#avdol doesn't get paid enough for this

[smol-tactician]

I forgot about the Wip pile so here's a distraction

Jotaro minding her own business:

Polnareff walking in: Hey so say, hypothetically, if someone set a whole pack of pink starburst on fire as a sacrifice to find out why they're so juicy, where would you have the fire extinguisher?

Jotaro:... Did... did you set a pack of pink starburst on fire?

Polnareff: In my defense, it was Kakoyin's idea.

Kakoyin from the other room: NO IT WASN'T NOW JUST FIND THE THING!

Polnareff: IM ASKING JOTARO IF SHE KNOWS!

Jotaro: I just wanted to read my ocean book....

Eventually

Avdol: Why did you think this was a good idea?

Polnareff: Because I was with Kakoyin and Jotaro was in the other room.

Jotaro: I just wanted to read....

Kakoyin: I wanted to see it blow up in his face.

Jotaro: What the fuck-

[jojossillywalk]

why does avdol know about the assassins

if we compile context facts in one place, i think Some theories could be made

he seems particularly knowledgeable about hitmen: "mafia, governments, and militaries employ his services (devo)," "he's paid to make them look like accidents (grey fly)," recognized cameo on sight. and knows that "no one" who has faced devo is alive. he also knows midler's range.

if you are paid, there is a decent possibility that you leave a paper trail. joseph seems confident in avdol's abilities to track people down very little (he asks if avdol can gauge anything from a photo with a dark background).

joseph isn't wrong: avdol can pinpoint your address using an unfortunate fly.

ordinarily an advocate of tactical retreat and restraint, but bystander death in front of him will negate this. he also believes "some things are too evil to be allowed to live."

has a knife on hand, which he tosses to people in case they want to skip the hard part.

one of the best moods that we see him in is when he, in effect, has cameo cornered in an area where avdol has complete tactical advantage: wide open space, the terrain is known to avdol, cameo doesn't know the full extent of avdol's strength and has been caught off guard, etc

he is fine with battling jotaro, but immediately disengages when jotaro says "i'm locked in here because i keep hurting people without meaning to"

very familiar with stand battle power: he's the one who states that stand power is in relation to range, he knows that breath restriction diminishes a stand (unless you are dark blue moon or jotaro i suppose), and he assumed that a recently manifested stand wouldn't be as clear as splat was- he can even estimate your distance if he knows enough about your stand beforehand (we see w cameo and midler)

similar to the tarot (all experienced with stand fights), avdol uses knowledge as a metric of advantage- "the enemy knows everything about you- you said that you've lived on your own, but at this point, you're not going to be able to win by yourself."

you could argue that avdol's general demeanor is understandably impacted by how much knowledge he has: he's visibly confident and enthusiastic during the cameo fight. in the polnareff fight, he's cautious, but somewhat relaxed (even charmed) by the fact that polnareff is extremely open about his abilities.

conversely, as early as dark blue moon, "a stand that i, avdol, haven't heard of." knowledge is a very important aspect of how he fights. avdol also notes that with strength, "this is the first time i've encountered such power."

side note, magician's red requires a lot of knowledge: not only are you dealing with the stand, which has a lot of components making the whole, but avdol's very aware of the environment. we see him making really versatile usage of his surroundings, using the statue of magician's red, he uses the ground to solve tactical problems multiple times (making the tunnel and burning the hole under the train track), and red acts as a life/stand sensor.

his test of character for both jotaro and polnareff is exposing his back and walking away- in the mariah episode, we see avdol's actual reflexes in regards to things flying at his back. during combat, this man determines whether he wants to be friends with you based on whether you try stabbing him in the back.

this could be also interpreted as avdol partially basing that judgement on how someone responds to their opponent disengaging!

finally, he's very, very casual about faking his death.

basically a summary of this behemoth but! based on context, i think it's safe to say that avdol and polnareff have more in common than initial impression, because i don't think avdol was using all that information to make trivia games.

that said! i don't think he was tracking with the express intent to battle/kill- even when splat was getting rowdy, avdol doesn't go full throttle, and is quick to stop. i think it was more a statement of "essentially having telekinesis won't free you from consequence," and once he realizes that jotaro wasn't using splat to just bat people around, he hit him with "Turns My Back On You Haha Hope No One Stabs It"

hell, avdol choses to spare polnareff before he realized that polnareff likely had a fleshbud, based on the actions of that episode. he immediately tries to give iggy some gum after iggy is in the cage. i think avdol is definitely an enjoyer of Snappish Weirdo Guys.

[babyybitchhh]

Just because someone isn't attracted to a person or character (who are of different ethnicities), doesn't mean they are racist. People have their own preferences in who they are attracted to. That doesn't mean they're racist. That's just their preference in who they are attracted to.

Okay, I’m not gonna allow this to turn into a big thing like the ass eating debate BUT I think you may have taken what I said a little too personally. That wasn’t directed at any one person or even certain groups of people, and I’m not of that opinion based off one or two specific individuals. Rather it’s fandom habits as a whole, and I’ve seen enough to know that by and large black characters are overlooked in favor of their lighter skinned counterparts. I mean, black characters show up so infrequently in Japanese media anyway (and their representation is ... another topic for another day) to the point where it really is easy to see this trend in action. Even if they hit ALL their charm points and have the looks to back them up, they still get mostly ignored. Why?

Heads up, I really got on my soap box with this one so feel free to keep scrolling

I actually saw a blog on here that was writing for Naruto who, with their whole chest, said they’d write for anyone except the Kumogakure characters (and Ino which, ew, I didn’t think someone with such terrible taste actually existed but 🤷‍♀️ here we are) and what do most of the Kumo ninja look like?

(I liked Omoi a LOT and Darui was nothing to shake your finger at either - and Mabui??? Good god, shes fucking gorgeous. Shikaku absolutely should have hit that while he had the chance, I know for a goddamn fact he was (respectfully) looking. )

But anyway I’m just not sure how you can look at something like that and not see color bias - and I used that wording very intentionally. Because even if you (that’s a general you) look at black or otherwise dark complexioned characters and decide they’re just not to your “preference” there’s still an underlying factor at play wherein, on a societal level, pale is touted as being attractive and melanin isn’t considered half as beautiful. It’s conditioned.

I have yet to see ANY self insert content for the above characters, or Ogun. I’ve seen VERY LITTLE for my man Avdol compared to the rest of the cast which, imo, is particularly telling because the Jojo fandom will even lewd a sadistic mold doctor (no shade, Ciccolata fans) but this absolute unit??

Only certain writers seem willing to take him on and me, personally, I’d rather see more smut of him than, say, Polnareff or Kira (no shade, stans)

Also I’ve seen maybe a handful of fics for Tosen PERIOD - not just self insert content - and half of that was pairing him with the big dog guy

Which is, again, indicative of a deeper issue considering how much thirst the light skinned characters generate by comparison.

And also someone I’d REALLY like to see self insert content for is Lock Rock, idk if it’s because he kinda looks like Eric Andre (man crush Thursday 🤪) or what, but I am feeling it

And don’t give me that “but he’s married and has a baby!” Bullshit when we’re out here lewding married man and father of four Enji Todoroki like we’re getting paid to do it. I want to see HC’s, smut, thirst, fics, something! Anything! Please!? (Seriously tho, does anyone have a hookup for ANY content of this man? 💀)

Now, don’t get me wrong here, I’m not innocent either. Ogun will be the first black character I personally write for but he’s not the first one I’ve found attractive nor do I glance over these characters based on their skin tone. If they’re hot, they’re fucking hot! Period!

And I think that’s what this boils down to, because even though you (still a general you) may not look at them and think “ew, they’re black”, if the color of their skin is the deciding factor for you then there is still a problem here.

Are you not attracted to that character because they don’t push your buttons right or is it ultimately because of their pigmentation?

Do you find yourself unattracted to every single black character you see, regardless of their facial features and other characteristics? (For example I’m not particularly attracted to Tosen but Lock Rock?? PHEW)

Ask yourself if there’s a single black person you DO find appealing.

I understand having preferences, I in fact have my own preferences, so that’s not the issue here. It’s also not “no one else is thirsting for Ogun, they’re all racist!” But rather “there is a very observable trend in fandom spaces where every character who appears to be black gets slept on and even if it doesn’t seem like racism on a surface level, the color bias absolutely exists on a broader spectrum and, yes, Ogun is definitely suffering from it”.

That’s it. I wasn’t calling YOU (you, specifically, anon) racist just because you don’t like Ogun, I’m saying that black people are consistently pushed aside in favor of light skinned people and it happens with alarming frequency even within fandoms which just goes to show how deep this issue actually runs. And that’s all just going off of how the CHARACTERS are treated, I haven’t even touched on how black readers/black artists/black writers are treated but then go ahead and amplify that to society as a whole and surely you can see why I’m going to call it what it is.

Plus I can almost guarantee that if Ogun had been “white” (I mean, he’d just be Shikamaru then but that’s neither here nor there cmdkxksksk) he’d have SOME content. Case in point, actual psychopath and certified star lord Rekka Hoshimiya even got thirst content from the fandom whereas the only black man in the series hasn’t gotten so much as a single HC. Trust me. I’ve scrolled to the bottom of his tag at least five times now. 💀

Literally the most I’ve seen is one or two people saying how attracted they were to Ogun and that’s it. A bitch literally cannot feed herself on such meager morsels, especially when Beni’s out here getting his 20th smut fic in a row - which is an impressive number for such a small fan base. Lmao Anyway my point here is that personal preferences are fine and dandy but when I can actually see the same trend repeating itself over and over, fandom after fandom ... there’s definitely something more than preference at play here. 🤷‍♀️