinking heavily, his overt cheeriness in s2e7 is pretty out of character and reminiscent of his "Blackbeard's doing great!!!" attitude in s1e10, and after Ned Low's attack he puts physical distance between himself and the crew while singing.

OFMD LOVES its s1 parallels, and s1 ended with both a fuckery to fake a death AND a fake-out death to the audience. And we get a mutiny at the beginning and end of s1 and the beginning of s2, so it makes sense for s2 to end with a mutiny of sorts as well.

It would explain all those lines that bring attention to the fact that they never address these characters' trauma. Frenchie and his box, Izzy and his shark, Archie's "yeah, captains abusing their authority is just what happens" lines, Ed being out of the cat collar by the time Lucius/Pete finish their engagement sex, etc.

"It's a suicide mission"/"Only if we die" is a deeply unfunny line when a suicide survivor dies during said mission. If it were foreshadowing an actual suicide attempt that the character is allowed to recover from, then it gains some weight as foreshadowing.

It explains why Wee John isn't at the funeral and everyone else brushes off Izzy's death so quickly.

Izzy got shot in the famously invulnerable left side, SURELY Jenkins and the writers didn't just "kind of forget"—

Benefits:

More Izzy pain :)

REAL character development for Ed and Stede when they have to grapple with just how unwell everyone still is, and how they've abused their power so badly that the crew goes to such lengths to get them off the ship.

Talking it through, as a crew.

Character development for the crew, both in their relationship to Izzy and in growing the confidence and emotional awareness to stick up for themselves instead of just doing what their captains want.

[atragicallycrispydude]

Nothing is funnier to me than Potemkin being called bottom tier and a bad character. In Xrd, for example, he seems to be generally called the "worst character in the game" which just fucking kills me. I won't deny that he isn't a great character but if you look at his kit in isolation it's so crazy fucking bonkers that you wonder how anyone would call him bad.

For example, there's Heat Knuckle, which does huge damage, is unblockable (but is blitzable,) starts up in just 12 frames, can give a hard knockdown, and combos into itself in the corner.

Slide Head also has some fucked up properties in Xrd, mainly being that it's unblockable (it is easy to jump over but I suck ass) but also that if you get hit by it Potemkin is in your face, in win condition. This is because it combos into I.C.P.M. Bizarre fun fact about this move: Potemkin can flick it with F.D.B because it's a projectile, according to Dustloop.

The iconic Potemkin Buster is here, of course, where it does 150 damage, is frame 3, and...

...has upper body invulnerability (or full body? I'm really not sure what the fuck is going on with this hitbox.) This demonic move feels like a fucking reversal due to his more invincible backdash than most and very fast startup.

Giganter Kai also actually has a follow-up in this game, which I have genuinely never seen from the few Pot mains I've played against. I mostly want to talk about this because the input is fucking insane, it's 632146H>4123641236P. Maybe that's why I never see it but fucking hell.

All of these bonkers tools are offset by the fact that he has no airdash or grounded dash, and walks super slowly. But he can Slide Head > I.C.P.M or YRC Hammer Fall, so he definitely isn't hurting too terribly for ways in.

So, why does everyone say he sucks? This character sounds like a monster, right? He definitely is in his own right, but you have to remember that this is in a game where every character is kind of bullshit, at least at some level. You have characters like Johnny with giant normals who are always at an advantage because of Mist Finer Cancel, Roman Cancelable reversals, characters with long combos off of stray hits, and just a ton of stuff. Half of the cast is plus on tons of shit, they have crazy oki or zoning, and all in all it leads to Potemkin just kinda being outclassed in the context of the game.

XRD's balance is pretty incredible, though. Most characters, Pot included, are pretty much playing on the same level. I find that a lot of the "this character is so hard to beat!" Is actually pretty matchup-dependent rather than because some are better than others.

Also, Slayer vs. Potemkin is objectively the goofiest matchup in the game and nobody can convince me otherwise. Most of Slayer's moves put him in Pot Buster range, even sometimes on hit, and he doesn't have a ton of ways to avoid ending up in a mixup from Pot on his own turn. It's so silly but pretty fun.

There might be a lot of counterplay I don't know, but whatever lmao I don't think he deserves the bad rep. I think its important to remember that, while he may be bottom-tier or whatever, he is absolutely not a bad character. He doesn't really do anything wrong, he's just kinda outclassed.

All images about Potemkin's moves were taken from https://www.dustloop.com/w/GGXRD-R2/Potemkin

[lysapadin]

More whale posting! Let’s talk about Ahab.

I applaud Ishmael for trying to be generous and saying that it was the loss of his leg that drove Ahab around the bend, but Ishmael, honey, I think the man was already there:

His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling in the eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe, blindly seeking with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale. That captain was Ahab.

One does not fling oneself into battle with the supernatural embodiment of malice aforethought armed only with a knife and expect to come out the other side in one piece unless one is a few crayons shy of a box of Crayolas.

But losing that leg sure didn’t help:

ever since that almost fatal encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale, all the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual exasperations. The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung.

and

All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.

Let’s just pause for a moment and linger on “as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it“ because goddamn, what a line. What the fuck, Melville, who gave you the right to write like this? Nathaniel Hawthorne could never, that’s why he ghosted you, honey, he was clearly jealous.

Ahem. Moving along. Regardless of when Ahab took up residence in Crazy Town, Population Him, he is definitely crazy:

Yet, when by this collision forced to turn towards home, and for long months of days and weeks, Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in one hammock, rounding in mid winter that dreary, howling Patagonian Cape; then it was, that his torn body and gashed soul bled into one another; and so interfusing, made him mad.

And his obsession has made him dangerously powerful:

his special lunacy stormed his general sanity, and carried it, and turned all its concentred cannon upon its own mad mark; so that far from having lost his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a thousand fold more potency than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon any one reasonable object.

and

He was intent on an audacious, immitigable, and supernatural revenge.

So much so that he can take his entire crew down with him:

morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his monomaniac revenge. [...] by what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his; how all this came to be—what the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life,—all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go.

It’s not just the whale that is supernaturally powerful; Ahab’s rage has made him supernaturally powerful as well. It’s made him cunning, too:

Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form. Ahab’s full lunacy subsided not, but deepeningly contracted;

and

Now, in his heart, Ahab had some glimpse of this, namely: all my means are sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet without power to kill, or change, or shun the fact; he likewise knew that to mankind he did long dissemble; in some sort, did still. But that thing of his dissembling was only subject to his perceptibility, not to his will determinate. Nevertheless, so well did he succeed in that dissembling, that when with ivory leg he stepped ashore at last, no Nantucketer thought him otherwise than but naturally grieved, and that to the quick, with the terrible casualty which had overtaken him.

He knows he’s gone around the bend, and he knows how to hide that from his employers and crew, at least long enough to get the Pequod out to sea. After that, though, well. Not even Starbuck can stop him now.

[alaffy]

X-Men, Ep. 1x10 – Tolerance is Extinction (spoilers)

So…how long until season 2? 

As much as I was looking forward to an X-Men movie under the Marvel label…I honestly think that, after this, they need to take their time.  The creators of this series took a show that was great for its time and turned its sequel into one of the best projects that Marvel studios has ever produced (The original show is still good; but was limited to what Fox allowed them to do at the time.  It was more then the slapstick cartoons or 30-minute commercials we usually saw; but the writing can be lacking when comparing it to some of the animated programs that came later). 

So, we begin with Magneto and Xavier having a drink at a bar in not quite Vietnam (as in they don’t mention the region, but ah…).  It’s quickly established that this was the moment that the two, uh, “came out” to one another (with the way half this episode played, I am fully justified in using that phrase).  But then we realize that we are in Magneto’s mind.  Xavier is trying on last time to appeal to Magneto.  But when it doesn’t work, Xavier takes control of Magneto’s mind and powers and saves the earth.  But doing so, breaks Magneto’s psyche.  Xavier chooses to stay inside Magneto’s mind in order to try to repair the damage (yeah, I had a feeling that the original comic story, where Xavier purposely turns Magneto into a vegetable, was going to be tamed.  Not that I have a problem with the change).

So, Bastion is able to take control of the hybrids again and he goes on this huge monologue to basically say this, “humans are unpredictable, so me and my kind are now taking over as the next evolutionary step.”  Ok, that’s really underselling it.  But it basically boils down to; both Magneto and Xavier are wrong.  It doesn’t matter how many good deeds the X-Men do, the world is not going to stop fearing and hating them overnight; and some people just hate.  It’s ego, it’s lack of self; it’s whatever it is in humans that makes people want to be better than others.  At the same time, not every human is going to feel that way about mutants and every human has the capacity to change (although some never will).  Boiling humanity down to absolutes leads to nothing but failure.  Mostly because we have these funny little things called emotions, something that Bastion seems intent on getting rid of.  At which point, we start to see the hybrids attacking humanity (and look at all the cameos).

Of course, during all of this, we have this constant mocking of Jean's and Madelyne’s deaths.  Yeah, so Karma took the form of Phoenix, and resurrected a bitch (also confirming, like the comics, that Jean is never going to be separated from the Phoenix entirely).  Anyway, Jean is able to put the neutralizer onto Bastion’s head, effectively cutting him off from the hybrids.  She them captures Sinister and…deconstructs him, until he’s a shriveled old man and he runs away. 

But while Bastion is disconnected from his army, he’s far from powerless.  He attacks Cable, rips off Cable’s metal arm, and then proceeds to beat Cable with it. (I'd question why the X-Men didn't try to stop him, but I'd probably be standing around in shock too).  Bastion then uses the technology from the arm to create his final form; complete with wings.  Since he can’t reform the Earth his way, he’s just going to get rid of the pesky human by dropping a large piece of rock from..the..sky…(Wait, a minute…this seems familiar). 

Meanwhile, the X-Men on Asteroid M are trying to get Xavier to wake up (and also make sure Wolverine doesn’t die.  Yes, Wolverine, is that fucked up.  And in the comic this is based on, he actually did flatline).  Jean warns Cyclops that Bastion is coming and what his plan is.  Also, that he hurt Cable.

And so we’re up to the next fight.  And yes, even Cyclops with a full on blast can’t hurt Bastion.  So, it seems like he’s invulnerable, except Jubilee takes a turn.  I mentioned this several posts ago, but Jubilee is supposed to be a lot more powerful than she lets on.  She actually can blow things up at the subatomic level, but she’s afraid to use her powers.  Jubilee is able to focus her powers and damage Bastion’s face.  It’s not a whole lot of damage, but it is showing that there more to Jubilee than fireworks.

So, long story short, the other X-Men manage to use a Sentinel to get up to the asteroid.  Meanwhile, Kelly is being told he needs to use the Magneto protocols by some and that he should wait by others (Captain America and Black Panther).  Black Panther also has this great line about history books, except what they really need to focus on is science because…what do they think is going to happen here?  Hit the gravity core and just hope the fuck that it blows the asteroid into little, tiny pieces?  And if it doesn’t, it doesn’t take a rocket science to know that thing is too close to the Earth and too big to be anything but extinction level bad.  And guess what?  The missiles hit, Bastion kind of accepts his death as his work is done, and the asteroid goes careening towards the Earth.

The X-Men, of course, decide they not going without a fight.  They have Sunspot take Jubilee back planet side; but don’t have Nightcrawler teleport the injured somewhere safe for…reasons (And if Jean and Scott had time for a telepathic goodbye, he should have had time to bamf them somewhere). 

Meanwhile, in Magneto’s mind, Xavier is trying to piece Magneto back and explain how friendship is magic or some such bs.  Although part of me felt like Charles was practically manipulating Magneto’s mind, turning him into what he wanted to be (but I’m probably reading into that).  But it works and Magento wakes up just in time to stop the asteroid, except it disappears.

Six months later, everyone believes the X-Men to be dead.  Forge is trying to start a new team (also Cable, Jubilee, and Sunspot appear to have gone AWOL).  Bishop comes in and tells Forge that the team isn’t dead, but transported through time.

Cyclops and Jean are in the far future, where they meet a young Nathan (and another character important to their future).

Beast, Rouge, Xavier, Nightcrawler, and Magneto find themselves in the past, where they stumble upon a warrior called En Sabah Nur.

Meanwhile, in Genosha, Apocalypse is digging through the rubble and finds one of Gambits cards, while talking about death.

And, if you’ve read the comics, you know why all of this is important. 

As for Morph, Storm, and Wolverine….?       

[the-jellicle-duelist]

doing my Due Diligence in beloved mmorpg ffxiv to play the jobs i ruled out once i hit max level in everything

i think so far my initial thoughts were correct;

dancer while fun on paper (dps class that leans into support, great movement tool, fun aesthetic) it really suffers from a feeling of consistency. am i gonna have enough feathers for my burst phase? am i gonna push green or yellow button anytime soon? do i get Feather Follow up Proc? i think for dancer to be fun for me, they would need to prune out a lot of the random elements. if i was designing this job, it would lean harder into support. give me an easy rotation where i am building up feathers and meter consistently, but i am spending my oGCDs in a similar way to astro’s cards. i can hand people roses idfk. give dancer a fatter heal, and an esuna like bard has. and realistically probably a 3rd that is a bigger cooldown. i think it would be more interesting for there to be a more supporting dps role, and it makes sense for dancer and bard to fill this. so i think they both should be altered to accommodate this type of play

dark knight is my next least liked job, and i think it is WELL earned. dark knight straight up cannot tank in dungeons as well or as easily as any of the other tanks. TBN is not actually that good as a defensive cooldown, it costs too much mana and the shield is too small because it is Designed to break. i typically don’t like jobs where i need to specifically save meter to pop a big cooldown, and dark knight makes you save 50 meter to use Living Shadow. living shadow also just feels like nothing is happening. there isn’t really any feedback when you use it. Living Dead despite the changes is still the worst tank invulnerability cool down. dark knight is just a way more incredibly fussy warrior, who has gets a slightly more damaging burst phase. warrior is a little boring, but at least its self sustain is absolutely insane, AND i can share that with another party member if i want. warrior’s damage cooldown’s are not reliant on having meter saved up, but benefits from having excess meter if you are in burst. gunbreaker is just more fun in every way if you are playing Blue DPS, and gunbreaker is better than dark knight in dungeons because at least Heart of Corundum reduces incoming damage and heals you. and paladin is the most well rounded; fun rotation, great and useful defensive cooldowns, a powerful burst phase, great utility. dark knight in its current form has nothing to offer me IMO

dragoon is my next least favorite and if it wasn’t for how filthy nasty that guy is in PVP i would not touch this job. i’m glad they are giving it the rework treatment next expansion because this guy stinks!! dragoon having GIERSKOGAL be both a regular oGCD and the way you activate Life of the Dragon, and have the cooldown still ticking away while LotD is active, and you have to sit there and remember that you will have to push Gierskogul again when you’re done is so infuriating. WHY NO MAKE NASTROND OWN BUTTON? why have star diver sit there the whole time and i can only push it once during LOTD? just make gierskogul a single button, and have Star Diver activate LoTD and then do the damage jump? and then it becomes nastrond, for you to push twice. and THEN IT JUST ENDS. and maybe you can even push gierskogul in LOTD if you want!!! the way that shit works now sucks ass!!! AND THE GIERSKOGUL BUTTON BECOMES NASTROND SO I CANNOT EVEN SEE THE COOLDOWN TIMER!!!! man fuck dragoon straight up shit sucks for real. i hope they blow that job wide open so it’s fun

my minor gripes are with scholar, summoner, and machinist.

summoner is just boring to me? there’s no spice there’s no flavor. i hope they add a few buttons next expansion that make it more fun

scholar is just worse sage to me. everyone says they are the same, but sage is so much more easier to use imo. haima is way more reliable than excog, i like having a targetable fairy. the buttons on scholar just don’t feel tuned enough and i feel like i am working a lot harder to do the same thing that on sage is a breeze

machinist to me sort of has mild dragoon disease in that i think the cool downs are too hard to line up. i think there should be three stacks of reassemble so i can push it with the three damage buttons i have. i hate pushing all the buttons to during hyper charge. i really feel like it should be a cast bar and you just like empty a machine gun into the target all at once, and if you have gauss rounds or ricochets to spend it uses all of them shits too. i just find it all a little cumbersome to play

anyways that’s all. i’m hoping that there are some major changes for some of these jobs in the future to make them more fun for me

[ernmark]

One Possible Read of The Green Knight

I say one possible, because this is the story as I understood it as I was watching the film. When I mentioned it to my partner, he didn't take that away. I'm not saying my take on it is right or wrong (I think it's hard to say that about most reads for a movie like this), but I submit it for your consideration.

(Spoilers and a fairly thorough plot summary under the cut)

(Holy moly this got long)

A brief caveat:

Caveat the First: I'm basing this off a pre-existing understanding of medieval stories, which don't necessarily follow the same narrative structures as modern ones. The world they lived in was weird, so sometimes weird shit just happened for no reason, often very conveniently. (If anything, I think this movie did less of that than existed in typical medieval stories.) They also heavily relied on archetypes rather than distinct characters with backstories, as well as a pre-established understanding of the story you're listening to. Like the puppet show that shows up in the story, the kids in the audience had already heard the story enough times that they could follow it without any actual words. On that note, I've also read a version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Caveat the Second: I immediately distrust anybody who talks about any story older than three centuries or so having an "original" version. There are some stories that have distinct authors, but often these stories were retold and rewritten to suit the tastes of their latest audience. So I refer to the version I read, not "the original". I take my reading of that story into my interpretation of what I saw. I'll note the details from the version I read where it's relevant.

The Story

We start with Gawain, King Arthur's nephew, waking up in a brothel with his sex worker lady friend. She sends him on his way back home to Camelot where his mother greets him and kindly asks him where he's been all night. Oh, off at Christmas Mass, naturally, is what he tells her. She counters that clearly he's been drinking all the communion wine, because she can smell it on his breath.

She tells him she's not feeling well, so he should go to the Christmas celebration without her and tell her all about it afterward.

[I don't recall hearing her name in the movie, but in the version I read, the Green Knight is sent by Morgana. Between his mother being described in dialogue as Arthur's sister and a known witch, I'm gonna run with that assumption and call her that.]

This is where my reading diverges: I take all of this as being almost entirely Morgana's story. And from her perspective, it's kind of hilarious. Because this isn't the story of Gawain's journey into Manhood, but of a very frustrated mother's attempts to save her beloved (if disappointing) son.

While Gawain is partying with the sickly King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, Morgana joins three of her fellow witches and they enact a spell, summoning the Green Knight and a very specifically worded challenge. The Green Knight presents a game: any one person in attendance may injure him and get his badass axe as a prize, but in a year exactly he'll have to go to the Green Knight's chapel and allow the Green Knight to return the exact same blow to him.

Arthur says he wants to do it, but acknowledges he's too sickly to do so. Gawain, already embarrassed once at this party, jumps up and volunteers to be his champion. And when he steps into the ring with the Green Knight, he cuts off his opponent's head. He'd think that was the end of it, but the Green Knight just picks up his severed head, reminds him of the deal to bring the axe back and let himself get beheaded in a year, and leaves.

[In the version I read, this was a ploy on Morgana's part just to freak out Guinevere. Seriously, that was the entirety of it. Just fucking with her rival/sister-in-law.]

In the movie, I got the vibe that Gawain was never meant to be in the line of fire. I suspect that either Arthur or one of his knights was meant to be the Green Knight's opponent, who would die after a year to get his affairs in order. Given that Gawain was Arthur's next-of-kin, that would have given him plenty of time to pass the crown to Morgana's beloved son. Unfortunately, Gawain stepping up messed up her whole plan.

During the intervening year, we see Morgana and the other witches working together to weave the Girdle of Invulnerability. As the name suggests, it's laden with magic to protect him from all harm and all blows from anyone. So long as he wears it, she explains, he'll make it home in one piece.

[In the version I read, the girdle is given to him by another woman later on at a weirdly convenient time. More on that later.]

Gawain barely makes it out when he asks directions from a young man looting the corpses on a recent battlefield. Being the idiot that he is, Gawain takes the young man's directions straight into a trap, where the young man and several other bandits are lying in wait. Despite his mother's assurances that he's invulnerable, he stands down immediately, allowing the bandits to take the Green Knight's axe, his Magic Girdle, all his money, all his supplies, etc.

During all this, three things happen: first, we see A Fox. Second, when the bandit takes the axe he goes all weird and runs off on the horse, forcing the other bandits to chase after him and leaving Gawain unobserved. Third, we get a weird vision of the future where Gawain remains where he is, tied up, until he rots away and he's left nothing but a skeleton.

My read is that The Fox is either Morgana or one of the other witches shapeshifted to keep an eye on him (alternatively, the fox is Reynard or a similar magical creature employed by them for the same purpose.) The Fox then enchants the bandit into running off with the Girdle and the Axe, leaving Gawain relatively safe. And when he fails to do anything with this spectacular opportunity, the Fox gives him the vision of what's gonna happen to him if he just waits around to be rescued.

Prompted to action, Gawain manages to free himself and continues his quest on foot. Eventually he comes across an abandoned manor. Inside, he meets a ghost who asks him to retrieve her severed head, which was thrown into the nearby spring. After some hemming and hawing, he does. When he returns to the surface with the woman's skull, the ghost is gone, but the Fox is watching him.

My take is that the ghost disappeared. They do that. The Fox, being sent to watch him, saw him actually step up and do a brave and selfless thing for once. This is what cements to the Fox that Gawain isn't a perennial fuckup, he's able to grow and mature if he's given the chance.

Gawain returns the skull to the rest of the ghost's skeleton, and he's rewarded by regaining his lost axe. (The axe placed there by the Fox, who took it from the enchanted bandit.)

So this is great, right? Gawain's fuck-upery has been cured and he's doing the responsible thing. Yay, right?

Except he's a fuckup who spends more time drinking and hanging out in brothels than doing Knightly stuff, so he doesn't know basics. Like how to start a fire or get food. Offscreen, Morgana must have been bashing her head into a wall, because her beloved son is going to get himself killed.

The Fox appears to him, and after his initial attempt to drive it off, Gawain lets it stay with him. From this point forward it stays by his side, not-so-subtly giving him directions and keeping him generally safe.

Later we meet some giants, because sometimes there are just giants. We don't question these things in Arthurian fantasy. Gawain asks them to give him a ride to his destination, but when one agrees to help him, he freaks out at the last second and refuses. The Fox speaks to the giant, quite possibly apologizing for its very rude human friend, and the giants go on their way without him.

Gawain is most of the way there by now, but it's late December in Wales, he's super cold and hasn't eaten anything but trippy mushrooms, he can't build a fire, he's been walking for days. He collapses, but the Fox urges him to go a little further and leads him to another manor house. Fortunately for him, this manor has living people in it, who clean him up, put him in a warm bed, and give him food.

We get a dreamy scene where he's being tended by his mother before he wakes up in the care of the manor. My read on it was that this manor and the people in it were sent directly by Morgana to save him. I don't think the manor was even there ten seconds before he collapsed the first time. Because Morgana loves her son, but he is REALLY bad at this.

Notably, it seems that the only people here are the Lord and Lady of the manor, as well as a blind old woman who seems to be the lady's maidservant and/or mother? Hard to tell.

Some flirting happens between Gawain and the Lord and Lady. The Lord of the manor explains that conveniently, Gawain's destination is only one day's walk away and he's several days early, so why not take some time to rest and gather his strength. The Lady shows off her library and her fancy daguerreotype-like mechanism, etc. The Lord suggests another game (mirroring the game presented by the Green Knight) : the Lord will go hunting the next day and give Gawain whatever he catches. Gawain will in return give the Lord whatever he gains throughout the day.

[In the version I read, this happens over the course of three days. Each day the Lord leaves, the Lady tries to seduce Gawain but he refuses, only accepting a kiss from her on the first two days; when the Lord returns with a hunted animal each day, Gawain gives him the kiss that the Lady gave him. On the third day, the Lady also gives Gawain a previously-unmentioned enchanted Girdle of Invincibility, which he neglects to pass along to the Lord, opting just to kiss him instead.]

In the movie, this is condensed into only one day. Gawain wakes up with the Lady creepily watching him sleep, wearing the Girdle of Invincibility that Morgana made for him. She invites him into bed and offers him the Girdle, reminding him that it can render him invincible. The scene gets a bit weird after that-- sex acts of some sort ensue, and the Lady walks away, leaving Gawain with post-coital shame and the Girdle.

Upset, Gawain grabs his stuff and makes to leave. Along the way he runs into the Lord in the middle of his hunt, and he declares that he's going to meet the Green Knight a day early. Citing their game, the Lord presents Gawain with The Fox (who is alive despite having been caught by a hunter, hmmm) and requests Gawain's "winnings" in return-- which he claims by stealing a kiss. I dunno about you, but it seemed to me that Gawain was Into It, at least before he remembers to be freaked out and runs off.

He's nearly at the place where he's to meet the Green Knight when the fox stops him. Now it starts talking, its voice shifting from masculine to feminine. It tells him that he's done a great job, and he can turn back right now and go home and nobody will know but the two of them. He doesn't have to go through with this. But Gawain, determined to fulfil his quest, drives the Fox off once again and goes the last bit alone.

Here he meets the Green Knight in the ruins of an old chapel, though because he's early the Green Knight is little more than a statue, awake but unmoving until the appointed Christmas Day. All the while Gawain just has to sit there and stew in the knowledge that he's gonna die. Finally the Green Knight stirs, asks Gawain if he's ready to die, and readies the axe that Gawain returned to him.

Throughout this, the light hits the Green Knight differently, making him look an awful lot like the Lord of the manor. After Gawain flinches away from the axe the first time, he speaks gently to him, almost tenderly.

[In the version I read, the Green Knight and the Lord of the manor are the same person, and the Lord/Knight is aware of Gawain's magic Girdle, because this was all an elaborate ruse. Because of Gawain's invincibility, the Green Knight only scratches his neck, permanently scarring him as punishment for lying about it and cheating in both their games, but doesn't hold it against him. Gawain then returns to Camelot and they keep the Girdle at the round table as a symbol that all of them have their failings.]

In the movie, Gawain flinches one more time. We then get a second very lengthy vision of an alternate future: Gawain flees the Green Knight and returns home, where he's welcomed back without external consequences. However, he's haunted by his own cowardice, giving up a difficult love in favor of living up to expectation, only to lose everything in the end anyway. His life following the cowardly route was longer, but it wasn't a better life.

He stops the Green Knight one last time, only to remove the Girdle and set it aside before declaring himself ready. The Green Knight is genuinely pleased by this, and he leans in and simply traces a finger over Gawain's throat, before happily saying. "Off with your head."

The movie ends there. Whether the Green Knight leaves him alive or kills him is up for interpretation. But even if the Green Knight wasn't on Morgana's payroll, I feel like he's way too fond of Gawain to do him real harm at this point.

And so Gawain has grown up-- he's brave, he's honorable, he's learned to keep his word and face the consequences of his actions. And Morgana, after some major struggles and a lot of called-in favors, has managed to keep her son from dying on his quest. Victory all around.

There's also an after-credits scene: just a little girl playing with Arthur/Gawain's crown. Notably, this little girl is neither of the children Gawain had in his vision of the cowardly future, so I interpreted it as a new future with a new child with potential all their own.

But that's just my take.

[surevera-arc]

i’ve run out of ways to say the mutant situation

what’s your mutant’s ability? alien physiology

what’s your mutant’s classification level? toeing the line between beta and gamma. when her body is at its easiest, most natural form, it... looks like a xenomorph, which is so gamma of it. but she’s usually fairly human-passing, with the exception of a very slight silver glow from her skin and eyes.

how old were they when they first discovered their abilities? how did it happen? she began looking different when she was four... and it was a super slow transformation, which made it even more grotesque :\ none of the helpful abilities would come in until she was fourteen, though. she learned she was not only able to turn back into a human(oid), but ! she could also shapeshift...

so, what can your mutant do with their abilities? she has an innate understanding of technology and space alike. in addition, among the many things that fall under the umbrella, she possesses longevity ( the ability to live far longer than the average human ), healing powers, psionics, empathy, flight, intangibility, invisibility, dna replication, acidic blood, invulnerability... and many more.

…and what can’t they do (at least, not yet)? shapeshift for a long period of time. ever since the Great Paul Incident of 1969, her body’s like ‘alright, we’re gonna shapeshift for ten hours, MAX. and five hours in, it’s gonna get uncomfortable. let’s not have another paul situation.’ ( this doesn’t go for her natural humanoid form, though. )  teleportation takes a good amount of thought. worse still, she can’t appear completely human. even if she were to go on down to solomon to get the gene lifted, she is made of unnatural attributes.

what’s one thing they hope to learn or are currently trying to learn with their abilities? easier shapeshifting and teleportation. more than that, how to cut out the forced empathy. not because part of the brotherhood’s deal is killing, rather because it would be nice to be able to distance yourself from someone else, but it is... imposseeiblay.

what is the most powerful thing your mutant can do with their abilities? do you think they would actually do it? a lil chomp chomp, a lil replicating of the dna, and then a lil single white female ! ...i kid, i kid -- kind of. any technology ? weapon in her hand. obviously she’d use it. and, while used mainly as a defense mechanism, invulnerability means going through a whole scrap unscathed ! also psionic stuff blah blah blah. has the potential for a full arsenal, but currently just sticking to the wikia page out of fairness !

what are your mutant’s weaknesses? as said earlier, she can’t appear completely human. even in humanoid form, she has a certain silver glow -- faint, but there. also, like... can die. in combat situations, it would likely have to be from within, but can and will die. also, very much a her problem -- not the mutation -- but still a problem/weakness: drugs. mainly the experimental ones she’d been given that she’s created duplicates of. because street drugs are so 1980s :\

do they use their abilities in their day-to-day life? in what ways? yea ! for her job !

as a mutant, do they have any goals? dreams? DIE, HUMANS! DIE! (but... less snark-like.)

how do they feel about the last 30+ years of mutant history? notably, the presidential address of 1983 and the essex house? you know, considering she got fucked over by the government and was used as a subject down in old area 51, she didn’t take too kindly to that! in fact, that was what caused her to yoink all of the tracking chips out because she was not about to let them get even more ideas since... wow, okay -- she was... say it... say it out loud: a mutant. as for the essex house, tear down the wall(s)! tear down the wall(s)! tear down the wall(s)! it sounded like bad news bears from the beginning...

@c23tasks

[damnitandy]

ranking all the times hannibal gets fucked up from worst to best

mason verger fat check eugh. no catharsis from this at all. it (to me) is very unsatisfyingly filmed and anti climatic. probably doesnt even scar. also its mason verger doing it, which just makes it suck more

mason verger branding this one was kinda good! i like knowing that hannibal will be scarred because i love him knowing that he isnt invulnerable. we have to keep this man humble. hannibal doesnt seem to be too bothered by it at the time though, and once again, this was a mason verger thing.

getting shot by the red dragon i LOVE this scene but it isnt because hannibal gets injured in it, its because hes being a harlot on the floor for will. otherwise, no real strong feelings on this one. its only above the branding bc mason verger doesnt do it

mason verger kidnapping s2 now THIS is where it starts getting good. some actual catharsis from this one, and watching hannibal getting tazed? magnificent. i like this one because it isnt (explicitly) mason verger doing the hurting, yk?

tobias fight scene this one was fun! i really like how confused Hannibal looks when tobias starts swinging that piano (?) string around and then just GETS him with it. but like getting shot by the red dragon, i mostly like this scene for the gay ass shit that happens afterwards. overall pretty solid tho

jack fight mizumono this was a really fun fight scene. i dont even know what more to say. i love it. it was a bit of a shame to see jack also being so fucked up here.

bella slap bella slapping hannibal is so deserved, so poignant, so powerful. she utilised girl power when she slapped hannibal, and you could TELL he didnt see it coming. what a queen and what a moment. extra points to the bella slap for being the first (chronological) time we see hannibal being injured.

matthew brown crucifixion the matthew brown crucifixion is the closest will gets to actually harming hannibal (physically) which is so sad. will deserves to fuck this man up himself. anyway, when he just gets tranquilised and sinks to the bottom of the pool? SO funny and absolutely pathetic. erased all disillusions i had about hannibal being some kinda demi god. especially when hannibal is wobbling around on that fucking bucket. and matthew just teasing him and asking him questions? get his ass bro!!! when jack has to hold him up like a big baby so he doesnt asphyxiate himself? so fun. the cuts on his arms would definitely scar, awesome. also, its cool as shit. major style points to mr brown for this one.

jack fight s3e5 UGH! I CANT EVEN BE COHERENT ABOUT THIS SCENE. its beautiful. everything about it is cathartic and energising. jack, i forgive you for literally every bad thing youve ever done because of this scene. the cinematography is great in this scene, and the music is FANTASTIC. not only is it my favorite scene where hannibal gets fucked up, its my favorite scene in the entire show.

[bitch-for-a-rainbow]

Lex Luthor: I actually really like him and Supergirl made me mad

     So, Lex Luthor is a very interesting, sometimes thought provoking, but most of all very enjoyable character.

     Lex is many things, a classic egomaniacal villain, an example of what lies can do to a relationship, a walking, talking red flag, a warning of how hubris and jealously can destroy you, and much, much more. He is not the typical strain of insane— if crazy at all, highly competent, and best of all knows every one of Superman’s buttons and exactly how to press them.

     I love watching Lex in every media I’ve ever seen him in going back to the original Christopher Reeve Superman. Every media, that is, except Supergirl. Why?

     Because she isn’t fucking Superman.

      Obviously, I love Supergirl— I run a blog with her in my icon— but there are certain things she is not and was never meant to be. Nemesis to Lex Luthor is right up there with a mass-murdering nazi (which is why the multiverse exists-- so that you can make her the first super on earth, Lex Luthor’s ex-friend, and not completely ignore the foundation of who they are as characters)

     Lex is fun because he’s so smart, but also because of the personal stake he has with Superman. Lex felt jealous. In many cases, he felt betrayed. He let that fester into mania and then he built an evil radioactive robo-suit and committed mass murder. You know, like reasonable people do.

     Lex was Superman’s friend and that gives his hatred of Kryptonians not only purpose, but emotional weight. Their relationship has that itching tension of painful history. In addition, Lex is extremely prideful. To him, Supergirl would be second class, she’s backup. And there is a story there: a story when Lex has a breakdown when backup knocks him into the sun, or the (in my opinion, less entertaining) version where Superman shows up to save her, reaffirming Lex’s worldview that he’s everything and defeating Superman means that Lex is the greatest and smartest, and even more stories beyond those that still adhere to its core principles— Kara and Lex as characters.

     But Supergirl chose neither. Instead they chose another recycle Superman plot. And then another. And another.    

     I should make time to say that I like Jon Cryer; I think he’s doing a great job with what he’s been given. He’s got the charisma. He’s got the smarmy self-congratulating swagger down perfectly. The scenes where the real Lex pokes its ugly head through his facade are just great. I think in anything else he would have made an excellent Lex Luthor, but not here.

     I was… disappointed with season 4. I liked 4x20– Kara and Lena investigating was fun at worst and at best had some really good edge of my seat moments. I thought that 4x16 “The House of L” was one of the best episodes of supergirl in a very long time and it still holds its place at least in my top 10, probably my top 5. But you will notice Lex wasn’t even in 4x20 and his places in 4x16 I actually enjoyed could easily have been occupied by any other intelligent villainous character. From a very basic point of view Col. Haley would have fit the mold of the manipulator training the compassionate but confused alien to kill— Wouldn’t have been her first time.

     The later usages of Lex in Supergirl are also attempting a common Superman plot. Lex “redeems” himself, tricks the public into trusting him again by framing Superman for something, and eventually is once again revealed to be evil. It sounds like a repetitive, boring plot that would lose the audience suspension if belief after a few tries— “Seriously, this again. How are they not expecting this by now?” And that complaint works for Supergirl. Because Supergirl isn’t Superman.

     Clark Kent was Lex Luthor’s best friend. Clark Kent ignored every warning sign and red flag waved in his face because Lex Luthor was his best friend. Clark Kent harbors a deep, abiding hurt and resentment from Lex’s betrayal. He has no trust for Lex, just like any hero would, but he also has the built up anger from repeated clashes with Lex and the initial betrayal. So when Lex returns, once again proclaiming he’s changed his ways, Superman’s response is a very public, very obviously bitter “yeah, right.” When Lex lays one of his traps for Superman, Clark is a little too rash. Lex Luthor knows how to push all of Clark’s buttons, even if he doesn’t know that they’re Clark’s. Lex can play him like a fiddle, and as for the general populace— would you be so steadfast in your trust of the invulnerable alien that could laser you in half in the blink of an eye and seems to be getting a little too comfortable in his role as peacekeeper? Would you, when even the slightest chance could slaughter your entire planet and you would have nothing and no one would could stop him— except, of course, Lex Luthor?

     We’ve been shown through many media that when Lex can’t manipulate his opponent, when villain comes that is simply too big for him to work on, he is at incredible risk. There are several stories I can think of of the top of my head where Lex becomes a temporary ally of the heroes simply because he realizes he can’t manipulate this new, powerful player and that therefore they are a risk to him (I actually really like those stories because the dynamics between him and the heroes are incredibly fun and interesting— you start to get an idea of who Lex is underneath all of the wit and ego).

     This is Supergirl’s great failure with Lex. The show understands that he is a genius— makes a great fuss about it. They understand that he is a manipulator— it’s his entire plot line with Lena. But they fail to understand that Lex’s ploys don’t work because he’s just so smart like the smartest ever. They work because he knows Superman and he knows that people are afraid of him— even the ones who trust and love him live with the knowledge that if he gets mind controlled or goes crazy, he could kill them all with ease, and that it’s happened before.

     Supergirl wasn’t around for Lex’s turn. This Supergirl wasn’t even in that steady of contact with Clark. She has no stinging betrayal, no anger and bitter history to make her rash and predictable. Certainly by now, two seasons into Lex’s placement in the show, she is angry— but by all the evidence we’ve been given, Kara’s anger just makes her more volatile, unpredictable and sometimes genuinely down for murder, which is definitely not something Lex needs. We have seen her both let Lex “fall to his death” (when she wasn’t all that angry— she just accepted his suicide without trying to force him into prison) and nearly shoot him with laser vision (this time she was angry and emotionally unstable after the death of Argo and the more Lex centered anger that he revealed her identity and destroyed her relationship with Lena. There is no question that she would have killed-- or at the very least maimed-- him if The Monitor hadn’t intervened). If Superman just murdered Lex when he got angry, he would have died a dozen times over.

     Lex doesn’t even have a basic understanding of Kara’s mindset. He can’t. Superman was raised by American humans in Kansas— he has a worldview that Lex could easily pick up on because it is at least based on watching most of the same events unfold as they grew up— and that’s if they had never met before they started fighting. Sure, he could assume Superman had some quirks from being an alien, but the base Americanized cultural standpoint was already affecting Lex’s machinations because he was an American. He’s familiar with the culture and values Superman follows— not so with Kara. I don’t even know if it was possible for him to obtain information on her religion, let alone the cultural views on justice. His research on her past fights would have been choppy at best, given that there are so many things that only Kara or the other Superfriends were there for. He can’t have the information about that fight on Mars where Kara literally disintegrated at least 3 white martians. He can’t know what happened with Reign beyond “she’s not going to be a problem anymore”. He might have more information about the Daxamite invasion through government records and his mother but the information is still limited. As for Non and Myriad, we don’t even know what happened to Non, and did they report to the DEO that J’onn literally tore Indigo in half (very graphically I might add). Or did they just say “They won’t be a problem anymore.” Lex may have been spying on Kara since Season 2, but how much is watching her civilian life going to help him understand her, when Kara’s civilian life was constructed to hide? Kara Danvers doesn’t say a lot of what she thinks to avoid notice, and even Supergirl keeps her mouth shut a lot of the time to try and maintain human-alien relations. The episodes where she squabbles with the Col. Haley and President Baker are full of her smiling and gritting her teeth through statements that clearly make her very angry.

     Lex “falling to his death” and then getting shot at the end of season 4 was a great moment— it fit with the characters motivations, but it also unfortunately illustrated the problem with Supergirl characters interacting with Lex. J’onn was a soldier who kills people. Kara has killed people. Alex has killed people. This scene was not the first time we watched Lena try to murder someone with that gun. They are not restricted by the moral code Superman uses, which makes it both more difficult and more dangerous for Lex to try manipulating them— so he doesn’t and instead they skip the intermediary and rely wholly on him being able to manipulate the public. This works to an extent with Red Daughter, but only because anti-alien sentiment was at an all time high with the Children of Liberty, and because Lex lucked into an amnesiac supergirl clone. So little of the heavy lifting was actually done by Lex it feels less like his accomplishment and more like he cheated off of 3 different people and then bragged about his math skills. I said it before and I’ll say it again. The season 4 villain could have been anyone with moderate intelligence and resources. After crisis, the excuses just get weaker and weaker. I mean come on, he confessed to trying to mind control the whole world in front of the jury while screaming vile things at his sister who’s sitting there visibly flinching at his words and they unanimously voted not-guilty? Are you kidding? (Also after watching all the courtroom scenes in Supergirl... do they know how courtrooms work? I mean, I laughed as hard as anyone at the “I plead the 5th” line, but seriously. Do they?)

    And Crisis was… a choice. I personally hated that they brought Lex back to life— more so because the in-universe reasoning was so weak. Lex Luthor does not face a whole lot of consequences, it’s true, but that’s because he has the genius, guile, and money to avoid them. To give him such an unearned out— especially after all the damage he’d done by dying— really hurt the both the stakes and the character. Lex is a human, and he fights Superman by taking advantage of very human things: corruption, anger, and fear as well as ingenuity and resourcefulness. He loads the deck in his favor— he doesn’t win on luck. And Lex in the CW Supergirl, seems to only win on luck. First he finds Red Daughter right when anti-alien sentiment is blowing up, then he is resurrected, then he finds out the crisis world loves him. He has had exactly 1 major victory based on his own work— manipulating Brainy. A manipulation which was really hard to believe when Brainy was, in canon, much, much smarter than Lex, familiar with his tactics, lying to the superfriends for no reason, and had no emotional reaction to cloud his judgement. 

      And even so, this one plot line was one of the more interesting ones in season 5 and the most Lex Luthor-like plot line the show has had. Even when I felt my suspension of disbelief slipping, it wasn’t entirely in tatters. Lex’s win felt somewhat earned. 

     He has been in the show for 2 1/2 seasons and he has had 1 major victory that felt at all earned. 2 and 1/2 seasons. That’s currently around 45% of the show’s run time.

     All in all, we have 4 deeply related problems that plague the CW Supergirl Lex Luthor:

Lex Luthor’s plans rely as much on effective manipulation of Superman as they do on his own genius. Without that manipulation, his victories rely much more on happenstance and luck, making them feel less earned.

Lex Luthor cannot effectively manipulate Supergirl— at the very least, not in the beginning of their relationship, which CW Supergirl focuses on— nor does he try to manipulate her or much of the cast beyond Lena and once with Brainy.

Supergirl kills people. Supergirl has killed Lex. Superman doesn’t kill people.

Lex fighting Supergirl does not have the kind of inherent emotional weight that Lex fighting Superman does.

     There are some other issues I have with the CW supergirl version of Lex, but I think if it was a Superman show I wouldn’t have minded. The large amount of screen time dedicated to him would make sense there, and the fact that he’s a cockroach seemingly impervious to any plot consequences would also fit more in line with Superman’s increasing frustration and make his manipulations more effective.

     The only problem I have that wouldn’t been solved purely by making it about Superman is the crowding problem. In season 1, Non and the DEO were highly connected and fed each other as villains. Season 2 also fit that same block of alien vs. anti alien. Both of those secondary villains (the army/DEO in s1 and Cadmus in s2) were very much not as big a villain as the main. Season 3 sort of had a secondary villain with Morgan Edge, but he was mostly just a Lena problem. All of these seasons had a good balance between the villains screen time and also between the villains and heroes. It got a little more complicated with the extra world killers in s3, but still functioned fairly smoothly with focus on Reign. This is one of the main reasons that seasons 1 and 3 are my favorites. S4, however, got more cluttered. A lot more cluttered. Manchester Black, the Children of Liberty, Lex Luthor, Red Daughter, and Eve Tessmacher were all villains with multi-episode arcs handled directly by Supergirl herself. There was too much to cover, not enough connection, and not enough time— plus 2 new main cast members (Look, I love Nia and Brainy but that season had way too much going on). Season 5 had Leviathan, Lena Luthor, Lex Luthor and 2 new mains. Each of those villain arcs had their own distinct plot from one another and screen time started to become more choppy and spread out. Season 6 now has so far Lex Luthor, the phantom zone, and Nyxly, as well as the Zor-El mini-arc, and while I’ll give them some leeway for Melissa Beniost’s maternity leave, there is again too much in too little time. Villains are underdeveloped or not given weighty closures, each main gets less and less personal screentime, and every shot that doesn’t serve a good or entertaining purpose feels like pouring out water from a canteen in the desert, especially now in the last season. Lex has greatly suffered for this both in the rage at how much screen time he gets compared to other characters, Kara in particular, and because of how his arcs are still hobbled by the lack of it.

    I just find myself wishing they’d restricted Lex to a 3 or 4 episode mini-arc, or just season 4 and saved him for the Superman and Lois show. They could have played the crisis resurrection as just an unfortunate coincidence of fate and had it be Superman’s problem from there on. 

    To Jon Cryer, may you never see this. It’s so very not your fault.

If anyone actually reads this whole thing and I got something wrong let me know. I’d love to discuss it. Today, I’m just trying to isolate the main issues I have with Lex in Supergirl. 

[beevean]

How about a top 5 (or 10 if you prefer) best and worst bosses in video games? :D

I’m not very well versed in videogames, but anyway...

WORST

10) Chaos 4 (Sonic Adventure): Not a big fan of bosses who waste so much time - ooh, look at that, trying to hit me with very slow, very telegraphed attacks, and taking more and more time to becomes vulnerable the more the fight progresses. Also not a big fan of Tactical Suicide Bosses (excuse me Chaos, why is your strategy “stay in the water for increasingly amounts of time and then decide to raise my head to breathe”? In this form you’re a fish!). Even less of a fan of bosses that you have to fight three times to complete the game.

9) Sonic and Diablon (Shadow the Hedgehog): They couldn’t have come up with a more boring boss if they tried. Shoot the shield, shoot the cannon, avoid the hand, run away when you hear the word “anti-matter”, kick Sonic in the head, slowly chip at the large energy bar, rinse and repeat. The G.U.N. Fortress version is particularly painful, too, as the arena only offers those piss poor pistols with 10 bullets and minimal damage. And much like Chaos 4, you have to fight this lovely boss three times to get to the Last Story, except you don’t even get a different character with different abilities. Also, poor Sonic, from protagonist of the series reduced to nothing more than a footstep.

8) Collision Chaos boss (Sonic CD): Try to play a boss that relies on wonky pinball physics, that shoots projectiles with the only purpose of changing your already precarious trajectory, in the Bad Future that adds slightly more bumpers to destroy, with the American music (I linked the extended version to properly depict the experience). Pain is real.

7) Egg Pinball (Sonic Advance 3): Surprise! I find this boss worse than the more famous Egg Chaser. Yes, the Egg Chaser is very anxiety-inducing with its bottomless pit and the ball chain sending you into it, but once you learn the pattern of the platforms and that Amy as a partner makes it a joke it’s not that bad. This one, though? Even with Amy/Sonic, which is the only team where your partner is useless but you aren’t, this boss relies too much on luck, expecially by the end when way too many balls are flying across the screen. It’s almost funny, in a “screw you” way, that this is one of the two bosses in the game that can’t be hit by Cheese, in the stage where you finally unlock Cream. Pinball and Sonic don’t mix as well as Sonic Team thinks, apparently.

6) Boost Guardian (Metroid Prime 2, Gamecube): This boss’ strategy isn’t even that bad, it’s just that it hits you like a truck in an environment that is already sipping you of health. If being hit was less punishing, guessing the correct timing to jump over it would be fun. Too overkill for its placement in the game.

5) Mother Brain (Metroid Zero Mission): MB in the original Metroid 1 was... there, with the difficulty of the final boss coming from those stupid Rinkas pushing you into the lava below. In the remake, which otherwise is much easier than the original game, you have to think about the Rinkas, the lava, and MB who shots you fireballs! And if you fall into the lava (and you will spend half of the time in the lava)? She closes her eye and protects her only weak spot, forcing you to wait at the mercy of the Rinkas hitting you all over again. Asshole.

4) Dark Gaia (Sonic Unleashed): Dark Gaia, as a whole, is a stain on an otherwise beautiful game. Setting aside his “character” for a while: this boss is way, WAY too long (the first time I clocked at 11 minutes, like hell I’m trying again), the Gaia Colossus phase is frustrating for how slow it is and for having a nigh-unavoidable attack, the running phase requires pitch-perfect timing otherwise say bye bye to your life, and the Super Sonic phase is essentially “slipping down the shield to run over a bunch of snakes, then QTE up your ass”. Riveting. At least it has some banging music...

3) Egg Saucer (Sonic Advance 2): The bosses in SAd2 are already questionable with their “wind pushing you backwards” physics, but this one flings you enough bullshit to make you ragequit. Whoisthisgit made an excellent video explaining everything that makes this boss such a miserable experience. I am so sorry, Knuckles, that you had to be associated with this tragedy.

2) Antlion Mecha (Sonic 2, Game Gear): So let me get this straight devs, you take a boss that is already a little too had as the first boss in the game, you put it in a console with a much smaller screen, you screw up the slope physics making it just a little too easy to slide into the antlion’s jaws (and of course you don’t have any Rings), and on top of that you make the trajectory of the projectiles random when in the Master System they were consistent? Great game design there, guys :V

1) Spider Guardian (Metroid Prime 2, Gamecube): I was never as close as bestemmiare ogni santo e pure il padre eterno as I was when I was trying to beat this abomination. I love the Ing theme, but FUCK if I wasn’t hating every single sound of it while playing, OH MY GOD I envy the people who played it on the Wii so damn much

BEST

10) Robot Carnival/Storm (Sonic Heroes): Yes! Yes, I do like this boss! I’m probably the only one, I don’t care, I find these fights cathartic, especially with Team Chaotix <3

9) Jet Drill (Sonic 3 & Knuckles): The strategy may be simple, but I love the setup of Eggman destroying an ancient garden just to kill Sonic and I love how it emphasizes how much of a reliable bro Tails is. (let’s just ignore the fact that with Tails alone this boss is a pain...)

8) Doomsday Zone (Sonic 3 & Knuckles): The series had its fair share of Super Sonic bosses, but so far no one has beaten the original. It has excellent music, you can feel the tension as you smartly redirect Eggman’s missiles to him and as you chase him down through space, and Eggman in this game is really ready to do anything to win, I love it

7) Beta mk. II (Sonic Adventure): This is probably the best part of Gamma’s campaign. 90% of it is kindergarten-easy, and then Hot Shelter and the final boss are a sudden, but welcome spike in difficulty. Beta mk. II is a far cry from any other E-series robot you’ve faced, being almost completely invulnerable, hitting you with straight up nukes, and the time is still ticking in the corner. Then you add the context of having to kill your brother, and the deceptively upbeat theme, and it becomes a memorable experience.

6) Cykka (Metroid Prime 2): The first phase is fairly boring, but Adult Cykka is really fun to fight for some reason. Not only it has a cool design, but it’s a fast-paced battle (due to having to use the Grapple Beam to swing from platform to platform) where you have to go ham on the boss at certain points (when it becomes Dark Cykka), my two favorite styles for a boss.

5) Nightmare (Metroid Fusion): A name, a certainty. This boss looks, sounds and attacks in a way that makes you feel confused and powerless. Even at it becomes a game of “climb the stairs, shoot at its ungodly face, jump around to avoid it”, it’s still tense.

4) Ridley (Super Metroid): SM isn’t famous for having great bosses, but they put all of their effort into Ridley and it shows. There’s no strategy here, it’s simply “kill him before he kills you”. At this point you’re pretty much at the peak of your strength, you went through literal Hell to get The Baby back, you’re not going to be stopped by the asshole who killed your parents.

3) Shibusawa Keiji (Yakuza 0): What a beast of a final boss. The first Dragon of Dojima is the perfect foil to Kiryu, having all of his strength and style but none of his compassion, and beating him up to a bloody pulp, especially as you see him become sloppier and sloppier, is so, so cathartic. Also, Two Dragons, what more can I say?

2) Egg Dragoon (Sonic Unleashed): Best boss in the series? I don’t know but it’s surely in the top 10, and it’s ironic that you play as the hated Werehog. Not only it has some delicious music (that generations ruined), but it’s such a fun climax after the hell and a half that is Eggmanland! On one hand, Eggman sounds seriously angry and he is ready to kill Sonic (and if you take too much time, which admittedly is hard if you’re not doing it on purpose, he is positively gleeful while he sends you into a fiery death); on the other, Sonic just rips this giant robot apart like tissue paper, and even if it’s done through QTEs, it looks awesome.

1) Kuze Daisaku (Yakuza 0): I’ll let this say it all. If I had to pick a favorite version, the fifth one was my favorite to fight (by that point you have likely upgraded Kiryu’s abilities to the point of making him a juggernaut), but the second one is iconic for a reason... multiple, in fact. “DIE, YOU LITTLE SHIT!”

Special mention to Majima in Y1, YK and YK2 because he looks really fun, but I have never faced him myself so yeah.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Can you write Jason’s POV of when Marinette gets shot?

Spoilers for Chapter 21 of Satisfied

He tried the door and cursed quietly when he came to realize that it was locked.

Even when he had been on the streets, he’d never learned to pick house locks. It had always been the line he wouldn’t cross. If he started breaking and entering, then what wouldn’t he do?

Fine, he thought.

He took a running start and threw himself at the window. But, instead of being nice and breaking like it was supposed to, it held still. Jason fell to the ground in a crumpled heap and stayed there, glaring at the window as he tried to think of what to do…

Well, he had no clue. Time to ask for ideas.

He pressed a hand to his ear.

“Gothamites are the fucking worst...”

~

About twenty minutes later he heard a familiar laugh.

He glanced up to see Ladybug standing over him, hands on her hips.

“Hey.”

“Yo,” he said.

He pushed himself to his feet and they walked to the door together.

As promised, she picked the lock in no time flat. He probably would have been more concerned about it if he wasn’t already so concerned with the scuffling sound he’d heard from inside.

Ladybug didn’t seem to notice it, her face still set in a wide grin as she bowed deeply. “After you.”

He forced a grin and pulled a gun from its holster. She sobered almost instantly, taking out her pistol.

They raised their guns and slipped through the house. At one point they found a family tied up in the living room. He looked at Ladybug. She was more approachable, she’d be better with the clearly panicking people.

She must have known this, too, because she brought a comforting smile to her face and untied them. Her voice was gentle as she spoke, like she was scared that if she was too loud they would break: “You should all get out of here.”

Despite her efforts, the mother didn’t seem at all consoled. She gripped Ladybug’s arm tightly. “My wife is still here! You have to help her!”

“Of course. We’ll do our best. You need to get your kids outside, ma’am.”

The woman looked reluctant, but then her eyes found her kids and she took them both by the hands and led them out.

Marinette waved until the door shut behind them, then her smile slipped off her face.

He gave her a raised eyebrow, a ‘you ready?’, and they raised their guns in unison.

They opened the doors as a pair, guns at the ready. They’d force them open quickly and lean in, eyes searching for any sign of movement, and then continue on. Eventually, though, they were running out of doors, and they came upon the last one: the one that led to the basement.

They bore identically grim expressions as she pushed the door open.

Light filtered down the old, rickety stairs enough for them to gauge how big the drops between each step were, but it wasn’t nearly enough to see the rest of the basement. He tightened his grip on his gun. Should they wait until their eyes adjusted to the lack of light before fully entering the --?

Fuck. Ladybug was already walking down.

He hurried after her. Their fingernails scraped against the old stone walls as they searched for a lightswitch.

They’d only gotten a few steps before a gunshot rang out, splintering the railing between the two of them.

The vigilantes whipped around, guns pointed into the darkness at random. Their eyes strained to see even the outline of the perpetrator.

Wait, that wasn’t just one person.

The man was using the homeowner as a shield.

“Drop your weapons!” Screamed the criminal, his voice high.

He was scared, then. This would have been great for them if he wasn’t currently holding someone hostage or pointing a gun at them.

Jason flipped the safety on and Ladybug followed suit. They both knew that they couldn’t get a shot off on the guy without risking the civilian’s life. They dropped their pretty much useless weapons over the side.

He rested his hands behind his head, his fingers tangling in his hair, and he tried to think of what to do.

The main problem was that the man was clearly a good shot, he’d perfectly hit the railing between them and he held his revolver with practiced ease.

On the other hand, the criminal was in a panic and clearly desperate. Maybe they could leverage that, claim that they had backup on the way. He might agree to let go of his hostage if they agreed to go easy on him, or maybe they could bargain for a lighter sentence --.

His brain screeched to a halt when Ladybug hopped the railing.

His mouth fell open… only to snap closed again when a bullet nailed the wall where her head had been just seconds before.

When Ladybug hit the ground, she went for her pistol. Jason watched on in horror as a shot hit her shoulder…

And then found himself able to breathe again when the bullet clattered to the floor. Right. Dick had mentioned that Ladybug was pretty much invincible in her costume, it was all going to be fine --.

But then a shot hit her square in the chest. And she wheezed. Blood flew from her mouth.

Wait, so she wasn’t completely invulnerable?

It didn’t matter. She was definitely in pain.

“LADYBUG, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU --?”

The criminal was turning their gun on him, but Ladybug burst forward and he brought his gun back to the nearest threat. He shot her in the leg.

Jason’s hands went to cover his mouth. What could he do? Oh god, oh god --.

And then Ladybug hobbled a bit forward and the criminal shot her in the stomach. Her hands flew to the spot on instinct and she turned to her horrified teammate.

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

She brought a hand up to wave him along and finally caught sight of the blood coating her hands.

Her eyes widened and she looked down at herself, at the maroon staining her spandex.

She wobbled uncertainly on her feet, her eyes fluttering closed, and fell to the ground.

The dull thud of her body hitting the ground was what fully pulled him from his shock.

He hopped the railing and grabbed his gun from the floor, pointing it at the criminal. Tears threatened to blur his vision, but he didn’t care. He could make the shot anyway.

The man held the hostage closer to himself. Whatever. He couldn’t let him get away with making his friend look like that; making her breathing come out in ragged gasps, making her bleed out over the floor --.

But then again… she was bleeding out on the floor. He didn’t know much about biology, but he was pretty sure that getting someone else’s blood in your wounds couldn’t be good.

Jason grit his teeth tightly and surged forward, settling for hitting the man with the hilt of his gun. The civilian gave a scream of surprise as the criminal crumpled behind her. He barely paid her any mind.

Every part of him was screaming that he needed to tend to his friend, but he couldn’t quite yet. He reached into his belt and cuffed the man to the stairwell.

If he got away... if he got away unpunished…

He grit his teeth. He couldn’t think about that.

Jason ran to Ladybug’s side. She looked so tiny like that, curled in a tight ball with her hands pressing against her side. He moved her as gently as he could. He needed to see her wound…

But, god, did he not want to.

She was losing blood, and a lot of it. His hands went to his utility belt and then he was reminded of the fact that he’d stopped taking bandages a long time ago. He cursed his past self out mentally and shrugged off his leather jacket. It wasn’t great, but it was something.

She flinched awake when he pulled tight. She looked at him with half-lidded eyes and then cracked a tiny smile.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SMILING FOR?! YOU’RE BLEEDING OUT, BUG! BECAUSE YOU RAN AT A GUY WITH A GUN! GOD, WHY CAN’T I GET A SINGLE SMART SIBLING?!”

Wait a minute! Siblings!

He made sure she was bound as well as he could manage, then pressed a bloodied hand to his comm.

“Hey, guys, problem. The perp is cuffed at the bottom of the stairs --.”

“That doesn’t sound like a bad thing.”

“Well then shut the fuck up so I can tell you the bad thing! Ladybug got shot! And she’s bleeding! I’m taking her to the medbay. Someone call the police on the perp! I’m busy!”

He ignored his family’s yells of ‘WHAT?!’ and ‘HOW?!’ as he carefully scooped his friend into his arms.

His eyes found the hostage they’d saved. “Please, I know it’s been a hard night for you, but you need to stay here and watch this guy until the police come. Her gun is over there --” he jerked his head towards it “-- thank you, and I’m sorry.”

And then he set off towards Wayne Manor, trying his hardest not to jostle her too much.

She buried her face in his shoulder and he could feel tears wet his suit.

He tried to think on the positive side. If she was crying, then she was definitely alive…

She was okay...

Please, please, please be okay...

[fauzhee10069]

”King Crimson” and its confusing mechanism (Vento Aureo)

Alternative title: “how it indeed just works”

「King Crimson」 is the Stand of Diavolo, the main villain of Vento Aureo. It has a sub-Stand ability called Epitaph, which was primarily introduced by Vinegar Doppio.

A mandatory introduction, just skip this if you are already very familiar with 「King Crimson」!

Ability

Time Erasure/Time Skip

「King Crimson」's signature ability is to erase a given frame of time; it starts from the instant the ability is activated and can be made to last up to 10 seconds.

During this period of erased time, only Diavolo remains fully conscious and is the only one who can re-adjust his actions.Other people will be unable to experience anything that happens and will continue to act as they would have. After the effect of the ability ends, all people other than Diavolo will retain no memories of anything that happened during the erased period.

After the allotted time frame, people will suddenly find themselves in the situation they were supposed to be in afterwards. For example, when Fugo asked Giorno for a soda, the soda was suddenly in Fugo's hand without Giorno ever actually handing it to him, when Narancia thought that someone had eaten his chocolate, while in truth he had already eaten the chocolate himself. (VA chapter 80)

There is, however, one instance where a person (Bruno) was able to see their double before finding themselves in their future position (which unfortunately has never been brought up again). (VA chapter 80)

According to JOJOVELLER, Diavolo and KC become intangible during time erasure, allowing attacks to pass through them, as the moment that the attack would have hit was erased. However, this also means Diavolo himself is unable to attack while KC's time erasure is active.

As a result, he often relies on the ability to avoid attacks and move into advantageous positions, such as the enemy’s blind spot, then directly attacks the enemy with KC's great destructive power the moment the ability ends.

He may also use said intangibility for a brief period of time in order to cause an attack to pass through him and hit whatever is on his opposite side. However, during his fight against Polnareff, Diavolo is also able to splatter his own blood onto an enemy's projection in anticipation of blinding them.

Forecast via 「Epitaph」

「Epitaph」 serves as a sub-Stand that assists and completes KC's time erasure. Epitaph gives Diavolo/Doppio the ability to forecast what will happen into the future up to ten seconds, using Doppio’s bangs or Diavolo’s long flowing hair as a projector.

Diavolo and Doppio often use the forecasting ability of Epitaph to predict any incoming threat, making sneak attacks ineffective against them.

However, the visions are incomplete and only show the final result without the events leading up to it (hence the 10s limit), and thus can be subject to interpretation. In one instance, Doppio could see himself on the ground with a severed human foot flying by; he initially thought that the foot was his own, but was mistaken. (VA chapter 106)

While the predictions seen by Epitaph are unavoidable, they still effectively warn Diavolo and Doppio against incoming danger, allowing them to steer events to lessen the potential damage, such as when Doppio realized a pair of scissors would form inside his throat, he easily tore them out in order to save himself. KC itself can prevent the predictions from being completed if it erases the frame of time when the prediction would have come true.

How does it mean that Diavolo can’t interact during “time erasure”?

Through Diavolo’s POV, he had shown how the "time erasure" process happened during his fight with Bruno, we can say that this is what is called “during time erasure”:

Diavolo used his "time skip" to dodge 「Sticky Fingers」's punch, but isn't this called "interaction"? That Diavolo is able to move inside his "time skip"?

I thought what it meant by "he is unable to interact" is that he cannot move or do anything at all, then what is the true meaning of "unable to interact"?

Based on the description from the JOJOVELLER, I think what it means by "unable to interact" is that Diavolo can't use KC to (physically) attack. Like in his fight with Bruno, why didn't he attack him and just dodge “during time erasure”? Why didn't he punch Risotto "during time erasure" and just dodge 「Aerosmith」's shots?

Therefore I concluded that KC cannot do two tasks at once: “time erasure” and “physical attack”, because both can only be done at separate times. His “prediction using Epitaph” and “time erasure” are also carried out by him sequentially, not simultaneously.

But what about the event when Trish's hand was cut off after the "time skip"? Or when the fortune teller's hand got cut off? Didn’t both events happen "during time erasure"?

To be honest, I also think that those events contradict what JOJOVELLER has explained, but only by assuming that their hands were chopped off by KC. However, what if Diavolo actually didn't cut their hands using KC? Yet using another unknown method? But we never saw him carry any weapons other than his Stand.

I think this mystery is quite impossible to answer, other than simply admitting that Araki did a retcon (the case of inconsistency). Still, by rereading chapter 102 (the fortune teller scene): right after the fortune teller realized that his hand was cut off (after the "time skip"), KC obliterated the fortune teller physically.

VA chapter 102: The Island of Sardegna – Storm Warning!

Your mileage may vary, but I have a feeling that Diavolo had not used KC to cut off the fortune teller's hand, otherwise why would he strike him twice with KC (during and after the time skip)?

You may say that he chopped off the fortune teller’s hand as a distraction, but why would he need “distraction” if he was able to kill him using KC “during the time skip"? After all he was carrying a briefcase back then, in which it was quite possible to keep a weapon there.

The same thing might have happened to Trish, we didn't see Diavolo carrying any weapon at the time, but given the fairly large arena (in the tower of San Giorgio Maggiore), he could have thrown it away “during time erasure".

But what about Narancia’s death? As he was impaled by the fence “during the time skip”, it can be said that he died by “getting impaled by the fence”, not because of a physical attack from KC, even though KC (Diavolo) himself is the one who put him there.

Therefore, KC can’t directly attack its target (with its own body) but it is able to move and do anything else inside “time erasure”.

Even so, I also partially think that Araki did retcon KC's ability and limitation so that whatever excuse my explanation about this will always be contradicting to each other. Therefore, I am not saying this as fact, but only as theory, it's up to you if you agree to this or not.

Does 「King Crimson」 really “erase the time”?

VA chapter 80: The Mistery of King Crimson – part 2

In Japanese, KC (Diavolo) did say 「時間を消し去て」”jikan o keshisate” which really means “erase the time” and then “I make sure that I will have everyone who jeopardizes my everlasting climax/peak to be vanished” 「消え去てもらう」or something like that.

Therefore, he really said that he erased the time and jumped over it/leapt past it, but by taking into account the scene and the atmosphere at that time, I thought that he was dramatizing his choice of words, so that "erasing" might not actually be erasing in literal sense, but still… the time (feels) skips due to KC’s ability.

Also, I was googling for any forums that discuss this issue and I found a very interesting one:

King Crimson (JJBA) does NOT erase time!

According to “Beatrice The Endless Witch”:

Diavolo causes fate to follow through unhindered for a period of time while he himself slips out of the physical world. Basically, everyone moves as they had planned to, unconsciously, while he himself phases through everything. Araki shows King Crimson dodging punches and Diavolo constantly refers to "erasing time" and stuff like that...that's all nonsense. I don't know if Araki himself wasn't sure what KC did so he constantly retconned it into ways that still made some sense, or maybe he didn't care about explaining it and he or his editors were like, "we'll just show some neat visual stuff and have Diavolo say one-liner to get the point across." It's possible, right?

I'm not Araki, so I don't know what his thought process was...but I'm guessing it was this:

“I want a Stand that can skip time forward - just like how CDs skip if they're scratched."

"But that wouldn't be beneficial to the user...so maybe the user is invulnerable to the time skip."

"But wait...if he's conscious during the skipped events, other people must be unconscious. Otherwise it doesn't work."

"But wait again! Can Diavolo just fucking wreck people during these events? Well...I guess he's just ethereal. He can't affect things." (which came the “unable to interact during time erasure”)

"...Well that's a great way of confusing people, but how does he fight with it, he just follows people? That's dumb. I guess he can see where they'll end up when the time skip finishes, so he can be prepared." (Epitaph)

"I guess that means other people can't phase like he does, because it'd contradict his predictions. This is good, he can use this to make people shoot each other or run into traps and stuff."

And that's how we got 「King Crimson」 and 「Epitaph」. It also fits well with his character (someone whose ability is easily felt by the entire world would be quite paranoid and need ways to avoid relying on its usage) and also does something that Araki likes in explaining real-world phenomena (short term amnesia, people spacing out).

Some people argue that KC erases the cause and keeps the effect except that doesn't make sense. Cause and effect are not two separate entities, but instead two ways of describing the same event from a different perspective according to the flow of time. You can't just pick and choose what you like to call cause and then label everything else as an effect. If you run down an alley and shoot a person during KC's time skip, you're telling me that you will end up down the alley but the person won't be shot, but there's literally no difference between the movement of your person across the ground and the movement of pieces of your skull as it gets shattered by a bullet. The CAUSE of moving your ass down the alley wasn't erased? Why not? Cause you don't want it to be?

I think s/he meant that “if you shoot a person” inside “(during) time erasure”, which the action is referred "cause", then “after time erasure”, the “effect” which should be “the person got hits by bullet” should not have happened, because the "cause" was already removed by KC so the "effect" shouldn't have existed in the first place.

I'd like to remind you that if Diavolo could attack people in time skips he would've done so against Buccellati, Polnareff or Giorno, but he didn't.

Hence my theory that KC can't attack physically with its body “inside/during time skip”.

People also argue that Diavolo hitting Polnareff in the eye with his blood makes no sense if time was skipped, but it does. Why wouldn't it stay there? It's no longer part of Diavolo, so it gains collision. And Diavolo doesn't erase time, so the blood is still there when the ability deactivates. Same with Josuke (part 4) when he used his blood as an attack, when it leaves his body, it's no longer part of him.

However, the reaction by “TehChron” suggested him/her to basically suspend his/her disbelief:

That's because you're misunderstanding how Araki presents time in JJBA. He presents it as a true 4th dimension, which has its own rules and effects, which he admittedly bullshits at times, but “Time” and “Gravity” are the highest natural forces he presents in the series. In effect, he treats them as constants across the mutiverse that exist as fundamental physical laws.

「Made In Heaven」 doesn't merely reset the Earth by infinitely increasing the flow of time from a single point at in Florida. Because what they are doing is manipulating time itself as a force of nature, rather than a concept.

Araki states that King Crimson erases time, and therefore is given the difficulty of expressing that in tangible effects, which is where we get "erasure of cause and keeping of effect", which is a nice way of summing up the ability in a way that we can observe in the series proper.

You say that cause and effect are interchangeable based on the flow of time, but that is incorrect “based on how Araki treats time”. I've explained it elsewhere when describing "relative time", but when a character gains the ability to manipulate time, they move under a different set of laws, much like swimming or flying.

Therefore, what KC would be erasing in cases where he phases through bullets are the "cause" of a bullet connecting with Diavolo, and as a result the "effect" of the bullet doing damage to Diavolo would be changed to an "effect" of "the bullet continuing along its course harmlessly". It erases a "cause" and as a result produces an entirely different "effect" based on that event.

As such, in instances where it appears that Diavolo teleports, he could use KC to erase the "time" experienced by his opponent. The "cause" of recognizing Diavolo's actions eliminates the "effect" of an opponent being able to react to him.

Rather than erasing time as if someone were scooping water out of a river, KC, and even most time-related Stands treat “time” as if it were a physical thing to be interacted with.

If 「The World」 and 「Star Platinum」 affect time by holding it still, then KC affects time by removing unwanted chunks from it. 「Bites the Dust」 uses specific stimulus to roll time back, as does 「Mandom」, to a lesser degree. MIH treats it like physical loop of some kind, and simply speeds it up until it loops back to the beginning or another desired part that had already been passed up. With alterations, if desired, naturally.

In the end, both agreed with this explanation. As for me, I think "time erasure" is more like "cause erasure" or even "causality manipulation", although only limited in removing a certain factor inside the "cause" (based on above explanation).

Does 「King Crimson」 have “universal range”?

I was also googling for a forum that discuss this issue as well and I found one:

Does King Crimson really have a universal range?

According to “Power That Preserves”:

Actually this is also a big question for me regarding KC’s range. And admittedly, I also agree with him/her.  Logically, it should be really weird if we (the people) experience "time skip" several times around the world. At this point, it should have become a big "phenomenon”, not just a simple memory loss that happens to several people (who are aware of it) in one place.

The example brought by “noobthemusical” also makes sense, during Bruno vs King Crimson arc in Venezia, the rest of the gang who were outside at that time, not all of them realized that the "time skip" happened.

It is possible that not everyone realizes that time has just been skipped, especially for those who are daydreaming or who tend to ignore the events around them.

Others opposed him/her by referring to Araki's interview. Let's see what the interview actually was:

At the beginning of the interview, they did say about "time-based" abilities in general. However, when Shibasaki asked about the "range", she specifically asked about the "affected range" of the time stop, in other words: the range of this particular Stand named 「The World」! Hence Araki's answer which said that it is "all the way out into space", it is an answer regarding the "range" of the ability to stop time, (it should be) not the ability to manipulate time in general.

“Power That Preserves” has also understood this, s/he even admitted that a “localized time-stop” won't make sense, but for him/her, not for the “time-skip”.

You really think the writer will think of this and go out of his way to show us? The feat is there and the range is given, trying to break your head over it will not end well especially if the writer doesn’t care to show us the consequences of such an ability being used. – said “Tranquil Fury”

I think so too, s/he basically said again to “just suspend your disbelief, that’s a fiction for ya!” I also feel that Araki probably didn't think too deeply into this, let alone use the "real life logic". I think his main priority was that the main villain had invincible ability that makes it difficult for the protagonist.

They have tried to use their logic and that's not really wrong. But for me, they are the type of readers who prioritize the mindset "suspend your disbelief because it's fiction" or generalize the above interview by thinking that "the interview is about JoJo villains’ time manipulations, therefore the questions and answers from there are surely related to that".

What I regret about them is their lack of careful reading, in which Shibasaki’s question was obviously: “What is the maximum affected range when time is stopped?”

And of course Araki’s answer was about the range of 「The World」, which is universal.

They are very much the opposite of "Power That Preserves" who was being hard to suspend his/her disbelief and fixating on the "real life logic" of understanding fiction.

But the more interesting thing here is actually about 「Made in Heaven」, where “Schneider” and “zenieth” have said that the range of it is "universal", which is of course true, because in Made in Heaven arc, the effect of MIH’s time acceleration around the world had been shown to us. (SO chapter 150)

Localized time-stop doesn’t make sense (and impossible), so does “time acceleration” because time is universal, therefore logically as well, this also (should) apply to the "time skip".

Some have explained that KC’s time skip around the world to most people feels like a momentary "memory loss". But is there nothing dangerous about it (apart from those who are confronting Diavolo)?

「Made in Heaven」 has been shown to be an extremely dangerous Stand, given the impact it has had around the world:

SO chapter 150: Made in Heaven – part 2

One of the fatal consequences caused by MIH was this traffic accident, in which all vehicles were traveling very fast beyond the control of the drivers.

KC’s "time skip" that happened in VA often made people who realized it become shocked (the scene when Trish's hand was chopped for example), but at other times when the atmosphere is relaxed, those who experienced it just think of it as a momentary "memory loss".

But then, what will happen if the "time skip" occurs on a traffic? For example, when we are about to cross, a "time skip" occurs, will we be hit or hit something because we lost focus and didn’t prepare for a moment?

Then what about some jobs that require time observation (e.g. some researches or manufactures), in which it’s highly possible to notice that a "time skip" has occurred? Not to mention there are a lot of such jobs which require observation. "Power That Preserves" is not wrong when s/he brought up the lack of attention to "the law of common sense".

And I agree that we can't necessarily apply all of the laws of physics. That's why I think there can be localized timeskips without the affected area becoming seperated from the rest of the Earth, but King Crimson's power affecting the entire world and going unnoticed by the public isn't a matter of violating the law of physics, it's violating the laws of “common sense”. – said "Power That Preserves"

This is something that was very unfortunate in the forum, "Power That Preserves" was not entirely right (where s/he had difficulty understanding "fictional logic" yet proposed the “localized time-skip”), but s/he also had an opinion that deserves to be taken more seriously than simply "suspend your disbelief", "the author said so in his interview”, “there is fictional canon fact that you have to accept" and “don’t you dare to question the author!”.

This is the point where discussion can't really develop well, in the end, "Power That Preserves" did not get a satisfactory answer, instead s/he was bullied for his/her critical thinking. His/her critical opinion was underappreciated because of the mindset of those responders who were too accepting of everything that was "canon", even though the canon itself is “illogical”.

Unfortunately, there are many readers who have this kind of mindset.

We may not get the "right answer”, but had they been a little wiser, at least it might be possible to reach a conclusion that would satisfy both parties. I would like to join them to neutralize the atmosphere in the forum at that time, if only I had found this forum ten years earlier.

Coincidentally, I recently came across a fanfiction from AO3 that might unintentionally acknowledge the criticism from "Power That Preserves" ten years ago. Particularly, in this part:

TowerDogs’s Golden Redemption, chapter 24

“Memory manipulation”, really? But didn't Diavolo (Araki) clearly say that 「King Crimson」's ability was "time skip"? Do you seriously believe in fanfiction more than “The Word of God” (canon)?

Of course I'm not saying that KC's true ability is "memory manipulation", but considering some confusion and contradiction that indeed exist in the manga (Vento Aureo) itself in portraying KC and its time skip, this fanfic is more to explain about how to understand the mechanism of KC in its own language.

The fanfic also uses the same logic as "Power That Preserves" in that the so-called ‘time skip’ has a limited range.

Using the term "memory manipulation" is not too far-fetched in itself if we consider these scenes:

VA chapter 80 and 101

In which both Fugo and the hotel employee only thought that they forgot a moment and brushed it aside, but what if it happens when we are doing something like "observation", in which we were observing something moving like this:

Without blinking, we clearly see that the blood drip suddenly adds up against their supposed sequence (no longer drop by drop).

If so, doesn’t the excuse that it is a "memory loss" (as in the chapter 80 and 101) become invalid? Yes but actually no, because I think what “TowerDogs” means might be that Diavolo's "memory erasure" works by erasing everyone's memory in 10 seconds without leaving any details behind. People who lose their memory don't just forget about a single thing (for example: what they were doing at the time), but the whole memory for that 10 seconds (including what happened at that time and what they were doing at that time).

Then as I said before, the people who have the jobs that require high focus and observation are not just a few in around the world.

Hence, “Power That Preserves"’s logic which said that “when it happens to everyone in the world every time Diavolo uses his powers, this should be big news pretty fast” becomes something that should not just be brushed aside because canon.

And I also believe that the fanfic is aware of such problem as well (hence the “limited radius” which has been written there).

「King Crimson」in my own word

Although both interpretations from “TowerDogs” and “Power That Preserves" are controversial and might contradict the canon portrayal, thanks to them (and the explanation from “TehChron”) that I can get a better understanding of 「King Crimson」's true ability.

In order to be more accurate, I will leave aside the terms that often used by the manga canon: "time erasure" & “time skip”. These terms are what often misled the readers, if I have to interpret the meaning of “time erasure” alone, of course I would interpret it as "erasing the time elapsed for 10 seconds along with all the events (which contain causes & effects) that occurred during that time without a single trace", example:

Mista runs down an alley and shoots Diavolo “during KC's time erasure”, the outcome of KC's time erasure would be that Mista never ran into the alley and shot Diavolo in the first place as the events (which contain causes & effects) got erased along with the time (10 seconds).

To be honest, the above interpretation is more suitable for 「Gold Experience Requiem」.

What about “time skip”? The example of “skipping time for 10 seconds regardless of events (which contain causes & effects) that are happening during that time” will be like:

Mista runs down an alley and shoots Diavolo “during KC's time skip”, the outcome of KC's time skip would be that Mista already arrived at the end of the alley with Diavolo who got shot without seeing the process where Mista ran and shot in the previous 10 seconds as the events (which contain causes & effects) still happened and only the process got skipped.

But canonically, KC doesn't work that way, the result of KC’s time erasure based on the example above will be that Mista shot did not hit Diavolo and instead hit someone else (who should have been blocked by Diavolo prior to the manipulation).

In the end, I conclude that from several events that occur for 10 seconds “during KC's time skip”, Diavolo manipulates one of them (which is called "a cause") by removing several factors inside it, so that when the time skip ends (10 seconds later), the “resulting effect” of the "cause" which has been manipulated becomes "different" as desired by Diavolo.

During Diavolo’s manipulation, only he has the “consciousness”, as the people other than him will only feel the altered "effect" based on his manipulated "cause".

Still, Out of respect for Araki, let us just call this ability as a "time skip / erasure", it’s the easiest term to describe  「King Crimson」 ‘s ability.

「King Crimson」’s callback in “Hunter x Hunter”

Major spoilers of HxH!

“Hunter x Hunter” also made a callback of 「King Crimson」 through a character named Tserriednich. The Kakin Prince has developed Nen ability that has a similar mechanism to KC.

HxH chapter 387: Replay

“Similar but not the same” is the right word to describe it, Tserriednich also mentioned "parallel world" which for me could be a callback for 「D4C」 as well.

Unlike KC, in which time is noticeably skipped so that people affected are either shocked by the sudden event or experience a momentary “memory loss”, Tserriednich’s Parallel Future doesn’t skip the time at all, instead he just alters an event (a “cause”) through his personal “parallel world”. Initially, the affected people are not aware of the change and experience the original "effect" of the unaltered "cause", only then he surprises the people with the new “effect” of his altered "cause."

What KC and “Parallel Future” have in common is that both use forecasts for 10 seconds ahead of reality (Epitaph’s mechanism), it's just that Tserriednich’s forecast happened during the reality, but the future 10 seconds forcasted by Tserriednich are compressed. Tserriednich can also sense forecast and reality simultaneously (as if he is inside two parallel worlds that are being merged).

Amusingly, Tserriednich also made a reference to the initial mechanism of KC where Diavolo cannot interact during the “time skip”:

If you want to know about “Parallel Future” more, you can read chapter 387 of HxH, starting from page 3 to page 17.

JoJo Villains’ Stands’ Ability Breakdown (Conclusion)

And eventually, I got inspired to make this:

Thank you for reading up to here.

[schrijverr]

Introductions

How Bertie met Jonny and introduced him to Tim. Wherein Jonny gets beaten up and then saved by Bertie, who is familiar with keeping idiots alive.

On AO3.

Ships: Bertie x Tim (x Jonny preslash)

Warnings: jonny gets beat up. Tell me if I missed anything or if you want me to tag something!

~~~~~~~~~

Bertie was making his way to his and Tims tent, when he saw the small crowd chanting something about a fight. He frowned and went over to see what the fuss was all about. Getting to the front he could see four big guys beating the shit out of a small soldier.

“Hey, hey, what the fuck, let him go.” Bertie exclaimed, pulling one guy off.

The guy turned around, gearing up to fight Bertie, but although Bertie had a soft heart he was also up in the 6ft with a lot of muscle on him, so the guy just snarled something about the other deserving it, before storming off with his buddies.

With the entertainment gone, the crowd dispersed until it was just Bertie and the soldier. He looked worse for wear, but not really upset, even grinning slightly as he checked if his teeth were still all there.

“Hi, I’m Bertie, you okay? What did you do to piss them all off?” Bertie asked.

The soldier shook his hand: “Jonny, nice to meet ya. And I’m fine, you didn’t need to save my ass, I had it handled.”

Bertie rolled his eyes at the brashness of this Jonny, who from his perspective was on the edge of being beaten to death, something he informed the other off.

Jonny in turn just laughed and said: “Very bold of you to assume I can die.”

Oh no, Bertie thought, another kid with illusions of grandeur about his own survival skills, he and Tim would get along. Hmm, he and Tim would get along.

“Sure, immortal boy, just tell me why they beat you up and I’ll get you some bandages so that you and your invulnerable skin can continue to exist.” Bertie told him sarcastically, leading him along the route he had already been taking.

“Hey, I said immortal not unkillable.” Jonny protested, jogging slightly to keep up, “And I kind of did deserve the beating, if you are to believe their reasoning. And I’m not a boy.”

“Okay, then immortal man.” Bertie teased, “What’s the reasoning?”

“Well, you remember that one recruiter song? The one that went like: Grab yourself a laser lad and serve your Queen with a smile, smile, smile.” Jonny sang the last part and it sounded very familiar almost uncanny, like he was the person he’d heard on the radio…

“Oh.” Bertie said, getting it suddenly.

“Yeah, apparently I’m to blame for convincing them to join, like they didn’t buy into it themselves, like I mean, if they’d just listened they could hear that was just blatant propaganda.” Jonny told him, “I just want to say, I’ve seen a history book, no one ever described soldiers as having a smile that’s just basic thinking.”

Bertie snorted slightly and agreed: “You have a point there, me and Tim got drafted, but I have to say this is not what I expected of it.”

“Oh, I enlisted, along with TS, thought it’d be fun.” Jonny told him.

Internally Bertie thought, oh god why is he so dumb that he thought that was a good reason, oh my god, who is in charge of him. Out loud, however, he said: “What makes you say that? You were just bashing those guys for thinking it would be fun.”

“Yeah, but they’re dumb, cause they can die, I can’t, so for me it is fun, like an extreme laser tag fight.” Jonny explained.

Bertie fought off a huge face palm, Jonny obviously believed this immortality thing more than he had expected. He asked: “And is it as fun as you expected?”

“I’m having a great time, yeah, less beating the shit out of someone with my bare hands, but still enough violence to keep me occupied until I can go.” Jonny shrugged.

“And where is this TS?” Bertie asked, trying to figure out who was making sure Jonny was surviving this war until it was over. He was already so tiny and it broke Berties heart to know that he had probably come up with the immortality to cope with the war.

“The Toy Soldier deci-”

“The Toy Soldier?”

“Yeah, its a bit of a weirdo, but anyway, it decided it liked the uniforms of the Lunar Men more, all the plumes, you know, so it joined them, but I’m sure I’ll see it again once it gets bored.” Jonny explained, but not clearing much up.

“Ah, of course.” Bertie said, glad that his tent was already in sight.

When they got in sight Tim waved at him with a smile and held up a bottle as he called out: “Bertie, who did you pick up this time?”

“Who’s that?” Jonny asked.

“Tim, an idiot I’m trying to keep alive currently, who has a affinity for explosions.” Bertie said.

“He sounds cool.” Jonny replied, skipping forward and introducing himself to Tim, “Hello, I’m Jonny d’Ville, nice to meet you.”

“I’m Gunpowder Tim.” Tim shook his hand, “What happened to your face.

“Some assholes.” Bertie answered for Jonny.

“Apparently people don’t like it when you tell them they’re stupid for enlisting and buying into propaganda and me helping in creating said propaganda.” Jonny told him.

Bertie pushed him down on the floor and got out his first aid kit as he started to clean Jonnys face while he said: “Phrasing it like that doesn’t make you sound sympathetic just like an asshole.”

“I am an asshole.” Jonny pointed out.

“Where did you find this kid?” Tim asked, and Bertie could see how much he was loving this.

“Getting beat up for being the one who sang that recruiter song that terrorized the radio for weeks, remember that one?” Bertie answered as he dabbed Jonny face with disinfectant.

“I’m not a kid.” Jonny interjected, “I am very old, but I feel like you won’t believe me when I tell you this, which is honestly quite rude.”

“And why’s that, baby-face?” Tim asked.

Jonny pouted, which did nothing to built his case, just made him look adorable, as he said: “I’m immortal, I’ve been alive for centuries and I’ve died about three times so far in this war, which honestly isn’t a lot, but I’m aiming for that, because I have a bet going with Ashes about it for when I get back to Aurora.”

“Those were a lot of words mate, but don’t expect me to make sense of them.” Tim informed him, “Can you play cards and drink?”

“Yeah, of course.” Jonny answered with a grin.

“Then I don’t care, here have a glass.” he grinned back and handed Jonny some booze.

Bertie rolled his eyes at Tim and said: “You, good sir, are a bad influence.”

“What can I say, Jonny here doesn’t look like he needs one to be fun, unlike you Bertie. Come on drink a bit, I stole a card pack and I modified my gun, let loose, have a little fun.” Tim slung an arm around Bertie and gave him his best puppy eyes.

“Okay, fine.” Bertie sighed, putting a band-aid over Jonnys nose, the final touch to his handy work, “It’s not like I can escape you.”

Tim cheered, while Jonny started to shuffle the cards. In the back of his mind, Bertie couldn’t help, but feel like he’d made a mistake with introducing the two, but he loved seeing Tim smile and this Jonny kid did just that.

[olivia0823yxa]

Notes on Mistborn: The Final Empire

This book is so much shorter than the Stormlight ones, thank god for my slow-ass reading pace. My overall impression: less good than Stormlight, but still amazing and I’m going to start The Well of Ascension tonight probably. The plot feels very much like a one-off fantasy series to me, so I’m glad there even is a series at all, but it makes sense that there’s such a timeskip. Generally I like almost every character and absolutely love the world’s lore being slowly fed to me through character dialogue and old rediscovered texts. I have some misgivings about the ending and the true identity of the Lord Ruler, but I’m also hoping that the next books will make that seem less... problematic. Definitely continuing on my plan to read every book in the Cosmere, hopefully I can get through the first Mistborn trilogy before Rhythm of War comes out

Anyways, below find my detailed and unorganized notes I took partially during reading and partially in the last 20 minutes

Kelsier is like, the exact opposite of Kaladin

I knew after the very first meeting with Elend that I would fuck him, wasn’t sure how I felt about him right away but I’d fuck him

While I eventually came to decide I definitely like Elend I really don’t see why they handed him the crown to the new nation. Like yes he seems like a good guy and would make a valuable advisor to new leadership, or maybe even on some council of leaders, but he has no practical leadership experience! Not to mention that he found out 2 days ago that Skaa are like, real intelligent people. Even with the best intentions, reading liberal philosophy does not make you a revolutionary

Similarly, judging by the preview to The Well of Ascension, the plan to ally with the nobility and maintain peace with their authority didn’t really work out so well. What a surprise. While I’m not quite as far on the “kill every nobleman” side of the debate as Kelsier would be, clearly this universe doesn’t have Marx. Of course they wouldn’t give up power to a band of Skaa rebels. The noble houses needed to be crushed immediately

What are the koloss, and will they ever come into play? The way they’re talked about do not make them sound human. Their leadership structure is presumably completely intact, but also lacking a clear goal now

Loved seeing Vin kill Shan, what a bully she was

Inquisitors are absolutely terrifying. I hope that Marsh can bring them under his control, because even though they’re small in number they could do a lot of damage. That final fight with Kelsier was off walls, though. Great job, Kelsier

For a long time I thought the inquisitors were after Vin in particular because they knew she wasn’t just a regular mistborn, and that all inquisitors were naturally like her before getting their spikes, and that they were trying to recruit her. The way it actually turned out was more fitting with Vin’s storyline, though: politics are difficult

I want to see allomancers in space!

Okay so in this book there were 12 allomantic metals shown: the usual 8, gold & the “11th” metal, atium, and that metal the inquisitor forced Vin to burn which temporarily disabled her allomancy. From this we can assume that there are at least 16, because they come in groups of 4. So gold is paired with the 11th metal, and atium is paired with an as of yet unseen metal to complete the 3rd group--potentially able to see briefly into the past. And then there should be at least 3 more unseen metals to complete the one that disabled Vin’s allomancy. Disabling allomancy seems like an internal push to me, so for the internal pull I would see a metal that enhances one’s allomantic ability. Then for external push/pull maybe you hinder/enhance another allomancer’s ability? Maybe even temporarily give a non-allomancer allomancy, or temporarily make a misting a mistborn? Can’t wait to see more metals introduced and used

Kandras are sick as hell. I don’t really see what Vin has against them, or why she’d be more willing to give OreSeu the body of an executed criminal over a misting she killed in combat. I get why she doesn’t like ¿him? having Kelsier’s body, though

Why did Lestibourne change his name to Spook? Did I miss something? Vin didn’t even ask why, if I’m remembering correctly

The Lord Ruler mentioned that he’d survived being beheaded, but if the source of his power was really only the circlets on his arm that doesn’t make much sense to me. And, as Vin acknowledges, nothing has really accounted for his extreme allomantic power or his invulnerability to injury. Very excited to see where they go with these powers

Also very excited to watch Vin be the real Hero of Ages or whatever and fight the Deepness now that the Lord Ruler isn’t holding it back/taking all of its power (just two ideas I had)

Very surprised that, so far, shards have barely been mentioned at all. Probably the Deepnees is one. Odium, perhaps?

Not sure how I feel about the Hero not actually being the Lord Ruler, and the Lord Ruler being a formerly oppressed minority turned tyrant. For one thing I’m kind of into fallen-hero story lines, so I liked the “power corrupts” way things were going, especially with what appeared to be parallels to Vin and Kelsier. Also not sure I like what it might try to say about rebellious groups of oppressed peoples today. It’s very telling that the villain comes from oppression, while the heroes put a privileged nobleman in charge after knowing him for approximately 2 hours

Hoid was so low-key in this book, I definitely wouldn’t have noticed him if I didn’t already know his name from Stormlight. Will he play a larger role in the next book? Will his mystical asshole with good intentions personality be more apparent, or does his personality change as he travels worlds?

[burgerpocalypse]

Yesterday I started a replay of Half-Life: Alyx, and I want to both share some low-energy ppnions and also tell everyone that I have an Index VR headset.

So, HL:A is the most recent entry in the Half-Life series, which had been sitting in the attic since 2007’s Half-Life 2: Episode 2’s unresolved cliffhanger ending. It’s also a substantial single-player release from Valve, whomst have not gleamed the general public with any substantial single-player releases for around a decade. It’s also also Valve’s first full-fledged VR title that isn’t just a tech demo for your mom or tech industry journalist live-in boyfriend. It is rather unfortunate that not only is it incredibly belated, but also unattainable for the casual video game fan as well as the casual Half-Life enjoyer.

Though it certainly is a complete package that provides a highly tuned VR experience that dunks on all other VR games, there’s some smudginess to it that I feel has not been given proper analysis for whatever reason. Maybe the few people who have played the game are just happy to have another Half-Life entry or a really good triple-A VR title, which I certainly understand. I’ll do my best to quickly go over my grievances as to not waste your time.

The gameplay of Alyx is pretty good. I hadn't had much experience with VR before getting the Index, just a few demonstrations here and there. Regardless, I find it quite easy to slide in and out of VR and don’t experience any substantial negative effects like some other unfortunate souls might. Alyx was essentially the first actual VR game I played, but even then it was really simple for me to become acclimated to controlling my character, even going so far as to using more advanced movement and view options right from the get-go. I bring this up because Alyx is very obviously designed around being accessible to someone whomst has never played a VR game, or potentially any game. As such, there are considerable concessions that put a relatively low limit on what can be accomplished by more experienced players and even someone of intermediate skill.

You only have three weapons, which are a pistol, a shotgun, and an SMG, with two inventory slots for usable items like grenades and health packs. Sure, you can physically hold additional items, even going so far as holding a container filled with grenades and junk, but personally I found that to be a real painful experience that wasn’t worth the trouble due to physics jank and accidental droppage. Besides, it’s not like players are encouraged to do clever/compulsive inventory management, since the environment is lousy with weapons and healing and I rarely was found wanting for more ammo or health.

Combat encounters typically involve around five enemies, with considerable space in between encounters. When not solving puzzles and exploring crusty environments, you’ll be crawling through zombie and headcrab ambushes or pushing through squads of Combine soldiers, which is the essential Half-Life formula. Zombies and headcrabs behave the same way as they have for the past twenty years, with a few slight twists like weak points for instant kills or minibosses. While soldiers are highly accurate with their shots and do attempt to flank or force the player out of cover, they are much less mobile and aggressive than they have ever been. This is fine for VR since players have to physically aim and take cover, though soldiers definitely will stand around and wait to be shot sometimes.

Each fight is intense and combat is by no means brain-dead easy, but from the perspective of someone that has played a lot of Half-Life and shooters in general, the combat in Alyx is limited in scope. I didn't feel much challenge, outside of maybe the final bits of combat. The few times I died were usually due to VR control finickiness when trying to reload, me losing focus and not paying attention, or me making a really, REALLY dumb mistake.

Exploration is fine. It’s mildly entertaining scouring an environment for useful things, though I quickly learned the developer’s tricks, and the act of pulling drawers and opening cupboards got old real fast when all you get is some bullets. Really, you’re only looking for ammo or resin for upgrades, and everything outside of puzzle solutions is just junk and noise. I’m not a puzzle-oriented person, and will become bored and lose interest if a puzzle asks me to remember more than one thing or figure out any complex solution, so it’s fine that no puzzle goes beyond at most one step of complexity. Physics jank is rife throughout the world, and VR only makes it worse (or better, if you prefer the jank). There were one or two times I had to load a save due to a physics object bugging out, the culprit being a valve getting stuck in a wall.

I have little to say about the story. It’s a prequel to Half-Life 2, which is whatever. The plot spins its wheels the entire time, since we know that nothing we do will have any effect on the games we’ve already played. It also tries to be coy about the identity of a particular character, when we know that the character will clearly not be who they say it will be. It doesn’t advance the story of Half-Life in any meaningful way since it ends with the same cliffhanger as HL2: EP2 in what is essentially a canonical retcon. It sets up more mysteries while also refusing to answer any lingering questions. It introduces a character and other elements that are obviously not in the game that chronologically comes after, and so on.

My expectations and testicles have been ground into a fine paste as a result of Valve’s silly little 13-year unresolved plot point cocktease, so I suppose it’s just that I’m not in a forgiving mood, but I found Alyx’s story to be an insulting, blue-ball inducing, time-wasting non-entity, and if Valve wants to think that I’m dumb enough to be satisfied with a 30 second teaser for their next project as part of Alyx’s conclusion, then they can go fuck themselves.

While I’m at it, the level with Jeff is dumb. I’m not interested in a level with an enemy that is inexplicably invulnerable to guns and follows me around for no reason other than to act as a gameplay contrivance. I wasn’t scared in the slightest because I’m a total asshole and possibly a sociopath, so the experience was a dull slog through a haunted house with annoying puzzles and no combat. If you found this to be your favorite level, great, but in my opinion it can fuck itself right alongside Valve.

In conclusion, Half-Life: Alyx is a great game, with notable issues and shortcomings in its gameplay and a deeply disappointing story. If you already have VR and a capable system, I certainly recommend it. Don’t get VR just for Alyx, though. You’ll probably be let down by the rather meager library of VR titles afterwards.

Thanks for reading. Sorry there's no interesting art to look at.