#that doesn't mean we have to let them abuse us because they're relatives

[zeynatura]

Vent in tags

[rainbowberriesandcookies]

Orihime's weird food combinations actually make a lot of sense-

It's one of those things that in the moment, it's used for comedic relief when other characters see her or hear about her weird food combinations but honestly there's also a lot of subtlety that makes me wonder if Kubo has more personal experience growing up poor or with food security because my god it makes too much fucking sense.

We know that Sora and Orihime had abusive parents who were described as the types of people that would hit a child until it stopped crying and that Sora intentionally hid her away from them to take care of her.

Chances are, their parents never taught Sora how to cook or take care of himself properly, and growing up, he likely had to feed Orihime little bits of what he could put together before he was able to turn 18 and run away with her.

At the start of the story, Ichigo says that Sora died three years ago and at the start of the story, Ichigo and Orihime are both around 15 years old. Which means Orihime was no older than 12 when Sora died.

Have you seen what 12-year-olds left to their own devices eat? And eventually, we find out that Orihime is taken care of by a distant relative who only sends her money as long as she keeps her grades up. Given that she lives by herself, it's likely only enough money to ensure that Orihime isn't homeless or starving - but not enough to actually buy proper meals.

And if it is - Orihime likely doesn't know what a proper meal looks like. From how Sora described their parents, he likely had to raise himself as many children do in abusive relationships, and then had to raise Orihime. But children often learn things from their parents like how to cook, clean, etc.

Another character with a similar home life that Orihime reminds me of is Taiga from Toradora.

Until she met Ryuji, Taiga pretty much lived on convenience store food as her parent(s) only sent money every so often. Likely - once again - it was just enough to make sure she wasn't homeless or on the streets but not enough to be able to afford cooking proper meals and Orihime - like Taiga - likely doesn't really know what normal food or meals really look like.

And as early as the volume 2 character profiles, we learn that Orihime is supported by relatives.

At one point, she's even seen eating bread likely because it was all she could afford.

In Chapter 14, Orihime just brings an entire loaf of bread and a can of red bean paste to lunch and as early as Volume 2 we learn that she's supported by relatives - yet we also know that she lives alone which even as early as this it can be assumed that they're fairly distant and only do so out of obligation rather than love.

Come Chapter 450, this is elaborated on even more

She outright mentions that a distant aunt pays for her living expenses and sends her less when her grades go down. And here, you can see her recounting what she heard about her parents being "really abusive" from her brother all with a smile on her face despite the fact that it's a pretty somber.

Another hint to the food insecurity is how Orihime looked at the donuts earlier and Riruka upon hearing this, let Orihime eat as much as she wanted.

It's in her own way, but Riruka clearly understood that Orihime didn't really have a good home life. But she's a tsundere so Riruka has to say that she doesn't want them anymore instead of outright saying she feels bad and doesn't want to deprive someone who likely has never really had too much food security of food that's right in front of them. The typical "It's not like I care or anything" from tsunderes like Riruka.

Jumping back to earlier chapters-

Orihime joked with Tatsuki about having to carry around a sleeping bag and sleeping outdoors after being kicked out of her apartment following the hollow incident in Chapter 24.

Given that Tatsuki didn't appreciate the joke and up till this point, she's one of Orihime's closest friends, chances are Tatsuki knows that Orihime has a precarious living situation which is why the joke didn't come off as funny because Tatsuki would also know that Orihime is the type to just smile her way through all of her troubles.

So combined with what we know...

As early as Chapter 4 her apartment was damaged as a result of Ichigo's battle with Acidwire, in Chapter 14 she brings bread and red bean paste to school to eat and in Chapter 24 Tatsuki doesn't appreciate her jokes about having to be in a sleeping bag until she finds a new place before admitting that she's actually staying in a hotel.

Chances are her grades slipped to the point she couldn't afford rent anymore or the damage to the apartment was that bad - either way the result was a pretty big strain on her already tight finances.

Orihime's odd food tendencies aren't just to make her quirky, but one of the only ways she knows how to survive. After all - a lot of people who live in poverty or struggle with food security eat and enjoy strange meals like mustard sandwiches where it is just bread and mustard or sugar sandwiches where it's just butter, bread, and sugar... A lot of struggle meals honestly involve some type of bread because it is cheap and filling.

Bread is one of the cheapest food items you can afford and while everyone else thinks that her food combinations are horrid... there is at least one person who appreciates them.

Rangiku!

And from what we know, Rangiku also had a very similar upbringing where she was found starving and alone by Gin. He offered her persimmons, a fruit that when eaten at the wrong time is very sour but when it's ripe it's mushy/soft. Because of this, persimmons can be something of an acquired taste - and when they're dried the flavor of them is even more concentrated

All in all, her quirky food habits are a subtle nod to her upbringing, and thinking about it now, it makes sense as to why it never really sat right with me when people would callously make fun of her food combinations or rather treated them like a genuine character flaw to mock and demean her over.

It's used for comedy because when you hear certain struggle meals, they really don't be making any sense and sound disgusting! Yet at the same time, it's a result of having to make do with what you have and your tastes revolving around that.

Even with the consistency of Rangiku, someone who was found starving enjoying her food combinations - it makes me wonder if Rangiku is no stranger to eating weird things or combinations on occasion. It also contrasts with Toshiro who was shown not really enjoying the food combinations, but unlike Orihime or Rangiku, he's never really been shown starving or hungry in his backstory because he had his grandmother and Momo with him.

Because of that, it's kinda hard to chalk up Orihime's weird food tendencies and growing up poor to be a "lucky coincidence" because the other person who enjoys them too grew up similarly to her - where food was scarce. Given how seemingly well thought out it is, it makes me wonder if Kubo himself may have either had or knew someone who struggled with food scarcity.

[sysmedsaresexist]

The Big "Is RAMCOA Antisemitic?" Debunk Post

Because I have to stay relevant, here we go

Let's start with a little speech. A bit of positivity.

You know, there is something good to said about this RAMCOA antisemitism discourse. The majority don't seem to be falling for it at all, and many are becoming more educated about the panic, RAMCOA/OEA and its history (the good and the bad) than ever before

RAMCOA/OEA a very real issue that deserves awareness and advocacy, and so far, I've noticed a massive surge in members of the community researching the ISSTD and the OEA sig's work.

It has brought antisemitism into light in a way that hasn't really been talked about on a large scale in system communities, and most don't know ever existed. Many, genuinely, had no idea that the satanic panic was antisemitic in these ways, and it's putting a lot of pieces together and adding a lot of context that'll help us grow and be better people going forward.

It's been really nice seeing such a positive shift to open, educational conversations, with people genuinely wanting to know the truth and unlearn harmful associations.

SAS stands with RAMCOA and OEA survivors.

So let's get into it.

SRA and The Memory Wars, lasting results

SRA started with Michelle Remembers, a book, in 1980. It resulted in thousands of unsubstantiated claims of abuse, daycare hysteria, set CDD research and OEA abuse back decades, affected millions, and to this day conjures images of cloaked figures sacrificing children.

The ISSTD was formed in 1984, amid the panic, with the goal of quickly developing an effective treatment and documenting the disorder as thoroughly as possible. Many mistakes were made. Clinicians aren't immune to societal panics, and lessons were learned the hard way.

I think an important distinction that many have forgotten is that the ISSTD's principal controversy isn't SRA. SRA didn't start or end with the ISSTD.

While the “Satanic Panic” played out in courts and in mass media, the ISSTD entered “The Memory Wars”, and it's this that they're most controversial for. False, implanted, and fostered memories weren't solely related to SRA. It was used to discredit all types of abuse and violence and is still used to this day to silence victims.

By the 1990s, therapists were being sued, licenses were being revoked, and members were fleeing the ISSTD. The False Memory Syndrome Foundation wouldn't be created for another couple of years, but that doesn't mean its founding members weren't already wreaking havoc.

The FMSF would be created in 1992, and their bigger and better attacks on therapists were brutal and persistent. The legal battles would be especially effective at causing therapists to refuse to work with victims of abuse.

Research on ritual abuse, CDDs, and repressed memories came to a grinding halt.

The Satanic Panic eventually fell into relative silence by 1995, but false memories lived on, loud and cruel.

The FMSF would eventually begin to write college textbooks for the next generation of clinicians. It would survive until 2019.

The ISSTD is still trying to regain its membership. It's only recently that they reached 1500, the highest since 1993.

Antisemitism, blood libel, and the satanic panic

If you're confused about how everything is related, I'm going to make it very simple so you grasp the basic idea.

This is not a history lesson.

Blood Libel, or ritual murder, is the idea that Jewish people sacrificed Christian children in religious rituals. Cloaked figures performing rituals and killing children and animals. The same thing you picture when you think of Satanists and rituals.

For those who recognize the connection (racists), this fuels their sentiments and creates a language for them to speak to each other.

It is true, a basic fact, that for many people, Satanists are anyone who doesn't worship the Christian god. Including and especially Jewish people.

SRA and RAMCOA

Depending on who you ask, the connection is either that:

MYTH: the ISSTD originally called their RAMCOA sig (Special Interest Group) the SRA sig. FACT: The RAMCOA sig, one of twelve ISSTD sigs, was created in 2008. There was never any kind of satanic ritual abuse group or association within the ISSTD.

FACT: Ritual abuse, the RA in RAMCOA, still has ties to SRA and brings to mind everything from the panic. ALSO FACT: That's why the ISSTD has renamed it to the OEA sig.

Hopefully we're all on the same page now.

Who's Grey Faction?

Grey Faction is a group of the TST (The Satanic Temple) and is closely related to the FMSF. While the FMSF generally attacked all types of abuse, GF, being related to Satanism, is focused on recovered memories and the (still alive) satanic panic. They believe that all reports of false memories supports satanic panic conspiracy theories. They continue the FMSF's work.

How did we get here?

Well, TST and GF are on reddit. Syscringe is on reddit. And now syscringe is here.

This is what syscringe bot says every time RAMCOA is brought up.

That link goes to Grey Faction.

So is RAMCOA Antisemitic?

Kind of yeah. It was a really good move of the ISSTD to change the name to OEA sig. They talk about the association on their website and stated they wanted to get away from that. No one won the satanic panic. Ritual abuse is real, but its history is tainted.

The discourse around RAMCOA isn't about helping Jewish people. At least, not for the people pushing the false connection that the ISSTD started and continues to maintain the panic to this day.

It's about discrediting the ISSTD and the trauma theory. It's about silencing victims, even Jewish survivors.

It's about ignoring that the ISSTD is making moves in the right direction.

It's about continuing the idea that false memories exist and that trauma memories can't be trusted or taken at face value. It's about downplaying the depravity of abusers and the lengths they'll go to.

I want to finish this post with a letter from a very dear friend. It's not a mod on this blog, simply someone wishing to stay anonymous.

Uplift Jewish Voices

Hello, I’m Noam, an ethnic and religious Jew. I face antisemitism on the daily and deal with having DID. I am not a RAMCOA survivor, but I have a number of friends who are. Today I’m here to talk about the recent discourse going around regarding whether claiming to have RAMCOA experiences is inherently antisemitic. TLDR: no.

Let’s start with understanding why people think this. The term ritual abuse originated from the term satanic ritual abuse and is often associated with the satanic panic. The satanic panic in the 80s and 90s was extreme and yes, did involve a lot of antisemitic conspiracy theories. People would suggest certain symbols or music or groups of people (often vague, or calling it a nationwide conspiracy) were “brainwashing” these “good Christian children” into satanic practices or straying from rigid Christianity. Jews are often stereotyped as Satanic, controlling things, and murdering and cannibalizing children/babies.

Ritual abuse nowadays is often still associated with Satanic cults, but it has a much broader and less accusatory definition in medical/therapeutic spaces. Per Schröder et al. (2018), “ritual abuse occurs when a religious, political, or spiritual authority uses its position of power and the sovereignty to interpret the respective belief system to manipulate and dominate its followers.” Some examples include repeated forced creation of CSEM, religious and other types of cults (yes, including satanic, but also Christian and other religions), and being forced to abuse others (Schröder et al., 2018). Trafficking is also a type of organized abuse. We know these types of abuses happen. But given the history of RA as a term and the harm claims of SRA caused, how does one determine whether something is a conspiracy theory or actual trauma someone experienced?

This page by the European Commission does a good job of talking about identifying conspiracy theories and the harm they do. I won’t recount the whole thing, but here are some basic things they state conspiracy theories have in common: a secret plot, a group of conspirators, unfounded/unreliable evidence, suggesting everything is connected, dividing the world into good people and bad people, and scapegoating certain groups (“Identifying Conspiracy Theories,” 2020).

What makes (many) stories of RAMCOA different from antisemitic conspiracy theories? I’m glad you asked!

• The secret plot in conspiracy theories often involves a large group of people in on some secret changing something about the world or identifying a secret thing that must have happened to lead to unfortunate current events. RAMCOA tends to stem from people or organizations working on a much smaller scale, and the things they are doing mostly affect the person/people experiencing this abuse. Abusers may try to instill in victims a sense that they control a lot about the world and the events that happen within it, but they don’t.

• A big question I like to ask people who spout conspiracy theories is “who is they (the group of conspirators)?” If they is some generic big bad, the government, “elites” (see the AJC’s Translate Hate Glossary section titled “cosmopolitan elite”), or vague and unknown, it’s usually a dogwhistle for Jews. The person themselves may not realize this, but perhaps they never looked further into the evidence behind these accusations and who those being accused are. RAMCOA perpetrators are not vague to their victims. They often have familial ties or other close relationships with them that allow the abusers to gain their victims’ trust (Schröder et al. 2018). The things they do to abuse people and the methods they use are not vague or mysterious actions to achieve an end. There are specific actions and tactics that cults and authority figures use for RAMCOA.

• Whether evidence is unfounded is a harder thing to distinguish, since many survivors of RAMCOA cope using dissociation or have an amount of dissociative amnesia around traumatic events (Shröder 2018). The Europe Commission suggests three main things to check for in regards to evidence about a claim. Who is the author and why are they writing this? Is the source reliable/reputable? Is the tone and style “balanced and fair or sensationalist and one-dimensional?” (“Identifying Conspiracy Theories,” 2020). I also like to think about, especially with regards to abuse survivors, if this is a conspiracy theory, why are they telling me the things they’re telling me? Most RAMCOA survivors I’ve met avoid talking about their trauma and are more focused on figuring out if what they experienced is real and how to heal from it. They are not trying to convince me of something; they are just sharing their story and looking for support.

• RAMCOA victims I’ve talked to, particularly those with DID, also have a more complex view of their abusers or are trying to come to terms with all the bad things someone they admired, trusted, and/or loved did. Conspiracy theorists tend to separate people into conspirators or innocents. There is no middle ground. Healing for a lot of abuse victims involves realizing that good people can do bad things and bad people can do good things; the world is not black and white.

• Scapegoating often involves generalizing and demonizing certain people or groups of people. I find a lack of seeing these “others” as human or wanting anything other than a single, unified goal. It also tends to involve assumptions much more than any personal experience. Anyone with even the slightest connection to a certain ideology is evil. RAMCOA often involves many victims, many of whom understand that other people involved with the organization that hurt them are also victims or have been scared or brainwashed into further perpetuating abuse.

• Also, while satanic panic was largely about going against Christianity, many religious cults are associated with particular sects or communities within Christianity, and they use certain ideologies within the group to deter people from leaving or reporting abuse. Perpetrators claim some sort of punishment or betrayal will be involved in these actions.

Anyways, I want to put emphasis on healing in RAMCOA survivors, where many of the points and purposes of conspiracy theories are antithetical to such a process. People should be allowed to find support, community, and reliable resources about what they have gone through (if it is physically/mentally safe for them to do so). Please do not insist that these traumas aren’t real on the basis of antisemitism from the satanic panic. The survivors I’ve met who talk about parts of their trauma are working hard to come to terms with it themselves and how to cope, and while they may be angry and upset towards their abusers, they do not try to insist to me how evil a group is and that there is a need to take direct action against them. They are just trying to survive.

Now, ritual abuse as a term and the history of its use is something I think needs more discussion. I would love to see more research about how the term evolved within medical/therapeutic spaces and how much of a connection the current definition and use has to antisemitism. But regardless of what we end up calling these types of abuses, there are real examples of them and people who have empirical evidence that they have been through such experiences.

Furthermore, I have a problem with a lot of the claims of antisemitism in relation to RAMCOA coming from goyim (AKA non-Jews). You are not the authority on antisemitism. You do not get to claim to defend us while not speaking to us about the topic. There is so much antisemitism going around, but I find so few people willing to listen to Jews when we talk about the struggles we face. (The SAS mods are an example of exceptions to this. I appreciate the amount I’ve been able to talk to them and how open and supportive they are. I love y’all.) Encouraging hate and disbelief is not helpful to us. What’s helpful is doing your research and learning about how to recognize and combat antisemitism. Take your energy where it’s needed, thank you.

European Commission. (2020, August 12). Identifying conspiracy theories. European Commission. <https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/coronavirus-response/fighting-disinformation/identifying-conspiracy-theories_en>

Gerke, J., Fegert, J., Rassenhofer, M., & Fegert, J. M. (2024). Organized sexualized and ritual violence: Results from two representative German samples. Child Abuse & Neglect, 152, 106792. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2024.106792

[gabrielsbubblegumbitch]

Now, don't misinterpret this question as me trying to excuse or justify the Vees' behaviour in any way. They're twisted, evil and have done a lot of messed up shit in their lives. However, I was wondering what you think their good qualities are (probably fairly few, but oh well)? Mostly personality-wise.

-✒️

Oh I think they have plenty of objectively good qualities - that's what make them so successful. They just use it to do bad things.

Valentino

So he's for sure funny and charming. He's also extremely insightful and emotionally intelligent. He can easily recognize what other people need and is always willing to provide it (even though he uses those skills to prey on people). Also, I think he's a very chill and non-judgmental person (but he will say judgmental things to people when he wants to hurt them even if he wholeheartedly doesn't care). And he's fiercely protective of those he cares about. Things often get dirty after some time but as long as nothing triggers his abusive side, he can be genuinely the best, most supportive friend/partner ever that has this special ability to make people just feel good. With Val it's always a high-risk but also high-reward game and that's what makes him so dangerous.

Vox

Vox is extremely intelligent and capable; as long as he doesn't let his emotions take over, he really knows what he's doing. He's ambitious, driven, and very solution-oriented. While it's a trait that can be perceived as coldness, we know how good it is to have this one friend who can offer a real solution instead of a shoulder to cry. Also, he's passionate - when he cares, he cares so much. About his work and hobbies, about his pets, and about his people. Not always he can properly show genuine care but he overcompensates for it by spoiling his friends with money and privileges.

Velvette

Vel is creative and has a great aesthetic sensitivity. She's also fiercely loyal and willing to put much effort into maintaining relatively healthy relationships, even if it means some compromises. It's complicated because she struggles with forming deep bonds but at the same time, she loves having a small community and cares about it. Also, she's extremely insightful and perceptive; she works really well under high pressure, she's brave and seriously believes that there are no things the Vees can't do if they just focus and work together; she generally is great at motivating people to take action and lifting them up if its needed.

[shebeafancyflapjack]

What I love about Ghosts is how much of a slow burn the enemies to found family is. Yes there's a pretty big leap from "tried to kill her" to "forced allies of convenience" in the first two episodes, there needs to be to set up the premise, but after that there's such a gradual build up to a real cosy feel in the group.

It would have been so easy to have this dynamic reach its peak by the end of S1. There's a few soft moments like Alison talking to Pat's family and the Friends sofa bit outside but only after Pat explains to her how important the moonah ritual is to Robin. But it's not enough to make them that close yet and in the finale the ghosts mostly want Alison to stay for their own convenience, except Kitty and Thomas, with Fanny only just beginning to accept Alison is part of her bloodline. Captain still wants them gone but concedes to help them stay more for the others. Alison is touched by the gesture of the jewel but still admits that it's a nightmare living with them and wants to leave - and only stays because Captain screws her over via manipulating Kitty.

S2 starts with her waking up and sighing about how she's still "living the dream" (aka her nightmare). However, so we're not quite on the same page as last season, she has now established a routine with the ghosts and knows what each of them need. There's a feeling of comfort beginning to creep its way in, even if they still annoy her. And they're still not willing to help her at the drop of a hat, especially Julian unless he can get something in return, and some will go as far as to work against her when she's trying to make the house look haunted. Had the Grey Lady episode took place in S5 you know they would have all jumped at the chance to help Alison whatever she asked. But this series has a lot more episode focused on Alison connecting with the group like learning about how Thomas died and the Captain's past and Kitty's kinda sad childhood, so it feels natural and heartwarming when they all come together to help protect the house from burglars for her and she appreciates out loud how they're not as selfish as when she first came there. And they all do what they can to help with the wedding, partly for it to be a success for Alison but also just to help. Honestly on my first watch, with the snow and everything, I thought that was the Christmas special! So it lead in nicely to the actual one. Because the gang are finally at the stage where Alison would be comfortable spending Christmas with them and they all come together to sing with her to make her happy, even Robin who thinks Christmas is just a recent fad.

Series 3 is where that leap from friends to family happens and is contrasted with Alison thinking she's found a long lost blood relative, which she confesses is something she's wanted as she never had a lot of family around her. I like that they didn't have Lucy be her actual sister that turned out to be a villain, as we already have an abusive sister with Eleanor, but it still serves as a parallel between her and Kitty to make Alison realise that she has found a sister, and more. Robin saying "welcome home" and the look on Alison's face is enough to let us know this is no longer just a project for her with some annoying pests to deal with. And the final shot of them all "eating" together is one of my favorites.

The show could have easily ended there if it wanted to. Or it could have gone on another two seasons with everything being perfect and wholesome. But it doesn't; because families are not perfect. We still have an episode centered around the ghosts trying to apologise for upsetting Alison, much like a bunch of kids with an overworked mother, and they want to make it up to her not for their benefits but because of what she means to them. Episode 2 also has Alison missing feeling needed by the ghosts when they're busy doing their own thing and realising she just wants to spend time with them, even if it's just something as simple as a walk with Robin. And when Mary passes on, Alison is absolutely devastated and puts aside her work duties to prioritise helping the other ghosts grieve. Then there's her joining (evil) forces with Julian to take on Barclay together. And the series ends with Robin, who began the show just enjoying scaring the shit out of Alison for the lulz, confronting his ten thousand years old ptsd and taking a bolt of lightning to save her husband.

That's four years of development. Compare this to the CBS version where they all click together a lot faster and we don't see nearly as much of Sam losing her temper with the ghosts, and plots always seem to be wrapped up so much quicker (the fact there was no apology from Thor for possessing her still irks me). This isn't necessarily a knock against the American version, their episodes are ten minutes shorter because of ads, and it's more of a style choice as well as Sam just being a far more patient character than Alison. I know a lot of people prefer that the show begins a lot more wholesome to start with so it's down to taste. For me the heartwarming moments mean so much more when they've been earned over a lot of struggle.

Take the climax of Series 5. It's one of the few moments of TV that have made me gasp out loud. I genuinely forgot that we never saw Alison find out Julian pushed her. I guess I assumed she found out off screen or worked it out when she realised Julian's ghost power. But it really was the perfect point for her to find out; because had it happened any earlier then she wouldn't have hesitated to leave with no amount of speech able to change her mind, and likewise Julian wouldn't have had anything to say to her. But as someone else pointed out, it's much more difficult to forgive someone you love for doing something truly evil, even if at the time you were less than strangers. It's a crushing betrayal for Alison to find out that someone she thought as family once tried to kill her but also that the rest of them kept it secret. There's no obligation or pressure for her to forgive them; but she chooses to, because it's been earned over more than three years. And to parallel the S1 finale, the other ghosts are desperate for her to stay (including Cap this time), no longer for their own convenience but just because they love her.

And now we wait in terror for the Christmas episode to rip all of it to pieces. 🥺

[hestzhyen]

Kagurabachi, Family, and Abuse

(This is kind of heavy, so please take care if you choose to read.)

I can't stress enough how much I love Kagurabachi for it's nuanced takes on complicated issues. Legacy, abuse, trauma, and the people involved in these cycles- very sensitive stuff that should be handled with great care. So this manga taking the time to examine issues with delicacy is surprising for an action series where the MC and his foes lose limbs on the regular. The Rakuzaichi arc won me over heart and soul because of how it tackled abusive families in particular.

I don't think it's controversial to say that leaving your abusers behind to focus on yourself is a key part of healing. But when family is involved, that component tends to get scrambled or lost entirely. Somehow if it's a relative or a sibling or a parent, the situation is changed. The victim should try harder to work things out. The onus is on them to find out what's wrong and fix it somehow; become less vulnerable. Even the most saintly, well-meaning ally can fall into the trap of telling the victim that blood-related abusers somehow deserve extra grace. They're abusers but they're also family, after all. Families love each other and good intentions should mean a lot.

We see it all the time in media too. A parent lashes out in anger. A sibling destroys precious, irreplaceable mementos. A cousin bullies and their parents do nothing. Blood relations hit and hurt and do awful things. But family is family at the end of the day, so they come together to heal with tears and apologies. Everyone is suffering in some way but it'll be okay if they stick together and work through the pain. Pan out, roll credits.

Obviously the Sazanami clan was far more skewed towards villainy than what we see in the real world. But the extra context given to Kyoura right before his death humanized all of them. They were abusers who were trapped in the cycle by misguided devotion to familial duty. And now that the cycle is broken, the family has their chance to heal. Braidbro was told to help the little kids and honor Tenri's sacrifice by letting them avoid his fate, so hopefully they manage it. No more slavish devotion to the auction above familial bonds. They can come together with tears and apologies and work towards a better future.

Yet Hakuri won't be there to see it.

In another series, he might have stayed to help after working with Chihiro proved he was strong enough to stand on his own. Hakuri could have rebuilt the family with a new purpose since he's the first since the progenitor to naturally inherit the subspace sorcery. He'd have the clout to do it, being the only one able to ensure business returns to normal. He even landed the killing blow on Soya to prove his resolve and signal a shift in the family's status quo. It would have been even more vindication for him to go from family embarrassment to patriarch, and who doesn't love it when the underdog comes out on top? He could be the one to fix things! But taking over the family would have truly been a bad end for him- proof that he was still trapped.

Because what could possibly make up for what Hakuri endured all that time? No amount of crying and saying sorry and promising to do better heals an abuse victim. Braidbro and Sazasis could make sure he's waited on hand and foot for the rest of his life but the damage was done long ago. The emotional pain lingers far longer than the broken bones and torn skin. Even if Soya was the only one going so far as to use peelers and pliers on him, Hakuri was abused by all of them. They all agreed -implicitly or tacitly- to ostracize him and give him the worst jobs. We saw him getting ganged up on to be kicked and gut-punched. Kyoura wasn't the only one to deliberately look away. Hakuri's torture was a family affair.

So to see him walk free of it all makes my heart soar. Because Hokazono fucking gets it. The victim shouldn't be on the hook to lead the reform effort once the situation is exposed. They shouldn't even have to participate in group therapy. In order to truly heal, they need to leave. And Hakuri choosing to do so was framed as the best possible thing he could have done in the moment, thank god. No "but they're still family" guilt tripping from the author here. Hell, Hokazono even went out of his way to make sure Shiba gave Hakuri a clear out. Fuck rehabilitating abusive families thanks to the victim's hard work. Fuck glorifying victims becoming irreproachable ubermensches to stop "inviting" abuse. And a flying fuck off to giving the family the benefit of the doubt by waiting around to witness the improvement process. Hakuri is finally free to move on without looking back, as is every victim's right.

Kagurabachi went above and beyond my expectations for having this be the culmination of his arc. I was a bit worried that a story so strongly focused on family bonds would fall into the same pitfalls as many before it. I've been burned by authors mishandling familial abuse with "family above all" messaging way too many times. But we saw that dumbass mindset blatantly and thoroughly deconstructed into fine particulate matter at the end of the Rakuzaichi arc. And it's really sold me on Hokazono's ideals and storytelling in a way that the Sojo arc didn't.

This manga is more than just flashy sword fights and considering how best to honor and interpret family legacies now. Sometimes, families and their legacies are in fact too toxic to be allowed to continue. And thank god the abused kid doesn't have to be the one to help the family fix their shit after it all comes crashing down. I hope future arcs continue to showcase this level of sensitivity and care for the different types of pain the characters are going through.

[partyinthemysterymachine]

well step right up step riiiiiight up bcuz BOYY do i got a deal for YOU!!!

but again, BE FOREWARNED: this an unedited, impromptu Eddie profile i did on a Silent Hill FB group back in early 2020. it's been [checks bare wrist] four years since then. this was just a basic skeleton of ideas on Eddie as a canon character in SH2, and written as a response to someone on said SH FB group trying to claim Eddie was a hero and an innocent, and was totally justified in his crimes.

this was 11pg in gdocs, so grab a cuppa-whatever and a snack, and enjoy!!:

right off his wiki page is stated:

[When he is approached by James Sunderland, he immediately starts claiming innocence of the death of the man in the refrigerator, telling James that he isn't even from Silent Hill.]

so first off, he has a guilty conscience right off the bat. James didn't accuse Eddie of having any part with the corpse and yet, Eddie outright denies it as though he WAS accused; it was his kneejerk reaction. when the scene plays out in the game, you can think nothing of it; he's scared, he's obviously sick, and maybe he was sick from seeing the corpse. so he's panicking, right? doesn't seem that sketchy.

Continuing:

[Eddie is later seen in Pete's Bowl-O-Rama, having a conversation with Laura while eating pizza. Despite the fact that Laura calls him a "gutless fatso", he remains relatively civil to her. When James's appearance causes Laura to flee, Eddie decides not to accompany James in his pursuit of her, explaining sulkily that she said "a fatso like [him] would just slow her down". James points out that there's monsters in the town, but Eddie feels Laura will be fine.]

yes, the pizza is definitely a nod to an eating disorder. binge eating, perhaps, and eating for comfort. here, this reads as comfort. though Laura is mean, he's calm and honestly very good with her, which eludes to a sensitive and caring side to him. as we go further along, Eddie directs his anger towards adults. with that you can pretty easily take that Eddie has no problems with kids, regarding them as innocent. even though Laura is mean, he brushes it off because maybe he figures she doesn't know any better, or simply that she's joking. the inflections in his voice are common of adults talking to kids; a bit more exaggerated, more emotion behind it, and with a question like that, the tonal pitch and fall is also one that's lightly scolding. 'why would you say something like that, don't be like that' has a distinct sound when used.

this is also where we see the first note of his self esteem issues. Eddie is parroting some of the verbal and emotional abuse he's been given in his life - especially the fresh one. Laura called him a "gutless fatso" and he immediately calls himself a "fatso" in a mocking tone. every instance of this abuse is internalized. that sucks, and it hurts. James seems appalled that Eddie would just let Laura run free, and considering that Eddie and Laura arrived together, he probably got a good understanding of her then. she's a very independent girl. he figures she can fend for herself.

on THAT note too, that they arrived together: Laura is seen kicking Eddie in the beginning sequence. again, he doesn't react in anger; it's like a little sister bullying a big brother. (and outright, yes, Laura is a bully.) from what we can glean off Eddie, it doesn't seem like he has any qualms towards women. Laura is a snotty, independent little girl and he respects her. also he doesn't value himself a very good guardian. again, he's been beaten down by people and life in general, so this is understandable that he doesn't think he'd be worthy of going along with her.

doesn't seem too bad, right? you can empathize? good. you're not meant to see every character as downright bad, zero relatable characterization, nothing good to say about them. (something i will get to towards the end. and this is gonna be a lot, so hang tight.) characters, like people, are not black and white. they're a whole painter's catalogue of grey. no one is entirely innocent nor guilty. and Eddie, while he's had a whole host of problems and downfalls and stuff he probably didn't deserve in his life, is not a martyr, and is NOT to be considered someone who also didn't deserve to be in Silent Hill.

going on:

[Somehow, Eddie inexplicably reappears deep underground in Toluca Prison's cafeteria, slumped against the door and muttering to himself about how killing a human is "no big deal" and "you just put a gun to their head... POW!" There is yet another corpse lying on one of the cafeteria tables, but this time, Eddie attempts to justify his actions to James, claiming that the man "had it coming" and that he "was making fun of me with his eyes". When James refuses to accept Eddie's reasoning, Eddie nervously laughs and jokes that the corpse was already there when he arrived. He then leaves James to explore the prison by himself. A grave with his name on it, next to James's and Angela Orosco's, can be found in a graveyard later on.]

what we discover about Eddie is that he has a lot of anger management problems. he also shows signs of psychosis, which a SYMPTOM of mental illness (and NOT directly schizophrenia; psychosis goes along with many variations of mental illness) and psychosis "include(s) delusions, hallucinations, talking incoherently, and agitation. The person with the condition usually isn't aware of his or her behavior."

we begin to see this here. he goes from confident yet empty, intent to harm, murderous tendencies ("he had it coming" points to this) - then directly to sniveling, trying to justify himself, trying to make HIM look like the victim. "he was making fun of me with his eyes!" and when James rebuffs that, he tries to laugh it off. he clearly meant it. "you can't just kill somebody just because of the way they looked at you!"

"well, why not?"

yeah. why are you asking that, Eddie? he has a lot of anger inside him due to the abuse, and he's also beginning to project and delude himself into believing he had full right to murder someone for supposedly eyeballing him out of malice. there's no evidence. we don't know how long that body's been dead. for all we know, Eddie acquired a gun and shot a dead body because Eddie believed that a corpse made fun of him. he's sitting there on the floor talking senselessly about it to himself. he's got a wild look in his eyes - the kind of wild that's present in excitement. whether he actually killed someone or shot a corpse, he felt GOOD about it. that was a release. that wasn't any big deal! look how easy that was! that felt good!!

Eddie expected to feel bad about killing someone. a lot of people become VERY disturbed after having killed someone. this is one of the worst immoral acts, something that will stay with a person forever. one will always remember their first human kill. it's haunting. you're not supposed to revel in it, and if someone does, that's a huge, enormous, galaxy-sized red flag.

Eddie is reveling in it. it's no big deal. that was easy. he can do it again. actually? he'd like to do it again.

Eddie refuses to take responsibility for his actions. it wasn't his fault, he (the corpse) MADE him do it! you hear that a lot with children, immaturity, and people who don't want to take responsibility/face consequences of their actions, right? we start to see how immature Eddie is. he also displays sharp mood swings here. "I'm a god" to "no no no it's not me, it's them! please believe me!" there is no justification for whatever he did, and the fact that he feels the need to defend himself over it is a sign of manipulation, guilt (yes, guilt; and guilt can be a good thing. maybe he feels guilty that he did it, all of a sudden. OR - maybe he feels guilty that he was caught, or guilty that he was reprimanded. guilt does not automatically mean that he has a conscience and truly feels bad about it. someone feeling guilty for being caught is a red flag for being detached from empathy, for the only person he feels sorry for is himself), and blaming.

everyone is wrong except for Eddie.

Eddie leaves, suddenly confident again. he rather flippantly says, "Anyway, I gotta run!" and when James expresses concern about him going alone, he hauntingly says, "Yeah."

so there's another mood swing. he's gone through two or three mood swings in perhaps less than two minutes. depraved to pitiful to depraved again. i use depraved because of his arrogance. these acts were done with malicious, murderous intent. he made the decision. mental illness absolutely plays a factor here in "convincing" him to do it. that's not to say there are voices in his head telling him to do it, no. but with mental illness, a person is very susceptible to delusions and falling hard into them; they can't see any other side of a problem, this is the only thing to do, the blinders are put on and vision tunneled. mental illness is grave. mental illness also doesn't excuse him from his crimes.

after learning about Eddie later, coming back to this scene is even more interesting. Eddie's been bullied, right. in here, he's making his stand. he's defending himself. he's the hero now! everyone's getting their just deserts; how's that feel? obviously this is more outwardly shown at his boss fight, where the thread snaps for good, but here, it serves as foreshadowing.

he got cocky after killing someone for making fun of him. man. that feels really good, especially since he's daydreamed about it, probably had all these speculative plans about HOW he'd deal with someone/the next person to disrespect him like that. y'know, arguments we all have in the shower with that cashier five years ago. except Eddie's is actually violent, and he absorbs it like a sponge. he LOVES visualizing himself as the hero here, beating people to a pulp, putting a gun to their head and making them beg for their miserable lives. he wants to see someone piss themselves and blubber because they never expected HIM to have the upper hand - much less hold their goddamn lives in his palm!

this was a huge ego boost. this fed in to his delusions. he enacted a daydream. now he can go out there alone. he can do anything. he's a big hot shot.. except that he's also an enormous coward that crumbles the moment James confronted him.

this behavior is something i've already mentioned, so i'll reiterate: he's determined to make sure James knows it isn't his fault; he's guilty for being caught; he's guilty that he's PERCEIVED to be guilty, he's making excuses so he's not the bad guy. i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that there HAVE been instances in his past where he was NOT at fault. there may have been events that FRAMED HIM and he had to take the blame.

maybe this is a reflection of that. he's begging James to believe him because many others hadn't. he NEEDS James to believe him, EVEN THOUGH he admits to his crime in the next breath. i'm not going to deny that Eddie's a victim. there've been a lot of problems in his past and he is a victim. in his mind he has to get out of this predicament right away scot-free because he wasn't in the wrong, he didn't do it, he was framed (by the guy that was looking at him funny), and it seems to me he's unable to differentiate when a situation has been pinned on him to take the downfall for, and when HE is actually at total fault for something that he did.

small note on the grave with his name on it: blatant foreshadowing. i have other thoughts on this, but we're just getting to the good part:

[In the end of the labyrinth, James is allowed to step into Eddie's Otherworld, which appears to take on the form of a meat locker and he perceives everyone to be laughing, ridiculing, and sneering at him. It is dark, bitterly cold, frosted over, and huge lumps of meat that are shaped like overweight human bodies dangle from meat-hooks. The meat locker presumably represents Eddie's cold detachment from reality and his lack of remorse in killing people, as well as being mocked as overweight and perhaps gluttonous.]

this seems pretty straightforward. more psychosis, more mental fraying. the huge lumps of meat sure do resemble Eddie, gotta say.. so you can also say that this is how he sees himself. how he thinks other people see him, just a fat clump of meat, nothing more, nothing less. he's just a glob of meat.

this is also how he probably has started to see other people: just meat. nothing more.. nothing less. because killin' a person ain't no big deal. he's removed humanity from himself and humanity from other people. they're not living. it doesn't matter. people aren't as valuable as everyone thinks they are. it's no big deal because there's nothing TO be a big deal about. to him, people aren't people anymore. he's lost touch with reality. he's lost his empathy. he's a shell full of hatred, spite, and malicious intent.

he's had a lot of shit slung at him, and it does not give him any right to be violent. full stop. self defense is a different shelf, different jar. outright, cold blooded violent acts spurred on by bottled hatred and trauma gives him zero support or reason to do that. he may be a victim, but that does not remove him from justification or innocence.

[James asks Eddie what he's doing, as there is yet another corpse by him on the floor. Eddie begins angrily venting, recounting all of the verbal abuse he's received from others throughout his life. Eddie claims that someone's intelligence and physical appearance are rendered meaningless once they are dead as a corpse can't laugh, and that he is willing to kill anyone who ridicules him. James tries to reason with Eddie, but Eddie's growing insanity, paranoia and insecurity causes him to translate James's reasoning into insults, especially after James unwisely asks Eddie if he's "gone nuts". Eddie's paranoia convinces him that James was always laughing at him behind his back, causing him to attack by shooting James non-fatally in the shoulder with his revolver.]

and there it's proven. he's again parroting what he's been hearing all his life. he's been called stupid, ugly, gross - things that are assumed of him because of how he looks. he's not conventionally attractive. he's a slob. he's overweight. Eddie appears to be in his late twenties and he's dressing like a frat boy. so he's trying to dress younger and be accepted and seen as cool for what he wears. none of it's working. he's a joke.

he's also immature. this doesn't help his case against bullying. Eddie's probably reduced himself socially and mentally all his life to try to fit in. maybe he's tried to be the funny guy; maybe he's tried to be the funny guy that'll drink that weird, gross glass that everyone contributed to, the guy you can tell to go dive into a dumpster to get something as a dare and everyone just laughs. Eddie's been used and manipulated. he's an idiot. he's socially stunted. his peers, and probably his home life, has been abhorrent and unacceptable, and no, he probably wasn't always like this. people and environment made him this way.

or so he likes to think.

i don't believe, even in all his shitty life, others "made" him this way. he was greatly influenced. you can point blame to a shitload of people and list off their offenses. people have a large hand in shaping another person - but it's up to that particular individual to grow outside of it, seek help, evolve, become more than their abuse and trauma.

psychosis again in the paranoid delusions. he's ramping himself up. a lot of murders happen after the murderer "psyches" themselves up - it's needed. though Eddie is rapidly spiraling, you can see the last granule of someone who may not want to do this, after all; even after he proclaimed "killing a person ain't no big deal". we don't know what Eddie was doing or thinking between then and now. maybe he was battling with himself. boasting. conjuring more scenes in his head of him taking out a whole flock of people willy nilly and ha ha, look at them, who're the idiots now? or maybe he was wrestling with what he did; how could he do that, he feels sick, no way, it doesn't feel so good after all. back and forth back and forth swing high swing low. no middle ground. one extreme or the other, and the malicious extreme has won out.

but that was a last ditch effort to see if he could bounce back. and he can't.

also, James is a fucking moron.

James is a goddamn fucking moron.

what we've deduced from James after all this time is that this guy is absolutely fried. he's not all there, he's emotionally dead, he has no idea how to handle his or anyone else's problems or emotional needs. James is callous and insensitive, and probably mostly out of emotional and general ignorance.

he's facing a guy who is on his very last shit, dancing on hot glass, waving a pistol around, spewing vitriol, clearly hateful and fragile and frenzied, and what does this absolute idiot do?

he asks Eddie if he's gone nuts. like the excerpt said, Eddie's already been skewing James's words into insults. this is the last straw. nobody wants to be accused of being crazy. that's an enormous slander. Eddie feels truly attacked there, and understandably so, because he kind of was attacked. James thinks he's sounding concerned. he's, again, shocked by Eddie's ranting and implications. he's probably scared and worried about Eddie (though likely more for himself, but this isn't a James dissection).

Eddie, however, has no ear for anything but insult. as stated, he now believes that James has been laughing at him all along, he's never been on his side, he's never cared about all that he's been through. paranoid delusions, ding ding ding! so naturally you gotta shoot a guy about it, right?

Eddie fully turns on James and makes good on his promise that he'd kill the next person who makes fun of him. and he's a bad shot even at near point-blank range. who'da thunk.

maybe he also oughta think about getting a job as a Stormtrooper.

[In a larger adjacent meat locker, Eddie continues his venting. Eddie admits he ran away after killing a bully's dog, and mentions that the dog tried to chew its own guts out as it was dying curled into a ball. Eddie mentions he had fun killing the dog, and says he was amused when he shot the bully and the bully cried more than the dog, showing that Eddie now assumes the role of despot. James asks Eddie if he thinks it's okay to kill people and says that Eddie needs help, and Eddie tells James to quit his holier-than-thou attitude.]

one of the first telltale signs of a possible future murderer or serial killer is if they tortured/killed animals in their childhood. we don't actually know this about Eddie. the only thing we do know is that he killed a bully's dog and he relished and laughed and enjoyed it, especially when it suffered so badly. that's not something that people with humanity do. that's someone who's beginning to lose all touch and interest in other peoples' welfare and lives. killing animals is the first step to killing people.

we don't now if Eddie had any reservations about it, or if he had to psyche himself up, or if it was done in a whirlwind of anger. no clue. the fact of the matter is that he killed someone's dog - an innocent thing, a life, a simple animal that was probably well loved and meant a lot to someone even if it was Eddie's bully - out of spite to HURT his bully. hmmm. no matter how you look at it, it's not a fair trade. that's depravity 101. there's nothing to spin that in his favor.

and he had FUN doing it.

and on top of that - he says he had MORE fun that the bully sobbed over his dog. Eddie viciously retaliated by killing someone's beloved dog, and they mourned, heartbroken, and Eddie had nothing for them but a cackle and sense of superiority. he'd won! take THAT!

where's the remorse? nowhere. where's the guilt? nowhere. was he justified? absolutely fucking not. he doesn't get a pass. at all. ever. cold blooded murder, enjoyment of the crime, exuberance that there was suffering.

"--showing that Eddie now assumes the role of despot." i'd say so! Eddie believes he's in total control now. he's a tyrant. James is an ant on his living room floor. he's very cocky here. and yeah, he does have an upper hand right now. James is in a meat locker with him, he's trapped, scared, disoriented by the way Eddie's voice bounces off the walls and moves around as Eddie stalks him in the meat. it's understandable that he feels like a lion playing with its food.

all this time, they're maneuvering around thick slabs of meat hanging from the ceiling. they're reminiscent of Eddie. could they also be the people he's bullied? do the amount of bodies mean anything to him? what about the covered ones? the fact of the matter here is that he's in a field of death and he's chasing James. James is probably his first live kill and he can't WAIT to taste it, so he's gotta relish it (and monologues about it, as one does. he's probably had a speech prepared for awhile).

re: dog and bully

"Then he came after me! I shot him too! Right in the leg! He cried more than the dog! He's gonna have a hard time playing football on what's left of that knee."

direct dialogue - further solidifies that Eddie's vindictive acts and subsequent satisfaction for his actions were without remorse. he removed a beloved dog and the dreams of his bully. schadenfreude? eehh. dubious territory. did the bully deserve it? no. am i defending the bully? absolutely not. but let's go on.

[James asks Eddie if he thinks it's okay to kill people and says that Eddie needs help, and Eddie tells James to quit his holier-than-thou attitude.]

James is doing some Olympic-grade repression here, but he's showing a moral compass, and actual concern that Eddie needs help. again, this is something delicate that people hate to hear. lots of people take HUGE offense to suggestions that they ought to get help. that means something's wrong with him. that HE'S wrong. that he's CRAZY. and that's bullshit, James; do you even know who the fuck you are? (and an aside: seriously, therapy is good for everyone. stop the stigma.)

"Don't get all holy on me, James. This town called you, too. You and me are the same. We're not like other people. Don't you know that?! Let's party!"

so Eddie knows something about James that James hasn't figured out yet. at some point, Eddie became aware. it's uncertain if that's self-awareness, and maybe it is, to a point. but he's also become aware of the nature of Silent Hill. something called Eddie here. he's not looking for anybody. he has no connections, other than Laura. what does he mean, "this town called you too/you and me are the same/we're hot like other people"? and then he asks him: "Don't you know that?"

doesn't he know that?

James has no idea what that means. Eddie's been handed spoilers. it seems that Eddie knows, not exactly what James has done, but got a very good idea about it. he tries to tell James that he's just like him, because they're fucked up and they've committed the same crime, they're different and they've been abused and life's put them through the wringer. James ought to know what it's like and relate, so what's with the attitude, Sunderland?

but why would Silent Hill summon Eddie? my guess is punishment. just deserts. nailing the last one in the coffin. snap, crackle, pop.

just like James.

i have a LOT more thoughts about the comparisons between James and Eddie, as well as James with Laura and Angela, buuut i sure have gone on. so i'll wrap it up.

Eddie is a victim. i will not deny that. it needs to be acknowledged properly. as i've said again and again, he's been dealt the worst hand in the house in life; he's been mistreated, demeaned, tossed around, just abused all over.

he also may very likely (highly likely) have some mental illness. anxiety, depression, paranoia, among others. mental illness is NOT to blame, NOR is it an excuse. there will be no stigma-based stereotypes and thinking about mental illness here. mental illness is devastating, and it varies WILDLY.

here, going by the assumption that Eddie may have a variation, it exacerbates his warped thinking and ties him into knots and gets him into a typhoon of distorted thoughts and behaviors. if he had gotten help at any point, there's a possibility that he could have had a really good chance at recovery and not been the person we see in game.

there's also a chance that even if he got the help, he would've found another way to retaliate that'd be violent. a bad egg is a bad egg. mental illness does not directly pin that outcome on a person.

Eddie is someone to empathize with. he has eating disorders. he has trouble socializing. he's been rejected by his peers and he's frustrated because he wants so badly to have acceptance. even the little kid who he's kind to is a huge snot and yet he still shows a good side of him to her. good. that's great to see. i think it, again, shows that he views children as innocence. he can't continue the cycle of abuse with a kid; be kind to them, they're still developing. they'll get a better chance at growing up than he did.

and that's the first and last example of empathy we see from Eddie.

empathize with him. a good character is one that you can struggle with. feel sorry for him. but don't project, don't try to excuse him and validate his behaviors for the sorry way he was treated. Eddie was a victim and he was a depraved murderer who ruined other peoples' lives and made them victims to his violent hatred. he is not a good person.

i've mentioned the grey scale before. as you get to know a person - and specifically here, a character - you discover things about them. maybe they seem like a shit person and then oh they're actually not bad, vice versa. the trouble is planting your roots on one side or the other and refusing to budge, refusing for your ideals and opinions to change. that's unhealthy as hell. that's black and white thinking. that's harmful to you and most horribly, others.

the player's opinion is SUPPOSED to swing and change. it HAS to be allowed to do that. Eddie is painted cowardly and pitiful and ohh feel sorry for him he's had a rough go. then his other side starts to emerge. maybe you don't like that he's become this. try to keep the better thoughts of him; maybe because one can relate, they see themselves in him, feel the same way (if true, please start thinking about why you feel like this and consider reevaluating things) and so you're determined to not be told otherwise. or maybe suddenly Eddie's a filthy fuckhead and cannot be excused, and won't hear another word about it.

dangerous both ways. open mindedness is needed. careful consideration exercised.

he's a very interesting character. i like Eddie. there's a lot to think about him. but he is not a hero by any means.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/732112938662494209/its-always-been-kind-of-weird-to-me-that-incest

100% agree. I think the appeal of incest as a taboo in fiction is pretty obvious: people are attracted to the boundary-pushing, taboo nature of it, but they don't ACTUALLY want to fuck their relatives, they're still grossed out by that. but it's fun to watch someone else, someone fictional who is not their relative, transgress that particular taboo with someone else who is also not the reader's/viewer's relative (but is the character's relative). and by definition, there is an existing and likely complicated relationship between these characters that they can build on to create an interesting sexual/romantic relationship. the family relationship means the other person often knows and understands them intimately. there's often some degree of power imbalance. it just trips a lot of wires of things that people find exciting in romantic and smutty fiction.

it's also a particularly ridiculous thing to fixate on in terms of the supposed "real world" effects of reading idealized fiction about it. like, let's put aside the fact that we all know here that antis are wrong about what you get off to in fiction being what you're into irl, and the way they distort "representation matters" to mean that fiction always has a perfect 1:1 effect on how it influences people who consume it. for starters, incest is literally not something that an unrelated stranger can "groom you into," lol. because if they're not related to you it's not incest. and if they don't know anyone in your irl family... how would they be able to groom you that way? second, even if there were some potential that reading that would make you more interested in incestuous relationships more generally, that's only going to be a danger if there's someone else in your family who is already interested in and looking for opportunities to abuse that way.

(which, as a previous ask pointed out, is the only real "danger" of problematic fiction. yes, an abusive adult who wants to convince a teen that it's totally normal for them to have sex with that teen can probably use some fictional adult/teen romance they both like to make that seem more okay, but if they didn't have that they'd use something else. if they didn't have an adult/teen relationship, they'd use an age gap between adults - i've seen people use "well my parents were 10 years apart when they got married [as adults]" to excuse those kinds of relationships between adults and teenagers even though they're obviously different - and if they didn't have that, they'd find some other relationship that involved the characters having something in common with them. "age-gap relationships" are not inherently dangerous. abusers are dangerous, and abusers are opportunistic. shipping a certain dynamic does not make you an abuser. and honestly, probably the best people to put a stop to that are other people in that shipping community who can explain why enjoying this dynamic in fiction doesn't make it ok irl and how their feelings about the fictional vs. irl versions differ. but i digress)

honestly, i suspect that a lot of antis don't really understand what is the real "problem" with incest. they get overly fixated on blood quantum stuff, act like it's purely about the potential for birth defects and then project that same stuff on to couples where that isn't an issue (like same-sex couples, or distant cousins where the potential is significantly reduced). but the real issue is the potential for abuse. and most fictional incest either is an idealized version where that potential for abuse is not there OR if it's fucked-up, that is the POINT. no one was into shipping cersei/jaime in game of thrones because they were under the impression that the twins were NOT dangerously codependent. that was the appeal! it's the taboo of it all! it's that sometimes it's fun to watch people do things that they know are bad for them! it scratches the itch that makes you want to make bad choices yourself!

--

[smytherines]

8 and 15 for the fandom ask game :3

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

I would apologize for the essay but lets be real- you knew where this was headed

There's a few things I could say and they're all sorta connected, so at the risk of everyone collectively rolling their eyes, it's the Owen thing. Or specifically the idea that Owen was always horrible/sadistic/murder-horny/ethically worse than Curt in every way/borderline abusive (or actually abusive, in some takes). I think before the fall they were probably on equal footing morality-wise. That they were terrible arrogant bastards who were very deeply in love

It just. No offense to anyone (God I am bad at choosing violence), everyone is free to interpret things how they choose, art is subjective etc, but to me that theory doesn't make any sense at all. The biggest thing people use to support that theory is the tickle torture scene, and frankly that reads as pretty innocent (relative to them) to me

I don't think Curt knew it was Owen until Owen took the hat and mustache off, but to be honest... he should have. Owen did everything short of announcing himself to make sure Curt knew it was him before the gun came out. If my partner was within a foot of my face wearing a fake mustache and a hat, I would be able to recognize him because, yknow, he isn't Clark Kent.

I mean if you know someone biblically but can't tell its them from a couple of inches away... I dunno, maybe Curt has a mild case of faceblindness or something? Owen is good at disappearing into a role but nobody is that good

(I may have put a hat on and held up some felt under my nose and then got right up in my partner's face and said "hey can you tell its me???" And his response was "yes now please go away")

Owen gets right up in Curt's face several times, then he demonstrates knowledge a stranger would not have (I mean who else is going to know where Curt is ticklish and tickle him with a feather), then he outright tells Curt they have personal history together, and then with Oleg still between them he pulls out a gun and the moment Oleg looks away from Curt he shoots Oleg's knees out

We know that Owen talked his way past 20 Russian security officers to get to Curt, and that MI6 didn't tell A.S.S. that Owen was on this mission, and that combined with the feather I think makes a pretty compelling argument that Owen is specifically there to rescue Curt, and that it was most likely not a mission he had time to plan. They end up having to shoot their way out because Curt isn't quick enough to kill the guard before he can hit the alarm, but given that they are so outnumbered and that Owen talked his way in, it certainly seems like his plan was to sneak in and sneak out. So Owen playing along, taking his time to evaluate things before making his move, to maybe learn guard rotations, figure out who is coming and going during interrogations, I mean its not ideal from Curt's perspective, but to me it fits very well with how Owen is characterized for the rest of the scene- pragmatic, more cautious, but ultimately most concerned about getting them both out of there alive, even if Curt has to take a few punches in the process

Also the idea that Owen was there specifically to rescue Curt works so well on a character level because then Owen's rage isn't only about the fact that Curt left him to die, but that Owen wasn't even supposed to be there. That he was only there because he loved Curt and wanted to make sure Curt was okay, that he put himself in significant danger outnumbered in a Russian facility just to get to Curt, and then Curt left him to die. Post-fall Owen having to live with the knowledge that if he had just cared less about this man then he wouldn't have lost absolutely everything and had to go through "the horror of staying alive"

There's also this moment which, to me, reads as just pure relief that he was able to get to Curt and that Curt was alive and well. This little head tilt fucking kills me

But I digress... so, back to it:

I think he is having fun with it during the opening interrogation scene (they're terrible), but from Owen's perspective I don't think he realized that Curt didn't know it was him. When Curt says he knew it was Owen all along and that his accent could use some work, Owen doesn't say "haha gotcha, you didn't know it was me," (which honestly I think he would if he legit believed Curt didn't recognize him because they are both competitive, arrogant little bastards, he does tease him with the whole "sorry to cut you down/lovely afternoon of letting off some steam" thing so he certainly isn't above that) he just says that the accent was good enough to get him into the facility

Owen is the one to introduce them as "two of the world's greatest spies," so I don't think he would consider random Russian guard Oleg to be any legitimate danger to Curt (which, as we can see in the show, he isn't. With the exception of the punch, Curt is able to deflect everything Oleg does to him on account of being a really fucking good spy)

To me, the idea that Owen wanted to hurt Curt or scare him or humiliate him just doesn't fit with the way he is characterized in the rest of a1p1- intervening to get Cynthia off Curt's back, being concerned about Curt's drinking, trying to convince Curt that he needs to relock the safety barricades to limit the blast. In the rest of a1p1 he is very concerned with protecting Curt and getting them both out of there

But also! To me, characterizing Owen as always sorta like that would require me to ignore (or worse-- woobify) the one character in the show that really, truly knew Owen-- Curt. And I'm sure Curt put Owen up on a pedestal after the fall, but I also think if any person alive knew Owen Carvour it was Agent Curt Mega. He might not be in the most stellar mental state during the show, but I don't think he was so far gone that he didn't know who Owen really was. I think, if anything, Curt was in such a bad mental state because he knew exactly who Owen was-- someone who loved him and cared for him and always had his back, and in getting Owen killed he lost that forever

The lines Curt sings in Spy Again, about how Owen would put his drink down and turn his life around, about how Owen wouldn't want to see him like this and would want him to get his life back, I think those are accurate depictions of who Owen was before the fall. I think Curt singing "what happened to the man I knew?" and "you've lost your mind," and not being able to say Owen's name a single time after the reveal is just as telling-- because he does not recognize this version of Owen Carvour. To Curt, this is not the man he knew, not anymore, and that's why Curt kills him

15. that one thing you see in fanart all the time

Oh god I don't want to be mean because the art is incredible and I think all the artists in this fandom are so so talented and I appreciate them so much and I want to platonically kiss their little foreheads every time they bless us with curtwen art.... but every time I see Curt or Owen depicted with blue eyes I start twitching because they both have the most beautiful brown eyes like please guys please 🙏 🙏🙏

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Cancel Culture Is Real - Andrew Doyle

"Cancel culture doesn't exist!" is a mantra we often hear from its most obstinate practitioners.

In October 2022, the comedian and BBC presenter Graeme Norton suggested that a better term for cancel culture would be "accountability." But is it really fair to harass, defame and ruin people's lives simply for expressing commonly held opinions? What exactly are they being held accountable for? A much better synonym for cancel culture was coined by the singer Nick Cave. He said it was "mercy's antithesis."

Given that the very existence of cancel culture is so often denied, I thought I'd take this opportunity to outline precisely what is meant by cancel culture, and why it matters so much for those of us who still care about liberal values.

But let's begin with that thorny question of definitions. Now, most of us understand what cancel culture means. But perhaps it might be more instructive to consider what it isn't.

If someone criticizes you for something you've said or done, that's not cancel culture, that's free speech. If someone blocks you on social media, that's not cancel culture; someone has just decided you're not worth listening to and is exercising his or her freedom to ignore you. If you've not been invited to speak at a certain event, that's not cancel culture either; no one's entitled to a platform.

No, what cancel culture actually means is a form of public shaming or harassment, often for relatively minor mistakes or unfashionable opinions. It's the difference between criticizing someone for something they've said or done, or systematically attempting to see their reputation and livelihood obliterated. Cancel culture is not criticism, it's denunciation. it's contacting employers and demanding that people are fired because you don't agree with what they've said. It's spreading lies about them online so their future work prospects are diminished. In other words it's a hugely disproportionate and vindictive form of revenge, dressed up in the guise of virtue.

Here's a way to think about it: let's say a colleague has attempted a joke via email and maybe you feel a bit offended by it. Do you have a conversation with them in private and say, "look I think that was a bit misjudged, but I know that wasn't the intention so let's just move on and go for a pint." Or do you screenshot the offending email, post it online, invite all your followers to pile on to the person who wrote it, and denounce them publicly and then demand that the employer fires them for hateful conduct?

Now if you're opting for the latter, I've got some bad news for you. You you're not the good guy here.

"But free speech has consequences," the cancel culture skeptics cry. Well look, I'm inclined to agree. If a person says something stupid or offensive, they can expect criticism, ridicule, counterarguments, even protest. But if the consequences of free speech are that someone becomes the target of a campaign of public shaming and personal ruination, or worse still, that they're arrested for so-called "hate speech," then that's surely unjustifiable.

A common misconception is that cancel culture is simply a matter of holding the powerful to account. The failure of activists to cancel JK Rowling is often cited as evidence that cancel culture is a myth. But as one of the most successful authors of all time, Rowling cannot be cancelled, much to the irritation of those who sender abuse and threats on a daily basis. The vast majority of targets are those with limited means, who don't have the public profile or financial resources to protect themselves from such attacks. This is why the Free Speech Union has been invaluable, offering support to so many people who found themselves at the center of witch hunts.

Perhaps the most sinister aspect of cancel culture is that it has successfully generated a climate of fear, in which many are afraid to express even their most cherished convictions. Once a few high-profile individuals have been cancelled, this can be sufficient to discourage others from speaking out. The relentless and cruel attacks on JK Rowling are driven not by any serious belief that she'll suddenly become impoverished and unemployable. But rather by the desire to send a message to others who share her point of view. After all, who would want to be on the receiving end of such malicious and continual harassment.

And so, the full impact of cancel culture is pretty difficult to quantify. Like "no platforming," which is the practice carried out by universities of denying platforms to individuals with controversial views, most of the targets of cancel culture are pre-emptive. Just as speakers with heterodox views will never know that they've been deprived of an opportunity to speak on campus, many of us will have been passed over for promotions, or not hired at all, simply for the opinions we've expressed in conversation or on social media. We will never know who has been cancelled, because we can only ever be aware of those handful of instances that have been publicized.

So, while the press will report on pop singer Róisín Murphy's cancelled shows, a consequence of her entirely reasonable comments about the dangers of puberty blockers, the supermarket employee who loses his job for an offensive joke on Twitter is unlikely to garner the same attention.

For all that, there have been numerous examples of cancellations that have made the national news. And the evidence of cancel culture is there for anyone who wishes to see it. And although these examples represent a fraction of the problem, they should be sufficient to disabuse those who cling to the comforting misapprehension that cancel culture is just a fabrication of right- wingers. Not least because so many of its victims have been on the left.

And so, to counter the pervasive and false narrative that cancel culture doesn't exist, I thought it might be helpful to provide an overview of just some of its victims. And now, needless to say, this list is by no means exhaustive.

So, in June 2015, the Nobel prizewinning biochemist Tim Hunt was forced to resign from his honorary position at University College London after a journalist misrepresented jokes he'd made at a conference in Seoul in South Korea.

In August 2019, school teacher Christian Webb lost his job when it emerged that he'd been performing viral comedy rap videos under the pseudonym MC Devo in the mid 2000s.

In December 2021, choreographer Rosie Kay was compelled to resign from her own dance company after investigation processes began because she expressed her gender-critical views at a gathering with dancers in her own home. And although she had cooked them a meal and invited the company to her house, some of those present took it upon themselves to report her to the board.

In December 2018, tax expert Maya Forstater lost her job for saying that women are female and human beings cannot change sex. The decision of the tribunal was initially upheld, so she was forced to take the case to the High Court, which eventually ruled that gender-critical beliefs are protected by law.

The comedy writer Graham Linehan has been unable to work in the comedy industry for six years due to his gender-critical beliefs. His musical adaptation of his hit sitcom "Father Ted" has been halted by the rights owners, Hat Trick Productions, who had offered Linehan a substantial sum of money to have his name removed from the project.

In 2018, barrister Allison Bailey, a lesbian with a long history of gay activism, raised concerns about her chamber's decision to join Stonewall's "Diversity Champions" program due to its uncritical stance on gender self-identification. For raising these concerns, she was labeled as "transphobic" by Garden Court Chambers, who publicly announced that Bailey was under investigation. Bailey later won a court case for discrimination.

In 2018, the children's author Rachel Rooney published a book called "My Body is Me," which challenged sexist stereotypes and promoted a positive self-image for children. It was branded as "transphobic" and Rooney was subjected to a campaign of harassment by figures in the publishing industry. Some bookshops capitulated to activists and stopped stalking her work, and her publisher told her to stop expressing her opinions on the subject of gender.

In June 2023, it was reported that Sibyl Ruth, an editor at Cornerstones literary consultancy, was dropped because of her gender-critical views. Following an employment tribunal she received an apology and substantial damages.

In October 2023, Newcastle United fan Lindsay Smith was banned from the football club stadium for three seasons for her belief that sex is immutable, and that men shouldn't have access to women's changing rooms or compete in women's sports. In addition to her ban, she was investigated by a secret unit at the Premier League, who created a dossier on what they described as their "target." They attempted to find a home address, they assessed photographs from her social media accounts, and they even downloaded images in which Smith could be seen walking a dog.

Dr. Neil Thin experienced what he described as a devastating couple of years when he was falsely accused of racism by student activists. Thin is a senior lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh, and he had criticized a conference called "Resisting Whiteness" because it offered racially segregated spaces. He also objected to the renaming of the David Hume Tower as 40 George Square. It had been renamed on the grounds that Hume had written some passages in an essay in 1753 that would today be deemed offensive. Thin stepped back from teaching while an investigation was underway and was eventually exonerated in September 2021.

Also in 2021, the actor James Dreyfus was dropped from the audio range of Doctor Who stories for signing a letter to Stonewall calling for an open and respectful debate on the subject of gender identity ideology and its impact on the rights of women and gay people. The company not only dropped him but erased his episodes from a compilation in which he was meant to be featured.

In July 2020, the children's author Gillian Philip was dropped by her publisher for tweeting in support of JK Rowling. She's since retrained as a trucker and has written that the haulage industry is far more supportive and inclusive, and a lot less misogynistic, than the world of children's writing.

Criminology Professor Jo Phoenix was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after a campaign of harassment by colleagues after she co-founded a gender-critical research network. In early 2024, she won her constructive dismissal case against the Open University.

In November 2021, social worker Rachel Meade was sanctioned by her employer Social Work England because of gender-critical posts she had shared and liked on Facebook. This led to her being suspended on charges of gross misconduct by Westminster City Council. Meade later won her claim for discrimination against her employer and the judge ruled that the disciplinary procedure amounted to harassment.

In June 2020, Nick Buckley, the founder of charity organization Mancunian Way, was ousted for criticizing the radical politics of the Black Lives Matter movement, most notably its calls to defund the police and abolish capitalism.

In August 2020, Sasha White, an assistant at the Tobias Literary Agency in New York, was fired after a campaign by trans activists who took offense at statements posted on her Twitter account expressing her view that gender neutral pronouns were unhelpful to the feminist cause.

In January 2020, veteran television presenter Alastair Stewart was forced to resign after tweeting a quotation from Shakespeare which included the phrase, "an angry ape." This was misinterpreted as racist because he was replying to a black Twitter, user even though it was a phrase he had used previously in conversation with white people.

In April 2019, philosopher Roger Scrutin was sacked as housing adviser to the Conservative government as part of the "Building Better, Building Beautiful" commission. And this was after a journalist at the New Statesman doctored his statement in an interview in order to make them appear racist.

In June 2019, Asda Supermarket worker Brian Leech was fired after sharing a video online by the comedian Billy Connelly which mocked Islamic suicide bombers, even though the source of the offending excerpt was from a DVD sold by the company that employed him. He was later reinstated following an outcry.

In June 2019, BBC Books removed the writer Gareth Roberts from a Doctor Who short story anthology because he expressed his view that the trans activist movement reinforces outdated gender stereotypes.

In June 2021, the textile artist Jess de Wahls had her artwork removed from sale in the Royal Academy gift shop, having already been driven out of her hairdressing salon in the Soho theater. Simply for her gender-critical opinions. She was bombarded on Twitter with vitriolic messages and calls for her to commit suicide.

In June 2021, it was reported that the Reverend Dr Bernard Randall, a school chaplain at Trent College in Derbyshire had been reported to Prevent, that's the government's anti-terrorism program, and this was because he delivered a sermon on why it was reasonable to challenge ideological viewpoints. And this was in response to a training session that he'd been obliged to attend in which school staff were told to chant "smash heteronormativity."

In June 2021, the cricketer Ollie Robinson was banned from playing for eight months due to offensive tweets that he posted as a teenager. In addition to the ban from the Cricket Discipline Commission, he was fined £3,200 and was compelled to participate in anti-discrimination training.

In June 2021, it was reported that law student Lisa Keogh had been investigated by authorities at Abertay University in Scotland for saying that "women have vaginas." Although she was cleared, she described the two-month investigation as needlessly cruel given that it coincided with her final examination period.

In October 2021, the philosopher Kathleen Stock resigned from the University of Sussex following a campaign of abuse and harassment from student activists who claimed that her very presence excludes and endangers trans people.

Ann Henderson, rector of Edinburg University until February 2021, was falsely smeared by activists as "transphobic" and antisemitic and not fit to hold office simply for tweeting about a meeting at the House of Commons on proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act. She experienced a vicious campaign in which the University refused to tackle her abusers.

So that's just a sample of some of the victims of cancel culture.

And if it's true that cancel culture isn't real, it's got a hell of a lot of casualties.

==

They know it's real, because they think it's good.

Until it comes for them.

[unfragility]

my family is not made of humans.

i was born in a severely abusive enviroment, where all i knew was fear and violence. everyday i would wake up terrified that it'd be another day that i'd feel physical and emotional pain, caused by the ones who should be loving and protecting me the most. they seemed to enjoy to take all of their frustrations out on me and my sister, and beat us up until we could no longer move. they'd humiliate us, threaten us and destroy our sense of security so we could no longer ask for help. not that i'd make a difference - everytime we did ask for help, adults around us would ignore or stay silent.

i don't have a family. my mother is a narcisistic, violent and delusional woman who only sees me a source of money and nothing else. my father is completely absent, as he always was (except when he was beating us up), and thinks sending me a "good morning" text everyday can make it up for what he did. my sister... i think she loves me. sometimes she hates me too. i suppose i'm her walking reminder that she was an abuse survivor, and that's all she wants to avoid so she can start over. i get it.

my friends are lovely. they're almost like family to me, except they don't understand how it's like to have no one else. it seems unfair; to look at them like they're my last hope, and to know that they don't understand the feeling, because they have loving mothes, sisters and relatives alike. they have support - i do not. i think that's what hurts me the most, at the end of the day. they don't know how it's like to be alone. and if they don't, they will never understand this giant hole inside my chest.

my partner is a two-sided coin. seeing from one perspective, he loves me, cares about me, protects me and tries his best. but from the other, he's negligent. he doesn't understand that his past makes me insecure, afraid, sad and miserable. if he could just start affirming me everyday how much all of this does not matter and that i'm his one and only, that i'm the one that truly matters, i'd be happy. but he doesn't; he barely gives me affection when i'm depressed. he just lets me be. i suppose if i had killed myself this morning when i took my keys and left without a single positive thought in my head, he would take some good few hours to even notice. he'd be asleep. that's why it's so hard for me to trust him; i have to tell him every single think i need, all the time. i'm tired.

so looking at the bigger picture and making it simple, i'm all alone in this world. i've got no one. no human being can understand this pain of being completely left behind by everyone around me. no one understands the excruciating horror of existing without human warmth and support. no one can feel what i feel, and they never will. and that's the reason sometimes - actually, all the time - i think about ending it all. just putting an end to it, forever. this thought actually brings me peace. i wish i could have peace. and when i finally rest, i'm sure i'll have it.

but then, there's them. my only light in this world. my reason to exist. my will to keep going. my animals. god, i love them. i really do.

how can i possibly begin to explain how much i love these small, unique, kind and pure beings? they're everything i have in this life. it's funny how they're not the ones who chose to be adopted by us, and yet they're happy to be around and feel extremely grateful to be by your side. these little fellas can change your whole day with a single "meow", and make it all worth it.

all of them mean so much to me. their lives, their health, their happiness, their little hearts. when i have them around me, i feel like i have a purpose: giving love and taking care of them. it makes that chronical hole a little smaller, and it warms my chest up from the inside. i don't know, it's like they have this spark of life in them that lits me up whenever i want to end this existence for once and all.

they did not chose to live with me, but they chose to love me, and they still choose it everyday. they choose to be happy around me. to make me smile. to take care of me when i cry, and to sleep by my side when i'm hopeless. they also choose to be tricky assholes sometimes, but isn't it part of the fun of having these little fellas? i love them even when they're bothering me.

when my mom beat me up, i cried to my dogs. when i felt desperate and alone, i cried to cindy. when i tried to kill myself, napo was there, staring at me like he didn't want to see my crying and cutting my legs while taking random meds. when my ex made me so insanely desperate to end my life that i couldn't move out of the bed, cheetah and ciel were there. ciel was with me everyday after my traumatic breakup, until he could no longer be. when the pain of still living with my abuser - my own mother - hit me like a truck, kiri licked my tears off my face. when i wanted to have fun in the middle of this chaotic and painful life, blue made me smile being silly. and now, when i want to get this goddamn rope i bought for them and hang myself in the balcony, adônis quietly sits on my legs and sleeps like an angel. cheetah watches me carefully too.

whoever you are, if you're reading this, can you understand me? they're the only family i have. they're all i got. i have no one, i never had. everyone left. no one understands. no one can even imagine how it feels to have the unique experience of being completely alone and helpless in a huge, cruel world. and they never will, and this world will never forgive me for being like this. for being born wrong, broken beyond repair. no one will stand by me.

but they will.

[the-stage-manager]

Hey, @paperback-rascal I've got an OC who I think would do really well in the 347th! Tell me what you think:

His name is Wyrm. He was formerly a sniper who served in a yet-unnamed squad in the 212th battalion. He's obsessed with mandalas, he destresses by filling pages and pages of scrap paper with intricate mandalas. He's got them tattooed all up his arms and legs, with smaller designs on his chin and forehead.

He's an excellent pickpocket and an even better hustler, and he likes to spend his leave cheating at sabaac or space-poker or space-darts, and stealing candy from shops. He spends all his money on art supplies, not only because he goes through a lot of materials when drawing, but has a tendency to give out art supplies to younger clones who are stressed or traumatized after missions. He doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, so the stolen candy is either given to other troopers who could use a pick-me-up, or traded for armor paint.

His armor is covered in mandalas, and the patterns are constantly changing. Again, painting them helps him destress, so he has no problem scrapping off or painting over older sections. While his armor is mostly 212th Gold, if he's working with another battalion, he'll trade his contraband candy for paint, so he ends up with a leg plate covered in 501st blue and a vembrance in 104th maroon.

The war is going great for him. He gets promoted, he works hard (he wants to be an ARC trooper someday—who doesn't?) And then everything falls apart. He's captured by the separatists and spends months in a POW camp in horrific conditions. He keeps waiting to be rescued, but nobody comes. By sheer luck, he manages to escape with a handful of other clones, and they contact the Republic. When they're picked up, Wyrm's primary concern is contacting his squad to let them know that he's alive—only to find out that his squad was completely wiped out during the battle and he, himself, was listed as KIA, which is why nobody looked for him.

He spends the next couple of months in rehabilitation—he's severely underweight and riddled with internal parasites—but he never gets cleared for duty because his eyesight has suddenly started to rapidly deteriorate, seemingly without cause, and his hands shake uncontrollably, again, seemingly without cause. Tests reveal that the deterioration of his vision is being caused by an auto-immune disease, but his shaking hands are completely psychosomatic. Unable to shoot and unable to draw, he withdraws.

When I originally created this character, his story ended tragically, either by suicide, or after attempting to assassinate General Kenobi in revenge. But I've changed my mind. That isn't what I want for him anymore.

I've been reading this book called The Body Keeps The Score, and it's been enlightening. One of my favorite passages reads as follows:

"[Describing a test where traumatized children were shown pictures of benign scenes, as asked to tell a story describing what was happening in the picture.] The responses of the clinic children were alarming. The most innocent images stirred up intense feelings of danger, aggression, sexual arousal, and terror. These images were not selected because they had some hidden meaning that sensitive people could uncover; they were ordinary images of everyday life. We could only conclude that for abused children, the whole world is filled with triggers. As long as they can imagine only disastrous outcomes to relatively benign situations, anybody walking into a room, any stranger, any image, on a screen or a billboard might be perceived as a harbinger of catastrophe. In this light the bizarre behavior of the kids at the children's clinic made perfect sense.

Real-world studies are gathering more and more evidence of a definitive link between trauma, PTSD, and auto-immune disorders. The book also discusses the impact of the pharmacological revolution of victims of trauma. New studies are finding that SSRIs and other antidepressants are very rarely effective on people suffering from PTSD, because the source of the problem isn't chemical in nature.

"To my amazement, staff discussions on the unit rarely mentioned the horrific real-life experiences of the children and the impact of those traumas on their feelings, thinking, and self-regulation. Instead, their medical records were filled with diagnostic labels: "conduct disorder" or "oppositional defiant disorder" for the angry and rebellious kids; or "bipolar disorder". ADHD was a "comorbid" diagnosis for almost all. Was the underlaying trauma being obscured by this blizzard of diagnoses?"*

"Trauma victims cannot recover until they become familiar with and befriend the sensations in their bodies. Being frightened means that you live in a body that is always on guard. Angry people live in angry bodies. The bodies of child-abuse victims are tense and defensive until they find a way to relax and feel safe. In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.

In my practice I begin the process by helping my patients to first notice and then describe the feelings in their bodies—not emotions such as anger or anxiety or fear but the physical sensations beneath the emotions: pressure, heat, muscular tension, tingling, caving in, feeling hollow, and so on. I also work on identifying the sensations associated with relaxation or pleasure. I help them become aware of their breath, their gestures and movements.

All too often, however, drugs such as Abilify, Zyprexa, and Seroquel, are prescribed instead of teaching people the skills to deal with such distressing physical reactions. Of course, medications only blunt sensations and do nothing to resolve them or transform them from toxic agents into allies.

The mind needs to be reeducated to feel physical sensations, and the body needs to be helped to tolerate and enjoy the comforts of touch. Individuals who lack emotional awareness are able, with practice, to connect their physical sensations to psychological events. Then they can slowly reconnect with themselves."

That is not, of course, to say that medications shouldn't be used at all; they can help lessen the intensity of emotions, making the process of healing less traumatic. After all, it's easier to learn to walk again, if the prosthetic isn't actively causing you pain. However, medication alone is not effective in treating trauma.

I think Wyrm would make an excellent member of the 347th, who specializes in advocating for and treating traumatized soldiers. He specializes in soldiers with anger-management problems, dissociation, self-mutilation. With some training, he could be an excellent mind healer, and he could be invaluable when it comes to treating patients who suffer from psychosomatic illnesses.

Consider this Wyrm's application to join your battalion. I just like the world you've created and I'd like to be a part of it.

[hjellacott]

Tumblr wouldn't let me respond to you so here it goes @oswalish #oswalish since you've blocked me.

"Adamantly". Well all I'm doing is staying in a fandom that has meant a lot to me since I learned to read, that promotes love, respect for people, friendship, standing up for what you believe in, confronting injustice and hatred, and diversity, sending messages such as we're all better because we come in all colours, forms, shapes and sizes, and we're all valuable, special and have a place in history. I know that if any of my money goes to J. K. Rowling, it'll go straight into organisations such as Lumos, which protects institutionalised children and helps them find a forever, or into Beira's Place, which helps victims of sexual abuse, or perhaps into donations Rowling makes to help women in oppressed countries such as Afghanistan to get them lawyers if they've been imprisoned, and be freed and sent back home, or into donations Rowling makes to help Ukrainian refugees, and so on. Or perhaps my money will go to Volant Charitable Trust, which uses its annual budget to combat poverty and social inequality, with a particular emphasis on women and children, and which additionally funds major disaster appeals as the focus of the Trust's international support, or into her regular donations to Medicines Without Borders, or into the money she puts in things like when she helped create Edinburgh University's Centre for Regenerative Medicine, or her donations to Scotland's Multiple Sclerosis Society, or The Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic at Edinburgh University. You can read more about her charity work here: https://www.borgenmagazine.com/facts-about-j-k-rowlings-charity-work/ I mean she doesn't have the Order of the Companions of Honour for nothing, she has it because she does so much for so many, and I am very happy to give whatever money I can afford to give to someone that I can trust to put it where she thinks it'll be more necessary, contrary to politicians.

Hogwarts Legacy was a game bought by a dear Jewish relative to me for Christmas (because I wasn't brought-up very religiously and we don't do Hanukkah, but Christmas is more popular where we live). She's elderly and couldn't understand the whole buying it online, so she gave me the money so I could buy it for myself, out of the kindness of her heart, and knowing all the causes Rowling supports and hoping some of my 50 pounds would go into that. And she also did it because she knew my late father, who was such a Harry Potter fan and with whom I bonded over our mutual love for Harry Potter, would've loved to get me the game and remind me of all those days reading Potter together when he was still alive, so she kind of did it for him as well. And I play when I don't work or study, in my few spare hours, knowing some of the money will go into charity, and exploring the world I fell in love with through my dad and thinking about him as I do, which is very especial to me.

People have accused me of being anti-Semitic even though I belong in the Jewish community and actively support it and have gotten into dangerous situations for protecting Jews. People have accused me of being transphobic even though I've been campaigning for transgender rights for the past decade, going to protests and voting and talking to politicians and everything, and am very good friends with several transgender people. But I don't care any more. I know the things I do and the activism that I do and my heart is at peace. And I realise that the people who accuse me of shit without knowing anything are the same ones that do the exact same with Rowling. They accuse her of transphobia because she stated that sex is real and that you can't change biology (which is a medical fact) even though she's supported by plenty of transgender individuals who I've seen speaking out and thanking her for giving them a voice when their own collective is bullying the shit out of them. They accuse her of anti-Semitism because she used goblins in her stories, when 1, goblins are a big part of European folklore (and particularly of Rowling's, since she lives in Scotland, which is one of the places with the strongest links to celtic folklore) and everyone uses them, and 2, even the Jews stand in support of J.K. Rowling.

And additionally, I am not going to let a mob of violent jerks give me any lessons on morality. They're bullying children for linking a fandom or a videogame, making them self-harm and want to die, and telling them to kill themselves for liking Harry Potter. There is no way I'm ever going to stand in support of those people, ever. And they're bullying transgender people as well, particularly detransitioners, and supporting horrible things like transmaxing, or like children having life-changing surgeries without needing to see doctors first to be clear about the impact of it, and when people like me begin trying to inform possibly transgender children that if they have surgery, there really is no going back, and there could be chronic pain and boobs don't grow back, and all those things cannot be fixed later, they call us transphobic as well, even though what we're trying is to make sure people are properly informed before making any decisions.

So yeah, I sleep well at night, my conscience is very calm, and I am baffled at the oppression, aggression and authoritarianism displayed by supposed supporters of the transgender collective. They're behaving like Nazis and trying to give lessons about anti-Semitism. Well, the irony.

[cits-ocs]

I don't use this acc very often but it's 3 AM rn, I want to ramble about my characters. No pinned post about each of them yet, so I'll use this as an opportunity to get people to know my fellas.

We'll start off with Andres and Indah, my two OCs who I've been focusing on a lot, since a lot happens in their story. I'm going to start from how they were conceived and how they are now.

Back in June 2021, I was reading Legs That Won't Walk, a Korean BL that involved gang members and stuff. I was getting angry from it, because man was it just so toxic but I was like, "I'll make characters that aren't as toxic as them!"

Lo and behold, my 2021 design of Indah and Andres, respectively. (Fun fact I designed Andres off of a picrew I made of him. Indah's hair was just bullshitted.)

Indah back then was just cold, not necessarily apathetic. Like the kinda mean sort of bad boy. Andres stayed the same-ish, he's just a mean goober.

So, we got the designs and personality. Now it's backstory time...

In 2021, I was also sort of interested in human trafficking? It will come into play later, but basically I decided their backstories will be darker than the usual. Like, besides domestic abuse, there's going to be actual crimes.

Their backstories were ROUGH, the worst part is I didn't even have a solid story. Just a stupid vague one and nothing ever stuck, it was just a mist. Since I didn't have a story when developing their backstories, the backstories were more fleshed out than the actual story.

Anyways, let's talk about their original awful backstories, starting with...

Andres P. Matay!

(I removed "Cris" in his name since I ended up having a character whose nickname is Cris.)

He's a Filipino, grew up in the Mindanao part of the Philippines. He had a twin sister, but his dad and mom separated and the mom left to go somewhere and took the sister. So now, it's just him and his dad. They're poor, so his dad had to do multiple jobs to keep them going.

One day, when he was like 13 or so, he came home and saw the police outside his house. Turns out, his dad's been murdering people and using their meat for food. Like, the food Andres ate that contained meat? Yeah, human meat. Now his dad is in jail and he doesn't want to eat meat because he's afraid it's gonna be human meat. So he has no dad now, he's gonna be in the care of social workers.

He was put in an orphanage (or was just a squatter kid. I don't know, I had 2 ideas for this part) and ran away, but then he meets his uncle, who he thought was going to help him. Nah, his uncle kidnaps him. Now here's where my interest in human trafficking came in! He's sent out to be a child soldier.

For some context, in 2017, there was actually this thing called the Marawi war. I was pretty young at the time so I didn't care for it, but the basic gist is there were ISIS terrorists so there was a war in that city.

Andres was supposed to be a child soldier in that war, sent out by ISIS. (There were actually reports of child soldiers in the war) and yeah, long story short, shit horrified him. After the war was over, he had nothing, because the city he lived in is in ruins and he has no relatives to help him. He's skilled with guns so he becomes a criminal, ends up as a hitman. That was his bsckstory.

I made drastic changes lol, because it was just too edgy.

Now it's time for...

Mohammed Indah Monanandara!

(I actually thought "Mohd" was legit just the name but it's just a short version of Mohammed... He wasn't even muslim anymore when he changed his name.)

Okay, this one is like, edgy for the sake of edgy. I'll keep it short because I didn't even think of his backstory as much as Andres.

TRIGGER WARNING FOR MENTIONS OF RAPE OR SEXUAL ASSAULT

Indah is half-Thai, half-Indonesian. Why? I was active in this server during 2021, and one of the people there was Thai and I was watching Nanno too, so I was like "hm Thailand seems cool" but I forgot where the Indonesia part came from, but the Thai part came after Indonesia. Also that friend made me his surname (I just checked now and it's actually spelled "Monanandra" but ehhh...). Anyways he grew up in Indonesia, in Jakarta. He was also born a girl, this comes into play later.

He had a normal family and was a smart student. Until when he was in highschool, his father suddenly got into debt with like a gang. They lost money. I forgot how this ties into the next part, but the next part is one day, Indah gets confessed to by a male classmate of his. He declines. After school, the classmate and his friends found him alone on the school campus and... SA'd him. Then he got pregnant. Then he gave birth to a child (he kept her).

I was inspired by the first episode of Nanno season 2. Spoilers for Nanno, but first ep, Nanno curses this playboy guy to get pregnant. When I saw the stuff, the idea just popped in.

After that part of his backstory, it was really just empty stuff? I had the vague idea wherein he gets trafficked too or something, and then meets this gang leader who helps him out, etc. etc. Now he's a high ranking gang member.

In his revamp, I only kept the first few parts, then just filled in the rest of the empty spots. Why did I keep the SA part even though it kind of felt... weird? Because I have a friend who likes Indah and relates to him because of that. So, I felt obligated to just keep it in.

Ok this post is like very long and took me almost an hour to write.

Fun fact, Monanandara is spelled as "มรอนันตรา" and means "eternal death" which is very cool

Part 2 will be the next

Part 2, I'll mainly talk about how I revamped them and how they are currently compared to their 2021 versions. And I'm going to start tagging my posts with my characters' names

[caxyanalysis]

You are

OFFICIALLY

My favorite response out of EVERY NOTE this post has.

Let's dive into this!!! BE AWARE, I WILL BE READJUSTING THE OUTCOME WITH EACH POINT! So know that with every point I cover, the outcome at the end of that point WILL BE DIFFERENT than the outcome of the previous point, unless it wouldn't change it!

A WHOLE ADDITION TO GOKU VS SAITAMA!

First, you said this

One, since his gag is purely his one hit thing, that means his case of being 'limitless' and 'continuously growing' is not a gag, and therefore can be in effect during his and Goku's fight.

YES!!! "Limitless" and "constant growth" are staples of DBZ's fighting events!!! Goku himself is claimed to be "limitless", THOUSANDS of times from DB to DBS, and even in (the dubiously canon) GT.

"Limitless" doesn't LITERALLY mean "without limit", it's a matter of whether those limits stop their growth permanently. A limitless character can be like Superman (literally no limit, he doesn't have to break his limits because there are no limits TO break) OR like Goku (Constantly finds new limits, constantly breaks past them through training and effort) or, yes, like Saitama (no known limits, constantly proving stronger and stronger, but with very clear power ceilings, even if they consistently get higher and higher)

So in a fight between the two, Saitama's ability to constantly grow in power is 100% in full effect! However, Goku is ALSO one who benefits from growth during a battle.

We see in the Tournament of Power (which takes place across 45 minutes of objective time [a set duration, vs timing it based on the relative speed of the participants]) that the Saiyans (Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Cabba, Kale, and Caulifla) are undergoing constant growth.

Goku as a Saiyan benefits from Saiyan Power (various names but this is the simplest). Saiyan Power is broken into a couple things:

Commonly known as "Zenkai Boosts", Saiyan Power allows a Saiyan to undergo significant power increase after recovering from near-death. When a Saiyan loses, you'd best kill them outright or you're going to have trouble later with a much, much stronger foe due to their power increase from full recovery.

Saiyan Power also grants significant power increases from prolonged battle. Saiyans gain power as they fight, and as they take damage. The harder you hit them without taking them down, the stronger they're going to get, and the more hits they take the faster that growth will happen.

We see this in action quite a few times. Goku gains tremendous power from being beaten to near-death by Vegeta, again from his training on the way to Namek being so brutal it left him on death's door for a while, yet again when he gets his body (now broken and battered) from the events with Ginyu, and so on.

We see two recent examples of Saiyan Power with Bardock and Vegeta, first the latter then the former. Vegeta outright abuses Saiyan Power during his fight with Granolah, allowing the vastly superior opponent to batter him with attacks, taking severe damage all for the sake of gaining greater power than Granolah, letting the severity of the damage and the proximity to death bolster his own abilities exponentially, even attaining Ultra Ego as a result of shattering the power ceiling needed to reach it.

The other example, Bardock, happens before the events of DB, but isn't revealed until Super. He shows a deeper understanding of Saiyan potential than even Vegeta, claiming that when backed into a corner, Saiyans can draw out exponential power growth even in the middle of a battle. He uses this very power against his opponent, doing much like Vegeta did, albeit somewhat smarter. He prolongs the fight, allowing some hits while blocking others, intentionally dragging it out not only to allow his body to be beaten and battered, but also giving himself time to memorize his opponents movements, eventually winning with extreme ease when his Saiyan Power began to kick in.

I bring all of this up for a very important reason:

The longer the fight goes on, the more likely it is to be a draw (based on points made so far, will bring this up again later as info gets analyzed) and Goku's personality WILL NOT allow it to be a short fight. Assuming Saitama's growth is (being generous) exponential (we'll say an increase of current power squared, per minute), then Saitama, as he is (haven't analyzed speed or strength with new info, will adjust in future points) would take a couple minutes at most to catch up with Goku, but I don't believe Goku COULD end the fight that quickly, let alone that he would.

Relative time, Goku would toy with Saitama for some time, then slowly build up, showing off Super Saiyan, then 2, and stagnate there thinking it would be enough. He'd play a while, then get serious, only to realize...While he was playing Saitama closed the power gap. Super Saiyan 2 is no longer enough. He's being pushed back. So he transforms, skipping 3 (too many weaknesses) and becoming Super Saiyan God, closing the new gap and creating distance between them again. He'd start fighting seriously, but Saitama's growth didn't stop while they were duking it out and Goku can't seem to end the fight. It becomes clear Saitama's grown again, and Goku transforms into Super Saiyan Blue to gain the upper hand, only to realize they're evenly matched. But while they fight, it becomes increasingly obvious that the power gap...isn't changing much anymore. Saitama's growth is exponential in this what-if, and Goku is taking harder and harder hits by the second, and Saitama is hitting him with everything he's got. Millions of hits per second, each one a universe-shaking blow. Goku's Saiyan Power is in full effect.

Point being, with current info, any fight lasting longer than a few minutes WILL end in a Draw due to Saitama's exponential growth and Goku's Saiyan Power coupled with his transformations leading to a nearly-even power ceiling for both of them, with it fluctuating between who's stronger from second to second, until one or both collapse from exhaustion (in this event it would be a victory for Saitama, as I'm pretty sure his stamina will last longer given Goku's transformations drain his faster than being in base form while Saitama simply IS at his strongest all the time)

Now, second, you said this:

My second point is, for the speed, you said that Saitama’s maximum speed based off the 60 afterimages he created is 0.5x the speed of light which is true from calculations, BUT taking into account his constantly-growing rate and limitless ceiling (not a gag), there’s no really guessing what his true maximum speed is. Estimating his max speed as 10,000x of 33,420 mph could be entirely inaccurate for all we know.

I want to skip ahead a tiny bit and address the timer on the pages you sent, because it'll help the point here, but this is tied to the above quote.

This is from his and Garou’s fight. The timestamp at the bottom, 00:00’00’’00’’’13, would mean 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds, and from here on the last two units are unidentified

If that timer starts in hours, it would be...

0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds, 0 milliseconds, 13 microseconds.

This means they traced out that entire structure in 13 microseconds. Now, NO human could count the number of corners in that, or the distance of each trail between corners, but we can make estimates and I'll be generous about it based on the perspectives.

We can see the horizon curve, so either the moon they're on is small or it's a VERY high structure. We'll say it's a very high structure on OUR moon. On earth if you're ~10 miles up you can see the curve of the earth properly. The moon, being significantly smaller, won't need that much, but we'll say you need to be roughly 7 miles up (being generous, remember?)

So the structure they make is 7 miles high, and we'll say it's got roughly 50k corners, and an average lightbeam length of 1,000ft, per mile up.

That means they traveled 7 miles up, forming a structure with 50 million feet of light per mile, for a total of 350 million feet of light. This means they traveled 350 million ft, or 66,287 miles, in 13 microseconds. This gives us the numbers we need for speed calculations!

It takes 1,000 microseconds for 1 millisecond. That's 76.9 times the time it took them to make that. 1,000 milliseconds in 1 second. That's 76,900 times the time it took. This means they were moving at 5,097,470,300 MILES PER SECOND when creating that light structure.

That is...Okay to put that in perspective as to why that is such a mind-blowing number...

Light travels at 186,000 miles per second

Which means Saitama and Garou were moving at... *puts on glasses, types into calculator, nods* mhm, mhm, okay...

27,405 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT.

Remember...Namek Saga Goku, by our estimations, was moving 1mph faster than 195x the speed of light.

And we assume he never got faster, except for transformations. So Super Saiyan brings him to 9,750x lightspeed. Super Saiyan 2 hits 19,500x lightspeed. Super Saiyan 3 hits 78,000x lightspeed. Super Saiyan God hits 3.9 million x lightspeed. Super Saiyan Blue hits 195 million x lightspeed. SSjB Kaioken x 10 hits 1.95 billion x lightspeed. SSjB Kaioken x 20 hits 3.9 billion x lightspeed. Ultra Instinct -Sign- (there's Omen 1-3, we're using 3, the one Goku would have access to at this point) hits 19.5 trillion x lightspeed. Mastered Ultra Instinct hits 23.4 trillion x lightspeed. Perfected Ultra Instinct (Mastered means usable at-will, perfected means the strongest form of Mastered) hits 39 trillion x lightspeed.

Meaning Goku would HAVE to use Super Saiyan 3 OR Super Saiyan God just to keep up with Saitama AS HE WAS IN THAT MOMENT.

We'll say Saitama's speed has multiplied by 10 since then, putting him at 274,050 x lightspeed.

Goku would need to use Super Saiyan God. Despite SSjG outpacing Saitama immensely, SSj3 WOULD NOT be able to keep up with him anymore.

Anything over SSjG would outpace Saitama at the start of the fight, but as it goes on Goku would NEED to continue to tap into his stronger forms to keep up. If Saitama's power grows at the rate I set before (current power squared, per minute) then after 2 minutes of fighting he would be at 5,640,521,067,077,006,250,000 x lightspeed, or to simplify it and shorten it, over 5.64 sextillion x lightspeed.

That is far faster than ANYTHING that Goku can achieve. Obviously Goku has gotten faster since Namek, so we'll say he's gotten 10 times faster since then, putting his base form at 9,500. This puts his FASTEST FORM, the Perfected Ultra Instinct, as moving at 1.9 quadrillion x lightspeed.

Velocity increases force, and Saitama being able to move 5.64 sextillion times the speed of light puts him as being 2,968,421 (we'll shorten it to 2.9 million) times faster than Goku.

At 2.9 million times faster than Goku, we can safely say he has maximum output AT LEAST 2.9 million times higher than Goku's.

Which means, between his speed and maximum power output...

Saitama would beat Goku

Unless Goku's Saiyan Power kicked in rapidly enough and kept bringing him ever-closer, Goku CAN NOT keep up with Saitama's strength and speed, nor can he close the gap reasonably quick enough to avoid a VERY sudden death at the hands of, who I am beginning to recognize is VERY appropriately named even WITHOUT the gag in effect...

One Punch Man.

And yes, while the author at work will always decide who wins, I love thinking about who would ACTUALLY win the fight, and your addition gave me exactly the information I needed to improve the analysis to be more accurate!

Nobody else gave me such solid evidence to work with for or against either of them, most of it was interpretation and headcanon based on one-off remarks, but this...

This was beautiful. Solid numbers. Perceivable evidence. And even low-balling the situations, Saitama STILL comes out on top here.

I love this. Seriously, PLEASE feel free to share anything else you like, because you presented the BEST debate so far.

Okay, I've been nerd sniped, I'm sorry

NOTE: If you're going to reblog just to say "not reading that" or some other rude shit, DON'T. I've seen so many notifications of people just saying they couldn't be bothered to read it. I don't know if it's just that they don't see how incredibly rude and disheartening that is or if they know and don't care, but either way it really hurts to see, so please don't reblog if it's just to tell me you won't read it.

So let's go through the canonical likelihood they could each beat Goku. For the sake of keeping canon, we'll keep groups/pairs together if they would never reasonably be apart for something like this. Long post below the cut.

So first up are the ones I see that would, without a doubt, beat Goku.

Saiki K

Saiki is an omnipotent psychic/psionic with quite literally every single possible power out there. Now, this on its own isn't enough to beat Goku. Versatility doesn't mean everything, but Saiki is also powerful enough to rewrite the genetics and reality of everything within range, and his range is, so far, "Earth".

So this, on its own, would allow him to rewrite Goku's biology to make him Human. Bye bye zenkai boosts, bye bye Saiyan transformations. And Saiki, with his powers, has no trouble beating a Human of any caliber if he truly wanted to. And for those who ask "Why would he ever fight Goku?"

One simple reason: Goku would sense his immense power, and be excited for a fight. Goku is respectful enough to not force one if he's refused, but he's persistent enough to badger Saiki until he's given a chance. And Saiki, being Saiki, would simply take off one of his limiters, or both, and rewrite reality as such: "Being an alien isn't possible", thereby making it effective immediately that Goku must be lying/insane, and he is, in fact, Human. Easy win for Saiki.

And for those who would argue against this, bear in mind, the funniest way to beat Goku in this instance would be to simply make him weaker than Saiki, and Saiki is a gag character from a gag series, and it's already been shown in the world of Dragon Ball, and again in Dragon Ball Super, that Goku is incapable of defeating a gag character regardless of that characters canonical ability.

Saiki could win without gag character status, but even in the instance of Goku "beating" him, the gag would turn out to be that Saiki only pretended to get beaten, and is actually entirely unharmed because it was the easiest way to get Goku to leave him alone. Followed by a reveal that Goku will still show up now and then to ask for sparring matches, to drive the point home.

Popeye

Gag character. Would get beaten handily, crawl his way to spinach, and then be exactly as strong as he needs to be to take Goku down in however many hits is funniest.

Bugs Bunny

The gag character to end all gag characters. Someone on this hellsite once described Bugs as a "Trickster God who traps us in our own societal expectations" or some such. Like convincing Thanos to remove the Infinity Gauntlet by establishing a security checkpoint with a metal detector and shaming him into cooperating by telling him there's others waiting.

He could beat Goku in a billion ways, and each and every one of them would involve some shenanigan like Goku throwing a spirit bomb, Bugs showing up behind him holding it, saying "Ehhh, can you hold this for a second?" and as soon as Goku takes it and Bugs is off-screen, it would explode and Goku would be a pile of ashes with blinking eyes. Bugs would win because Bugs' gag is that...well, he simply can't be beaten.

The Warner Trio

Gag trio. Yakko, Wakko, and Dot would snark, sass, and sarcastic-joke their way into the scene, and they would spend the entire time poking fun at him, roasting his look, being unfazed by his attacks because "Nice laser show but we didn't bring our glowsticks." and just being too unbothered to care.

They would undoubtedly annoy Goku into admitting defeat simply to get away from them.

Road Runner

Gag character. Would force Goku to chase him, Goku would fire some blasts, chase him around, and inevitably be led right into the path of a blast he fired earlier to be disintegrated by it.

Pop Team Epic

I know nothing about this series except that it is a gag series. They are gag characters. That means Goku is inherently incapable of beating them.

ASDF Guy

Gag character. Could beat Goku with a simple "Hello, Mine-Turtle!" or "I like Trains."

Heart Diagram

Goku was literally killed by a heart virus in Future Trunks' timeline. This is one that has actually canonically already killed Goku.

Chowder

Gag character. Would likely be after S-Cells for some recipe and need to take Goku's as he's "The only Saiyan in this episode!" or some such, thereby ending the fight with a shot of Chowder wearing Goku's Gi for comedic effect while Dahl stirs raw Super Saiyan aura in a pot to hint that Chowder killed Goku for his S-Cells.

Force Ghost Trio

Gag versions of serious characters, and also ghosts. Goku is canonically unable to beat ghosts or gag characters, and these guys are both.

Those are the ones that would, without a doubt, beat Goku.

Now, let's go over the ones that could, potentially, be it likely or unlikely.

Kirby

Kirby is often considered a gag character, but he isn't. He has a very specific level of power, even if that level of power is "fuck you" levels of power. Kirby has beaten Gods, but so has Goku, even more often and with greater ease. However, Kirby has absorption and power-theft. Kirby could, potentially, absorb Goku (he isn't the brightest and Kirby has his unassuming appearance on his side) and take on his strongest form, including its powerup, and given Kirby in base form is likely more powerful than Goku in base form (Goku needed SSJ to scare Supreme Kai, Kirby beats Gods in base), it's possible Kirby would be more powerful than Goku with the same power up.

Kevin McCallister

Okay, hear me out.

Kevin is technically a gag character, BUT. He is not TRULY a gag character. He just happens to be a comedy character.

So he isn't guaranteed to win, but he could still possibly do so. How you ask?

Goku has been somewhat injured or lightly shaken by the following: planet-shattering attacks. Punches that rock the universe. Energy blasts so potent they would destroy entire galaxies.

Goku has been rendered inconsolable from the pain of the following: chest pain and a half-heartedly, boredly tossed pebble.

It is canon that when Goku and the other fighters in the series are expecting an attack or primed for battle, they are protected by their ki, like armor. It's how they're able to knock away attacks that would destroy planets, or put their "bare" hands on plasma energy that would normally burn the skin off you from a mile away let alone touching it.

This is why when Krillin threw the rock at Goku, it left him in agony and bruised him despite Goku being in Super Saiyan form at the time. This is why Chi-Chi is able to injure Goku regardless of how strong he gets.

So, how does this relate to Kevin being able to beat him? It's everything. It's critical information.

Kevin McCallister's entire M.O. is unexpected attacks. You open a door, you see a bucket fall, think it's over, turns out no, second bucket pulled by the first, second bucket is full of paint and open, you're blinded, you get your bearings, you take a step and feel cars, you smirk and step over them only to find marbles, you slip, you land on the cars which turn out to have been rigged to break easier to let loose a single thumbtack which is now firmly stuck in your back or butt. You bolt upright only to slam your head on a 2x4 that was rigged to hang down from a rope when you fell because your impact shook things enough to make it fall from a precarious perch above.

You get the idea. Every time you think it's safe to let your guard down, that's when the next wave hits. So you say "well he would stop letting his guard down" right? You fool. You know nothing of Goku. He would never put his guard UP. This is a human child, Goku can sense his pitiful power level. His strength? His speed? His ki? Weak. Pathetic. Nothing. A scouter wouldn't even register his power it's so low.

Goku never raises his guard to Chi-Chi, or to Bulma, or to Hercule. He does not raise his defense against normal, powerless, non-combative humans.

"BUT KEVIN IS COMBATIVE" No. He isn't. Goku can sense intent, power, and location. But Kevin isn't actively intending to hurt Goku. He's intending to protect himself and his home. He's not actively wanting to hurt Goku, he's just wanting Goku to leave. He doesn't have power to threaten Goku with, so Goku won't pick up on any threatening aura. And while Goku could simply instant transmission to Kevin and do what he will, we're not talking about how Goku could win, we're going over the fact Kevin could POSSIBLY win.

Enough injury and Goku is down for the count. Otherwise, Goku leaves to avoid further injury, and thereby admits defeat. Both cases, Kevin wins.

Shedinja

This one took me...quite a while. I had to do a lot of extra research for this. So, my immediate thought was Shedinja is a Ghost type, so ghost rules, right? Nah. Bug and Ghost type, and they are the physical shell left behind that has been reanimated. So they very much are physical beings, and given their ability to faint in the games and show they are capable of being physically damaged.

But There's a real case to be made for Shedinja beating Goku.

It can learn Ghost type moves, which operate on ghost-logic, and therefore are a canon weakness Goku is known to have. So things like Shadow Ball, Hex, Curse, and the like would all effect Goku regardless of Ki or form.

It also has access to Wonder Guard, which renders it "immune to all damage types that are not Super-Effective". For those unaware, we can actually attribute Typings to Goku's moves based on attributes and traits they share with Pokemon moves. His melee is, by nature, Fighting type, which Shedinja is immune to. In fact, Shedinja is immune to ALL attack types except Flying, Rock, Ghost, Dark, and Fire type moves, which are all Super Effective.

Goku's most common methods would actually fall under Fighting and Normal type attacks. "But his Ki blasts-" would be Normal type moves. You want proof?

Focus Energy is Normal Type. Quick Attack is Normal Type. Self Destruct is Normal Type. Techno Blast is Normal Type. Tera Blast is Normal Type. These are all energy based moves similar to ki blasts. Know what other energy based move is Normal Type? Hyperbeam. Which is almost identical to the Kamehameha and every other beam attack in DBZ.

Those few attacks Goku has that aren't going to be Normal Type will be Fighting Type.

Shedinja is Immune to all Normal and Fighting Type moves. Goku literally can not damage Shedinja, but Shedinja can damage Goku through Ghost Type moves. Shedinja can beat Goku. But why is it not "absolutely will" beat him? Because Goku can also transform his Ki and if he finds out Shedinja is vulnerable to fire, he can and will use that to his advantage.

That's who could potentially beat Goku. Here's who absolutely could not.

Saitama

I forgot to go over Saitama originally so here's the edit that features that analysis. Bear in mind I am saying this as someone who has seen Seasons 1 and 2 of the show AND is aware of some of the events of the manga.

A lot of reblogs over Saitama claim he is a gag character. But there is a case to be made that he is NOT. What is that case you ask? Well, for the sake of fairness, here is how I am handling gag characters: if their gag is in effect in 100% of all cases (such as looney tunes like Bugs or Road Runner) or if the gag is triggered in 100% of all cases (such as Saiki K or Chowder) then they are a True Gag Character and will insta-win.

However, if their gag has failed (such as Wario, or, yes, even Saitama) in ANY case, then it CAN fail again, and the fairest fight is one against two non-gag characters, so we can safely apply non-gag Saitama here since his gag has failed and Goku meets the conditions to cause it to fail again, which I'll explain.

So, first off, how does his gag fail? Well, his gag is that he kills everything instantly in one hit, unless he actively chooses not to. So we can safely say his gag fails if any of the following are true: he fails to instantly kill an enemy with a single hit while intending to do so, OR if he fails to kill an enemy with a serious hit intended to kill.

He meets both of these conditions. Boros survived for several seconds AFTER Saitama hit him with a Serious Punch. It was a single hit that intended to kill...But he didn't kill Boros INSTANTLY with it. Another example of his gag failing, if that doesn't satisfy, is Garou. Garou, in the manga, has survived MULTIPLE Serious Punches with intent to kill. This, on its own, is proof Saitama's Serious Punch does in fact have a limit to its output. It also proves his gag can, and does, fail against certain opponents.

So the next thing we need to look at is similarities between Garou and Boros to identify what they share that could possibly allow them to get around Saitama's gag, or to nullify it entirely. First similarity is that both are determined to have a good, satisfying fight. Boros crossed the stars seeking one, and Garou sought to become a true Monster powerful enough to force every hero, every do-gooder, to unite under one banner just to take him down. They both seek a battle to end all battles, even if Garou's intention is to end it in his favor, not simply enjoy the fight.

The second similarity is that they have incredibly unique circumstances, even by OPM standards. Garou is a man who has always felt love for the bad guy, he looks to the monsters as inspirations, as the misunderstood and the victimized by those claiming to be heroes. He's trained by an S-Class hero, and has developed into a being of unimaginable power in the pursuit of his dream. Very much a true foil to Saitama, who looked to heroes in comics as inspirations, as the righteous and unshakably moral, self-taught through and through and developed into a being of unimaginable power in the pursuit of HIS dream. Garou is, in this way, a reflection of Saitama, the Tails to Saitama's Heads, the dark to his light.

Boros on the other hand is an alien, forced to become strong by his homeworld's unforgiving conditions, developing a level of power necessary to survive and then some, and on realizing he was far too powerful for his own good, he sought purpose, meaning, and when he heard he may find a worthy opponent, he did everything he could to achieve that future, to realize his dream of facing a foe that would give him a true challenge.

So what are the similarities we can identify? Notably unique circumstances even by OPM standards, sharing strong similarities to Saitama's desires or dreams (Garou dreaming of becoming the greatest Monster vs Saitama dreaming of becoming the greatest Hero, Boros feeling lost in life and seeking a worthy foe vs Saitama feeling bored with living and wishing for the sensation of a real fight again), and the desire for a serious and ultimate battle.

Goku fits ALL of these conditions. He is an alien sent to Earth for his protection, grew up in hostile conditions (surviving on his own for most of his childhood, constant battles with Nation-level threats throughout his teen years, constant battles with world or universe-level threats throughout his adulthood), trained extensively until he was the best of the best, has the ultimate dream of a truly satisfying battle (a dream he routinely seeks out by facing down powerful foes), and being entirely bored with mundane life because there's absolutely no challenge to it, not to mention the fact he has the ultimate dream of becoming the strongest, something he shares with Saitama's pre-OPM self.

Since Goku fits ALL the conditions needed to make this battle exempt from the gag, we will NOT be considering it, as Saitama is not a True Gag Character, and Goku fitting conditions for nullifying it means we can assume actual power limits and such.

So let's look at feats of power. Saitama's Serious Side Hop technique allowed him to create AT LEAST 60 after-images (based on the manga panel) which, when compared with Sonic's 4, means Saitama was moving 15x faster than Sonic in that moment (bare minimum). An afterimage like that is created by moving at least 572mph, stopping in each position for at least 1/255th of a second (any less and the human eye can't pick up on it), so by moving from position A to B for 1/255th of a second and back to A, going 572mph between the two, you create the afterimage.

Sonic creates 4 simultaneously, meaning he needs to move to 3 positions and then back to starting position, or go from A to B, B to A, A to C, C to A, A to D, and repeat.

This means Sonic, to move into each of these positions in less than 1/255th of a second, would need to be moving ~4x faster than the speed for one afterimage. That puts him as moving at 2,228mph while creating those 4 afterimages. Given he is capable of Mach 5 speeds (he's said to be hypersonic) this feat is easy for him, as Mach 5 is 3,805mph. I assume, just as it's easier to move at top speed in a straight line than at sharp turns for a normal person, it's likely more difficult to create such consistent afterimages and so the difficulty that makes it his best attack is from the technique and reaction involved, not the speed itself.

In any case, if Saitama made at least 60 afterimages, putting him at 15x faster than Sonic's speed while creating 4, that puts Saitama's speed at 33,420mph just to account for the 60 we can count in the manga panel. This means 33,420 is the MINIMUM speed we can assume for Saitama's max ability. To be generous, given he wasn't winded after doing that and given he was able to react incredibly easily to the near-instant directional changes, I'll be kind and put his maximum speed at 10,000x this number.

That puts Saitama's speed at 334,200,000mph, or 49.8% the speed of light. We'll be kind again and say 50% the speed of light, round up that last .2%

So we have a speed value for Saitama. Now what about Goku? Well, let's look at Goku on Namek, for a moment. Base form Goku, at the start of his fight against Freeza. Goku, BEFORE his super saiyan transformation, was moving at 3.26 (we'll round down to 3) times the speed of light. How do I get this number? Buckle up, it's involved.

The Namekian ship Bulma, Krillin, and Gohan took to get to Namek made it from Earth to Jupiter in "seconds". That means less than a minute, so we'll say it took them 1 minute just to lowball it and to have a solid starting number. Jupiter, when the two planets are at their closest to each other (assuming shorter distance for slower speed, another lowball), is 365,000,000 miles from Earth. This means the Namekian ship moved 365mil miles in 1 minute.

That puts the Namekian ship at a speed of 21.9 billion miles per hour. They made it to Namek in 30 days of travel. The ship Goku took to Namek made the trip in 5 days. That means Goku's ship is 6 times faster than the Namekian ship. Don't worry, the ship speed DOES matter in this, I promise you.

So Goku's ship moves at 131,400,000,000mph. That's 131 billion, 400 million miles per hour. Or 195x the speed of light.

Why does the ship speed matter so much, you might ask?

Because King Kai could visually keep up with the ship. He was able to track Goku's progress with ease, and could see his ships movements without problems. This means King Kai's eyes and brain are capable of perceiving and processing things that move at 195x the speed of light.

Why does that matter? Because Super Saiyan is canonically a 50x multiplier to ALL base ability. Strength, speed, durability, etc.

And Goku, in Super Saiyan, was moving so fast King Kai stated he could no longer keep up. King Kai, capable of seeing and processing the input of vision on a ship moving 195x the speed of light, could not see or process the input of vision on Super Saiyan Goku.

We'll lowball it, and say Goku only needed to move 1 mph faster than 195x the speed of light for King Kai to lose track of him. So whatever value we get, we'll add 1mph to for Goku's base form speed.

So 195x the speed of light +1mph. 195/50=3.9x the speed of light. That's 2,616,900,000mph, adding in the extra mph makes it 2,616,900,001mph. So Base Form Goku moves at ~3.9x the speed of light, ON NAMEK. Super Saiyan is a 50x multiplier, putting him at ~195x the speed of light. Super Saiyan 2 is a 100x multiplier to Base, so 390x the speed of light. Super Saiyan 3 is a 400x multiplier, so 1,560x the speed of light. Super Saiyan God is a 20,000 multiplier so 78,000x the speed of light. Super Saiyan Blue is a 1 million times multiplier, so 3,900,000x the speed of light. And lastly, Mastered Ultra Instinct is a 300 billion times multipler, so 1.17 trillion times the speed of light.

Why did I bother going through all those multipliers? He wins in Base as of Namek saga lol. Anyway, continuing on to strength now that we've established Base Goku on Namek could move 3.9x faster than the Speed of Light while Saitama could only move at 0.5x the Speed of Light.

Strength. Okay. This one is harder to gauge, but we CAN gauge it. We'll go in terms of level of damage, so human level (would be on-par or less than peak human ability), town level (small towns), city level (large cities), nation level (an entire nation, less than a continent), continent level (one or more nations that span an entire continent), world-surface level (the surface of an Earth-sized planet), Planetary (capable of destroying an entire Earth-sized planet), Solar (capable of destroying a solar system), Galactic (capable of destroying a galaxy), multi-galactic (capable of destroying many galaxies), Universal (capable of destroying an entire universe), Multiversal (capable of destroying multiple universes).

We'll start with Goku this time. Goku's punches are, as of the Battle of Gods arc, strong enough to match Beerus perfectly to nullify the shockwaves of Beerus' attacks. Mind you, the mere shockwave of Beerus' attacks are enough to rip and tear the fabric of the universe itself, as stated by Elder Kai. This puts Goku's punches as being powerful enough to tear the fabric of the universe in when he first obtained Super Saiyan God. Why does this matter for Base Goku? Because Base Goku retained his SSJG power, as stated by Beerus.

So Goku in Base, post-battle of gods, is physically capable of punches that can tear apart the universe from the aftershocks alone. This is important to note because Elder Kai could physically feel the shockwaves from the World of the Kais. This makes Goku Universe-level in strength. This means Goku, post-BoG, in Super Saiyan is 50x stronger than what's needed for Universal, while Goku, as of current manga canon (assuming he didn't actually get any stronger since BoG and is simply more powerful due to new transformations) is capable of a form (Mastered Ultra Instinct) that puts him 300 billion times stronger than minimum Universe level strength.

And Saitama? Where does he fit here? Well, I thought this gap would be bigger honestly? But after researching, it seems the gap isn't all that big. Saitama has, canonically, with a Serious Punch, snuffed out an entire cylinder of stars and presumably every planet, moon, asteroid, and more, at a distance surpassing that of our solar system, and with a diameter surpassing it as well. This puts Saitama's power (if we lowball it MASSIVELY) at Solar. He could, in a single punch, destroy our entire solar system, and he wouldn't even need to be serious to do it. It's worth noting this is coupled with Garou's own Saitama-level Serious Punch, so we can assume this level of power is double Saitama's own.

So how do we determine the specifics? Well, he cleared an area large enough to cover, presumably, half the area of stars destroyed in the path of his and Garou's serious punches.

Through future revelations in the series we learn they didn't "destroy" every star in that path, but likely only several were destroyed, and possibly a galaxy, while the remainder of the void left behind was from the shockwave forcing every other star within range into a new position, creating a void in space that all stars had been moved from, save the few that were in the DIRECT path of their attack.

Another theory is that the Serious Punch^2 simply distorted the photons in the area, resulting in the appearance of a massive void, and this theory is based on the angles in the manga and comments made by other characters that paint Earth as the only thing in real danger from the power of the attack.

To be fair to Saitama, where we would lowball Goku, we'll highball Saitama, and say the Serious Punch^2 outright destroyed every star in the area. That level of power would, naturally, have shockwaves that push nearby stars out of the way AND distort photons in the area, resulting in a massive cone of destruction surrounded by a large cylinder of force.

This puts Saitama at, quite easily, multi-galactic level of strength.

But why did I say this gap isn't as big as I expected? One simple thing. Saitama has canonically punched his way into a different dimension in the manga. That means he's capable of brute-forcing his way out of the bounds of his universe. He is capable of physically destroying the fabric of the universe.

Meaning Saitama's strength is, bare minimum, Universal in close proximity. That puts him, strength-wise, on par with Goku, who through training has become stronger than Super Buu (who was so strong he could shout his way out of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, a dimension separate from our own), meaning Goku is also Universal in close proximity.

So...while I expected Saitama to be ~Planetary, MAYBE he'd be Solar at most...Research indicates he's actually Universal, or near-Universal, meaning the fight may not be too far a gap after all.

Goku may have Saitama beat on speed (given recent manga events in OPM, I'm willing to allow that Saitama is faster than light speed, but Goku having as many forms as he does (Kaioken, which he can combine with other forms and can hit a multiplier of x100 on top of whatever power he currently has, SSJ1-3, SSJG, SSJB, MUI) means even if Saitama matches Base Goku, he's likely not going to stand up to his stronger forms).

But on strength, I'd wager they're close enough for this fight to be one hell of a battle.

What about Durability? After all, all the strength in the world won't save you if you're as easy to kill as a simple bullet to the head, right?

Goku has withstood universe-ripping punches (from Beerus, the God of Destruction, and based on comments in the manga he's one of the stronger Gods of Destruction too), dimension-tearing attacks (from Goku Black, pre-Fusion), energy blasts that even the Gods of Destruction were nervous of (from Jiren during the Tournament of Power), and he survived multiple blasts from Granolah post-wish buff, who was renowned for his sniping power pre-wish, and post-wish was as powerful as he would be if he had spent every single second of the next 147 years training non-stop with the absolute healthiest amount of rest and physical care, making him, presently, as powerful as he would be at the END of that time, with the price paid being that he only had 3 years to live as he lost 1 year of his lifespan for each power boost.

It was also clear that Granolah was the strongest in the universe...at the time of his wish. Goku and Vegeta, who were already on their way, were not as powerful as Granolah even with their transformations. They became stronger during their fight with him, and stronger still during their fight with Gas (who was more powerful than Granolah after Gas transformed and mastered his transformation).

So we can safely assume Goku is Multiversal in Durability, as he himself was able to output Universal damage with each punch, and he was able to survive hits from beings drastically stronger than himself.

What about Saitama? Well, Saitama was able to survive the force of the Serious Punch^2 and he was able to casually bust his way into another dimension. So his Serious Punch, if he wanted it to, could easily destroy the barrier between universes or dimensions.

And given he survived the force of two of them impacting each other, I would put Saitama at, bare minimum, Universe-level durability. But given he was able to survive prolonged battle against Garou, who is a Power Mimic and has shown Saitama-level strength, we can safely assume Saitama is BEYOND Universal-level durability, and so we can put him right there with Goku at Multiversal durability.

So what do we have so far?

Goku has speed equal to, in Base Form, 3.9x lightspeed, and 1.17 trillion times lightspeed in his most powerful form.

Goku has Universal level strength in Base Form, 300 billion times that in his most powerful form.

Goku has Universal durability in Base Form, Multiversal durability in his most powerful form (300 billion times his Base Form's durability).

Saitama has speed equal to, at minimum, 0.5x lightspeed, and at maximum, if we highball it, 2x lightspeed.

Saitama has Universal strength.

Saitama has Universal durability at minimum, and Multiversal durability at maximum.

At this point, I'm convinced the speed difference between Base Goku and Saitama means nothing. Saitama's durability means even with Base Goku moving at his top speed, his impacts won't be enough to beat Saitama. At top speed Base Goku may be putting out Universal damage, but he's not putting out enough to actually BEAT Saitama. Only injure.

Making me rethink my "Goku wins in Base lol" claim earlier, how dare you!

Anyway, at this point, Goku would HAVE to transform to beat Saitama. His ability to sense power and Saitama's evident inability to suppress it (as evidenced by multiple characters sensing his ungodly power even while Saitama is completely relaxed) would mean Goku would know, right away, he needs to transform for the fight.

Saitama's durability means Goku would likely need Super Saiyan 2 or 3, or, more likely, SSJG. Super Saiyan God's multiplier to Granolah-arc Goku, after all of his training with Whis and Vegeta, would most likely be enough to beat Saitama. And given SSJG is enough to "most likely" beat him, then Super Saiyan Blue (aka Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan, the form above SSJG) is surely enough, and Mastered Ultra Instinct (a form drastically more powerful than SSJB) is absolutely more than enough to beat Saitama.

And given Goku's mastery over the Kaioken technique, and he's been shown to enter Kaioken x 20 while in Super Saiyan Blue for fair amounts of time as of the Moro saga, meaning even if SSB wasn't enough, given MUI is overkill, it's possible SSB x10 or x20 would be.

The point being, Goku wins this fight due to a combination of technique, experience, and power from his transformations. Given Goku is faster than Saitama and would sense his power as Saitama doesn't know how to suppress it, nothing Saitama could do would be a surprise attack to Goku, meaning Goku would have ample opportunity to react to everything Saitama does.

And given the relatively similar strengths the two bear, Goku would recognize he needs to transform to beat Saitama's output.

And given Saitama's greater durability than Base Goku, and greater durability than even what Saitama himself can put out, Goku would see he needs to transform to have enough of his own output to beat Saitama's durability.

Conclusion: Goku would absolutely win this fight, BUT...I'll give Saitama credit where it's due.

Out of everyone on the entire list, Saitama is the fairest matchup here, and the one most likely to give Goku a truly satisfying fight, given it would be a battle on par with those Goku has enjoyed most.

Kingdom Hearts Mickey

K.H. Mickey has a clear power limit and ability set. He is not strong enough, fast enough, smart enough, or durable enough to beat Goku, but he is just enough of a threat for Goku to actually put his guard up, which is why K.H. Mickey would lose; Goku would see it as a fight, unlike with Kevin.

Crash Bandicoot

Crash isn't nearly powerful enough to be a threat to Goku, but he IS insane enough to push Goku to hostility. Goku would feel the need to put effort into getting him away and that is his downfall.

Hatsune Miku

Goku would assume she is a Red Ribbon android and fight her on assumption she's trying to kill him or bring harm to Earth. He would hit her full force expecting her to tank it and she would keel over dead instantly.

Wario

Everything he could possibly do, the Red Ribbon Army has tried and done better, and they've never beaten Goku. Neither would he.

Sans

Lost to a child with slightly above average human determination, and standard human strength and speed. He does not beat Goku.

And just because you specifically told me not to @ you, have this :)

@that-one-enby-onyx

[the-firebird69]

These people here are tiring and our son is getting tired. He's going to hang on and she is because we've had enough tragedy in our lives with their lives are terrible and they're having a hard time said that he's getting abused from everybody and i stopped doing it. It's demanding things while he's trying to eat and more and it's impossible it's too hard here and not being sensitive enough we're not getting him stuff and I send out orders for that to happen if it doesn't happen I want to have larger groups like he said you learn stuff. His people are a bit happier. They've been saying that things are very tough here it doesn't look it but it is that nobody gives him a break or the time of day that's a problem and Ken is a heartbreaker so jive turkey okay he has money and I won't give him any but just like the other relatives around they're horrible his mom wasn't bad but turned him in I mean how much worse do you want here go to the mental hospital based on my talk f*** you Mom you f****** idiot now we want that time back and it was held prisoner by Tommy f and now he's stuck here held prisoner my stupid neighborhood.

-is really mad and he says they switched your brain and they put the tape on TV in the warlock force himself to do the job and keep doing s*** like that there's a bunch of freaking retarded sheep because it was probably my kids that did it these people are so stupid they put everything out there for motivation shut the door shut the lights and then go to bed. But yeah that's not them undoing it it's them doing it it doesn't look like it gets undone. Looks like you go into the matrix and you come out after being shot you go to New Mexico after going there and you blow up that's all that's what your lives like anyways other than that I don't have anything to look at the stupid movie with or pictures.

Mac says so you don't know and a son says it looks like it's curtains for you... And why don't you make the mattress out of my money so I can write it on fire I don't have to but I can do it figuratively after you blow up and start laughing and it says I'm not going to make it and you don't make it and stuff like that and since you're f*** off everybody tries like s*** you piece of s*** all day long because you piece of s*** all day long so he smiles and says boy did I f******

Truth is is a piece of garbage and he's not going to fix himself it's been a long time it's been around 40 years or something I saw the daughter say over 48 years so that's amazing or it's around there it's a huge number so there's a moron and doesn't care about being one and it's going to end up dead soon and he's in the way of our son getting anything our son says it all the time this guy he knows it or not I know it and they will and it's not so he's in the way and his breathtaking why he says it too I can't get through this one stupid dumb f****** retard program you expect me to go through another three or four renditions then minorities and sit here and roast are you trying to harm or capture my people and tell me about it because you're an incompetent f****** retard Mac it's just not going to happen you're going down I'm going to make sure PS Chris crowell is more powerful than you are and the other clans and more powerful than both of you. So they put you in prison instead of me when I say is they should take you in and fix your brain as a thank you for taking Tommy F out but they know your plan and stuff cuz you keep talking and talking and talking and talking and being rude to people and obscene and doing what retards do like telling them what you're going to do. So that was our son telling him and he's not very happy and Hera was helping too and he's saying tons of stuff really he's a obnoxious loser but the max are on to him and he's a loser car is a lot more effort than let me try this let me try that like Garth. And it's got his mentality sometimes he's looking around trying to pin stuff on people now he's saying it to us all the time it's like why don't you go die somewhere it's too much of a pain for me back then then you became this retard you're an obsessive obscene loser what do you mean what are we going to do what would you do here's this guy running all this stuff was a huge mean piece of s*** just like these retards you have to go and it's not really that far out there okay at all your people are approving it meaning they want you to fix your head or you're out and his spy equipment and I want to explain what it is you stupid s***. Yeah why don't you have more people in there in your laundry mat that you outlawed and what a queer boy response I'm so f****** sick of you you going to give me my $30 again I want my money you little f**** Mike brondr give me my money I'm going to beat you up

That was our son and daughter again and his response is not good so we're going to beat him up like his kid Mike too and toothless mental patient that's something to respect see if he puts you down there and Lord of the rings surrounded since go ahead do the job pick some friends trying to survive that's how you doing in westborough sink or swim I said what are you taught anyways the pla Army. And he lost it and it said nobody says that to me I'm going to die with a stupid s*** we're doing. And here the mental problem too and that's what does the sun was right you want us to come in here is what it says and they're all saying the stupid s*** the ones with the brain problem it's not that many of them probably be exterminated soon along with all these helpless kittens. . Max has a chance and he wants to fix it and don't ask us what the f*** since he's not says the kids very unhappy and needs a little Dough and he'll be will do it and he blames them. But we say is it seems like they're all down here extorting you for something who the hell knows what what he was doing before was s*** like that and most of it is a parallel to raise your attention about Jupiter and Saturn being infinitely more productive than here and I don't think that point came across yet no it did but that's what he was doing he was and he lost his brain is mismatched or something or he can't get it out of there. I don't really care about him and he's the way of our son having any funds more fun or freedom is prison and he is enforcing it. It's also trying to get him to prison his apart retard so he wants to our sons to show that he's making the movies kill him permanently and what we say is that's a sign of a retarding the weakling and we're going to use it because it's free and we're going to put him in prison and you'll see him in prison is in prison with his guys and Shawshank redemption and he's in prison in several other places that you would not believe it like Deadpool they're saying it's Tommy f and it's not well it might be but he's in prison there it's a different character it's clearly awful cuz he's in prison quite often he is saying it trying it on our son and goes there I am sick of them too and the clubs are going to come off this evening routine is going to end he needs a vehicle and we used him up and now it's just an artery piece of s***.

I have to say that our son did a great job for someone so young and daughter he said that she is on it all the time and instruct you guys it is good at it it's true too he's moving and checking and driving and WAMO a whole wing of s*** head falls off the entire head of the beast, and that's the morlock and pretty soon other divisions will be disappearing and territories will become ours huge ones it just started saying no to the school ball whose stuff doesn't make sense there's no choice you want it's 30 bucks doesn't have any money fruit you're trying to extort us down to nothing but you keep doing anyways we're going to f*** you up and we're putting the dirt back in those holes if you haven't noticed we rip the banker out first. And yeah it's because of you and you say watch your step is the back stove on it and we can put your finger in it this is this day him telling our son with this stuff is it's almost like he thinks you're going to hurt him so he wants us to fight you and we are and you don't win ever. It's pretty like a retard and you wouldn't help him change it out you don't want to have a ruler it's a very very huge sign of weakness and having Charles take over his King is a massive side of weakness for all of you and this happens to your leader was a sign of weakness for you guys but you never took the rains been around never took over a group never took over and you just sit there and let your king walk around like a madman saying dumb s*** and ruining the plan of his own.

We're going to publish this word to say but you have to stop mack everyday every few minutes. He wants me to put a request out for volunteers to get us $30 back from Mac everyday and there are a lot of people doing it

Thor Freya

Zues Hera

Olympus