#forgot to mention last week that i finally was brave enough to ditch the side fringe for a centre parting 🙈

[hammerbacks]

not the best picture of me but i just had a wedding makeup trial! ☺️

[luminouspoes]

until the poets run out of rhyme

pairing: poe dameron x f!reader (modern au)

summary: poe and the reader go out for drinks with their friends, but soon have to make a detour in their evening plans. (based on the prompt: if you want to leave, we can)

word count: 4k ~

warnings: swearing, mentions of anxiety, sensory overload

You curl and uncurl your feet, burying your toes into the plush of your carpet, gnawing on your bottom lip as you stare at the dress on your bed. In just under an hour, your long-time best friend Poe Dameron will be showing up to pick you up to take you to Maz’s for drinks with Snap, Jess, Kare and Sura to celebrate Sura’s most recent journalism award. 

You aren't as close to them as you are to Poe - they were more his group of friends rather than your shared one of him, Finn and Rey - but they’d welcomed you with warm arms long ago, much like how your group of friends - Kaydel, Beaumont and Rose - welcomed Poe.

Which means that you really want to go to Maz’s bar and enjoy drinks with him, his friends, and celebrate Sura’s big moment because you know how much ass she kicks at her job and just how hard she's worked to get where she is today. But familiar icy ribbons of anxiety have coiled in your gut, spilling up and twisting around your heart at the idea of going out.

You close your eyes, breathing out slowly. Briefly, you remember something Poe once said, half as a joke, half as a genuine reassurance to himself, and you mumble it out loud to yourself in the empty room, “Happy beeps. You can do this.”

It doesn’t erase your anxiety, but the memory of your best friend is enough to bring a sense of comfort to you, and you grab the dress with a gentle smile on your lips to get dressed. The skirt flares out at your knees, and is a deep shade of red, with a sheer neck and sleeves. It’s comfortable, and once you add a pair of flat heeled ankle boots to the look, you think you’re just about ready.

You grab your purse and duck out of your bedroom into your living room, stopping by the bookcase to make your decision on which book to take. Finn and Rey were at first baffled by this trait of yours (then immediately started joking about how you really were perfect for Poe), but you never left home without a book within reach. Most of the time, you didn’t actually get a chance to even read it, but knowing you had one...helped your nerves. It was like carrying a miniature hug in your purse.

It took you longer than you expected to land on a decision: by the time you’re shoving your selected paperback into your purse, there’s a familiar knock on the door. Your heart does a quick somersault in your chest, and you bound to the door. You peer out the peep-hole, to see Poe standing in the hallway, waving a cheeky hello in your direction.

You grin as you unlatch the door, opening it with a swing. Your greeting flees from your mind as you take in the sight of him. It’s not so different from his usual attire, but he’s ditched his usual tee-shirt and beat-up leather flight jacket for a black button-up and black leather jacket. The jeans, however, are the same.

“Wow,” Poe breathes, beating you to the compliment as he gawks at you. “You look...really pretty.”

Heat rushes to your cheeks as you duck your head, giving a slight twirl so the skirt will flare out around you as you spin. When you come back to a stop in front of him, Poe’s still got that gobsmacked expression on your face that sends butterflies soaring in your gut. “You think?”

“I know,” Poe affirms, composing himself. “You ready for this?”

You nod once, “Just let me get my purse, I forgot it on the counter. You can come in, you know. You don’t have to wait outside every time, you’re not a vampire.” You don’t look behind you as you move through your apartment, but you hear the door click behind Poe as he follows.

“I could be, you don’t know for sure.” Poe calls. 

You bark a laugh as you pull your purse over your shoulder, twisting to face him as he crosses the room to you. “Mhm, I’ve seen you doing your hair in the mirror before, you have a reflection. You love the sunlight, and you always eat the garlic bread I make when we have dinner parties.” 

“I could be a recent vampire?” Poe tries with a lopsided smile, and you giggle again. His eyes light up at the sound; he loves hearing your laugh but especially loves it when he’s the cause of it. He’ll be purposely ridiculous for it any day of the week. “Got your book?” 

You pull it from your bag to show him the cover, and he clicks his tongue appreciatively, “Good taste.” 

"I always have good taste in books.”

Poe hums in response, taking a step closer to you. Moments like these come easily, where the rest of the world just...fades away until it’s just the two of you. It drives your friends up a wall, but you couldn’t care less when Poe looks at you like you’re his whole world and his lips are quirked up in a little bit of a smirk as he banters back. “I don’t know about,” he says in a low tone, dragging his gaze from the cover back up to your face and you swear for just a moment he pauses on your lips, "you like horror novels.”

Your heart thundering against your ribcage for a much different reason now, you fight to keep your eyes in a safe zone. The way he’s looking at you makes every possible response you could normally think of fly right out of your mind, as your mouth goes dry. Finally, you take another step forward, challenging him with a smirk of your own, "That’s because I’m not afraid to read them like some people, Dameron.”

“I’m not afraid,” Poe protests automatically, the argument a familiar one, but neither of you are really focused on running through the motions of it right now.

The room seems to crackle with energy and potential around you, and part of you so desperately wants to take that leap, but the other half is terrified that if you do, then you’ll lose this magic, this friendship you’ve nurtured with Poe for the last five years. So you dip your head at the last second, folding first. 

Breaking out of his own trance, Poe takes a slight step back before he holds out his arm to you, “Ready?”

There’s that spike of nerves again, but you brave through it, nod once and loop your arm through his. “Let’s rock and roll,”  you hesitate just a moment as you think of the moment before and how easily the two of you still managed to fall into each other’s personal space again. Maybe you really don’t have anything to worry about. “Oh and Poe?”

“Yeah?” He asks as you step out into the hallway, cocking his head towards you.

“You look pretty wow too,” you tell him, leaning forward to press a kiss to his stubbled cheek. 

-

It goes well, for the most part. The others grabbed a booth in the corner of the bar, placing you away from the brunt of the noise and crowd. You knew this wasn’t a coincidence: Snap, Kare, Jess and Sura were always accommodating for your anxiety, and it wasn’t as though they didn’t have their own to contend with either. 

Poe leads you to the booth with a hand on the small of your back, a wide grin on his face as he nears his friends. You drink in the sight of his joy, as you do every time you meet up with them, in between reunion hugs with everyone. Then, the two of you settle into one side of the booth, you at the wall and Poe sliding in next to you, his arm winding around behind you on the back of the seat, as he always did, but you surprise him by keeping one hand on his thigh the entire time. 

The conversation comes easily between the six of you, laughter flooding through the corner as you knock back cheers for Suralinda’s accomplishments. By the time you’re halfway through your first (and only) drink, you’ve nearly forgotten about your apprehension. 

It comes back quickly before you hit the bottom of the glass when a new, far rowdier group enters the bar. They aren’t doing anything malicious, but their loud rumbles and hollers are too much combined with the rustle of silverware and clinking of glasses and the noise of the pool table and the radio blaring above, and the tv stationed by Maz’s bar.

You tense up as you try to tune out the rest of the noise to focus on your friends, but you can already feel your nerves beginning to fray, and you just want to run away to somewhere quiet, and that only frustrates you more because you want to be here, in this corner and -

“Hey,” Poe’s voice was but a concerned whisper to get your attention and it cuts through some of the haze in your mind. You turn to him, opening your mouth to...say what you have no idea, but recognition flashes behind his eyes. Poe has an incredible sense for when you’re getting overwhelmed. “If you want to leave, we can.” 

You want to protest, because you’ve barely spent any time here, but before you can, someone drops a glass from across the room and you jump at the sound. “Alright,” Poe says as he locks eyes with Jess, tilting his head toward the door and jerking his thumb in your direction as Snap, Kare and Suralinda continue their argument over a show they all watch. Jess nods in understanding, and then Poe’s standing up and offering you his hand.

You take it after a beat of hesitance, and then he guides you away from all the noise, back outside toward his car. He was one of two designated sober drivers of the night - Snap being the other one.

You slide into the passenger seat, Poe closing the door behind you, before coming around to sit in the driver’s seat. He twists around to face you. He wants to reach out for you, but he knows sometimes touch can make things worse when you’re overwhelmed. “Better?” he asks.

“Yeah, thank you. Sorry for messing up the evening.” You tilt your head back against the seat-rest, eyes closing with exhaustion. This is far from the first time you’ve all had to cut an evening short or take a breather from things, but still...you were hoping tonight would go by smoothly for the celebration.

“You didn’t mess anything up,” Poe assures you, giving you a pained look that you miss. He hates how you blame yourself for things that aren’t even your fault, how you seem to think taking care of you is some horrible burden he and the others have to deal with. He can’t even begin to count how many times you’ve taken care of him when he needed it, how in the last five years, you’ve come to understand and know him in ways that so few could, that you knew exactly what to do to calm and ground him. 

How many times had you held him after he woke up from a nightmare while you were staying at his apartment, or him at yours? How many mornings had he woken up feeling safe and loved, still in your arms in the morning light? He could only hope he made you feel the same way. “We’ve all had a great time already, we got to celebrate Suralinda’s big moment, and if you want, when you’re ready, we can go back in for more fun - and if you’re not up for that, then that’s okay, too.”

You exhale deeply, focusing on his words and the sincerity behind them. You know it’s true - really, you do. You know it’s not as big of a deal as your brain is trying to make it out to be, you know that your brain can lie to you, make shit up that simply isn’t true to make you feel alone, but sometimes it’s hard to rationalize through that, sometimes it’s hard to remember what’s true and what isn’t.

But Poe knows that.

You turn your head to face him; Poe’s half washed in golden light from an overhead streetlight, half cloaked in shadows, and the smile on his lips is rueful. You don’t know how you lucked out at having such an amazing best friend in your life, but you’re suddenly choked up with some soft, overpowering emotion as you realize - not for the first time - how much he means to you.

You duck your head. “Thank you, for always having my back.”

Poe reaches out for you, catching your wrist lightly and his touch burns in the most wonderful way as he grazes his palm down over yours, interlocking your fingers together. “Thank you for the same,” he tells you, before adding with a lopsided smile, “what are best friends for, right?”

You shake your head, a laugh bubbling from your lips before you can help it, and you echo his words in agreement, “What are best friends for?” 

-

You head back into Maz’s long enough to say goodbye to everyone and congratulate Sura again, and then you’re climbing back into Poe’s car. You kick off your shoes into the floorboard, tucking one leg under you as Poe offers to drive you around town to help clear your head.

Most nights when you’d go on drives like this, the car would be filled with songs from your favorite playlist and the sound of you and Poe singing along to them. However, tonight it’s filled with a gentle silence occasionally broken by Poe filling it with stories from work that week: he worked at Alderaan Books, a small mom and pop store that’d been a staple in the town for years. It was run by the gentle powerhouse of a woman, Leia Organa, who’d inherited it from her parents Bail and Breha. 

Alderaan Books was entirely the reason why you even had Poe in your life. When you moved into town five years before, you’d decided to familiarize yourself with the various shops and stuff. Eventually, a storm had caught you, and the bookshop was the nearest dry place within quick walking distance. You’d burst inside, shivering and soaked from head to toe, and then there was Poe: with black as midnight curls and twinkling eyes and a soft, friendly smile as he offered you a towel to dry off with.

You’d spent the rest of the afternoon in the shop, talking with him - because of the storm, you were pretty much the only customer there - getting to know him. By the time he was offering you a cup of coffee and a book recommendation, you knew Alderaan Books and Poe Dameron would become an important part of your life here in this town, and you hadn’t been wrong.

Eventually, he’s turning down the road that leads to his apartment and you feel the rest of the tension in your body deflate. You didn’t fancy the idea of going back to your own apartment, empty and quiet as it was, after tonight. Which Poe would’ve known because you’ve asked to stay with him after being overwhelmed for that exact reason before; still, something warm stirs in your chest as he does so instinctively. 

He does spare a glance at you, to double check if that’s alright, and you give him a grateful nod, reaching out to squeeze his hand. He twists his so that your palms are flush against each other, and he interlocks your fingers together.

(He wishes he could pull your hand up to his lips, press a kiss to your knuckles, and maybe in another life, he could. But in this one, he doesn’t).

You’re both practically leaning against each other as you walk up the stairs to his apartment, your shoes in your hand, as Poe tells you about a book he’d found in their stock that he thought sounded up your alley. This was, in a way, a love language for the two of you: sharing music and books were as much a staple in your relationship as your banter and lack of personal space.

As you reach his door, Poe’s still describing the plot as detailed on the back cover as he unlocks it to let you in. You smile gratefully at him as he holds it open for you, letting you in first. Immediately, you look around the living room to see if you can spy Poe’s beloved cat, Beebee, but he doesn’t seem to be in the room - probably curled up on one of Poe’s bookshelves in his bedroom, since that was one of Beebee’s favorite haunts.

You collapse onto Poe’s couch as he heads to the kitchen to start boiling some water in the electric kettle. You sit your ankle boots neatly between the space between the couch and the little table beside it, and then crash back against the soft pillows. 

“Why is your couch so comfortable?” You call to the kitchen. Poe leans out from the window frame that bridges the kitchen to the living room, his curls falling haphazardly over his brow at the sudden movement.

“Because I have excellent taste,” he reminds you, before he pulls his body back into the kitchen. The ridiculousness of the man that is your best friend makes you laugh, and you slowly haul yourself from the comfort of the cushions to pad to the kitchen. You’re still a little worn out from the evening, but there’s a quiet thrum of energy in you now that you’re somewhere that feels safe and cozy.

He’s pouring water into two different mugs for you both, tea tags hanging loosely at their sides. Your heart warms as you realize he’s pulled out your favorite mug - a dull orange one that you always used for tea, because you’d unconsciously adapted a system at his house and had a different mug for coffee and tea - from the cabinet. When Poe turns around, there’s a gentle smile on his face as he motions at the mugs. “They’ll be done in about four minutes,” he announced unnecessarily, because you knew how long it took for his favorite brand of tea to steep. 

Wordlessly, you pull your phone from your dress’ pocket, and pull up your music player. You press the shuffle button and sit the phone down on the counter, letting the room fill with soft tunes as you wait for your tea, leaning against the counter and letting your head roll back and forth.

Poe’s hand skims down your arm, leaves goosebumps in his wake, “You feeling better?”

“Yeah, I am. Just kind of restless now, you know?” 

“Well,” Poe drawls out, his eyes flicking over to your phone and back at you, a mischievous smile lighting up his handsome features, “we’ve got some time...and you so helpfully gave us a soundtrack,” he presses his hand over his heart and gives you a small bow, flourishing that same hand out to you in offering, “would you allow me this dance, sweetheart?”

Your cheeks warm, a smile rising to your own face and you accept his hand. “I’d like that a lot.” 

He tugs you closer to him, linking both your hands together, and you both begin to dance around the kitchen - clumsy, dorky movements that follow the beat of an Abba song, laughing each time one of you bump into each other or step on each other’s feet. Eventually, you collide against each other, still swaying and bouncing to the music, and you rest your head against Poe’s shoulder.

As the first song fades out, your shuffle immediately begins the next — which just so happens to be “Can’t Help Falling In Love”. Poe shifts into a slower dance and you follow his lead. He presses his nose against the side of your head, and you can feel his breath against your earlobe as he begins to murmur the lyrics of the song.

Like earlier in your apartment, the air between you grows weighted. This isn’t just him singing along to a song, the way he’s reciting the lyrics feels like a confession: a gentle one, one that you could easily ignore if you wanted to - and a thrill of anticipation thrums under your skin as you realize you don’t want to ignore it. You’re not sure you’ve ever known someone so beautiful before: not just in appearance, but in soul. He practically radiates light and love, a constant source of warmth and sunshine in your life that you’ve come to rely on. You can’t imagine life without him: he’s who you picture beside you whenever you think of the future: late night car rides with him, bickering together in the kitchen, cuddling on the couch reading together. He’s your best friend, he’s -

You swallow hard. He’s more than that. You want him, more than anything, and it’s suddenly imperative that he knows that.

“Our tea should be done,” Poe says when the song comes to a close, pulling back to search your eyes for your reaction. 

“They were done by the time Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! ended, Poe.” 

“So they’re really strong cups of tea now,” Poe offers with a lopsided smile. His hands have found a home on your waist, and their warmth seeps through the fabric of your dress. When you still don’t move out of his arms, but rather shift closer to him, placing your hand on his cheek, his breath hitches just slightly before he says your name.

“Yeah?”

He opens and closes his mouth a few times, like he’s internally debating something. Finally, he whispers, “You’re beautiful.”

“So are you,” you reply as you run your thumb along his cheekbone. You lean up on your tiptoes, searching his gaze for any signs of hesitance at your closeness, then you finally ask what you’ve wanted to for a fucking long time: “Can I kiss you?”

“Please,” Poe replies but he doesn’t move any closer to you, instead just asks, “You sure about this?”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” you tell him lowly and the heated look he gives you in return, paired with a dazzling smile you want to remember for as long as you live, is enough to give you the courage you need to crash your lips against his.

He gathers you up in his arms to draw you closer, a warm expansive hand sliding up your spine,to cradle the back of your neck as his other hand grips your hip, fingers bunching around the fabric of your dress. You move your hand from his cheek up into his curls, dragging your fingers through them experimentally, dragging a hum from low in his throat that you want to pull from him again.

You move forward, intending to nudge him back against the kitchen counter, but Poe has other plans, and at the last second, he spins you around so that the counter presses against your back as he presses flush against you. He pulls away from your mouth to pepper kisses everywhere he can reach: your brow, the tip of your nose, your eyelids, your jawline, and finally, your neck, where he stops and stays, burying his face in the crook of it as you hold him against you as you try to catch your breath.

Eventually, with one last brush of his lips against your skin, he straightens and fixes you with a bashful expression. You loop your arms around his neck, smiling up at him, feeling warm and happy. “Poe?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

He leans down again, and when your lips meet a second time, you can feel his smile pressed against your own, as he murmurs, “I love you too.”

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z 092

Last time, Goku reailized he was losing this fight, so he risked everything on a 20x Kaio-ken Kamehameha.   If it worked, great, but if it failed, Goku would be completely exhausted and unable to continue fighting.     Above is a side-by-side comparison of Frieza before and after the attack.    

Yeah, it’s only one image because IT DIDN’T DO ANYTHING.   Goku’s toast.

I think Goku had already decided that Frieza wasn’t bluffing about his true strength, but now there’s absolutely no question.    Frieza’s been half-assing it this whole time, while Goku just went beyond his limits and came up short.    He’ll only get weaker from here.   There’s nothing more he can do.

Elsewhere, Bulma has recovered from getting blown away by Frieza’s power, and she’s caught Captain Ginyu, who got swept along with her.    You know, I’ve often wondered if civilians in Dragon Ball are a lot stronger than real-world people.   You’d assume that Bulma’s about as strong as a typical real-world woman of her height and build, because she’s not a fighter, so there’d be no reason for her to have any superhuman abilities.    But I’m pretty sure if a real person went flying uncontrollably through the air like she did last episode, she wouldn’t have survived without injury.  

I mean, this is presumably where she landed.    It’s not exactly a pile of feathers or anything.    Also, Captain Ginyu did some pretty athletic stuff while he was using her body.   And maybe Bulma works out, but I doubt she’s doing like advanced gymnastics stuff just to stay in shape.    What I’m suggesting is that if Bulma somehow traveled to our world, she could kick Brock Lesnar’s ass.   She’d just slap him and he’d get a concussion or something.

While Goku and the others are demoralized by the failure of his last-ditch attack, Frieza tells a somewhat different story.   He’s not that badly hurt.    All that Kamehameha did was singe his hand.    But it did hurt him, and that makes him upset.  

And that fires him up.   The idea that a mere Saiyan could do even that to him is infuriating, so he charges after Goku in a rage.

I’m not positive, but I think this is the first time Frieza calls a Saiyan “monkey” in the Japanese dub.    Guldo said it first, back in Episode 62, and I think Jeice might have used the term as well, but I’m pretty sure we haven’t seen Frieza say it.   I think the Funimation dub used the slur more often, which I guess fits in with how Linda Young played the character.   Ryusei Nakao has a much more chilling performance in general.    His Frieza makes polite chit-chat, then flips his shit.  Young’s Frieza isn’t so subtle.   Everything she says is tinged with an air of brutal menace, and a lot of her lines included cutting remarks and insensitive jokes at the good guys’ expense.  There was always something really emasculating about her Frieza too.  In one episode she calls Goku “big guy” in a really condescending way, and in another she mocks Ginyu for being hurt over not getting to do the dance of joy.  I’m pretty sure she used the word “monkey” in almost every episode where Frieza mentioned Saiyans.

I’m not sure what to say about Chris Ayres, since I haven’t seen as much of his work.   I feel like I saw some video about the Funimation dub of Kai, where Chris Sabat said they recast Frieza because Young couldn’t deliver the new lines at the pace they needed.   That would make sense, because it feels like Ayres’ Frieza is constantly trying to fit in as many words as he can into a limited amount of time.   Young might be fast enough to do that, but her performance always hinged on the timing, like she was soaking each word in as much contempt and spite as possible.    Ayres’ Frieza is like “Oh I see you seem to be under the mistaken impression that I will let you live as it were but let me assure you that this is hardly the case as I have decided to murder you right here.”   And it’s like I don’t think they needed that many words to get the thought across.   He’s almost like a Big Green Dub character, only with better diction. 

The point I guess I’m making is that Nakao’s Frieza developed over the course of the series.    He started out being ultra-polite and unctuous, then he got snotty and irritated as things stopped going his way, and now he’s finally revealed his naked racism against Saiyans.    Young, and perhaps Ayres, kind of did all of those things at once throughout their performances.    

Make no mistake, Goku’s got nothing left in the tank.   It would be bad enough that the 20x Kaio-ken didn’t get the job done, but on top of that, the Kaio-ken takes a heavy toll on the user.   He’s worse off now than he was two episodes ago, when Frieza was beating the crap out of him.

For Frieza, this just proves that he was right to kill all the Saiyans, since all they’re good at is fighting, and they’re too stubborn to be made to do anything else.   Goku and Vegeta insisted on fighting Frieza, even knowing how difficult it would be.   He doesn’t admire their tenacity; he just views it as self-destructive.  

Then Goku starts hearing Vegeta talking to him.    At first, he asks him to team up with him, as if he forgot that Vegeta’s already dead.   

Then he sees him in some sort of vision. 

Years ago, I found an audio recording of Vegeta’s speech in this scene, and I used to put it on playlists and listen to it on long car rides.    I’m gonna try to do the dub version from memory.    

Vegeta: Kakarot, listen to me!   Is that all the power you have?   Where’s your Saiyan pride?

Goku: But... I never was a Saiyan!

Vegeta: What are you talking about?  You can’t deny your heritage!”

Goku: Vegeta... right now it doesn’t matter what I am.   Forget about it.”

Vegeta: We both know you have Saiyan blood running through your veins!     [audio cut out for some reason]  --pain, but there is one thing you must never forget: It was Frieza who destroyed our birthplace, the Planet Vegeta.     There’s no one left except for your.

Goku: The... the pride... of my people!”

Vegeta: Think back, Kakarot.   Remember your father.... my father.”

Bardock: My... son... lives... on!

King Vegeta: Ooohhhh... (dies)

Vegeta: So while you may deny who you are, you are the very last hope for a lost race of brave warriors.    Ask yourself this: Why does Frieza want you destroyed so badly?   He’s afraid a Super Saiyan will rise up!  Fight him for the entire Saiyan race!   Destroy him, for you have the power within you!   Now go, Kakarot.  It is time!

Eh, close enough, I think.   

Anyway, Vegeta’s butt-ass nekkid the whole time he says all this.    Also he has his tail, so that’s a thing.

Now, you might be wondering what Frieza’s doing while Goku’s having this conversation.   Turns out he’s still intent on dragging this out.   I’m pretty sure Frieza is just waiting for Goku to completely shut down, the same way Vegeta did before Frieza finally killed him.  Also, I’ve begun to notice that this is Frieza’s big weakness.   Before I said it was laziness or complacency, and there’s some truth to that, but now that I’m watching him fight, I see that when you piss him off, he actually slows down more.    Frieza announced that he was going to kill Goku and end the fight like two episodes back.    Instead, Goku singed his hand.    You’d thin that would compel Frieza to hurry this along, but instead it had the opposite effect.    He’s actually giving Goku more time, because he’s convinced that Goku has no more surprises in store, and he wants to punish him even more than he did before.

Yeah, he keeps saying stuff like this, but he never follows through.

Meanwhile, on King Kai’s planet, there’s some commotion going on inside King Kai’s house.

Someone took out Bubbles and Gregory.

And it turns out to be the dead guys from the Ginyu Force.  If there was a college textbook on anime filler, this shot would probably be on the cover.   But we’ll talk about the Ginyu Force on King Kai’s Planet later.

Back on Namek, Goku has raised his hands in the air like he just doesn’t care.   Frieza is bewildered.   He figures Goku must be up to something, but he has no idea what, since he’s so weak right now.

But Krillin calls it right away.    It’s the Spirit Bomb, the same technique King Kai taught Goku to use against the Saiyans.    Of course, Piccolo wasn’t around for that, so Krillin has to explain it to him.   This irks Piccolo, because he just came from King Kai’s place, and King Kai never even mentioned a technique like this.  To be fair, Piccolo was only there for less than a week, and he wasn’t exactly cooperative.

Now you might be wondering why Goku didn’t try something like this a long time ago.   Well there’s a number of drawbacks to the Spirit Bomb:

1) It takes a long time to prepare, and Goku’s defenseless the whole time.

2) If Frieza notices what he’s up to, he’ll just dodge it, or kill Goku before he can deploy it.  

3) The Spirit Bomb is pretty dangerous.   King Kai warned Goku not to use it in broad daylight, because the energy from the sun would make it too powerful.   Namek has three suns, and Goku doesn’t think that’ll be enough, so he’s gotta borrow energy from other planets in the vicinity.   In other words, Goku might end up making an attack so powerful that he ends up destroying the planet along with Frieza.

These aren’t hypothetical issues either.   The first time Goku used the Spirit Bomb in combat, it was against Vegeta in his great ape form.    Vegeta attacked him before he was ready, then he attacked him before he could launch it.    Then he had to turn the residual power over to Krillin, and Vegeta dodged it.    Then Gohan bounced it back at Vegeta, and it didn’t work.    Vegeta took the Spirit Bomb and survived.   You know what finally did kill Vegeta?   Frieza.

I can’t stress this point enough.   The Spirit Bomb is an incredibly terrible idea in this situation.    I’m pretty sure the main reason Goku trained at 100 times gravity on the way here was so that he would never need to rely on the Spirit Bomb ever again.   Enemies like Vegeta were just too fast and powerful to take the time to make one of these things.      It’s easy for us to think “well, he can just make a bigger one!” but it only amplifies the weaknesses in the technique.   A bigger Spirit Bomb just takes that much longer to build, and it becomes that much harder to control.  

But Goku’s doing this anyway, because it’s literally all he has left.   His own power has failed him, and the one great advantage of the Spirit Bomb is that Goku can borrow energy from other sources.   Even i he does destroy Namek, it’ll be worth it to rid the universe of Frieza.

As for Frieza, he’s just standing there watching this.   I never understood why he waited so patiently here, but I finally realized that it’s his curiosity getting the better of him.    He genuinely wants to know what Goku’s trying to do, and he figures Goku’s already beaten, so he can afford to wait.    From a sadistic standpoint, I’m sure he wants to wait for Goku to execute his plan, just so that Frieza can prevail one more time and humiliate Goku further.  

Ironically, if Frieza could just sense ki energy like the Z-Fighters, he’d know exactly what Goku was up to.   Krillin spots the bomb almost immediately.   I’m not sure why it’s so high in the air like this.  Before, Goku would absorb the energy into his own body and form the bomb from his hand.    This time, he’s using energy from multiple stars and planets, so maybe it’s easier to converge it all above him.     Or maybe he’s purposely doing it this way to hide the bomb from Frieza.  He’d have to look straight up to see the thing, and he has no idea that he’d even need to.

Here’s a couple of shots from the other planets Goku is drawing energy from.    I really enjoy these for some reason.    These alien creatures seem to have Namekian style antennae, which I think is a nice touch, assuming these are worlds in the Namek solar system.