#its the way he fights to survive vs fighting to win

[princecvbra]

you can pry the robby is one of the best fighters headcanon from my cold hands.

[ewingstan]

Worm and other media that won't just let you shoot the Joker, part 1:

Worm comments on the structure of stories, especially superhero stories, in some interesting ways. There's a lot of stuff that happen in superhero comics for no real reason than that it needs to happen for the story to be interesting; a huge amount of Worm's worldbuilding is devoted to taking these things and making the fact that they have to happen an explicit in-setting constraint. For instance, superhero stories tend to have more powerful heroes face off against much more powerful villains than their less-powerful allies, to the point where it seems like super-powerful threats are coming to earth every few weeks just because it wouldn't be interesting to read that comic otherwise. It gets weirder when you compare what villains end up visiting the cities of uber-powerful heroes vs the cities of less powerful heroes: Gotham mostly just has to deal with serial killers while Metropolis is a magnet for evil gods. Worm plays with this by having the Endbringers exist only because the big hero needed something to fight in-text: it changes "powerful heroes need powerful villains or else it wouldn't be interesting" from a Doylist justification to a Watsonian one. Then there's the fact that so much of the horrible conflict in Earth Bet is explicitly caused by Gods making sure the powers they grant people lead to increased conflict, the fact that one of the most powerful characters does what she does because the plot path to victory says she needs to, etc.

But the big one is Jack Slash, and how he's only able to get away with his bullshit because he has plot armor as a secondary power. As WB says here, "Jack's a reconstruction of the Joker type character in the sense that you can't have such a character take such a high profile position in the setting, without having there be a cheat." The Joker and similar characters are only able to keep being relevant threats in their stories because the narrative bends to let them win and stops them from being killed. Jack Slash is only able to keep being a relevant threat because his power makes the universe bend to let him win in the same way. Not only does this make for an interesting obstacle (its almost like they're fighting an authorial mandate!), but it skewers the use of similar character's plot armor and how unrealistic and unsatisfying it makes their stories.

But wait, what does it mean for a story to be "unrealistic" in the context of superpowers? Is being unrealistic in those contexts actually a problem? For that matter, what does it mean for a narrative to bend to let someone win? Its not like there's an objective way fighting the Joker would go, which the author is deviating from by letting him survive.

[Stuff under readbelow contains spoilers fo, the movie Funny Games and the book Anybody Home?]

Maybe we could say that if characters like the Joker were real, and put in the situations they are in their stories, they would end up being killed really quickly. But is that a reasonable way to judge stories? A narrative where such a character is killed unceremoniously to satisfy a need for realism isn't any less an expression of the author's deliberate choices than a story where the character keeps showing back up to satisfy a desire for fan-favorite characters. And while Jack Slash's arcs help show why deviating from "realistic consequences" in the service of keeping a character alive can make a story exhausting and screw with an audiences' appreciation of stakes, it doesn't make a strong case against the concept of villains having plot armor in general. A story isn't necessarily worse just for being constructed to keep the villains alive—all stories are constructed, and sometimes being constructed that way makes for the best story.

That becomes more clear when you take the premise of Jack Slash as "killer who wins because the mechanics of the universe says so" and make clear just how much "the mechanics of the universe" really just means "the story". Which is how you get Peter and Paul from Funny Games.

I'd highly recommend watching Funny Games (though for the love of god check content warnings), as well as Patricia Taxxon's review of it that I'm cribbing a lot from here. But to summarize, Funny Games is a movie written and directed by Michael Haneke about a family's lakeside vacation being interrupted by the appearance of two murderous young men, who capture them in their own house and slowly torture and kill them off. At least, that's what it seems to be about initially. It marketed itself as a somewhat standard entry in the genres of torture porn and home invasion thrillers, and played itself straight as one for the majority of its runtime. But then one of the two villains of the pair, "Paul," starts talking to the audience.

It starts small: after crippling the family's father and revealing that he killed their dog, Paul has the wife look for its corpse outside. While giving her hints, he slowly turns back towards the camera and smirks, before turning back. In isolation, maybe it could be interpreted as Paul smirking at Peter, seeming to look out at the audience only because of clumsy blocking. But then it happens again. Paul tells the family, who are completely at their mercy at this point, that they're gonna bet that they'll all be dead within twelve hours. When the family refuses to take the bet, asking how they could hope to win it when he can clearly off them all whenever they wish, Paul turns towards the audience and asks "what do you think? Do you think they stand a chance? Well you're on their side aren't you. Who you betting on, eh?" The audience is being acknowledged; their role as someone invested in the story is being examined by the ones introducing the stakes.

But the biggest moment comes near the end, when the mother grabs the shotgun she's being threatened with and blasts Peter. Paul startles, grins, and then hurredly grabs a tv remote and presses rewind. The movie itself suddenly rewinds to right before the mother grabs the gun, and plays again with Paul grabbing the shotgun right before the mother reaches for it.

Its a truly incredible moment, in that its the perfect way to forcibly take away the audience's suspension of disbelief. It forces the audience to acknowledge that they're viewing a story, not something happening to a real family. After their moment of catharsis against the villains, Paul makes the confront the fact that the movie will end however the creators want it to, and if they want the villains to win they'll will regardless of how little sense it makes. Fuck you, we can go from being set in the normal world with normal rules to the villains traveling back in time with a tv remote, because a story does whatever its creators want. Haneke just decided to make that obvious in the most jarring way imaginable.

But maybe the best way to illustrate Funny Games effectiveness at this type of artful unveiling is comparing it to its less-effective imitators. I've recently finished Anybody Home?, a recently-published book by Michael J. Seidlinger. It has the conceit of being narrated by an unnamed mass-murderer, guiding a new killer in their first home invasion. I started reading it before I watched Funny Games, and even afterwards took a while to realize the unnamed narrator wasn’t just a pastiche of a Paul-like character but was actually supposed to be read as Paul himself. Seidlinger was having his book be a sort of unofficial sequel to Funny Games, narrated by its star. Once I realized, a lot of the books details suddenly clicked. The big one was the constant references to “the camera" and the idea of murder being a performance for an audience, one that needed to be fresh and original to make “the cults” enjoy it. Take these passages from page 77:

If it happened, it would perturb. It would create suspicion. It wouldn’t end up ruining the performance, and yet, it could have derailed our casing. The camera can have all it wants; either way, it’ll make it look better than it really was. It’ll strip away the cues and other planned orchestrations and it’ll show the action—the actuality of each scene, each suggestion…

This is a spectacle, above all. The craft pertains to keeping and maintaining a captive audience; behind the camera, you’ll never know how it happened—the trickery that made the impossible possible, the insanity so close to home. It is spectacle.

Through online activity, the son made it clear that something is happening at home, yet we cannot be certain if he has noticed the camera.

These all point to the idea that the murders are being viewed by an audience rather than just by intruders, that this is a performance for said audience's benefit more than anything else. But notably, it also reinforces the idea of these characters having an existence outside of the camera: the camera shows the action and "strips away" the cues behind it, the victims have a life outside the camera such that they could plausibly sense that the camera is now here. The victims are sometimes described as playing into their role, but always metaphorically; always as if normal people start acting like characters when put in certain circumstances. Whereas Funny Games posits that characters will behave however the author wants them to, denying the claim that stories are realistic simulations of hypothetical scenarios.

The whole thing is predicated on the idea that there needs to be a guide, that the villain of a home invader movie is really in danger of something going wrong. Paul/The narrator keeps giving directions on what needs to be double checked, what needs to X, and its completely against the spirit of the role Paul served in Funny Games. If something goes wrong for the villain they should just be able to rewind and do it over, because the story was written for them to succeed. Anybody Home? throws out Funny Games theme of the story being on rails, of the winner being whoever the author wants it to be and the events following whatever the author wanted rather than what would "really" happen. It throws out the whole idea that it’s all just a story, by supporting the idea that the characters have lives not captured by the camera—or more relevantly, not captured on-page.

Because Seidlinger using the language of film in a book leads to different things going on with the fourth wall. The way Funny Games and Anybody Home? make the camera explicit are just different, and the former does it much more interestingly than the latter. Seildinger’s characters aren’t looking back at the reader, the fourth wall is never actually breached. Funny Games has Paul look into the camera to address the audience, making clear how it’s a story being set up for the audience's benefit. Anybody Home? invokes the idea of a camera tracking everything home invaders do in general, having it be a third-party force that’s itself an unseen character contained within the story, observing the intruder's crime rather than the reader. Why is it still a camera, if we're in a book rather than a movie? A character in a book talking about a camera watching them does not convey any of the same meaning as a character in a movie suddenly looking into a camera and smirking at the audience!

By the end, you realize that this is caused in part by the book's bizarro take on how horror movies exist in this world. It reveals that in its setting, all horror movies are adaptations of real home invasions, which get recorded by unseen mysterious forces. Killers enter a home and enact violence, are filmed by some supernatural camera, the footage gets leaked to the public, and then the killers sell the rights to the work to studios. The events of SAW really happened, but the movie was just an adaptation. Funny Games really happened, but the Paul in the movies was just an actor playing the Paul narrating this book. The killer's victims eventually realize that they're "victims," but not in the sense that they realize their characters in a story, only in a sense that they realize they got sucked into their world's magical realism bullshit.

Ultimately, while the book does the same trick of being all about how horror stories are “for” us, it gets rid of all the tricks that made it work for Funny Games. It even strips it's in-universe version of what made it special; Funny Games is just another adaptation of a real home invasion. All the meta stuff that makes it interesting in its genre are just gestured at as aesthetics.

So what makes Jack Slash in Worm succeed where the killers in Anybody Home? fail? Both are constructed to be entertaining for a 3rd party who stand-in for but aren't actually the audience; the entities in Worm, the cults in Anybody Home?. But Jack Slash doesn't mix his metaphors. Worm may turn various real-life factors affecting a work into in-story mechanisms of the world in the same way Anybody Home? does. But it doesn't also base itself off a text that takes in-story mechanisms and breaks them to force the audience to see the various real-life factors affecting the work. In effect, WB pulls off a trick Seidlinger tries and fails because WB wasn't taking another metatexual story and stripping it of what made it interesting.

Though that introduces the question: can such meta-moves be mixed? Can you have a text where story conceits become explicit plot mechanics the characters are aware of, while also having characters really look at the camera and tell the audience that its all just a story? Can you actually sell it and make it something interesting?

There is one story that tries this. I don't know if it pulls it off, but it certainly makes a lot of interesting moves that create a fascinating whole. It even comments on the Joker in the same way Worm does, having a character who seemingly cant die because the roll they play in the story is too impor—

Ah fuck.

Continued in part 2.

[cosmerelists]

The Great Mistborn Era 1 vs. Stormlight Debate: Whose Planet is More Barren?

As requested by anon. :)

Part 1: Flora & Fauna

Hoid: Welcome, welcome, to the great Scadrial & Roshar debate!

Hoid: Kelsier, would you like to start?

Kelsier: [slaps down picture of mare flower]

Kelsier: THAT.....is what we used to have.

Kelsier: Now all of our plants are a dreary brown, trying to survive in a world blanketed in ash.

Kelsier: We have some horses, some dogs, some cats, but I wouldn't say it's a teeming zoological wonderland.

Kelsier: Because, again, the land is 99% ash. And nothing much can survive.

Hoid: Shallan, your reply?

Shallan: No place with life is barren.

Shallan: But if I WERE going to make this argument, I might point out that what we have.....is crab.

Kelsier: Like....just one big one?

Shallan: Oh, we got crab-dogs. Crab-bugs. Crab-oxen. Crab-people. But they're all essentially Crab.

Shallan: To be fair, we do have a few other types: we have horses too (so that cancels yours out) and pigs.

Shallan: And our plants? Well, they do have color, to be fair, but they are basically all things that have to hide in crevices to survive the giant continent-crossing storm that roams around making a "zoological wonderland" pretty tough for us as well.

Hoid: [carefully considering]

Hoid: As much as I hate to say it, this point goes to Kelsier. I've been to both places. Scadrial is indeed an ash-brown sewer pit.

Kelsier: (Yay?)

Part 2: Food, Leisure, the Arts

Elend: Let me say this first: if you're born a noble, then the situation is not that bad. You have food, you have dancing and music, you have culture.

Elend: But that is not how it is for the majority of the population.

Elend: The majority of the population are skaa, who are enslaved, and who do...not have any of those things in a good way.

Elend: So if we go by the majority--as we should--then yes, our planet is notably barren in its food, its leisure pursuits, and its art.

Kaladin: We do war mostly.

Kaladin: We eat rocks.

Kaladin: It's soulcast rocks, which means it is turned into grain. That tastes bad.

Kaladin: And that's not just darkeyes, who are the oppressed people. The lighteyes live pretty much the same way. Although they do more leisure stuff when they're not at war.

Kaladin: Then there're the parshmen, who locked away their consciousnesses and got enslaved, and who had to relearn things like how to play cards once they were freed. Because their enslaved lives were truly devoid of anything good.

Kaladin: So.

Hoid: Yeah...I'm giving this point to Roshar. It sucks there.

Elend: ...One day, I WILL win a debate.

Part 3: Morality

Ham: Morally barren? Yeah, we got that on Scadrial.

Ham: Turns out our Lord Ruler, who became kind of a god, physically rewired the population so his friends could be nobles and everyone else would be slaves. Like, they became physically different.

Ham: Others he used hemalurgy on so that they became nonhuman--like the kandra and the koloss, who can be taken over and controlled due to their spikes.

Ham: Plus, like, our society just ran on horrible slavery. I don't want to go into it, but it was bad.

Ham: And while I think any ability is morally neutral at the outset, our "murder people to steal their power" ability, hemalurgy, is hard to spin in a good way.

Venli: I see. So humans basically did shitty things to other humans?

Venli: I'm a Listener, aka a native of this planet. Humans came here after destroying their own planet.

Venli: Made my people into rhythmless slaves.

Venli: And we're STILL fighting a literally eternal war where some people on each side can't die, so they just keep coming back more and more insane.

Venli: Also even among themselves? The human system of deciding who's good and who's bad based on eye color of all things? Whack.

Hoid: Wow! You've both made such good arguments about why your societies are morally barren and horrible to live in.

Hoid: I do think Scadrial is worse, though.

Venli: A human would say that.

[dumbass-duo-showdown]

DUMBASS DUO SHOWDOWN ROUND 3 BATTLE 2

JOSUKE HIGASHIKATA & OKUYASU NIJIMURA (JOSUYASU) FROM JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE VS SOKKA AND AANG FROM AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

PROPAGANDA

JOSUYASU

JOSUYASU PROPAGANDA

Josuke is fairly decent, but okuyasu, you know how in math, if you multiply a negative number with a positive one it is always negative, that is josuyasu for you. Josuke has 6 braincells and Okuyasu has -6734. Their first meeting was okuyasu trying to kill josuke, then he shows up at his house a few days later and goes "hey lets go to school! btw your mom is hot!" Josuke punches a plate of spaghetti because he thinks the chef is evil, they both fight a middle schooler who stole their cash. Okuyasu got the third most op ability in his part but he is too stupid (and kind) to realize it. Somehow they survive their entire part. They are thus far the second jojo and jobro duo to not lose each other. the second one? THEM IN AN ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE! (okay but okuyasu is swapped for koichi in that one, but still).

Josuke normally is pretty smart, but somewhat silly, but Okuyasu. Isn’t incredibly bright but he’s the best jojo character idc. Okuyasu brings out josukes stupid and then they are just besties and totally bouncing off each other’s stupid ideas. Idk what Okuyasu does to josukes brain but I’m here for it

I saw the post title and without reading anything else immediately went to submit them, only to go back and read the full post and realize they were included by default. They are THE dumbass duo. Ever. The worst protagonists for a detective story, but they dumbassed around so hard they somehow caught a genius serial killer. No matter who wins, they’ll always be the number 1 dumbasses in my heart.

they are the best of friends, which of course means they met by trying to kill each other.

They’re both so stupid. Like josuke isn’t that stupid on his own but he’s kinda dumb and when you put him with dumbass incarnate okuyasu they multiply each others’ stupidness. Together they are a menace.

JOSUKE AND OKUYASU FOR THE WIN BECAUSE THEY SPEND AN ENTIRE DAY TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHETHER OR NOT A RANDOM ITALIAN WAS EVIL BECAUSE HIS PASTA WAS TOO GOOD

Okuyasu and Josuke share a braincell and they lose that braincell at least 5 times a day

The majority of Diamond is Unbreakable is those two getting themselves and their friends into absurd situations. There's no way the sportsboys can compete with discovering aliens are (maybe???) real and immediately trying to use the alien(??) to cheat at dice. Then they burned down someone's house

#josuyasu are DUmbass Incorporated and i love them#its literally canon that okuyasu has one of The Most Powerful Abilities In The Entire JJBA Universe#but is too dumb and good natured to put it to world ending use

this gif

GIF by hellzfire

Aang & Sokka

They are both very intelligent individually, but when put together they lose all of their braincells

they are very intelligent in their own right but loose all their braincells together

independently they are very intelligent and creative. aang is an incredible diplomat and quick on his feet. sokka is a literal inventor and war strategist. leave them alone in a room together and they get so into the bit that they end up giving each other minor head injuries or write a fake letter that they sign with a blind girl's name. they also attempt to sneak a lemur into a royal banquet under aang's hat.

[anachronismstellar]

Airplane vs The system has reached 20k words, and yay, I'm happy, but also, I'm not gonna lie, I struggle to finish things when they get too big.

So, today I had to stop and go over all of it to figure out the timelines and where the scenes should go ( @notsofrozt has been the best helping me with this insanity I swear)

What I have so far are 22 scenes/parts, and I'm gonna need at least 12 more to wrap it up in a way that makes me happy (Send your prayers because oh boy ahahaha ahahah... *cries*)

Thing is, there's this one scene that I've written that... I'm afraid is not gonna make the final cut. :(

Yea yea we have to kill our darlings when writing stuff, but I love it too much to not show to you guys.

This is NOT Airplane vs The System canon, but I hope you enjoy the pain with me.

---

He could barely stand up as he reached the final room, the bright cold lights bathing the place in a frost that he couldn't grasp. Around him, tall metal towers grew from the ground, their tops too high from him to see, covered in what seemed to be colored stones, their sparkle coming and going in a way that spoke of witchcraft.

He forced himself to keep going, stumbling forward, wide eyed as he tried to find any sign of yellow robes, the glimpse of brown hair. He had lost count on how many steps he had taken, the flimsy metal platform under his feet shaking and squeaking, as if threatening to swallow him down in one bite.

He only stopped when he reached the very end, the far back wall of the room covered in writings that he couldn't understand. In front of it, the most surprising sight of a table, higher than Mobei-Jun had ever seen, and sitting in front of it as if the entire world wasn't falling apart was Shang Qinghua.

The hair was shorter than he had expected, the clothing ill fitted on his shoulders, torn apart at the sleeves as if the owner had had a fit of rage and gotten rid of them.

But Mobei would recognize that shade of brown anywhere, those hands always moving, always plotting, now eerily quiet and slumped.

If he had any strength left he would have screamed. He might have done so anyway as he gave a final push, lurching towards the chair, catching Qinghua's body before it hit the ground.

“Qinghua-” he gasped, his claws poking holes into the worn-out fabric as Mobei touched his chest, pressing down the palm of his hand against chill skin.

Cold, cold, cold, why was he so cold?!

“Qinghua, answer to your king!” he shouted, flipping his torn cape to cover the body on his arms, as if he, the king of the Northern Desert, could bring anyone any heat.

He never hated his cold skin so much in his entire life.

“Qinghua, you can't-” He tried again, pressing his forehead against the Cultivator's, his demonic mark glowing, casting familiar shadows on Qinghua's face, a comfort in the middle of the explosion of light around them.

“Please,” he whispered, strong arms delicately moving the body around to give it comfort. Mobei-Jun was made of ice and stone, made to endure the North and its hardships, made to survive and thrive. But he would make himself soft for Qinghua, he would fold his sharp claws and sooth his harsh voice, he would do anything, anything, if it meant- if-

“Please,” he whispered again, feeling as if someone had grabbed his heart and were tearing it apart, pulling it up through his throat, making it hard to breathe. “Please, Qinghua.”

Pride was such a funny thing.

It held realms, but it also made them crumble.

It was expected, but abhorred.

It was Mobei-Jun's entire personality.

It meant nothing.

“Come back to me.”

----

Don't worry!!! Airplane fights the System and wins!!! I swear they'll have a happy ending!! Fjshskf

But yea, I hope you guys liked it and that you're enjoying this craziness that has taken over my brain

See you in the next part ❤️

[thegorydamnreaper]

Darrow vs Lysander - symbolism and favored weapons

Okay this I a bit of analysis that has been turning around in my brain since I finished Light Bringer. There will be major spoilers for all of the books, so read on at your own discretion.

And of course if anyone has points to add please do! This is by no means exhaustive, just a compilation of my main thoughts on the whole thing!

Darrow basically grew up with a weapon in his hand, since he started mining at age thirteen. It becomes part of his identity, an extension of himself. It’s also a symbol of his people, as all Red miners are given one. So as a Red, he already closely identifies with the slingBlade as a weapon, as a cultural symbol, and as a means of protection.

“I wonder what Eo wants of me. Does she want me to take my slingBlade and start a rebellion? I would die. My family would die. She would die, and nothing would make me risk her. She knows that.”

(RR Ch 4)

“This is your slingBlade, son. It will scrape the earth’s veins for you. It will kill pitvipers. Keep it sharp and if you get stuck in the drills, it will save your life for the price of a limb.” So said my uncle.”

(RR part III intro)

Lysander, on the other hand, is trained by his grandmother from childhood to use his mind as his weapon. He is capable of using a razor after spending a decade with Cassius, but his mind was his first weapon. It’s also a callback to the Jackal losing his hand and being mostly unaffected - because all Golds are taught that their mind is their first and greatest weapon.

“He sighs. “I told you. I am something different than you. A hand is a peasant’s tool. A Gold’s tool is his mind. Were you of better breeding, you may have realized this sacrifice means so very little to me”

(RR Ch 41)

“Skipping supper. No wonder you’re a little twig,” Cassius says, pinching my arm. “I daresay you don’t even weigh a hundred ten kilos, my goodman.”

“It’s usable weight,” I protest. “In any matter, I was reading.” He looks at me blankly. “You have your priorities. I have mine, muscly creature. So piss off.”

(IG Ch 8/ Lysander 1)

“My memory is a formidable thing. In many ways it is my grandmother’s great legacy, her teachings preserved in me.”

(IG Ch 8/ Lysander 1)

But the mind isn’t a symbol on its own, there’s no cultural gravitas to it. So to him physical weapons are tools that are an extension of his intellect. In that world view, a gun is the most practical choice of tool. Firearms are the great equalizer - you can be smaller, weaker, less trained than your opponent and there’s still a VERY good chance that you will win any fight.

This leads into another similar understanding that he and Darrow share: their rise must be meteoric. Darrow accomplishes this the hard way, through pain and training and failures. He builds himself as a symbol because he knows that’s the only way to start the chain reaction of bringing Gold down. He is a symbol, and so are his tools. The slingBlade becomes a symbols of liberation when once (as just a razor) it was a tool of the enemy.

Lysander? He cuts corners, because the tools don’t matter only the endgame does. He’s not trying to build something new, or inspire his followers to fight for something they never thought possible. He is fighting to reestablish the status quo as swiftly as he can. He doesn’t need to fight from the ground up to become a symbol - as a Lune, he already is a living breathing symbol of Gold, and that’s enough.

“Dancer would want me to accept the offer. It would guarantee my survival. Guarantee my meteoric rise. I would be inside the halls of the ArchGovernor’s mansion. I would be near the man who killed Eo. Oh, I want to accept. But then I would have to let the Proctors beat me. I’d have to let this little whorefart win and let his father smile and feel pride. I’d have to watch that smug smile spread across his bloodydamn face. Slag that. They’ll feel pain.”

(RR Ch 41)

“He sneers at the gun. “No honor.”

“No time.”

I shoot Alexandar in the head”

(DA Ch 81)

He studies those who came before him, flipping their symbols and methods against them instead of doing anything new. He quotes poems like Roque, uses Darrow’s Morningstar as his flagship, claims to be honorable like Cassius - but it’s hollow because these aren’t his achievements. He doesn’t subvert the paradigm like Darrow does constantly, he just borrows and steals to get his way.

Darrow sees himself as the sword of his people, but he’s more than that because he put in the work to be more. He questions if he’s a good man, but the we see the weight his decisions have on him. But because he built himself up, he has a community that loves him, friends and family that are truly loyal and will check his worst impulses. He is the symbol, but he’s anchored by those he represent. It’s real and has meaning because of all the sacrifices he has had to make.

Lysander can’t even unite the Golds because he is built upon lies. His parents and their deaths, a lie. His grandmother’s teachings, all lies and propaganda. The Golden lies of the Society he so desperately wants to restore. He is built upon lies and hollow promises, of course he collapses into Gold dogma at the first sign of pressure. He has no idea what he’s doing, but he’s sacrificing everything and everyone to prop up this dying system, because that’s where he feels safe. He has no symbols to look up to, no culture to give him strength and community. Anything that could have grounded him is gone (often because of his own actions). Pytha and Cassius were his only family left and he rejected them and their teachings. More than ever before there’s nothing holding him back. He has his mind and it is telling him the only way to be safe is to double down and become the worst of Gold.

[dazai-fan-page]

So after rereading this post and seeing a lot of new shit about fyodor being smarter which, to be honest I'm not sure if smarter is the right way to say it, I've got a new Dazai vs Fyodor post.

About the whole "who's smarter" bit, I'm not sure smart is the thing being measured here, it's definitely a part of it but this whole thing has been about strategy. About getting inside the others head. Playing his game if you will (song plays in background)

"Fyodor planned to get stabbed by the vampire" I'm not gonna say no he didn't but I think its possible he didn't plan to get stabbed when he did, he did want to end up taking over Bram but I'm not sure he planned to go right then and there. Combining the anime and the manga, he seemed to be genuinely surprised at Dazai surviving (not saying he couldn't have faked that just pointing it out) and why would he want Dazai alive? What does that serve? Another person to fight? Someone who actually has a shot at beating him?

No I think he planned on winning that game, taking the antidote and then having the vampires kill him. That'd get rid of Dazai (someone on the same intellectually and has almost beat him on several occasions) Chuuya (who has corruption) and Sigma (who could tell people what he is), not only get rid of them but maybe even gain back Nikolai.

Second bit of this kinda takes a sharp turn out of my (at best iffy) theories and into more. idk takes that have been annoying me for the last few hours? Yeah those.

"Fyodor used Dazai's trust against him" Not that I saw, I saw him take over Bram. And I'm fairly certain PM Dazai would've also used a Vampire to "kill" Fyodor so same outcome there'd just probably be more bodies behind him.

"Chuuya's so out of the loop lmao" Well yeah, honestly the fact that Dazai's putting it together is impressive considering we the audience are getting visual from Sigma and a dialogue explanation from Dazai. Chuuya's not seeing what we are, of course he doesn't know what we and Dazai and Sigma do. How would he? He doesn't have any of what he needs to figure it out

[celaenaeiln]

Hi! I really love all your takes and character analysis. I'm new-ish to Batman so these are always so educational for me 😅 I was wondering, in your opinion, of all the batkids, who would you say would make the most terrifying villains? And who, canonically, would you say exercises the most self control to prevent exactly that from happening? Like every day, they have to work to prevent themselves from crossing that line.

...(Is it Dick? I feel like you're going to say Dick)

Thank you!

You got me!! Those are good questions!

I had to think a lot about this honestly.

So for most terrifying villain, I would say Dick. Mostly because it's just canon. When Dick was the villain both times in New Order and in DC vs Vampires, he practically eradicated the world based on who he felt needed to go. In DC vs Vampires he didn't care for anyone so by the time he was done there were no humans left. In New Order he lost it when the heroes accidentally killed Bruce and thus destroyed the entire justice league and remade himself as the head of all military operations under the government. Dick also knows exactly how to kill Bruce and he's terrified of it (Nightwing: Knight Terrors). Kory once told him during the Teen Titans (2003?) comic that Dick could stack up all the Titans and could take on the Justice League if he wanted to but Dick states that he knows and that's exactly why he's scared.

Also the way he manipulates every single person in existence in both his typical Nightwing runs is just a hint of the brilliance. Many times when his partners want to chase after a villain, he makes them let them go so that he grab the lizard, its hiding spot, and its family rather than just the tail.

Grayson Annual #3

Dick is not reckless in anyway either, he plans and analyzes and calculates as he moves which makes him a fantastic strategist, detective, and doer all in one.

Or actually I change my mind, I choose Cass. I forgot about her initially. Cass can beat everyone in the world (except Harley). Batman has admitted it too.

Detective Comics (2016) Issue #951

She's unstoppable. So unless the Batfamily sends in Harley, in a straight fight where no one runs away *cough* Batman Issue 137 *cough*, then Cass would win. After her though, in a tactical and fighting sense combined it would be Dick.

Jason is canonically the one who struggles with self-control everyday. But unlike some people, I don't think this a fault of his that should be changed or erased. To me, each robin represents a certain characteristic of society.

Dick - the hope of the people.

Jason - the anger of the people.

Tim - the morality of the people.

Stephanie - the safety of the people.

Damian - the rights of the people.

Dick says the meaning of robin is helping the good. And all the robins do this in their own ways.

Jason's robin represents the rightful anger by the people against the injustice. Like the Boston Tea Party against Britain's taxation, Jason was born and raised in Gotham so his love for the common people on the street is overwhelming. He wants to help every woman and child find a better life and survive because it's reflective of the life he and his mother were forced to face. So when he sees a man sexually assaulting a woman or beating a child or selling drugs, his anger bursts out. And in Gotham, there's a lot of that everywhere. So take a good person and put in him the skills and fuel for hurting the bad and you get Jason Todd. That's why from his Robin days he has struggled with self-control.

"He was a drug dealing pimp."

Batman (1940) Issue #645

"I'm sorry...but that doesn't mean he didn't deserve it."

Furthermore in the Batman Urban Legends comic also in the Batman and Robin Eternal comic it shows that Jason's greatest wish is the Joker's death and that coupled with the Gotham War and Selina's interference, Jason has the most trouble with self-control. But I believe it's rightfully so.

I think after Jason it's Dick who struggles with self-control. Not as robin but as Nightwing. Especially during his darkest days of the Nightwing (1996) comic and the Outsiders comic, Dick has been shown to forcibly stop himself when someone hurts his friends or family.

Okay, the difference between Jason and Dick's struggle with self-control is that Jason feels it all the time because his motivating factor is ever present while Dick only struggles with it when someone hurts the people he loves because that's Dick's motivating factor.

Damian is the one who has the most trouble after that. Then Stephanie, Tim, Cass, and Duke. Although if you're including Stephanie's robin days, she would be tied with Jason.

[anime-and-toon-oc-time]

Hey @ask-milo-suzuki (look! Daddy Legion!)

LEGION YAMAMOTO VS NUCKALAVEE GRIMM

Slayers and hunters fear my hoovesteps

Nuckalavee Grimm info:

Height: 15 feet

Weight: 900lbs

Weapons: Claws, Hooves

Strengths: One of the strongest creatures of Grimm to ever exist, Has caused the deaths of countless Huntsmen and innocent civilians, Immensely powerful (Having killed countless Huntsmen of varying skill including Lie Ren’s parents, Nearly killed Team RNJR), Is extremely durable (Has a multitude of Weapons sticking out of it causing it no harm of discomfort, It took everything Team RNJR had to wear it down and defeat it), Extreme reflexes (Was able to react and counter attacks from Team RNJR when they attacked it from multiple sides and angles), Can stretch its arms for ranged attacks.

Weaknesses: Seems to be only able to move either the Horse or humanoid parts of its body at a time (the humanoid part hanging limp off when the Horse half moves and the Horse standing stock still whilst the humanoid part attacks).

Legion Yamamoto info:

Height:7foot 2 as a humanoid oni but he grows up to 35-40 foot as a true demon

Weight:Unknown but he makes sink holes when he jumps and craters when he falls.

Weapons:metal club, claws, teeth, demon blood art.

Strengths:despite being younger then most demons by the time he steps into the limelight he's one of the strongest demons that lived and he's survived everything up to an unknown death (the whole village was chanting for Kaito to win against Posiden.) Insane strength (threw train cars at muzan as a demon as a human he ripped demons apart and could throw around a massive club to split demons in two as a demon he was strong enough to split mountains and easily threw a large robot triple the size of a tank called Nancy. [According to death battle it should way 15 to 20 tons]) Insane durability (one of the few demons that's immune to sunlight and can't die by decapitation. Being an Oni in the reboot timeline he is bullet and blade proof. He's also been decapitated so many times it's nothing more then a nuisance.) Suprising speed (Despite his massive size he kept up with Douma and helped both the slayers and tanjiro defeat muzan and akaza without slowing down. Kaito believes he's faster than upper moon 4) his blood art gives him the ability to make whatever he eats part of him (ate enough frogs to give himself multiple long tounges gained wings this way. He also did the same to deers cows and elks to grow extra legs. He can use weakened versions of blood arts if he eats a demon as long as he didn't digest them fully. Is the reason he can sprout multiple eyes and arms) Suprisingly good at fighting despite being a brezerker (survived fights against Yoriichi despite knowing what he could do. Fought muzan for 4 hours straight as a human with demon eater powers. Fought akaza to a standstill as a human.)

Weaknesses:he's very straightforward and prideictable in a fight. He canonically dies before the start of Izukus time according to the other Einherjars. While immune to demon weaknesses he has a skin/allergy to water which worsened when he became an Oni (melted to a puddle almost killing him when Milo alsomost got swept away in a flood in the future.) Will sacrifice himself without thinking even if it does more harm then good. He's a massive target.

[mejcinta]

As someone who joined the hotd fandom recently (its a shitshow lmao), and has read many funny (albeit a bit toxic) discussions, I think it's hilarious that, just like his brother, Lucerys Velaryon (I had to search his name because I don't know their names lmao) is often only mentioned/relevant in the discourse when the topic is about his obvious bastardy, his horrific action of maiming a child (and not being apologetic about it), his accidental death (which, I'm sorry, but the moment his tiny dragon attack a war hardened giant dragon, I knew he was fucked, literally fuck around and find out, this kid), or the need to propped Rhaenyra up for the morality ranking bs. Like, the greens gets so much discussion about their dynamics with each other, as well as their personality, despite having less screen time. But Lucreys, the only gist I could get from both teams is that, he was a bully (but he was a child uwu) then struck a kid with a knife in a 4 vs 1 fight (he was trying to protect his brother uwu), wasn't punish for it, was heir for driftmark, and that's about it. Like, the closest hint of personality I could find was him admitting he wasn't ready to inherit driftmark, and being an awful human by smilling unapologetically towards Aemond but other than that I see nothing? But a plankwood, a literal npc that occasionally says something and has to stand next to Rhaenyra, looking like he shat himself. Like, I could've been more sympathetic towards him but nah my man is boring af and that godawful smile at the dinner scene still pissed me off lmao. LMAO, sorry about this rant but I saw a post claiming that they took Lucberys traits and gave it to Aemond and, say, even in the book, there's no mention of anything about his traits? The show tried their best to give him one but made Luchekrys even more bland and annoying lmao.

Urgh! When will people stop being envious of Aemond?

You see, something I've observed about the writing on Team Black is that it suffers terribly from a case of favoritism.

Yes, you can love something to the point of utterly destroying it!! Just like you can spoil a favorite child to the point of serious illness by giving them too much candy.

The writers WANTED the audience to favor team black, and so ended up making them the most boring, upstanding people in an asoiaf show, WHILE sugar coating and making excuses for every single wrong thing they did!!! There are no evident consequences for their actions (everything bad that happens to them is someone else's fault), but what i find more annoying is you will never find team black characters acknowledging their shortcomings or explaining their actions. THEY JUST DO AS THEY PLEASE, and any inconvenience they face is a plot against them...certainly NOT the fruit of their labors.

None of that shit is realistic. We all know for a fact that people like these in real life are the most insufferable and stuck up pieces of shit to live with!

Team Green benefit from more organic writing. Their flaws are acknowledged, even by themselves. They're imperfect people trying their best to get by, trying to change and failing, forced in a corner that they must fight their way out of and harboring ambitions that they often fail to achieve. They struggle as a family, they fight a lot, but by the end of the day they understand that they need to work as a unit to ensure their survival.

ALL OF THIS IS HUMAN, REALISTIC AND UNIVERSAL. What makes a character compelling is showing their inadequacies, making them acknowledge their inadequacies, making them fail, making them win at a cost, making them fight, making them struggle.

Characters that easily get what they want and whose actions can always be excused are boring, boring, boring.

It is ironic that even with all the excessive vices the writers added on Team Green's plate, they only wound up making them more fascinating and worth talking about.

I really can't say the same about Team Black. Daemon is the only thing happening for them because they let him be controversial, just like the Greens.

Long rant, but you can see why Lucerys comes nowhere near being as interesting or layered as Aemond and the rest of the Greens.

His fans can complain all they want, but the fault ultimately lies with the writers, who diluted these characters in efforts to make them the perfect protagonists.

And I don't think much will change in s2.

[fang-revives]

Syb's 2023 MOTY List!

I had a lot of fun doing this roundup last year! Though it feels like a patchier year than 2022 for great wrestling, there were still a few real standouts that blew my socks clean off. Here's my top 5 recs!

Jay White NJPW Departure Series (Wrestle Kingdom 17 IWGP Heavyweight Belt 04.01.20203, Loser Leaves Japan Match vs. Hikuleo 11.02.2023, Loser Leaves NJPW Match vs. Eddie Kingston 18.02.2023) 

It was so hard to pick a single match from this series so I chose not to. The sequence of these really tells a complete story I was fully glued to in real-time. The IWGP WK match I slept on a little bit because everyone was buzzing over Omega vs. Ospreay, but  I have to say when I finally watched it, it has wormed its way into my brain and has not stopped chewing. The Hikuleo match broke me a little for the last offered too-sweet. And if you forced me to pick a match of the three to recommend, it would be Eddie vs. Jay. There’s something special about Eddie being the man with so much integrity, so much love for puroresu, that he almost made me believe Jay would fight for New Japan and win. I’ll close this by saying it felt really graceful that Jay got to put an endpoint on his time in New Japan, and tell a little story with it. I’m not sure most wrestlers get the chance for whatever reason when their contract ends, but this felt like a beautiful Shakespearean tragedy, and a great way to end a killer run in NJPW.

Yota Tsuji vs. Ren Narita (G1 Climax 33, 18.07.2023) 

The most memorable G1 Climax match for me by a long shot. Physical, deranged, so many gorgeous spots (that I will miss dearly from Narita specifically as he heads off to do…whatever it is that you can call House of Torture spots). I rewatched this three times. I loved the tie booking for the Reiwa Three Muskateers, it made A-block super fun. I was really hopeful after Tsuji’s backstage comments that they’d make a story out of Narita shedding Shibata’s shadow…alas for the booking that wasn’t. 

Saki Akai Retirement Match (Tag match with Yukio Sakaguchi & Hideki Okatani, vs. Kazusada Higuchi & Naomichi Marufuji & Miyu Yamashita, 12.11.2023) 

There is so much to miss about Saki Akai. Although I honestly and sincerely wish more wrestlers would retire younger and let their bodies rest (or at least do a soft retirement and then come back to do bullshit) – god, I’m going to miss her. She’s been a mainstay on the DDT roster for as long as I’ve been watching and before, and carries the intergender work with unparalleled grace. This match was booked as a unique treat for me; who had an Eruption moment back when Sakaguchi and Higuchi had their singles match, and who loves both Marufuji and Yamashita. 

Swerve Strickland vs. Hangman Page Texas Deathmatch (AEW Full Gear 18.11.2023) 

TOXIC!!! YAOI!!! DEATHMATCH!! INSANE!!! This match probably would have made it on the list for the “stapling my son’s drawing and then drinking the blood from the wound” spot alone, good god. If people didn’t believe Swerve was a mega-star before this match, they surely do now. Match that made me dissolve into monkey noises, and easily my favourite AEW match this year. 

Mask vs. Mask 5-Way Cage Survival (Dragon Kid vs Shun Skywalker vs Strong Machine J vs Ultimo Dragon vs Diamante, 02.07.2023)

Dragongate is honestly a promotion I’d love to have the time and attention span to carve out some more space for. Luckily I do have puro friends who are willing to catch me up on the dynamics so I can swing by for banger matches like these. And wow, holy shit, this was a cagematch for the age. Pulling on the drama of Dragon Kid who promised the survival of his older mentor Ultimo Dragon – leading into the personal beef of Strong Machine J and Diamante, and crystallizing to another horrible moment from one of wrestling’s best working heels right now, Shun Skywalker. This match had it all!

Honorable Mentions

Eddie Kingston vs. Claudio Castagnoli (AEW Grand Slam 2023, 20.09.2023) 

Jun Kasai & El Desperado vs. Masashi Takeda & Rina Yamashita Thumbtack Board & Razor Cross Board Alpha Death (Pro Wrestling FREEDOMS, 11.08.2023) 

Hiromu Takahashi vs. Kazuki Hirata"Let's Have Fun!!" What Will Happen!? Fun Death Match (DDT Ultimate Party 2023, 12.11.2023)

[dio-icarticaae]

Recently rewatched Star Wars Resistance Season 2 Episode 3, "Live Fire", and it's such a good demonstration of all the various kinds of pilots in Resistance and how good the show is at illustrating the difference between them. There's subtle difference between all of the pilots of course, but there's two main really glaring distinctions: First Order vs Resistance/non First Order pilots, and Yeager & Kaz vs the Aces.

The difference between Yeager & Kaz and the Aces is really fascinating and also officially spells out one of the best subtle details in Resistance - Kaz is not as good at racing because of his combat pilot background that he still uses. Kaz struggles with racing flying throughout the show because he isn't a racer or thinking like a racing pilot - he's a combat pilot and he flies like one and thinks like one. And in reverse, the Aces aren't good in combat because In a race, every ace is capable of beating him handily. In a combat scenario? Kaz and Yeager pick them off effortlessly because that the kind of piloting they are best at and have been taught. Kaz loses races all the time, but in situations like in the first season fighting the sea monster? Kaz is clearly far more at ease with flying in that situation than the Aces. And the race later in the season 2? Kaz wins that not only because of the knowledge gained about the course through watching the Aces fail to go through it, but also because what with the mines, being shot at, etc., it's more of a combat situation and that's what Kaz is good at.

Sidenote - I always find it fun that Griff is the one who is most apprehensive about their chances in the training exercise. It makes sense; having been in the Empire he's well aware of what Rebellion pilots were capable of working together and he knows this will not end well for the Aces.

A minor addition to that is the difference between Yeager and Kaz as pilots is one of experience and leadership skills. Yeager's a Rebellion veteran, and you can tell - he's comfortable with being in command and giving orders to his fellow pilots in a way that Kaz isn't. He's also a little more adaptable to strange circumstances such as a giant creature trying to eat them - he saw a lot of wild things during the Rebellion so he's (less) phased than Kaz. Yeager as a pilot is who Kaz could be in the future.

The other main difference in pilots is, of course, the difference in how the First Order treats its pilots in training and how the Resistance/literally everyone else does and "Live Fire" does a great job of showing those. Yeager is so matter of fact when says of course they're not going to use live fire on each other. For the Aces, it's a given that they wouldn't be practicing with live fire because why would they? One of them could get hurt/their ship could get destroyed and that would not be good. And what's really to be gained from it?

In contrast, the First Order doesn't care if they lose a trainee in an exercise because of "friendly" fire - in fact that's preferable through some kind of "survival of the fittest" mindset. Tam preventing Rucklin's TIE from crashing into the Star Destroyer bridge also prevents a possible catastrophe and shows that she's a good pilot with good leadership skills - but because she shows compassion she loses squad leader.

Tam doesn't fit in the First Order survival of the fittest mold and it's a very early indication that Tam will leave the First Order - she's not like them and she could never be because her first instinct is to help her fellow pilots instead of leave them for dead, and that makes her a better person and pilot than any of them could ever be.

"Live Fire" does a great job of showing all of this and that's definitely a part of why it's one of my favorite Resistance episodes!

[spiderlegsmusic]

Future generations will look back on this time period like we do the dark ages. Religion, in its death throes, is fighting to make a comeback in relevance by banning women’s healthcare because they want more babies born whose health and well being they won’t contribute to.

And fuck you if you were raped and molested by a stranger or family member resulting in pregnancy. Even if you’re 12. You have to carry your rape baby, especially in Texas where we lead the nation in rape babies doubling the next highest state.

Like we view the dark ages

We have a depraved degenerate piece of shit subhuman claiming to be ordained by god, confirming that yes, religion is bullshit and just a way to control the superstitious masses. If god existed, it would in no way want to be associated with trump and would actively distance itself.

The fact that that traitor insurrectionist piece of shit is allowed to run for president after trying to overthrow the govt by force (jan6), bureaucratically(fake electors scam), and by extortion (the Georgia find me more votes scam), is beyond me.

The whole country saw what he did. It’s just that republicans have gotten sick of losing elections so now they embrace fascism. They will support trumps authoritarian autocratic dictatorship because it means they won’t lose anymore elections.

And we will just let him.

See, this election isn’t Trump vs Biden. The democratic challenger could be a flaming bag of shit, it wouldn’t change the stakes. Every year, people say this election is so important and they’ve been wrong. But this year they are correct. This isn’t Trump vs Biden. It’s dictatorship vs democracy. Trump wins and he’ll crown himself king for life. Anyone who opposes him will be thrown in prison. Listen to his speeches, he says the quiet part out loud. Everyone in his campaign is saying trump’s next term will be all about retribution. RETRIBUTION against those who wouldn’t allow him to steal the last election.

There is no love, no goodness in Trump. He’s an asshole to everyone. He quotes Hitler and counts Putin, Kim, and the Hungarian dictator Orbàn as friends. He’s a scumbag using religion to solidify his cult status over the simpleminded racists who support him. He’s not a christian, he’s not friendly and he thinks Hitler did good things

Even if you hate Biden, it’s not him you are voting for by voting for him. You’re voting for a continuation of democracy, which may be battered by things like horrible Supreme Court rulings (citizens united, repealing Roe v Wade, corporate personhood) but it’s better than a Trump led dictatorship. Once democracy is gone, it’s never coming back without war and death. Is this what you want? Do you think you will survive bombs hitting your neighborhood, your apartment building? Ask people in Ukraine what that’s like.

It’s not Biden vs Trump. It’s dictatorship vs democracy. It’s black and white, no shades of gray. If trump wins, you will never vote in a meaningful election again. And if you or anyone you know complains, they will disappear. Those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it. And history is repeating itself. Hitler won by one vote. Trump won in 2016 despite getting fewer votes because of the electoral college. And if he loses again, he’ll pull the same shit as in 2020, but more forceful.

Keep trump out of the White House.

For fucks sake!

[aliensupersyn]

Is Gege a Good Fight Choreographer? Why Todo is Amazing

This will be a sort of series analyzing different aspects of Gege's choice of fighting elements and his magic system, with considerations for the anime as well. Though I will be analyzing Jujutsu Kaisen's magic system, I will mostly be focusing on the physical fighting elements, including hand to hand, weapon use, and overall strategic combat. You cannot discuss a jjk fight without mentioning the importance of strategy and deception!

TLDR: Just read the Problem Solver Section for a general idea of what I'm talking about.

I've been reflecting heavily about how to use powerful people in a story all at once. In my mind, in order to have powerful characters, the author will simply have to upscale all others to somewhat match them; that way, an author can avoid a power fantasy or mary sue issue. Upscaling does not always mean bigger blasts. Todo exemplifies a character with a strong ability not reliant on a huge blast.

In effect, Todo uses Goku's Instant Transmission, but limited to an uncertain, wide range relative to himself. I enjoy Gege's ability to take aspects of other manga and effortlessly incorporate them into jjk. Even if Boogie Woogie was not meant to be Goku's IT, there are other direct references to other powers like Yuji's jajanken (Gon from HunterxHunter), and Domain Expansions being similar to bankai (Bleach). Point being, Gege takes pieces of other magic systems and adds to them what he needs to ensure jjkverse maintains its individuality.

Boogie Woogie, The Problem Solver

Boogie Woogie has stood up against two of the most difficult opponents in the entire verse: Kenjaku and Sukuna. Before I delve into breaking down Todo's use as a powerful story mechanism, a small rant. Skip the section below if you don't care about Yuki vs. Kenjaku.

Kenjaku having gravity abilities exists solely so that he can logically survive Yuki's Bombaye and mass-type cursed technique. It makes sense narratively for Yuki to defend Tengen and eventually face Kenjaku, considering they philosophically oppose one another. Yet, with all intents and purposes, Yuki should have killed Kenjaku there. While the fight was entertaining, why go so far as to give Yuki something like a black hole just for it to be countered with a cursed technique reversal? That part specifically was not entertaining, it was disrespectful to both Yuki and the reader who had to see it.

Rant over.

The difficulties that Kenjaku presents as an opponent in a fight:

Extremely powerful Simple Domain

An open Domain Expansion

360 antigravity shield

Any number of useful cursed spirits

Powerful rct/healing

The issue of Kenjaku having arguably the most powerful simple domain and having an open barrier with gravity powers meant that he was practically undefeatable. If someone tried to do a domain battle, he would either easily suffer their domain with SD, or he'd win the clash with an open barrier. If Kenjaku needs to block something, he will just use his antigravity shield. Kenjaku also has multiple cursed spirits with differing beneficial utilities for him to use; this allows Gege to add whatever backdoor or advantage Kenjaku needs ay any given moment. If Kenjaku needs to escape, Gege can write in a useful cursed spirit that will allow it.

In all fairness, in the Lake Gosho colony, Gege used Kenjaku's abilities to their most sensible limits. Why wouldn't Kenjaku have secured surveillance spirits? Of course Kenjaku can track all the resurrected sorcerers. Kenjaku's caution and overall security makes sense for his character, as he's calculating and strategic.

Kenjaku's own capabilities therefore demands a character who does at least one of two things: Gege needs a character that matches his SD, DE, and gravity abilities, and or someone who simply bypasses those factors. Todo, coupled with Yuta, simply bypass all the things that make Kenjaku a difficult opponent. To note, Takaba did his part in weakening and distracting Kenjaku, which allowed Todo and Yuta's attack to work.

From Lightning's Twitter:

Kenjaku's antigravity shield acts as the ultimate last effort defense. I will avoid saying that Gege wrote himself into a corner, but it does boggle my mind that Gege allowed Kenjaku to have this ability. Regardless of my issues with his gravity powers, Gege masterfully uses Todo to bypass such an overpowered ability.

Correcting TCB's Mistake

The sound effect on the double spread does not say SLICE, but it instead was Todo's vibraslap onomatopoeia. Kenjaku was standing next to Takaba's body, then after the attack, Yuta now stands in the same place. Yuta and Kenjaku switched places, which allowed Yuta to bypass the antigravity shield. Kenjaku would have been able to use it at least in the direction that Yuta was in, so Todo swapped Yuta to be behind Kenjaku.

Todo performed BW again here to bring Yuta and Kenjaku closer so Yuta could stab Kenjaku in the brain.

Just Avoid the Domain Clash

I originally believed that Sukuna would not get his domain back because there's no real way for anyone in the cast to survive it. Again, Sukuna demands the anti-mary sue rules: Gege needs a character that matches his DE and Kamino, and or someone who simply bypasses those factors. Todo does the latter yet again. By expanding his technique, he could successfully save the cast from being oneshotted. I like Gege's execution here, because it allows for the cool moment of Sukuna finally revealing Kamino, and the audience gets to enjoy the calamity that it brings. Gege does all of that while saving the audience from a complete wipeout of the cast. Yet, Gege still understands the give and take of a high stakes narrative and includes a heart wrenching death for good measure.

Essentially, Todo and BW allows for Gege to allow powerful characters like Kenjaku and Sukuna to sensibly perform at their best while not being the unbeatable plot devices that Gege made them to be. At the very least, BW enables defeat to a certain degree. Gege's characters' interesting and creative abilities allows for dynamic, somewhat chaotic, but fulfilling fights.

Thank you for reading.

[dumbass-duo-showdown]

DUMBASS DUO SHOWDOWN ROUND 2 BATTLE 3

Josuke Higashikata & Okuyasu Nijimura from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (ship name: josuyasu) vs Cole Brookstone & Jay Walker from lego ninjago (ship name: bruise)

REMINDER TO CHECK OUT THE PROPAGANDA UNDER THE CUT!

JOSUYASU PROPAGANDA

Josuke is fairly decent, but okuyasu, you know how in math, if you multiply a negative number with a positive one it is always negative, that is josuyasu for you. Josuke has 6 braincells and Okuyasu has -6734. Their first meeting was okuyasu trying to kill josuke, then he shows up at his house a few days later and goes "hey lets go to school! btw your mom is hot!" Josuke punches a plate of spaghetti because he thinks the chef is evil, they both fight a middle schooler who stole their cash. Okuyasu got the third most op ability in his part but he is too stupid (and kind) to realize it. Somehow they survive their entire part. They are thus far the second jojo and jobro duo to not lose each other. the second one? THEM IN AN ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE! (okay but okuyasu is swapped for koichi in that one, but still).

Josuke normally is pretty smart, but somewhat silly, but Okuyasu. Isn’t incredibly bright but he’s the best jojo character idc. Okuyasu brings out josukes stupid and then they are just besties and totally bouncing off each other’s stupid ideas. Idk what Okuyasu does to josukes brain but I’m here for it

I saw the post title and without reading anything else immediately went to submit them, only to go back and read the full post and realize they were included by default. They are THE dumbass duo. Ever. The worst protagonists for a detective story, but they dumbassed around so hard they somehow caught a genius serial killer. No matter who wins, they’ll always be the number 1 dumbasses in my heart.

they are the best of friends, which of course means they met by trying to kill each other.

They’re both so stupid. Like josuke isn’t that stupid on his own but he’s kinda dumb and when you put him with dumbass incarnate okuyasu they multiply each others’ stupidness. Together they are a menace.

JOSUKE AND OKUYASU FOR THE WIN BECAUSE THEY SPEND AN ENTIRE DAY TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHETHER OR NOT A RANDOM ITALIAN WAS EVIL BECAUSE HIS PASTA WAS TOO GOOD

Okuyasu and Josuke share a braincell and they lose that braincell at least 5 times a day

The majority of Diamond is Unbreakable is those two getting themselves and their friends into absurd situations. There's no way the sportsboys can compete with discovering aliens are (maybe???) real and immediately trying to use the alien(??) to cheat at dice. Then they burned down someone's house

#josuyasu are DUmbass Incorporated and i love them#its literally canon that okuyasu has one of The Most Powerful Abilities In The Entire JJBA Universe#but is too dumb and good natured to put it to world ending use

this gif

don't ask about the weird space

BRUISE PROPAGANDA

They both come up with the dumbest ideas on the team and make jokes all the time

They got into a love triangle/fight because they were just dumb and missed each other. Also they’re canonical besties who are so fucking stupid but also love each other so much

They’re both just so silly… anxiety dumbass and emotional support dumbass…

They ended up in jail once because they broke a dangerous criminal out with good intentions, had a fight over a girl but in the end said that they were more upset about losing each other

part of the bruise propaganda being "they fought over a girl but actually they just missed each other too much" is RIDICULOUSLY funny to me they also were paired off at the start of season 8, resulting in jay mimicking cole, cole getting INCREDIBLY annoyed because jay doesn't understand how vows of silence work, and then the two of them getting into an argument which leads to an entire monastery of monks breaking their vow of silence. they singlehandedly caused an entire monastery of monks to break their vows of silence because they're that stupidly annoying. jay also got really jealous that the princess they meet in season 13 was interested in cole. like bro literally said "the princess seems interested in cole. i mean, he's my best friend and all, but, cole??" vote bruise.

[truetealtears]

Another thing that I realised about why the how to train your dragon finale doesn’t make sense, and this one really annoys me; is that apparently, Toothless is such a main character specialist little boy ever that when he becomes a simp and goes underground with his flock, all of the dragons in existence everywhere just follow him???

Which I mean, no??? Ignoring the fact that he just automatically becomes the alpha of the underworld (which is total bs in its own right), him deciding to stay there somehow sent a broadcast to all dragons to come join him? Did he @ everyone in the dragon discord or what?

Also for a character so smart how did Hiccup think that sending all of Berk’s dragons away would get rid of all dragons. And since it apparently did, how did he think that would be a good idea? They’re a well established and key part of the ecosystem (nvm his society but that’s different), do you know what happens when you remove, not just a species, but an entire fucking Order of animals from the environment??? I’ll give you a hint: it’s bad, really bad.

There must be other colonies around the world, with other alphas. Like that’s literally the plot of the previous two films; we had the red death as a sort of queen bee, and then the big guy as the ‘king’ but called the alpha cuz the 2nd film was where they coined the term and made it into a whole thing. These colonies are scattered all over the place but somehow the Berk colony (not even the only group of domesticated dragons, as the 3rd film likes to show, but not tell, us. What happened to those societies?) packing up and leaving made them all decide to leave too (again how tf would they even know, pheromones and broadcast calls and what ever else don’t travel across the entire planet).

So even if that did happen, you’re telling me Toothless just walks in with his little prosthetic tail (which will eventually decay, causing his death because he is a disabled dragon that would not survive without it) and new gf (my issues with the light fury are worthy of their own post someday), comes face to face with the other colonies alphas, (aka the equivalents of other red deaths, big dudes, etc) and just wins??? A red death alone would, and nearly did, eat him alive. He survived that fight (chase sequence honestly) due to Hiccup’s brains, allowing them to exploit the previously established (but then never mentioned again) weaknesses of dragons. Not Toothless’ strength and certainly not his brains, because he is a dragon, but then ofc the third film had to make him disturbingly smart.

Like that’s not a dragon anymore that’s a guy in a fursuit. He becomes far too humanised over the course of the series. Take the first film; where he was a surprisingly clever animal, but still an animal, and compare that to the 3rd. Like the jokes in the first are that he’s a big goofy animal trying to imitate Hiccup/ communicate with him in his own dragon way, in the third he’s literally acting and emoting like a human (which he shouldn’t be full stop). There’s a difference between an intelligent animal picking up on some of the behaviours they see constantly (spending all those years with Hiccup) and him straight up acquiring a human brain. That scene w the bird dancing can be funny but why tf is Hiccup gesturing and communicating with him in a way that would only work with a person. Try that shit with the original toothless, or literally any other dragon, and see how that goes.

In fact, put toothless (and the light fury) next to any of the other main dragons in the 3rd film and watch the difference in behaviour. The 2nd film started to push it with him and cloud jumper, but it was still somewhat at a level where it was believable that some dragon species were smarter like that, eg the intelligence of corvids vs other birds. The best example of being well trained and in tune w their human without becoming an almost uncanny valley human/dragon abomination is stormfly (cloud jumper is close but like I said they’re pushing it)

Honestly even at the end of the second film they were starting to main character-ify toothless; that scene could’ve still played out the same without making him glow, it annoyed me then and it just got worse in the third. Night-furies went from a unique but still plausible species (as in still an animal) in the context of this world to almost mythical beings who keep coming up w new bs powers.

The way the conflict was resolved in the first film was plausible and believable for the creatures they just spent the entire run time analysing (fire proof on the outside, not so much inside. Plus all the other stuff the kids were doing. Ik it might have felt a bit cliche and childish like ‘look we’re all using the tactics we told you about earlier!’ But that’s literally why they were taught them, to fight dragons). The second wasn’t totally far off, it explored dragon social dynamics and explained the concept of alphas and how they work (also clearly intending for you to look back and realise the red death was the alpha, they even play basically the same buzzing noise for when they’re under control) but then they made him glow at the end. It would’ve been so easy and plausible to say something like ‘oh most of these guys were part of the red death colony, which they watched toothless kill so they already accept him as their alpha’ but instead he had to have a mc power up moment. The third just went ‘fuck it he’s an anime character now’. Like think about it, basically none of the tactics and things we were told/shown were facts about dragons in the first, come up in the later movies. Like yeah ‘they don’t need to explain all that to us again’ but there’s a difference between that and just completely erasing it from the world building.

Night-furies are the equivalent of like some deep sea species we didn’t know much about back in the day because they were only seen when they came up to the surface on rare occasions, then we got a hold of one and everything checked out when compared to related species but unlike them it’s capable of bioluminescence which is like ‘oh cool, interesting.’ But then a couple years later it turns out if you stress it out it can somehow become a superconductor for some fucking reason. A couple more years later and it seems it’s capable of fucking teleportation. Can you see what I’m getting at here?

Ik the films were always going to end with the dragons leaving. Like in both book and film the first line is: ‘ONCE, there WERE dragons…’ I just hate how it ended up being done. As a Zoologist it has me screaming, crying and throwing up.

‘Oh well of course it’s bad to you, you’re putting a kids movie under professional scrutiny’ NO BECAUSE THEY DID IT SO WELL IN THE FIRST FILM. Watching it told me they knew how to do this right and then the sequels were worse instead of better. I’m not even saying they had to go further in-depth and stuff for the sequels to be good, what I’m saying is I was at least expecting them to keep to the same standard instead of letting it fucking plummet.

Idk man the first film was so good at establishing the dragons as actual animals and exploring them as different species but then it felt like with each consecutive film they fired more and more of whatever zoologists they had on the writers team for the first.