#haven't the last three times

[witchofanguish]

I think this is worth digging into because... yes. In the arguments which feed the roots of Vs Debates this is easier to ignore - if you're ultimately arguing about metal cans shooting each other in space then you can pretend they could exist in the same world, that what they are is comparable. However, this is a pretense. We can see it shatter obviously in cases like, say, Mage the Ascension, where the entire debate hinges on which cosmology you're accepting, because mages are only limited to relatively (by Vs Debates standards) limited feats due to an actively hostile environment, or TypeMoon. Is the Death Star an A-rank mystery? Would a Space Marine landing in MtAsc Manhattan explode from paradox? The answer is asking there questions marks you as deeply deranged. Okay, but Batman is a human, right? Supposedly made out of atoms and whatever? Why can't we compare him to humans? Well, no. To sound utterly pedantic, he's a fictional character, not a human. If a human kicks a tree and it bursts apart, we can conclude 'holy shit I do not want to be kicked by them, they've got TNT thighs'. We live in a world ultimately dictated by the standard model and general relativity. It has rules. The force it takes to blow apart a tree and to cave in a man's chest are relatable. If Batman kicks a tree and it flies apart, and you flip the page thinking 'oh man, oh man batman is going to cave in a man's chest in his next fight' you'd be wrong, you fool, he's going to get held up by a bunch of untrained dudes in sweaters holding pipes. The tree is for aesthetic, for looks and metaphor and style. It's an RPG character getting an unopposed roll against a piece of scenery and the GM saying 'yeah, go for it, break apart that tree in your rage, i'm not giving you a bonus to your attack rolls in the next fight'. Now, granted, if you saw Batman get held up by a couple dudes with lead pipes and figured a squad of ten ninjas or Darkseid, evil alien god, would destroy him you'd also be wrong. This is why 'feats' and 'calcs' for Batman don't matter. They aren't predictive. The aesthetic is. Some stories have calcs which meet their aesthetic decently well - the Culture, for example - and so we can use the calcs as a lesser substitute, sometimes. Other stories, like Mage the Ascension, have feats so contextual that a Vs Debate always starts and is mostly decided by which aesthetic you're letting predominate. So what's the aesthetic of Batman against 160,000 nerds? Well, it's... nonsense. That's not a number even the most ambitious comic book writer would throw at him, just use a decently big crowd of a couple hundred, and it's such a bizarre set-up that being 'in-character' is actively confusing things. But if Batman did have to fight a big crowd, how would he do it? Probably not with his fists. If he was in an enclosed area and it wasn't 100,000+ he might punch them out, one or two at a time, ending with a panel of the bloody, bruised Caped Crusader limping out of the basement of some seedy nightclub only to collapse into the Batmobile, which drives him back to Wayne Manor. If it was a bit more open - like a theatre, huh wonder if we've seen that - he'd fight for a bit and find some trick to escape and possibly trap/disable them. If it was really open he'd grapple out or call in his Batmobile's Tesla Autopilot Mode for pickup. If it was maze-like he'd use stealth. But in a big open arena, against 100,000, it's not in Batman's aesthetic to fight them at all. Edit: If the question that comes to you after reading this is 'why are you in Vs Debates, then?' And the answer is I'm looking for a good story about who would win. Or a good joke about how. The problem is a six megajoule kick, in this thread, is a joke being treated like a story.

[wistfulwatcher]

Criminal Minds: Evolution | 17.01 Gold Star

[benevolenterrancy]

once asked the question do you think Liu qingge do a sonic rainboom now I may ask could Xie lian do a sonic rainboom? And who in mdzs do you think could do a sonic rainboom?

Also I feel like I'm spamming ur asks I'm so sorry

Out of all the characters, I think (post-series) Xie Lian is the most likely to actually survive flying at supersonic speeds and could theoretically get the actual "boom" if not the colour

(Hua Cheng, on the other hand, would be more than happy to supply the rainbows)

Wei Wuxian is the most likely to ATTEMPT it and inevitably blow himself up in the process (the only thing going boom here is Jiang Cheng's patience)

[lastdivantruther]

confessions are difficult

sketches and stuff under the cut:

[coern-art-very-cool-and-nice]

sekai au 👊😔

[queerplatonicdiaries]

long!!! distance!!!! sucks!!!!!!

[lemonbeemon]

Elden ring modern AU where St. Trina & Miquella make a discord server that immediately turns terrible like most discord servers

[ifindus]

1660 - Cavalryman - Several wars under Denmark against Sweden.

1697 - Gunner - pre-Great Nordic War under Denmark against Sweden.

1774 - Skiing Soldier - pre-Theater War under Denmark against Sweden.

1785 - Infantryman - pre-Great Northern War under Denmark against Sweden.

1808 - Coast Guard Officer - Napoleonic Wars under Denmark.

1845 - Infantryman - pre-First Schleswig War under Sweden against Germany.

1855 - Infantryman - during the Crimean War (Sweden-Norway debated joining the UK and France against Russia).

1905 - Hunter - preparing for wars of independence against Sweden.

1914 - Engineer Officer - First World War.

1940 - Infantry Officer - Second World War.

[kyouka-supremacy]

Thoughts on akutagawa being drawn with no highlights in his eyes, hair, coat, or on rashomon,,,like everything is drawn pure black? I like when he's drawn a little bit like not-human--contrasts real well with Atsushi's dilemma of being a tiger, personally thinking. Also like when he's drawn like a void. Little bit like the cryptid creachur he is. I think you wrote something about it in the tags on panels in his introduction in the Manga. I like to think other characters also see him the way we see him so his void ass scares the fuck out of others too. Man's skeevin and tweakin even in his design

I'm OBSESSED with Akutagawa's design. Look at him. This is what he looks like on a white background:

And this is what he looks like on a black background:

It's BRILLIANT. He literally disappears in the black. He's the ultimate monster. In his appearance, he embodies what above all is most scary for the human psyche: the darkness, the unknown. The way Harukawa took advantage of the the art rule of never using pure black by breaking it in the most clever way! No light gets reflected on him, because his form absorbs everything– is absolute darkness. Visually, his figure itself is Rashomon eating everything it encounters, and it's genius.

He is so nightmare coded. I love his big, inscrutable eyes that look like two voids, two black holes. I love how oftentimes you can't tell where Rashomon ends and where he starts, I love how sick and unhealthy he looks. I love how he looks scruffy like an abandoned dog. I love how young he looks– way younger than he is. It gives the impression of a ghost, someone who was killed before growing up and is now stuck with his young appearance no matter how many centuries pass.

I adore everything about these chapter 33 pages. The way he initially appears as just a single black shape, hardly resembling a human. His crunched, unnatural stance. The staggering. The way you can feel with your senses the thick and sticky blood. The top picture is the left page of the manga, so just imagine the visual impact of turning the page to be hit with an almost full-black page- it's meant to impress, it's meant to shake. The way he's one with the darkness: no textures on him, only white making out his outlines. The way you can't tell where his coat ends. His left arm hanging numb, limp, lifeless, inhuman. The spurts of blood on his face. His smile, how you won't notice it at first and how that makes it all the more disquieting; its juxtaposition with the violence that surrounds him and that he is the cause of. The way he covers his face, the impressions of hiding and looming. His face being split, which only adds to the horror elements. Akutagawa's character design as a whole is an ode to the gothic and grotesque.

And then this. Hello??????????????? The progression from how Akutagawa used to be to the last time we saw him alive is astonishing. It's upsetting. It really makes me wanna cry from a technical execution standpoint alone (imagine from a plot related standpoint). All the black is now replaced with predominant white, everywhere. His shirt is white and candid and pure, emphasizing contrast with the splash of blood in a way that almost results sickening. The blood on him is his this time. His face looks rounder, and healthier, and he overall looks more mature. His smile is sincere and genuine, it's light, it's affectionate. This scene is the culmination of Akutagawa's character both visually and thematically: the monster, Akutagawa, too, can be good, and arguably had good within him since the very start. Does it really matter if he lives after this? His character already developed to be the best version of himself‚ and this panel here is the proof.

Further readings: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

[dimonds456-art]

Maladaptive daydreaming.

[lastofthe20thcenturygirls]

this is bigger than rihanna performing at this same wedding in india

[magentagalaxies]

JUST FOUND OUT I GET TO HANG AROUND WITH THE KIDS IN THE HALL BACKSTAGE THE FULL DAY OF THEIR TORONTO SHOW WOO!!!!!!!

[blaiddraws]

HOWDY FOLKS I've not drawn very much as of late since. uhhhh. SEVERAL things happened. but one of them is because i went to a miniature painting convention this past weekend!

it was super fun! here's a couple minis i painted-- first one was just for fun and i want to make her into a character now, second one i did in a class on painting with limited palettes! i did that with only three different colors of paint!

[bitegore]

if your ocs were bosses in a video game, what do you think their boss fight would be like?

[midnightmoodlet-art]

You know, revisiting red wine after a year of not doing so made me think... I've tacked on so many headcanons over that character and his group that at that point they're like 80% headcanons, since the original media barely gave anything to work with except crappy yaoi bait for a mid ship..... I'm just considering deadass just putting everything into ocs and make my own stories with them instead of using them as hc crutches

[batsplat]

casey also talks about sepang 2015 what do you think of that

oh in that podcast? uh... lemme listen again...

yeah idk it's not really anything new I'd say? he's said basically all the same stuff in more interesting and extensive ways elsewhere. I think casey inevitably has a very 'well feuding is bad and helps nobody' point of view, has expressed that before in the past, does it here again, and he's also drawn a parallel between himself and marc on several occasions. which... well, of course there's similarities in terms of public discourse or whatever, but the parallel really falls apart whenever casey argues the feuds cost valentino. like, I do think it's sometimes important to just. keep in mind. it's interesting that casey draws this comparison in his mind but that doesn't necessarily means he's right about this. I'm not sure how you'd argue that starting a feud with casey cost valentino anything competitively? you can argue it didn't help him I guess, and then we can have a debate about the ins and outs of the 2008 season. we can also have an argument that in a hypothetical world where casey isn't ill in 2009, valentino doesn't break his leg and casey isn't on a piece of junk in 2010, and valentino isn't on a piece of junk in 2011-12, then actually maybe valentino sparking open animosity with casey COULD have cost him. but we don't know that! didn't happen! I wish we could have found out, but we never got the chance! as it stands, the tally on this is pretty straightforward: casey won the title when things were reasonably civil between them in 2007, and valentino took control of the following season at the exact moment he worsened the relationship between the pair of them in 2008. obviously, it's all more complicated than that and casey would of course argue laguna didn't negatively affect his subsequent performances... but it certainly didn't help them. like, at the very worst valentino escalating tensions in 2008 is a complete net neutral. after 2009, them being bitchy to each other every other tuesday was completely competitively irrelevant beyond maybe affecting how they approached occasionally fighting for a podium position. hey, maybe casey used that feud to fire himself up through sheer spite throughout the later stages of his career, but that doesn't actually support his anti-feud stance - it's basically the exact same thing as what valentino does. they're both quite similar in that regard! always so hungry to prove a point, to show how someone else is wrong. kinda half the point with this feuding business is to get yourself going, get yourself motivated, yeah. he straight up openly admits to using yamaha's repeat rejection of him as a way of giving himself motivation, and at the end of the day that's really not all that different?

anyway, what else does casey say... oh yeah, that him and the other aliens were already kinda prepared for this and had learned vale's tricks. that valentino had only been able to get into the minds of the previous generation. welllllll *wiggles hand* sure, I mean, he did clearly have to change his approach... he couldn't just use the exact same playbook to get to them, either on-track or off-track. but that's why he did change up the playbook... again, whether you want to believe valentino won his final two titles 'in the head' rather than just through pure pace kinda depends on how you assess the evidence, but it is at the very least a debate. and, y'know, it's always worth remembering that valentino's most important mind games with casey didn't happen in a press conference... it was on the track. and the on-track stuff really is just embedded in how valentino approaches winning. speaking of aliens, this is what dani and jorge have said:

like, valentino's entire approach to his riding, even to the way he's setting his bike up, is deliberately about directly fucking with you... he's not actually always trying to be faster than you as much as he's trying to give himself the tools to make your life miserable, to pressure you into mistakes, etc etc... and again, especially with casey (if anything because he was so mentally sturdy), the off-track stuff was really just window dressing. (I know they bicker a lot after 2009 but it's just so fundamentally irrelevant to actual on-track competition.) so you can be aware of those tricks, but it also doesn't necessarily help you when someone's being nasty to you on-track in a way you just fully do not enjoy. which is what it was like for casey! for casey, a lot of this comes back to the truly unpleasant context of how he was perceived by the public, how he was treated as mentally weak or 'broken' or whatever partly because he had the misfortune of coming up against a bloke who had the reputation for breaking rivals. I think it's quite natural to end up with a bit of a hardliner 'actually I've never been mentally affected by a result in my life' stance - and of course casey is a lot tougher than a lot of people give him credit for. that being said. sometimes your rivals affect you, shit happens, it's part of the game. it's fundamentally a nice idea to think that valentino's tactics weren't just morally wrong but also ineffective, which is kind of the appeal of this narrative, right? you want to believe you're above that, you want to believe you were adequately prepared and wise to valentino's tactic. it's unsurprising and understandable that casey does tend to tell the story that way, but again it's *wiggles hand* also hard to describe it as completely factual

uh. what else. oh I'm thrilled casey does canonically know valentino and marc were friends, he has said he wasn't following motogp too much during that time period so you couldn't be sure of that. does this mean anything? does it tell you anything? well, no, but it's just a pleasing thought to me. I like that. oh also 'provoking particularly aggressive riders isn't a good idea' is kinda a funny take from casey? like, he of all people would hate the idea of being cowed by someone's reputation like that... casey's right that provoking fast riders can potentially be dangerous, but y'know I do think that's probably not news to anyone almost nine years later. um. that's all I've got I think