#it’s old ideas vs new ones guys

[volvolts]

I missed when we acknowledged that conflict between ideals and shit can overlook other less important aspects

Been seeing too much of Miguel portrayals where he’s just some child killing hater

[pikkish]

Yeah we've already talked about how outright stupid the lore n writing for modern Doom is, but tbh I can understand why they had to do something with Doomguy, why they had to make him The Specialest Boy instead of Just Some Guy. Do I like how they did it? No, I would've taken it a different direction. Do I think that hugo could've done it well even if he took it in the direction I would've? No, I have minimal faith in his story writing. But realistically, how many times can a guy singlehandedly accomplish the impossible before you have to acknowledge he's very much not Just Some Guy who happened to be at the right place at the right time? I think that, with how every single other person on the Phobos UAC base were killed in Doom I, doomguy stopped being Just Some Guy the moment he decided to do anything other than just lie down and die.

[scientia-rex]

A lot of younger people have no idea what aging actually looks and feels like, and the reasons behind it. That ignorance is so dangerous. If you don’t want to “be old,” you aren’t talking about a number of years. I have patients in their late 80s who could still handily beat me in a race—one couple still runs marathons together, in their late 80s—and I lost someone who was in her early 60s to COPD last year. What you want is not youth, it is health.

If you want to still be able to enjoy doing things in your 60s and 70s and 80s and even 90s, what you want to do, right now, is quit smoking, get some activity on a regular basis (a couple of walks a week is WAY better for you than nothing; increasing from 1 hour a day of cardio to 1.5 will buy you very little), and eat some plants. That’s it. No magic to it. No secret weird tricks. Don’t poison yourself, move around so your body doesn’t forget how, and eat plants.

If you have trouble moving around now because of mobility limitations, bad news: you still need to move around, not because it’s immoral not to, but because that’s still the best advice we have. I highly recommend looking up the Sit and Be Fit series; it is freely available and has exercises that can be done in a chair, which are suitable for people with limited mobility or poor balance. POTS sufferers, I’m looking at you.

If you have trouble eating plants because of dietary issues (they cause gas, etc.) or just because they’re bitter (super taster with texture issues here!), bad news. You still want to find a way to get some plants into your body on a regular basis. I know. It sucks. The only way I can do it is restaurants—they can make salads taste like food. I can also tolerate some bagged salads. On bad weeks, the OCD with contamination focus gets so bad I just can’t. However, canned beans always seem “safe,” and they taste a bit like candy, so they’re a good fallback.

If you smoke and you have tried quitting a million times and you’re just not ready to, bad news. You still need to quit. Your body needs you to try and keep trying. Your brain needs it, too. Damaging small blood vessels racks up cumulative damage over time that your body can start trying to reverse as soon as you quit. I know it’s insanely, absurdly addictive. You still need to.

You cannot rules lawyer your way past your body’s basic needs. It needs food, sleep, activity, and the absence of poison. Those are both small things and big asks. You cannot sustain a routine based on punishment, so don’t punish your body. Find ways to include these things that are enjoyable and rewarding instead. Experiment. There is no reason not to experiment—you don’t have to know instantly what’s going to work for you and what won’t, you just need to be willing to try things and make changes when things aren’t working for you.

You will still age. Your body will stop making collagen and elastin. Tissues you can see and tissues you can’t see will both sag. Cushioning tissues under your skin will get thinner. You’ll bruise more easily. Skin will tear more easily. Accumulated sun damage will start to show more and more. Joints will begin to show arthritis. Tendons and ligaments will get weaker and get injured more easily, as will muscles. Bones will lose mass and get easier to break. You’ll get tired more easily.

But you know what makes the difference between being dead, or as good as, in your 60s vs your 90s? Activity, plants, and quitting smoking. And don’t do meth. Saw a 58-year-old guy this week who is going to have a heart attack if he doesn’t quit whatever stimulant he’s on. I pretended to believe it was just the cigarettes, and maybe it is, but meth and cocaine will kill you quicker. Stop poisoning yourself.

Baby steps; take it one step at a time; you don’t need to have everything figured out right now. But you do need to be working on figuring things out.

[paintingpuff]

So with the terrible Minecraft movie trailer dropping,

I've seen a lot of people bringing up better stories in the world of Minecraft, like Story Mode or the books or the SMPs, but may I add another option that would be a way better use of your time and money than the Minecraft movie (esp cuz its free)?

Animation Vs. Minecraft

(Note: contains out of context spoilers for this series to give you a sneak peek of what's waiting for you)

There's a good chance you've seen the first video, since it's one of the most watched minecraft videos on youtube, made by the same guy who did Animation vs Animator.

But did you know that the stick figures pick the game back up and continue the series?

There are now three completed seasons packed with fun episodic content that naturally blossoms into a larger, engrossing story that amounts to /several hours of animated content/. It's got fun characters, gorgeous fight scenes, and even musical numbers, all told with next to no dialogue!

The whole thing is a love letter to Minecraft, with way more passion and knowledge of the game than WBS.

New episodes would show off the latest updates, like when the main characters explored the ancient cities and lush caves before they were officially released.

There are even homages to the Minecraft animation community, such as the episode featuring Monster School (my favorite part of this is the way they purposefully imitate the old janky animation in Herobrine's movements)

Not a fan of piglins always being villains? While there's certainly some bad piglins in this series (though I'd argue they're under duress), the main cast also befriends some, include this adorable piglin child.

Still not over Reuben's death from MSM? Well they've also got a pig (named Reuben by the community), and it both doesn't die, and occasionally does some badassery himself!

Speaking of the action, this series doesn't just reference minecraft's world and creatures: it expands on the mechanics and worldbuilding, creating avenues for some truly incredible action that can only be achieved within minecraft. It takes full advantage of the medium and world.

My personal favorite example of this is the team's expansion on the Lucky Blocks mod, exploring the idea of a "randomizer" power to its fullest extent.

The action scenes are the kind where you have to watch them five times over because each character is doing something completely unique and fun.

Here is all the episodes of season 1 compiled in one video to get you started, though there are also playlists out there:

All in all, this series is funny, gripping, and adorable, and is worth your attention far better than some corporate schlock.

[wilwheaton]

For some odd reason, moderator Jake Tapper told Trump in the beginning that he didn't need to answer the questions and that he could use the time however he wanted. Trump ran with that, essentially giving a rally speech whenever he had the floor and was unresponsive to the vast majority of the questions. He made faces and insulted Biden to his face, at one point calling him a criminal and a Manchurian candidate. If anyone had said 10 years ago that this would happen at a presidential debate they would have been laughed out of the room. After the debate when most of the country had turned off cable news or gone to bed, CNN aired its fact check. [...] Even had Joe Biden been at the top of his game, he would not have been able to parry all those lies and he shouldn't have been put in the role of being Donald Trump's fact checker. His choice was to either ignore the lies and let them stand so he could use his time to make his own case or spend the entire debate correcting the record. It was not a fair fight. It's obvious that Biden's terrible performance has caused panic among Democrats and liberal pundits and analysts. The calls for him to withdraw are loud and meaningful and it's going to be a very rough period in this campaign whatever happens. For me, this isn't really a question. As long as Donald Trump is on the ballot, I will vote for the Democratic nominee. If it's Biden or someone else, the calculation remains the same. Nothing is worse than another Trump administration and I suspect that at the end of the day Democratic voters will agree with that. So it's still a matter of those undecided voters in swing states, just like it was on Thursday morning.

CNN's debate was no fair fight

CNN, yet again, gave Trump a national stage to vomit an endless stream of unchecked lies, and today, CNN is telling itself and anyone who will listen that the network and its moderators did a great job. That’s just plainly false, and America is paying the price for their failure.

That doesn’t let Biden off the hook. Biden had a terrible night. He was so bad, it’s allowed the political press to completely ignore not just how much Trump lied, but what he lied about: January 6, all his indictments, his Covid response, and on and on. President Biden was a disaster, and his campaign should be at DefCon 1 to try and repair all the damage. I am terrified that his awful performance will obscure his surprisingly good record and leadership in the post-insurrection era, and give the political press an excuse to run with “Biden is old�� in the face of Trump’s endless lies, his felony convictions, his pending trials, and all of his criminality. Someone at Salon said that Trump didn’t win, but Biden absolutely lost. I can’t argue with that, even if the facts are all on Biden’s side.

I’ve seen President Biden on TV today, and even last night after the debate, where he didn’t come across as an ancient dude who needs a walker on his way to some Matlock reruns. He looks and sounds like the SOTU Biden we all expected would show up last night. I have no idea why he was so awful for 99% of the debate (the campaign says he has a cold), and I have no idea why the guy who is showing up to speak to supporters today, and who delivered the SOTU didn’t show up last night to save America from Trump, again.

But we have to live with this reality now, and I hope like hell that the Biden campaign, the candidate, and the entire Democratic party apparatus scrambles like fucking crazy to get all hands on deck to fix this, and remind voters that

This isn’t about BIden vs. Trump. This is about America vs. Project 2025.

There will be no second debate where Biden can try to salvage something out of the wreckage of this one. Trump has everything to lose and nothing to gain. Trump will crow about how he won, and declare he has no reason to debate again, and he’s right. Biden had one shot and he absolutely blew it. The moderators did not help, but the campaign had to have known they wouldn’t, and it sure looks like they didn’t prepare Biden for what we all knew was coming. I don’t know how those same people stop the bleeding, and if they can’t, America and the world are in real, real trouble.

But we all have to remember that we have a choice to make in just a few months. Right now, and probably on election day, the choice is between Joe Biden and Democracy, or Donald Trump and Fascism. It’s stark, it’s clear, it’s binary, and I can not believe that it is even a question. I just hope that there are enough voters out there who will understand that we do have a choice. The options suck, but we do have a choice.

Please choose Democracy. Please choose America. Please choose the future world our children will inherit from us.

[bluerosefox]

Feral Gremlins VS Fruitloops

Hhmmmm

Hmmm

Guys another DPxDC idea.

Can you imagine the unholy terror and general chaos a deaged Danny and Tim would unleash if they met?

Like say they got deaged by their creepy old man fruitloops in an attempt to make them their heirs but somehow they escape from them and both meet each other on the run.

They maybe small and with little to no memory of how they got there or where they are but they know fruitloops when they see one and thus team up to make their ways home, or at least to Gotham so Batman can help! (-Tim's idea)

Look I just want Tim being a tiny and a little feral smarty whose using that brain of his to outsmart Ra's (and Vlad) and he knows he's not meant to be tiny but his memories are foggy. And I want Danny feral vibing back, finds out he gets powers, and wants to kick the fruitloop that keeps talking mean about his dad and making kissy faces at pictures of his mom butt and also kick the other creepy old man too whose after his new best friend.

Also, I wanna see them hold hands as they run away together. (As a League base is on fire in the background)

[ennn]

Guys, Agatha and Rio fighting because of Billy is OKAY

Because it’s not really about Billy. It’s about them. Billy’s just the immediate problem, the catalyst for a fight that’s been brewing since the first episode.

Now I know there’s been more focus on Billy lately, the same way Wandavision at times focused on Monica and her hero origin story – but Billy's story is here because of what it tells us about Agatha – who's projecting hard on the boy (see my other meta post on their relationship).

And this development isn't a twist. The situation between two has always been tense (in ways good and bad). And it looks like these two messy bitches are basically making their relationship problems everyone’s problem.

Let’s look at what the text’s been telling us, shall we?

GIF credit to michaun

There’s animosity between Agatha and Rio that’s unresolved

As sexy their fight in episode one was (and boy was it), there’s certainly anger and resentment between the two, or at least the easily combustible grounds for it. Now we have an idea of why Agatha is mad at Rio (Nicky) although we're less clear about what Agatha did to piss Rio off: was it just Agatha running away or was it something specific she did?

Regardless I don't think Rio is kidding when making threats of bodily harm.

GIF credit: sersi

And neither does Agatha. But she knows all too well how quickly Rio caves to her pouty flirting (and let’s be honest Rio knows too), and basically manages to get a reprieve from her exe’s retribution in episode 1.

GIF credit: marril96

The agreement: They’ll continue fighting it out once Agatha gets her powers back.

We know this is a serious threat on the backburner because you can hear Agatha muttering about how "she's unstoppable" at the start of episode 2 while planning to flee.

More obviously, Agatha touches on it again in episode 4, asking for Rio to hold off on her violence until she finishes the Road, and they can hang out like old times: “Maybe the Road is like Switzerland…”

GIF credit daisjohnson

I absolutely get how it can be confusing because these two clearly still care for each other and are still attracted to each other, with lots of yearning looks across episode 4 and 5. As Schaeffer puts it, the muscle memory of that love is still there, feelings are still there. They were in love and there is still love between them.

But they never worked through what tore them apart in the first place.

And you can see this when Rio gently and firmly reminds Agatha that Billy isn't her son – that Nicky is really gone, and Rio still did the thing that Agatha hates her for.

Agatha closes herself off and runs, and Rio feels her scar tear open again.

Notably, Rio isn't sorry for doing her job. Her heartfelt confession – possibly the most emotionally vulnerable she can be – isn't an apology. She didn't want to hurt Agatha, but she couldn't do what Agatha wanted either. There's a disconnect there.

Chaotic vs Lawful: Billy is basically the new Nicky

Now we know Nicky was the reason they first separated. And it’s still a theory but I think there's a good chance of Rio wanting Billy dead because he probably should be. Billy Maximoff, born from The Hex, "broke the rules" to survive and some piece of Billy Kaplan still lives on despite a fatal car crash.

And that's partly why Agatha is hardcore-projecting on Billy, Agatha "I did not break the rules, they simply bent to my power" Harkness has always been a rule-breaker. That's what started her path to become the infamous witch-killer.

Not to mention Agatha is a shameless survivor. She'll certainly cheat or take shortcuts if she can get away with it. See episode 3:

GIF credit: daisjohnsons

Rio, by contrast, follows certain rules – which Agatha taunts her for — "You can't kill me, it's not allowed" – and she has a job she has to do, even if she doesn't want to. There’s a clash here of value systems as well.

To be fair, at this point Rio's motivations aren't entirely clear. It's possible Rio just wants more dead witches, or she gets impatient and angry and decides to go at that emotional vulnerability as a way of hurting her (“You’re vulnerable.” “Only physically.”)

Either way, Rio taking away a boy that Agatha now considers hers (even if only with a massive amount of projecting) after Agatha’s freshly reliving and processing the absolute devastation of Nicky's death. That is sure to bring things to an open conflict.

And these two (in their own way) are so dramatic.

Change and Growth

There are other factors as well, in terms of Agatha’s character arc and journey, which I’ve talked about in my other meta post on these two being star-crossed lovers.

It's a tragic, complicated story with these two. It’s about them, it’s about more than them.

[misto713]

crossover idea: scumbag system vs. anastasia

SQQ successfully completed his 'suicide', LBH is devastated and clutching his corpse, SQQ makes his 'escape' into the growing mushroom body... except SQH made a liiiitle mistake:

SQQ's new body didn't take 5 years to grow, no no. It only took like a month. But, maybe due to the rush, maybe due to the fertiliser, maybe because SQQ blew up his own golden core right before his 'death'...

SQQ lost his memories during the soul transfer.

So now Shen Yuan, a freshly deceased 20-something with no System found himself in the world of his most (loved)hated novel as some random NPC. After all, not like he could recognize his new face (face being a mix of SY and SQQ), neither does he have a not-so-friendly eldritch abomination / System in his head to tell him who he is. And upon first waking, he has crawled out of soil like some knock-off zombie with no personal belongings so no hints there either.

Shen Yuan assumes he's some random rogue cultivator and starts to make a life for himself.

Meanwhile...

Luo Binghe is slowly going crazy, losing himself to his mourning, as his underlings get more and more frantic because Sad Binghe has a tendency to spread his 'sadness' around and makes the demons bloody feel his displeasure, when Sha Hualing gets a wonderful, bright idea:

If her boss misses his Shizun so much, why don't they try to find a replacement for him? One that looks just like the dearly departed old man. Oops, that didn't work. But that's ok, let's find someone who looks and acts like the Lord of Qing Jing Peak.

Discount SQQ: "Binghe, it's me! Shen Qingqiu!"

Sha Hualing & Mobei-Jun: "..."

And then?

Then they stumble across unsuspecting SY who wandered into the demonic planes in search of fun(dangerous) critters whose sketch and description he can add to his growing bestiary.

And man, this guy might not look exactly like Shen Qingqiu, but he acts like him. So much that even even they start to sort of believe it might be his weird reincarnation or something. Even the family name is the same!

They have to bring this guy to Emperor Luo. Maybe this guy won't get killed on spot and their boss will freaking chill for a minute.

Cue Shang Qinghua nervously biting his nails in the background and wondering why his Bro doesn't recognize him, or anyone else.

Luo Binghe, after exchanging three sentences with 'discount sqq', doesn't quite believe it's his (amnesiac) Shizun, but decides to keep him around anyway as he rides hard on nostalgia train. He can always use this guy as a teething toy and body pillow as he waits for a hint on how to get to the Holy Mausoleum to resurrect his real Shizun.

And Shen Yuan? Wonders what sort of fresh hell this is and whether he fell into some weird PIDW fanfic instead of the original because why is the blackened protagonist hugging the scum villain's corpse and why tf is he gay??

[centrally-unplanned]

The thing about morality is that it only matters when it's real. Discussions of rules or norms for what is right or wrong are almost always, at some level, illusions, approximating reality and guiding decisions in an uncertain world - which does not make them useless, just contextual. Profaning god in your bedroom can never be “wrong” - there is no one to hear you, no one to be hurt by it. You can only show something is really wrong from the intentions of the actions and their results.

So with that out of the way, lets talk about Knives Chau - and specifically, how the comic vs the anime handled that part of the story.

Scott Pilgrim vs The Reification of Dating a High Schooler

There is an extremely pervasive meme in Scott Pilgrim discourse that our titular Scott is a scumbag. Our returning whipping boy the Kotaku article loves this idea, describing Scott’s “detestable behavior” and wondering “was it too subtle the first time about Scott being an absolute shitbag?”. There is this viral headline screenshot from an interview floating around right now riding that same line:

Which is, of course, pretty much false. Its up to you in the end, “shitbag” is a subjective description, but the story just isn’t about events that would be described that way. Its the story of a guy getting over an awful ex, hurting some people, then meeting a new person, and realizing step-by-step what it takes to be their partner and levelling up as a person each time he does. He starts off broken, and Ramona of course is just as broken - getting better is their mutual arc. And its fundamentally about relationship drama - those stakes don’t make you a scumbag lol, just clueless, unless you are terminally online and don’t know what real stakes are.

I will let O’Malley get the last word in with his quote the writer of that interview is hilariously trying to torture into his headline:

There's a bit of, like, young people see Scott Pilgrim a certain way, and, you know, there's a lot of, like, 18-19-year-old fans that are really judgmental of the character. They're like, "Oh, he's a bad person. I would never do that." But I always tell them, like, get back to me when you're 25 or 30, tell me how your 20s went. Were you a bad person? Everyone has to make choices and do things in life that maybe they're not going to be proud of later.

Scott is a scumbag the way everyone is - you yourself will likely commit similar sins; that at least seems to be the authorial intent, and I agree with it.

So how does dating Knives Chau slot into this?

Despite the memes, age, in fact, is just a number - two consenting people dating does not a sin make. The reason dating underage people is bad is because of its consequences, not the categorical imperative. So what are the consequences of dating Knives Chau in the comic?

Knives is, as a consequence of dating a guy who is simply via his age able to appear so much cooler than her peers to her, absolutely obsessed with Scott. She worships his band:

She starts aping his taste in music and interests; she slots herself into his circle of friends, who don’t relate to her, even after their breakup (often drinking her way through it):

She totally spirals after he cheats on her and leaves her, blaming everyone but him; she is wounded and hurt for months, a year, over a relationship that lasted weeks:

Knives Chau is a literal poster child for why you should not date a high schooler. She is, at every turn, emotionally not ready to date someone who is not at her own level of social development, and is deeply affected by it. It is, sometimes, played for laughs - that is the nature of the comic, everything is played for laughs, but I would have given it a bit more dramatic space myself - but over the course of the story Scott himself realizes how much of an ass he was to her, and how he didn’t take what happened seriously.

The reason I view this with charity is what Scott did to lead to this - he met a cute girl on the bus! He was deeply hurt and kind of numb in life, and found someone who was safe and easy to talk to. He never attempts to kiss her (she starts trying to kiss him which he repeatedly rejects) they don’t even hold hands, and it lasted a few weeks. He knew deep down, pretty much immediately, it was fake:

Then he met an actual person he liked, and with some browbeating from Wallace agreed to break up with her, but chickened out for a day. Then the next day he decides to break up with her, and she drops the L bomb before he can, so he instantly ends it. It is really awkward for everyone involved.

Pushing off an awkward and uncomfortable conversation resulting from a dumb decision you made on a whim for a week - god I relate to that, that’s everyone! If you think it isn’t you I think you're lying. Its why this relationship is so interesting in the comic - Scott is always one step removed from it, putting it at abeyance, and the fact that something so minor to him is so destructive to her is a really good portrait of how these kinds of things happen. Its so easy to hurt someone when you don’t even know what the stakes are, and when its coming not from malice, but from weakness. Its a very good portrayal of a bad relationship because its bad in a relatable way, even if as a story is a bit more dramatic than is typical. And its a great portrayal of how fraught age gaps can be - this bad relationship is part of what makes the comic a good story.

But its 2023, we don’t give a shit about any of that anymore!

O’Malley in the same interview discusses the cultural shift around these kind of relationships:

I felt like in this day and age, I had to provide clarity on that [relationship]. Because when I wrote the first books, I took it for granted that people would understand that dating a high schooler was a bad thing. But on the internet, in this day and age, people are like, "He's dating a high schooler. That's terrible!" Like, that's pretty much what I say on page 1 of the book. But I try to spell it out a little bit more this time.

He isn’t telling the full story though - it was bad in 2004, but not bad the way it is today. Its dubiousness was mitigated by its frequency; people were doing this kind of shit all the time. Scott Pilgrim is a bass guitarist in an indie band; fucking groupies is like built into the cover charge. Half the problem Scott has in dating Knives is that she is the wrong kind of 17-year-old - had Scott met her at 1 am in the aftermath of a Born Ruffian’s concert at the Whippet Lounge knocking down shots off the back of her fake ID, no one would have even noticed. Hell, no one does notice; there is someone who actually makes out with a drunk 17-year-old Knives Chau in the comic Scott Pilgrim, and isn’t Scott Pilgrim:

No one cares about Kim’s inebriated petting session here; that is 10% because she is a Girl and Girls Can’t Be Predators, 40% because she isn’t the main character, and 50% because Kim Pine’s dating history is not a useful proxy battleground for GamerGate-adjacent nerd culture wars in ~2014; but that is road that goes directly to hell, so let's veer back.

The point, of course, is that in 2004 this is a crime flecked with normality, something your friend would do and you would maybe just cock an eyebrow at:

Its not that in discourse today - it is radically more condemned. It is not a contextual sin, but an original sin. It underwent a process I am calling reification - where it goes from being just a shifting descriptor of reality, to a thing in itself, with a defined (reified) meaning. And to be clear, that is in a lot ways on net a good thing? The reality is that, despite everyone’s protestations, there are today thousands of 17-year-olds taking the L line out to a gig at the Brooklyn Steel and going down on a 25-year-old guy they just met in a back alley off Frost St who swears he’s a “drummer in a sick new band” that played here “just last week”, he promises, and she is having a great time, bragging to her friends about how hot his tattoo was, and then shipping herself off to Cornell next year to start on her pre-med track with barely a memory. But for every dozen of those, there is at least one person who is deeply, deeply hurt, a Knives Chau who never deserved this. The rest can have a slightly worse time, its probably worth it.

That does not make it a categorical imperative, though - the reification has masked that truth. The crime comes from the context - those other girls aren’t victims, they would laugh at you for suggesting they were. But in 2023, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is no longer concerned with context. It is telling you, right to your face, that Scott is a bad dude. Over and over and over - jokes from the Evil League about “wow, I thought we were evil”, its not subtle.

Yet meanwhile, Knives Chau is, like, fine? She dates Scott, is totally into him, and then literally in the middle of his funeral forgets about him for Envy crashing it:

Picks up the bass and has yuri-inflected playtime with Kim the literal next day:

And less than a week later is pitching an off-broadway musical adaption of Scott’s life to a billionaire Matthew Patel - I can’t explain that okay, I’m as confused as you are.

She is mad at Scott, sure, but she is over it in a matter of days. Hell, notice how she was already a fan of the Clash at Demonhead now? There is no scene of Scott introducing her to his kind of music. He didn’t change her. By the end she is a member of his band and they are totally chill:

This is, again, about a week or two later.

Knives is not an important character in this show, way less than in the original, this is no grand sin. But I still find it very interesting: O’Malley is wrong. He “spells it out” way less in this version when it comes to the actual consequences of Scott’s actions. Everyone’s verbal condemnations are substitutes to replace the real damage his actions dealt in the comic. Scott is a better person this time, in a world that has universally agreed he is worse (still not a good move ofc). Even Scott’s moment of apology to Knives about their dating is so tepid its almost Straussian:

Its ‘frowned upon’…which is not the same thing as saying it was wrong! I don’t think this is intentional, its just funny, but its a nice capstone nevertheless.

And it had to be this way, not just for media in general, but for Scott Pilgrim in particular. Not only are sexual crimes far more reified today, but Scott Pilgrim’s sin of dating a high schooler is reified as well - its the first piece of discourse everyone encounters about it. Its the ur-debate of the franchise. The idea of actively engaging on this point, and digging deeper into it…its too hot, too controversial. Way better to shy away from it, disown it. The discourse wrote this part of the script over the course of a decade; its not something the creatives had any say in.

Honestly they should have just gone all the way - just make Knives 19. Then how tepid it is wouldn’t be a distraction anymore. Scott can just be an asshole for cheating on her, that would work fine. If you aren’t going to commit to the reality of these things, you shouldn’t bother with it at all.

[therainscene]

I think I might have figured out what the Mind Flayer really is.

This theory has been percolating in my brain for a while now; it hasn't really finished baking yet but I wanted to get the gist of it down before The First Shadow debuts.

Let’s begin at the Hawkins National Lab, 6th November 1983. For the second time in her young life, El faces terrifying and deeply traumatic circumstances which cause her powers to lash out and rip a gash in the fabric of reality.

Meanwhile, across town, Will is doing what every queer 12 year-old has done and finds an excuse to spend an extra moment alone with his crush.

His little gay heart is as aflutter as the garage lights.

(Strange, that. The lights, I mean -- considering that he's on the other side of town from the lab. Do you suppose the Demogorgon trekked all the way to Mike's house and quietly followed him home again?)

Will heads home, lost in thought as he cycles past the lab. Is he thinking about how sweet his new X-Men #134 is gonna be? Or is he thinking about something even sweeter? The lights flutter again.

And something in front of him notices.

Will has always been noticeable: his clothes, his mannerisms, his interests -- they've always attracted the attentions of bullies. Now something new -- or maybe something that was always there and is only now making itself known -- has attracted the attentions of a monster.

He runs home, he calls for help, but he's alone, there's no escape. He races to the shed and loads a gun like his father taught him -- but it's not in his nature to be violent. He freezes, petrified.

The lights surge as his terror wrestles control of his powers and uses them to puncture an escape route in the fabric of reality.

Why were we so quick to believe that the Demogorgon -- a minion of the guy whose whole thing is his inability to open gates -- was able to open its own temporary portals in S1 and then never again?

Will could plausibly have been responsible for every temporary portal in S1: he’s at the Byers house when the Demogorgon pushes through its walls; he's on the run to Castle Byers when Nancy stumbles across that portal in the woods; and he's plugged in to one of Vecna's vines during the finale -- something we see Vecna plug himself into when he remotely opens gates in S4.

There’s one exception though.

Barb likely slipped through a gate in Steve's pool, but how could Will have opened that one when he was in his bedroom at the time, talking to his mother through the lights?

Let me ask you this: isn't it interesting that of all the injuries Barb could have obtained in her passage to the Upside Down, she got a nosebleed?

I think powers are more common than we’ve been led to believe, and gates are a last-ditch self-defense mechanism for anyone with powers.

This is why the four curse victims’ deaths opened a gate: Vecna pushed them to their breaking point to artificially trigger the self-defense response. Those headaches and nosebleeds weren't caused by Vecna directly, but by their own powers acting up as they inched towards oblivion.

[Shoutout to @givehimthemedicine's underrated powers and blood theory for the idea of Vecna's Curse being the overcharging of his victims' own powers.]

It was already pretty obvious that Vecna's Curse is a metaphor for suicide, and this theory reinforces it: every kid who gets targeted by the horrors of Hawkins for being "different" tries to find some way to escape.

Willel's misfortune is that their powers are considerably more easily manifested than the average person's. Byler tells the story of visible vs invisible queerness, but that's just a reflection of the larger theme at play in the show: the visible and invisible ways kids are othered and abused.

Max's trauma was a quiet thing that came from within and festered until it was almost too late to save her... but Willel's trauma manifests as a giant monster that openly hunts them down.

And I'm being literal when I say the Mind Flayer is a manifestation of their trauma.

We know that Vecna fashioned the Mind Flayer from a cloud of black particles he found in the Upside Down, but where did that cloud come from? The Upside Down is a mysterious enough place that it's easy to assume the Shadow is native to that realm... but what if it isn't?

The Mind Flayer is heavily associated with repression -- Will gradually lost his memories while he was possessed, and El lost her powers when the sliver of Flesh Flayer wormed its way into her leg.

But Will has mysteriously been without powers ever since leaving the Upside Down, and we've seen El lose memories too: her memories of surviving the lab massacre, in which she didn't simply escape by opening up a gate, but by disintegrating her attacker into black particles.

The Mind Flayer doesn't cause repression -- it is repression.

There must have been countless generations worth of traumatized children who took the extra step El did and sent their abusers -- or at least their memories of abuse -- into that hidden realm beyond the gate.

(There's also the possibility that Mr. Time-is-Just-a-Social-Construct is stuck in a time loop of some sort -- maybe the massacre has repeated hundreds of times, and Dimension X is a timeless graveyard of El's attempts to repress her trauma. This would explain why Henry seems to have both disintegrated and survived: we were watching at least two different iterations of the massacre all along.)

Whichever way you slice it, it's a perfect fit: the tool Vecna uses to perpetuate the cycle of abuse isn't some bizarro alien from an alternate dimension, but a direct consequence of the cycle itself.

The Mind Flayer tells us that escape alone doesn't work as a long-term solution: it might help you survive the initial abuse, but if you don't address the effect it had on you...

...it will come back to wreck havok.

[Edit: Click here for post-TFS thoughts on this theory]

[palmettoshenanigans]

also ALSO-

I know the old "AFTG is badly written" jokes but hold the FUCK on for one goddamn second

I have been writing for almost 20 years. I got my college degree in English and the only reason my specialization wasn't creative writing is because I had bad time management skills and missed my chance to do my final creative writing workshop. I'm autistic and Storycrafting and Wordsmithing are my special interests. I understand writing pretty well.

AFTG opened my fucking eyes to a blind spot of the utter craftsmanship of writing sticky characters that infect you with brain worms, and here it is:

The Conflict of Material and Form

AKA the Character Creation version of Nature versus Nurture

"This isn't who I truly am. This is who I've had to become, what I've had to fashion myself into to survive. The original me is buried in there somewhere, if only you knew how to look. If only you knew to look beyond the mask."

Easily exemplified with our fave lil guys-

Neil Abram Josten:

Material: smartass with a smart mouth, attitude problem, cares about people deeply, sharp tongue to cut a bitch with, kinda feral, a lil unhinged, oblivious idiot

Form: quiet and hidden, liar liar pants of fire, run rabbit run, docile and tame, hyper-vigilant and hyper-observant

Andrew Joseph Minyard:

Material: caring, protective, strong sense of justice, gentle even, cares deeply, give me sugar or give me death, yearning

Form: cold, apathetic, ruthless and unforgiving, allow me to introduce you to my knife, regret? don't know her, i want nothing nothing nothing

Why am I using 'material and form' instead of 'nature and nurture'? Because I am a subscriber to "Characters are not meant to be real people; they are mirages of real people meant to encapsulate a function or idea that serves the story". But use whatever terms click with your noggin.

This isn't about 'want vs need'. This isn't about 'lie believed and truth learned'. This is about Presentation and Basic Action - how would this character react here? Which part are they reacting from?

With Material vs. Form, one isn't the 'true' version and the other the 'false' version of the character. They are both true and real in their own right. The Secret Sauce is that the Material and the Form fight 1v1! And regardless of which part wins, there will be consequences and rewards; so which rewards do we want and which consequences are we willing to suffer? And this fight happens beat by beat, scene by scene, plot point by plot point.

At one point in TFC Neil laments his inability to shut his fucking mouth because his Form of 'don't stand out dipshit' and his Material of 'initiate smartass.exe' are disagreeing with how to respond to his circumstances! It's that fucking meme "My healed and unhealed versions of myself deciding who is going to handle this situation" but as Storycraft!

Now, I don't think this is a new idea by any means. But sometimes to make the essence of an idea truly stick, it must be presented in multiple different ways until one triggers a "Eureka! By Jove! Aha!", and this was the way that truly made this concept stick for me. And why did it stick? Because AFTG is a labor of deep love and passion for Characters and all their complexity and inner machinations, and that depth of devotion had to manifest as some good ass writing somehow my homies in christ.

I have a collection of my favorite Storycrafting Wisdoms and one of them is effectively:

"Put Compelling Characters into a Compelling Situation and see what happens."

And Nora does Compelling Characters beautifully

[jaybejaybeyes]

The more time passes, the angrier I get about the Meljay ending. Or, more accurately, the lack of one. And no, I’m not even talking about the criminal absence of a single meaningful, soul-baring conversation between them after act 1 s2. I’m talking about all the wasted potential here. Because just imagine the depth the show could’ve explored if it’d actually leaned into their fallout.

Think about how broken Mel must’ve felt after she reached out to Jayce, vulnerable and raw, only for him to turn his back on her. That could’ve hardened her, made her colder, crueller. And Jayce? Who’s such an openhearted, trusting guy with Mel? The only way I can understand him pushing her away in ep8 is if he knew he was about to sacrifice himself fighting Viktor and couldn’t bear to let her get hurt (that said, I hate that trope, there’s nothing worse than one half of a pairing deciding unilaterally to take away the other’s right to choose whether to stay or leave). At least that explanation would’ve been something. But we got no introspection from Jayce, no reflection on their relationship, only his outburst that felt out of left field.

And the tension we could’ve had?? Them wrestling with their conflicting I-need-to-destroy-arcane vs I-am-arcane???

But wait, let’s flip it around for a second. What if they never fell out? What if, after everything, they had a tender reunion, realising they were now (still!) the only people who truly understood each other? What if Mel finally let herself break down in front of him, letting herself be vulnerable, and Jayce found a (however fleeting) reprieve from the madness of his mission to stop Viktor?

Imagine the old Jayce, the one who dreamed big and loved deeply, breaking through the armour the new Jayce’d built up. Imagine their bond with Mel deepening in the aftermath of not one, but two shared traumas (first, bombing, then ending up somewhere unknown, suffering horrors against their will). Picture them finding some solace in each other, healing together, clinging to the idea that maybe,  maybe, they could have something resembling happiness again.

And when the inevitable heartbreak came, it would’ve been absolutely devastating. Not because Jayce “chose Viktor over Mel” (we don’t tolerate this sentiment in this house), but because Jayce knew he was doomed. He knew that Viktor’s fate was entwined with his and that he’d have to make it to the end alone, whether to save Viktor or destroy him. Maybe he even told Mel this, and she understood, because she saw what Viktor meant to him, and she knew their connection was special on so many levels. 

And yet she still hoped. She hoped Jayce would defeat the Machine Herald and come back. She hoped she could finally stand up to her mother and find freedom. Maybe they even dreamed of running away together someday, like, hijacking one of the Noxian ships and leaving everything behind to process their traumas (okay, two kudos and I might think about writing such a fic, lol).

But instead of any of this character study, we got... nothing. Not even a satisfying reason for their fallout. No contemplations from either of them about what they meant to each other. Just a glaring void where their dynamic should’ve been. So, so disappointing.

[artbyblastweave]

So in the original 1977 run of What if...?, issue 44 covered the topic of "what if Captain America wasn't discovered in the ice until the 1980s." And the answer is that in the interim, a fascist, segregationist junta comes to power in the USA using the assistance and iconography of William Burnside- the white-supremacist reactionary successor to Captain America who was created by Marvel editorial to retroactively explain Cap's handful of abortive appearances as a red-scare communist hunter in the 1950s, when he was supposed to be in the ice. Most of the superheroes get neutralized, assassinated or co-opted, the real Cap is rescued by the crew of a Navy Sub that's on the verge of defection, and the comic ends on the verge of the second American Civil War. The issue oscillates rapidly between competent, prescient commentary and the exact cornball pablum you'd expect from a bronze-age one-shot trying to suss out the "real meaning of America", but either way I've always been interested in this branch of the Marvel universe getting more than just the one issue of table-time. Superpowered urban civil war in 1980s America is a compelling concept!

One of the reasons I like this comic is that it's one of several works from the late 70s/early 80s - mainline Captain America itself among them- that hit upon the idea that it would be comically easy to sell the American populace on strongman authoritarianism if it came wrapped in a cape and domino mask. This scene is an example of that; "Captain America" at a rally parading his team of all-American jackboots. Two of the members are, to the best of my knowledge, new characters: Golden Girl (later called out as an untrained actress kept on the lineup to illicit a very specific strain of nostalgia for Bettie-Page styled cheesecake) and embodied-specter of racist violence The Hangman (who... might be black, based on this coloring job? Potentially either very smart or very stupid depending on the level of thought put into it). But rounding out the lineup you've got... Hawkeye, which is the beat from this comic that I really like and the reason I decided to write this post.

Because Hawkeye, Clint Barton, has developed over time into the default scrappy underdog hero that gets to be one of the holdouts in dystopian alternate-universe situations like these- Old Man Logan, House of M, Next Avengers, Age of Ultron, What If...? S1ep8, Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, Age of Apocalypse, Marvel Universe Vs. The Avengers, these are just off the top of my head. It's a fun contrast, the dynamic of the "shit, man, this superhero war is fucked" hardscrabble carnie being the last man on the wall against something that would give Superman pause. So they do it a lot. Not here, though! And there's a level of honesty to that that I really appreciate. We're dealing with a guy who became a superhero in the first place because he was annoyed that Iron Man upstaged his carnival act, he almost immediately pivoted and agreed to try and kill Iron Man because an attractive woman asked him to, he tries to steal the armor to sell it, and even when he initially went straight there was an undercurrent of celebrity pursuit and showboating to his decision to join The Avengers. Absent the character development that was a direct result of falling in with the real Steve Rogers, all the assumptions about the character that have formed downstream of that, is it that insane that a guy with his early mercenary characterization would throw in with a fascist regime that paid him well and let him peacock? I don't think so!

[okaysonny]

about james lee ╏ taesoo ma + first gen kings

𓇼 summary: taesoo finally found james lee — he figures he should tell the other kings.

𓇼 details: no reader, takes place after the dg vs taesoo fight (one night arc)

𓇼 wc: 1.4k

𓇼 A/N: thanks to the anon who gave me the idea! there's not much source material for any of them, but...i tried my best to write them in character (-.-)

!!! we don't know how long jaegyeon + dg have been working together. if it's revealed he already knew dg's identity during one night arc...we can just say he's playing dumb 😝

Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 created the group 'ABOUT JAMES LEE'

Jichang Kwak Taesoo? JaegyeoN❤️ Na 🚗 Oh ffs Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 Hello everyone. You know I wouldn't be contacting you all for no reason. I'm recovering in Gangbuk right now and I'd rather not have a group face time. This is about James Lee SEOKDU WANG Yeah we can see that. Thanks for making us look like stalkers Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 Shut up. You know as well as I do how much that prick terrorised us, which is why my people in Ansan made a plan to lure him out. I found James Lee Jichang Kwak You have? JaegyeoN❤️ Na 🚗 Seriously??? DAEHO TEMPLE 🧘☸️ Greetings 😊 This monk doesn't indulge in technology, but it must've been Buddha's will that this phone fell into my hands...What's this about James Lee? Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 Hello Gongseob. Still putting up this sham I see DAEHO TEMPLE 🧘☸️ It must also be Buddha's will to choke you with my prayer beads 😊😊 Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 I'll snap off that prosthetic leg while you're at it DAEHO TEMPLE 🧘☸️ You talk as if you don't have a glass eye 😊 Jichang Kwak Jesus Christ, how did you two children manage to rule your regions? Taesoo, you have us all here, so get to the point. Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 Right, James isn't just in hiding like we all thought. He's taken on a completely new identity, one that's very visible to the public...essentially, he's hiding in plain sight. SEOKDU WANG A new identity that's public? Why would James risk that? Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 No idea. But he fooled me for a good while when I first saw him Jichang Kwak But the bottom line is you saw him, right? So who is he? Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 Yes...and I fought with him. Everyone...this is James Lee

Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗

taesoo stares at the screen in confusion. no one sent anything for a good while.

until finally:

DAEHO TEMPLE 🧘☸️ 😧😧😧 Jichang Kwak ...You sent the wrong picture JaegyeoN❤️ Na 🚗 I don't even wanna know why you have this saved. Aren't you a little too old to be listening to him? 😬 SEOKDU WANG Exposing yourself in such a way...I'd be embarrassed if I were those Ansan kids Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 What the hell??? No you idiots. This is James Lee. He's been hiding as Diego Kang, better known as DG, a famous idol.

taesoo blinks as the chat goes silent again.

until...

JaegyeoN❤️ Na 🚗 🤣🤣😭😭 Jichang Kwak Taesoo... SEOKDU WANG Go vegan and these hallucinations won't happen Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 WHAT??? I've seen him with my own two eyes, this man is James Lee...you guys don't believe me? DAEHO TEMPLE 🧘☸️ Hoho don't you mean one eye? 😊 And...lying goes against the 4th precept... Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 Fuck you firstly. Secondly, WHY would I lie about this? DG is James Lee and he came to Gangbuk once he saw his name was being used...that was the plan to lure him out.

DAEHO TEMPLE 🧘☸️

Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 What would I gain from making this up? JaegyeoN❤️ Na 🚗 I dunno but I always knew you were weird. No sane man willingly shits in the mountains Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 ??? You know I don't live there, right? And that's not the point. I'm telling the truth. Hudson was there too SEOKDU WANG All I'm saying is...you're the most vengeful towards James out of everyone here...so it's not impossible to think you got confused and beat up an innocent celebrity... Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 WHAT??? THAT'S ABSOLUTELY NOT WHAT HAPPENED

DAEHO TEMPLE 🧘☸️

Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 Send a Buddhist quote one more time I dare you Jichang Kwak Everyone...let's stop bickering for a moment. Taesoo, why don't you just tell us everything that happened? Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 Right...so basically, Hudson made a plan to lure out James by having a crew in Gangbuk use his name. James was obviously hiding for a reason, so he'd want to take out the threats to his concealment. DAEHO TEMPLE 🧘☸️ Little Hudson! 😄 His night club in Ansan is fantastic...or so I've heard. Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 😐 Anyway, it worked because James ended up coming. But before that, some 2nd generation kiddies were there...it's surprising but they were quite strong...I felt like I was back in my younger days. SEOKDU WANG Going toe to toe with the 2nd generation...this would never happen in Suwon Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 Whatever. It got interrupted when this guy with pink hair smashed through the window and started fighting me...he did scarily remind me of James but I didn't think too much of it JaegyeoN❤️ Na 🚗 I'm surprised you didn't recognise someone as famous as DG...then again, it makes sense given where you live 🤔 Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 I SAID I DON'T LIVE IN THE MOUNTAINS. And he was wearing some ski mask so I couldn't recognise him either way Jichang Kwak How did you know he was James? Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 That fucker repeated the same lines during our fight back then...that's when I knew. And when he took off his mask, I saw James' face in him. He didn't deny it either, in fact, he confirmed it for me. DAEHO TEMPLE 🧘☸️ Hmmm... Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 Listen...I know it's hard to believe, but ignore the pink hair and flashy accessories and just look at his face. Don't tell me he doesn't look like James.

taesoo sighs as the chat goes silent again, bracing himself for whatever mockery they throw at him.

but to his pleasant surprise:

SEOKDU WANG ...He does look like him JaegyeoN❤️ Na 🚗 And I always thought that kid had good looks...he could've definitely passed as an idol DAEHO TEMPLE 🧘☸️ They look alike, but how come no one else has noticed? Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 This weirdo changed his entire personality too. He's way more calm and stoic, not the cocky guy we saw back then. SEOKDU WANG Hang on, how did the fight go? If you're recovering in Gangbuk, does that mean you lost? Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 Well what do you think?

taesoo rolls his eyes as the radio silence returns. until eventually:

JaegyeoN❤️ Na 🚗 🤣🤣😭😭 Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 What is it now? JaegyeoN❤️ Na 🚗 YOU GOT BEAT BY SOMEONE WHO TWERKS FOR TEENAGE GIRLS 🤣🤣😭😭 SEOKDU WANG I just watched one of his performances...Taesoo...this is a new low DAEHO TEMPLE 🧘☸️ Defeated by James even after forgoing his identity...this too, must be Buddha's will Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 I hope you all choke. Unlike you, I can admit when I've lost fair and square, no matter my opponent. JaegyeoN❤️ Na 🚗 I bet you're crying behind the screen right now Jichang Kwak Stop it everyone. Let's not kick a man when he's already down. Taesoo has suffered enough humiliation Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 ? I just said I wasn't feeling humiliated but thanks JaegyeoN❤️ Na 🚗 I don't get it though, why would James change his whole persona? It can't just be because of the first generation…and he must've gotten help from someone to become DG SEOKDU WANG Wait, didn't he say 'join our group' when trying to recruit Seongji to that 4 major crews thing? Could it be them? Or one of them? Jichang Kwak I think you're bang on the money Seokdu. I have a hunch about why James went into hiding…and who helped him become Diego Kang. JaegyeoN❤️ Na 🚗 Woah. I feel like we're in a detective movie 😆 We should rename this group to 'Incheon Investigations' Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 I'm not changing it. And if anything, it should be called 'Ansan Investigations' because I'm the one who brought this up Jichang Kwak Stay on topic for 1 minute, I beg of you. Anyway, thanks for telling us Taesoo. I'm going to try discreetly look into this…you've been a big help for my investigations. P.S. - It should be called 'Chungcheong Investigations' because I'm in the police force. Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 I had a feeling this was tied into the case you're investigating. James should be brought to justice. You've had to give up so much because of bastards like him. I hope you succeed. Jichang Kwak :) JaegyeoN❤️ Na 🚗 🤢 Get a room. Anyhow, is there a point in keeping this group? Unless you wanna make the right decision and rename it to 'Incheon Investigations' ;) Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 I will not. But there's no harm in keeping it, just in case anything noteworthy comes up. SEOKDU WANG ...This better not be a regular thing Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 Well I hated this conversation more than seeing that pink princess, so it won't! DAEHO TEMPLE 🧘☸️ Taesoo, can I ask you one thing? Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 What is it? DAEHO TEMPLE 🧘☸️ Since you're friendly with DG, would you mind asking him for some concert tickets as a donation to our temple? 😊

Taesoo Ma 👊🏻🐗 has left the group

A/N: jichang x taesoo is my fav rare pair ❤️ taesoo even said he'd investigate jichang's death at his funeral + he was the first king there bruh 🥺😭 ohhh my shayla...

P.S. - if you liked this, check out the j high gc fic that anon was talking about!

divider credits (thin maroon line)

divider credits (white and red)

[tobiasdrake]

Haven't had a chance to talk much about the Ginyus yet, so here we go. Talking about the Ginyu Tokusentai/Ginyu Force/Dairy Special Forces requires putting them into context with the greater Dragon Ball universe around them.

Something that has always been incredibly limiting for Dragon Ball's worldbuilding is that, despite much of the brand being about presenting Goku with new ladders to climb, Goku doesn't climb ladders. He leaps from ladder-top to ladder-top.

What this means is, Toriyama had a tendency to be hyperbolic with the challenges Goku was presented. Toriyama doesn't pit Goku against powerful foes. He pits Goku against the most powerful foe, then has to sit back and figure out another arena for Goku to go fight the champion of.

This creates issues of perspective. We don't get to see a lot of development of the worlds Toriyama creates because Goku only shows up to fight the Very Most Powerful Guy and then leaves. And this also means we don't get to see what being the Very Most Powerful Guy means relative to people who are not.

If you followed Dragon Ball Super, you might have noticed that issue with the Tournament of Power. The way the story leaps straight from "Multiple universes exist" to "Goku vs. The Strongest in Universe 6" and then to "Goku vs. The Strongest Guy in the MULTIVERSE!" without even stopping to breathe.

What is that universe even about? Who knows? But this guy sure is their STRONGEST GUY. And that's something that's been with Dragon Ball... honestly, since all the way back at the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai when his second arc adversary was the Earth's legendary ultimate martial arts master.

The whole concept of aliens enters the Dragon Ball universe by way of Raditz introducing the Strongest Alien Race in the Universe.

Shortly after that, Goku is fighting the Strongest Saiyan, who is technically referred to as Strongest in the Universe... right up until a retcon introduces the Planet Trade Organization and Goku fights Frieza, the Actual Strongest in the Universe For Realsies.

So. Yeah. It's hard to get a sense of perspective for how powerful our guys are when they leave Earth because they only ever brush elbows with outlier titans.

But to give some idea, we already know that Earthlings are considered to be a pretty weak species.

Raditz's arrival retroactively explains Goku's destructive Oozaru transformations. This thing?

This is the Doom of the Earth. The planet-killer meant to exterminate every last human being on this planet. Boy, sure would be fun to be in the ring with that, huh?

It's also clearly touching down outside of the ring so I don't know why this wasn't a ringout. Since when is the waiting room's rooftop considered part of the stage? But I digress.

When Goku was three years old, his Oozaru was measured to be sufficient to slaughter this world. That is how weak Earth is on the scale. By contrast, Namek is considered to be one of the more powerful worlds. Vegeta describes Namekian fighters as "extraordinary".

That's something we get to see for ourselves, when Extraordinary Namekian Fighters happen to Frieza Force soldiers like a typhoon.

This is what's considered extraordinary on a standard galactic scale. These are three warriors from one of the stronger races in the universe tearing apart soldiers whose job is to exterminate races. Once they start fighting, Dodoria reads their battle powers as 3,000.

For comparison, Raditz was said to be equivalent to a Saibaman at 1,200. We never got a read on Nappa but he found the idea of Kakarot being at 5,000 unbelievable enough to go into denial, and he shit himself over 8,000.

So, with that in mind, we can understand that these nameless Namekian nobodies are pretty fucking tough, well within the realm of Saiyan ability. They're also familiar with advanced martial arts concepts like ki suppression that the Planet Trade doesn't understand.

There's probably a reason why, despite Namek apparently being well known to the Planet Trade, nobody's seen fit to gentrify this one yet. This is a fight Frieza's more elite forces can win, to be sure. But also, there are easier pickings to be had.

And then we have the Saiyans, said to be the most powerful race in the universe. Raditz, a loser scrub who doesn't know a thing about martial arts, is able to thoroughly humiliate Goku and Piccolo in terms of sheer stats, even after Goku's been trained by Popo.

This guy is the Saiyan equivalent of Appule. Goku's been personally trained by God's right-hand attendant, and Piccolo is the reincarnation of God's evil counterpart; These are not humans of this planet, but two guys who demonstrated five years ago that they're in a realm beyond the humans.

And this loser is still doing this to them. This is what a low-rate Saiyan looks like.

And this is what a Saiyan elite looks like:

Like I said, we're never given an official reading on Nappa but he found 5,000 BP to be ridiculous for Goku to have and 8,000 to be unthinkably terrifying. The Daizenshuu pegs him at 4,000, but they also peg Piccolo at 3,500 which would mean Piccolo and Nappa are closely matched.

I don't know about you but I don't see it. But that may just be me.

In any case, this gives us a general understanding of how powerful the races of the universe are. Earthlings weak. Namekians strong. Saiyans strongest. And then there's outliers.

Throughout the universe, there are... mutants. On rare occasions, an individual is born to a race who have vastly, unbelievably, ridiculously, stupidly tremendous ki.

The Planet Trade employs these mutants for their upper staff. Zarbon and Dodoria are mutants, as are the Ginyus and even Frieza himself. Especially Frieza. The reason we've never gotten elaboration on Frieza's race is because Toriyama didn't want Frieza's traits to be taken as indicative of a whole people.

According to interview, Cold was born with abnormally high power and cruelty for his race, and these traits were passed down to his son Frieza. Whatever species they came from, it is nothing like them.

They're not the only ones. The Planet Trade collects and employs these uniquely ultra-powerful mutants for its elite forces. The Saiyans are the strongest race in the universe, but these mutants are the strongest individuals in the universe.

To grasp how powerful these guys are relative to the rest of the universe, we need to talk Saiyans again for a moment. Raditz? Raditz was the yardstick for what the bottom-tier of Saiyans was. He made Earthlings look like trash, but he would have been eaten alive by those unnamed Namekian warriors.

However, a Saiyan's true strength lies in the Oozaru. Goku as an Oozaru was meant to be able to reduce the standing population of the Earth to 0. Raditz, as an Oozaru? Would still have gotten his teeth kicked in by Vegeta, the Saiyan super-elite. He is so ridiculous, he could win a straight fight with the planet-killing Oozaru.

...I mean, not after being beaten within an inch of his life and taking a Genki-Dama to the face, he can't. But if Vegeta were still at the top of his game, this would be a very different fight.

Meanwhile, the Ginyu Force.

So. Yeah. By the time we get to them, we are far beyond the ordinary limits of the universe. Saiyans are the strongest race, and Vegeta's pressing up against the limit of Saiyan ability. He's one Zenkai away from breaking through the Saiyan ceiling. Goku already has.

And these mutants they're up against are the most powerful freak aberrations of unexplained super-ki ever to have occurred anywhere in space.

IIRC it's never directly stated but for reference, Broly would probably be considered a mutant. Whether he is or isn't, he makes as a pretty solid equivalence. These guys are to their respective races what Broly is to Saiyans. What Uub is to humans.

This is all vital context for understanding the way the Ginyu Force fights.

Because.

Like.

You need to understand.

These guys suck.

On purpose.

From a technical standpoint, they're not good fighters. They're sloppy. Poorly trained around big showy moves that are meant to look cool. Style over substance.

This is because they can get away with it. They are the most powerful beings in the universe; Powerful on a scale that is an order of magnitude beyond everybody else that exists. Even the Saiyans look like shit next to these mutants.

Saiyan super-elite hits Recoome with everything he's got right in the face at point-blank range.

And the mutant takes it like a fucking champ. Vegeta's about to be killed by a man who keeps pausing to do this.

The Ginyu Force is badly trained on purpose. Which isn't to say that they're trained to lose fights, but rather that they aren't trained to compete with an equivalent rival. They can afford a martial style focused entirely on showmanship because there is no competition for them. They're too powerful to ever lose fights. Nobody else in the known universe even compares to their mutant might.

Which, as previously noted, is something Frieza is also afflicted by, in different ways. There is no reason for the Ginyus to hone their skills the way the Earthlings do because. Like. Who's going to challenge them? They're naturally born into being top of the field by a wide margin. They're going to auto-win every fight they ever involve themselves in, so their idea of self-improvement is centered instead on looking as cool as possible while they do it.

This is precisely what the Muten-Roshi worked so hard to prevent Goku from becoming.

Something else I mentioned before is that Trunks demonstrates his serious goal-oriented nature by never naming any of his techniques. He has some distinct and identifiable moves, but none of them have a formal name that he shouts out when firing them. He's here to get the job done, not to show off.

The Ginyus are in the opposite boat. They know they can't lose fights, so they are absolutely, 100% here to show off. They name the shit out of their techniques.

Flying knee? Nah, bro. That is a Recoome Kick.

Running in and throwing a punch? Nuh-uh. Recoome Mach Attack.

Lobbing a ki blast at the opponent? Crusher Ball.

These basic attacks are given huge, flashy names. And, I need to specify, they're English names. Moves like the Kamehameha or Taiyoken or Sokidan or Makankosappo also have names but they tend to be Japanese names with descriptive meanings.

Turtle Destruction Wave, signature move of the Turtle School of martial arts.

Fist of the Sun, an intense blinding art.

Winding Ki Bullet, a remote-operated bullet of ki that Yamcha can manipulate how he likes.

Demon Piercing and Killing Light Gun, a Mazoku technique that pierces and kills.

This is not the same thing. These guys are screaming exotic English words to look cool while throwing hands. "RECOOME KICK!!!" Recoome screams in English as he throws a kick.

There is only one other character in Dragon Ball who fights like this.

That's right. Recoome Kick is the same kind of thing as Satan Miracle Special Ultra Super Megaton Punch. All shouted in English as well. The Ginyu Force is what Mr. Satan would be if he was as formidable as the world believes he is.

They're showmen, even moreso than the Earthling martial artists who were born for a tournament stage. Hell, some of Recoome's moves are inspired by pro wrestling.

They are the ultimate demonstration, both of the unquestionable might of the Planet Trade's human resources, and of the absolute waste that is the Planet Trade's capitalist philosophy towards martial arts. The PTO doesn't train warriors; They scout the strongest guys their money can buy and give them marching orders of "Get 'em." Their super-elites are no exception.

Except the Captain.

Much like Vegeta was with Nappa, Ginyu is the only one who gets it. He sees Goku's reading and immediately assesses that Goku's suppressing his ki. Ginyu knows his shit. He's just never drilled this kind of information into his soldiers, opting instead for cool-looking battle poses.

It makes sense that he understands ki suppression. He's Frieza's highest-ranking officer, and Frieza is the universe's unparalleled master at ki suppression. The lengths Frieza has gone to for the sake of suppressing ki....

But he hasn't taught it to his men. They're learning flashy modeling poses instead of martial arts.

I guess I can see the logic. Powerful as they are, why would it matter? Those three extraordinary warriors earlier were also suppressing their ki, but a range of 1k to haha actually 3k doesn't mean shit to the Ginyu Force. If nobody's true strength can match them then why waste time on tactical study?

But unlike his soldiers, Ginyu himself has the spirit of a martial artist. He doesn't waste time on battle poses or scream "GINYU FLYING PUNCH" in English when he throws a punch or do elaborate two-minute windups for his signature moves.

He's even pretty good at reading people. Ginyu lowballs Goku at 60k before the fight, but reassesses after he's traded blows with Goku a few times and estimates 85k instead.

Goku's official non-suppressed Battle Power at this point in time is 90k. So 85k is a pretty fucking good estimate for a guy who can't sense ki. Ginyu knows his shit. He's as reliant on tech as the rest of the PTO but he's experienced enough to have a strong understanding of what various levels fight like.

This is especially impressive when you remember that he's never fought someone at 90k before. Remember, further up, when he first judged Goku as 60k? He was getting excited about his lowball 60k estimate and saying he's never had a chance like this before.

If he's never fought 60k, he's certainly never fought 85k. He just. Knows enough about how lower levels fight that he can apply that knowledge and extrapolate to higher levels. It's an impressive estimation that demonstrates his experience. Ginyu isn't just the second-most powerful guy in the Planet Trade. He's the best martial artist in the Planet Trade, bar none.

He's also got a... theoretically cool ultimate technique that utterly sucks in practice: Body Change.

He may be the best martial artist in the Planet Trade but he's got nothing on martial arts master and analytical counter-fighter Son Goku. It takes Goku no time at all to realize that Ginyu's technique sucks. He doesn't know how to fight with Goku's ki.

Ginyu-Goku thinks this body will give him 180k BP because that's what he read on the Scouter when Goku used the Kaio-ken. But not only does Ginyu not know how to perform Kaio-ken, he doesn't even know how to use Goku's ki at all. It's not his. It doesn't work the same way. In Goku's body, Ginyu's reduced to a distressing 23k BP when Jeice reads him.

He's not just failing to put out Kaio-ken power. He's getting his teeth kicked in by Krillin. It's embarrassing.

I've heard the theory go around that Ginyu started out weak and worked his way up via Body Changing anyone that was ever stronger than him, but I'm not convinced that's the case. Because this right here? This seems like a critical flaw. It's hard to believe he'd be entirely ignorant of this drawback if he's ever seriously used this technique before.

Ginyu being incompatible with a Body Changed host's ki doesn't seem like something an experienced Body Changer would need Goku to explain to him. In practice, the hypothetically awesome technique is bad for reasons Ginyu wasn't able to foresee, not unlike when Tenshinhan brought Shishin no Ken/Multiform to the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai. Or Goku's first time attempting Super Saiyan 3 in a living body. Cool in theory but a massive fucking oversight costs him the entire fight.

This seems more likely to be something Ginyu, the only real martial artist in his crew, developed in his own time and showed off to his men. Something he's never actually stress tested, that he's been sitting on and waiting for an opportunity to use in the field.

Whatever the case, it pins an unexpected and interesting capstone on the Ginyu Force. They're a group of clowns who can get away with clownishness because they were born into unparalleled privilege. And they're led by a shockingly well-educated and capable martial artist who's never worked the kinks out of his ultimate technique for lack of adequate competition in a universe that could rarely hope to ever challenge even his weakest man.

[oh-no-its-bird]

Ok so something I'm currently obsessed w thinking ab:

Your every day man in early konoha reacting to the sealing (and arguably enslavement) of the biiju.

But like. Specifically while juggling the idea of old japan, heavily superstitious, yokai exist and we must respect them and their rules / traditions Or Else type energy.

> also bringing into play the idea that after the biiju are sealed, suddenly yokai are so much rarer to see (possibly bc of the giant gaps of chakra out in the world where the biiju were supposed to occupy, killing many yokai bc the balance was thron off or smthn. Possibly bc they're just all scared and retreating from humanity out of caution) so like. POV you trap THE yokai of all time. THE big guys. And suddenly all of the yokai are slowly dissapearing. Not a good omen.

I do not think the sealing of the biiju would be seen as any sort of of good thing by most people. But also he only did it bc Kurama attacked first. But also like. Some people are for sure going "if the kyuubi wanted us dead, it would have been better to only die at its hand, than trap it and prolong it's power and hatred. You have invited Evil into our homes and we will inevitably be punished for this transgression against nature."

Especially thinking ab more wild / nature-y clans like the Inuzuka, Aburame, Orochi, Hatake, who are possibly even more spiritual when it comes to specifically nature spirits vs bigger clans who worship specific gods

Theyre like. This is absoloute blasphemy. It's unnatural. You've meddled with the order of the world. Were all going to die.

Meanwhile like, maybe the younger, more ambitious people are a bit more "woah we trapped a demon !!! Our village is so powerful, now no one can stand up to us!" And on board w it

It could be cool if there's like a genuine divide between people ab it

And then this also helps to herald in this new era of less yokai and a lot more acceptance of using the biiju as tools

For the few surviving elders from the time in later Konoha, it's still an occasional topic of argument. Even if it caused an overall benefit, many still grumble ab it not being right— not bc of the ethics, of course, no one really cares about that. But like. It's unnatural. You're inviting insane bad karma onto the entire village rn. Throwing the karmic balance all the way out of wack. There's almost no fucking yokai anymore clearly u fucking kicked mother nature in the balls.

But yeah just. Reactions of people to Kurama being sealed (and then the subsequent news of more and more biiju also being sealed) while keeping in mind the heavily spiritual culture and traditions of the era

Could be fun