#a foiled by my own hubris | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

genericnam · 3 months

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I haven't made a character study in ages, so I think I'm gonna do that and more, by discussing every single villain from my favorite piece of Anime/TV show in general: Digimon Adventure (01)

This is going to be pretty long, so look under the cut.

Digimon Adventure is a flawed show with relatively choppy, repetitive animation, too short fight scenes, and a generally poor soundtrack inn the Dub (looking at you, Hey Digimon!), but I adore it for the characters and story. Digimon tells a tale of trauma, hope, the effects of loss and grief on children, and what it means to be brave, and the villains that push the plot forward and reflect all of this are some of my favorite villains and characters of all time. So I'm going to break them down now, in mostly chronological order (I'll be using Dub names and info since that what I grew up on and have always used, sorry if that offends you for some reason)

Villain number 1: Ogremon

Ogremon appears pretty early in the first arc as a recurring enemy and baddy. He serves as the rival and foil to the character of Leomon. Leomon gets hyped up by the main characters as the strongest active good guy on File Island, and if Ogremon is his equal, that makes Ogremon automatically intimidating.

However, Ogremon is dumb. He's easy to trick, and not too strategic, but he is full of willpower and fighting spirit, allowing him to tail the Digidestined across the entire island pretty ceaselessly. But that isn't for no reason, as Ogremon begins to work for someone pretty quick into his introduction... Devimon.

What makes Devimon intimidating is his sheer presence, the respect he demands. The entire arc up until his introduction, every foe they battled (other than Ogremon), had been animalistic, or a good person at heart. Devimon himself is pure evil, he has no redeeming qualities, no light in his soul or kindness in his heart.

Devimon uses his Black Gears and Hand of Evil to brainwash and torture countless digimon across File Island, and his gears are so spread through the island that he can control the very land itself.

Unlike Ogremon, who is gullible and somewhat cowardly, Devimon is a cunning monster. Devimon tricks and manipulates the Digitdestined, brainwashes Leomon twice, and easily beats all of their Digimon when they finally fight him.

The only reason Devimon lost is because of the way Angemon fights. As revealed in 02, the Hand of Fate's power increases the more evil your opponent is, and Devimon is just so pure evil that it was a oneshot.

While Ogremon was there as a brute force enemy, Devimon is the first of many insurmountable terrors that really shows the Digidestined how small they really are in the grand scheme of things...

Moving on to one of my favorite characters of all time, and the second arc villain: Etemon!

Etemon is goofy, that much is never hidden. He's a monkey that does an Elvis impression and rides around in a trailer performing music for his bumbling minions, but Etemon serves as a lesson that not every dangerous foe is so obviously dangerous. Etemon has a monopoly of the Desert of Server thanks to his Dark Network.

The Digital World uses a lot of crossovers from the real internet, and the Dark Network seems to be an embodiment of THE Dark Web. And Etemon controls it. The Dark Network allows Etemon to see just about anywhere and to take away the power that the Digidestined rely upon to survive: their digivolution.

Etemon is seemingly average on his own, but his true power comes in his coordination. Etemon's army is spread out, but it is powerful, and he can arrive just about anywhere with great speed thanks to how he sees everything there is to see. Piximon's hidden forest is the only place Etemon doesn't really have eyes.

Etemon serves as the mirror foil to Tai. While Tai is the Digidestined of Courage, Etemon represents hubris and arrogance. This leads Etemon to push a lot of Tai's character arc into place.

Now, once the Digidestined infiltrate Etemon's pyramid and get tricked by Datamon, Etemon shows up, and all seems lost. Datamon was the only digimon who was even close to Etemon's level, and he goes down pretty quick, but it's what Datamon does that really gives Etemon all of his best clout. Datamon fills the Dark Network with viruses that will make it destroy and consume everything they touch, before dropping himself and Etemon into it.

This seems to beat him, but NO. Etemon is too AMAZING to go out like a chump (or at least, that's what he thinks). Etemon bends the Dark Network to his will and instead fuses with it, becoming Etemon Chaos Mode

When Etemon is finally defeated, his sheer power rips a whole in reality that sends Tai and Agumon back to Earth, leading to the whole reason DemiDevimon is able to sew chaos amongst the others. But at least Etemon's gone for good, right?

Anyways, Etemon looks and acts goofy, but that's because he's strong enough that he has nothing to fear in the slightest!

Next up is DemiDevimon!

DemiDevimon isn't strong, or intimidating in the slightest. In fact, he's rather bumbling, but what DemiDevimon is good at is making other people better. Out of all the characters in the Digidestined, DemiDevimon is a major player in the arcs of Sora, T.K., Izzy, and to a lesser extent, Mimi and Matt. DemiDevimon doesn't have a whole lot going for himself, but he excells at making others look good, such as his boss...

Say hello to Myotismon...

Myotismon is THE strongest Digimon in the world at the time of his introdction. Other characters eventually become stronger, but before Megas get involved, no one was better than Myotismon. He was part of the exclusive club of characters who got TWO signature moves, which include his Crimson Lightning and Grizzly Wing.

Myotismon is unique from other villains in just how well put together his plan and army is. Devimon had Ogremon and mind control, and Etemon has a good group of lackeys, Myotismon has a veritable army with enough firepower to conquer the entire city and kidnap 99.9% of its inhabitants within days.

What makes him even more fearsome is his personal feats. Myotismon is the character who really steps up the tone, killing several of his own minions on screen when they begin to turn on him or fail. But perhaps his greatest feat is that he got Gatomon to work for him.

Gatomon is a Digidestined Digimon, and the embodiement of LIGHT itself. Throughout the series, Light has regularly been shown to be the second strongest of all the elements, only behind Hope. Myotismon was powerful enough, EVIL enough that he sucessfully tortured the embodiement of all Light into being his right hand woman.

And when every member of the Digidestined team up to beat him, Myotismon reveals that he's done all of this in a weaker host, and he reveals his TRUE form: Venommyotismon.

Venommyotismon is a Kaiju, and the first Mega level digimon in the series. He can very reasonably be argued to be the 3rd or 4th strongest Digimon in the entire show, depending on how you think he'd do against characters like MagnaAngemon and Piedmon. To beat him, the Digidestined had to activate the prophecy in order to unlock their own Megas, and it took a 2 on 1 for Venommyotismon to finally go down. This undead vampire king really just was That Guy.

And yet, he's not the strongest villain in the series...

Moving on, we have the Dark Masters!

The Dark Masters consist of four Digimon:

MetalSeadramon

Puppetmon

Machinedramon

and their leader, Piedmon.

The Dark Masters took over the entire digital world while the Digidestined were off fighting Myotismon, and they tore reality to pieces, reshaping the entire world into Spiral Mountain, a giant mountain of four zones, each ruled by one Dark Master, with their castle sitting on the peak.

The Dark Masters are the first digimon to use the power of teamwork in battle, and it really shows. They mop the floor with the Digidestined, and if not for Piximon's sacrifice, that would have been the end of the series. The Dark Masters arc is brutal, and with every member the heroes beat, it costs the lives of more and more of their friends. Sukamon, ShogunGekomon, Chuumon, Piximon, Whamon, the Numemon, they and many others were all victims of the Dark Masters.

The digidestined are only capable of beating individual members one at a time. MetalSeadramon gets beat, then Puppetmon, and then Machinedramon, until only Piedmon remains.

And yet, Piedmon still wins. He defeats every single Digimon the heroes have, including their Megas. And he turns them into keychains that he wears on his belt.

What finally puts down Piedmon is the power of the strongest crest unlocking its true potential. Hope. The embodiement of Hope itself, MagnaAngemon appears, and sends Piedmon through the Gate of Destiny, a portal to oblivion itself. NOTHING goes through that gate and survives. That is the only way that he could be defeated.

And yet, he is still not the strongest...

But we'll get to the final villain later, first... IT'S ETEMON'S COMEBACK TOUR, BABY!

Oh, you thought he was gone!? NO! During the mini-arc where the Digidestined are battling Puppetmon, it is revealed that within the afterlife, Etemon has been putting himself back together molecule by molecule. Etemon is so willful, and so confidant, that he reversed his own death.

Etemon fuses with his Dark Network fully, becoming MetalEtemon, a being capable of rivaling Puppetmon in power. MetalEtemon doesn't stay alive for too long, but in his short few episodes, he kills SaberLeomon with relative ease and sends Ogremon into his entire character arc. Etemon decided that dying twice still wasn't good enough, and he cheated death for the sole petty purpose of traumatizing his enemies more.

But now, let's get to the final boss...

This is Apocalymon. Apocalymon is the anit-thesis to EVERYTHING the digidestined are. While the heroes represent Courage, Friendship, Love, Knowledge, Reliability, Sincerity, Light and Hope; Apocalymon is Fear, Paranoia, Hate, Misinformation, Betrayal, Lies, Darkness and Apathy incarnate. He is made of the souls of every Digimon who died in the process of Digivolution, which means he is made of everything that the Digidestined relied upon to win.

Apocalymon created the big bads of every single arc on his own. Devimon, Etemon, Myotismon, the Dark Masters, they are all his creations. He is the ultimate darkness, so hateful and full of so much pure misery that he can do nothing except wish for the end of all life.

And he wins. Not in the Piedmon way where he beats almost everyone, no. Apocalymon KILLS every one of the digidestined and their digimon. He rends them apart, splits their molecules and data into nothing.

The only reason he didn't win right then and there is because of MetalEtemon. MetalEtemon's creation was foreshadowing, a sign that with enough willpower, you can cheat death. And that's just what the Digidestined do. With the power of friendship, they put themselves back together and reform their bodies, starting the fight against Apocalymon anew.

But they still don't beat him.

They can only fight Apocalymon to a draw, and he will not let that stand. Apocalymon unleashes his true ultimate ability: his self destruct sequence. Apocalymon possesses enough power that when he self destructs, the explosion will destroy TWO DIMENSIONS in the process, both Earth and the Digital World. If not for the Digivices containing the explosion, he would have gotten the last laugh.

Digimon Adventure is unique in that, out of every Digimon in the series, the VILLAIN is the strongest. Even MagnaAngemon in second place is nowhere even close to Apocalymon's level.

Apocalymon is the death of hope, the end of light, he is everything that has suffered brought to life, and he could only be defeated when he allowed himself to die.

Every villain represented something. Ogremon was the first showing of a threat that cannot be reasoned with. Devimon is the first brush with the harsh reality of the real world. Etemon shows that overconfidence will kill you. DemiDevimon shows that even people who seem like no threat can still sew the seeds of your downfall. Myotismon is the all too real chance that no matter what you do, some people will always seem to be stronger. The Dark Masters are a corruption of what can be achieved by working together. And Apocalymon? Apocalymon is the END. No matter how strong you are or how hard you work, there are foes who you cannot beat, and that you can only hope to cause their downfall. Apocalymon is the hopelessness that has condemed billions of souls, the misery and rage that will kill billions more. Apocalymon is nothing but the embodiement of everything that has ever caused sorrow... And that is something that cannot be beaten.

#digimon adventure #digimon #digimon adventure 01 #ogremon #devimon #etemon #demidevimon #myotismon #venommyotismon #metalseadramon #puppetmon #machinedramon #piedmon #metaletemon #apocalymon #tw long post #character analysis #character essay #I love this show so much

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gayest-classiclit · 4 months

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Classic Literature Sexyperson Tournament; Round 1

propaganda

Razumikhin:

He's the best in everything so he's also can be the best at being the sexyman. Like he's just perfect and you would actually like being in relationship with him! He's responsible adult who can take care of you and himself! (And if you telling me no and saying that Raskolnikov is better. No. You just wrong) He's just a funny guy who can make your day better! HE CAN MAKE YOU BETTER!! HOW CAN YOU TELL NO TO HIS BEAUTIFUL BROWN EYES!!!(I've infodumped about him so much before what I don't have anything more to say because I've said everything in my other propagandas for him. He's everything to me) -----now tropes for fun----- –European –Brick Shithouse (I mean he is big and strong) –LGBTQ+ Coded (I mean not really but like....we all know he's bi) –Himbo –Johnlocked (*looks at the propaganda for gay lit tournament* we all know how it ended) –Tall

I love this man he is Husband he is Wife he is the light of my life, the literary foil to our emo-supreme MC that was Absolutely Necessary, I would jump his bones and put a ring on it in a heart beat, we would live poor, but we would be happy together. We would keep each other warm. Also his wife's hot so. I would gladly form a polycule with them both if they would have me.

Balladyna:

fellas is it not a sexyperson thing to accidentally murder your sister in your pursuit for power and forever be haunted by the act, but instead of learning and becoming a better person you start making literally everything in your life worse by murdering Even More People with your partner in crime who you also murder later out of paranoia and be increasingly haunted by the visions to the point literally everyone around you becomes either dead or outcast, but at least you have your power and the crown and girlboss your way to becoming not only the king but ALSO a judge and then in your hubris send down a guilty verdict on your own actions three times so hard Literally Actual God smites you for your bullshittery because at that point She's the only one who could get rid of your sheer murderswag.

#classic lit sexyperson bracket #tournament poll #r1d #round 1 #crime and punishment #balladyna

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joltning · 6 months

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i forgot I never posted this here so.

how I see desert gulch is as people they COULD have realistically ended up as. like in a kind of “bad ending” where nothing caused them to grow and they just kind of simmer in their hatred. they already kind of mention how like, if Church didn’t die Tucker would grow more powerful and eventually die due to his own hubris. more of that pls. more small differences butterfly effecting. THATS LITERALLY THE THEME OF S15.

more under cut

i Lied. this is not a comprehensive post this is me slightly rewriting my rambles

adding the theme of the past coming back (instead of consequences) I’d LOVE Love Love to see some of the older speeches come back but be spun on their heads. Sarge’s rally speech being changed to one of hate by surge pointing out the negatives in the reds and blues instead? kimball’s speech being said by temple “fight because you deserve to win”?? PLEASE. HEAR ME.

temple: Please give him a water theme. I’ve mentioned this before but having desert gulch be a cold desert like sidewinder initially and then slowly melting into an ocean signifying the bitter, burning hatred for everything around him, also leaning into Carolina’s rivals being fire themed? PLEASE. it would also foil church with him growing farther from all the rest of the members adding onto his “nice on outside bad on inside” reverse of him. ALSO. MAKE TUCKER REALIZE ITS A BACKSTAB WAAAY BETTER. he’s been through this shit before. he knows what’s up.

buckey: there is so much for me to say but I don’t have the right words to say it. Tucker is such a strongly built character that with any of the wrong moves could have crumbled into the worst person possible. Most prominently, he’s very honest and while he does have an ego, puts his friends first. Buckey is already a SLIMEY bitch but he needs to be a liar, egotistical, and a show off at any opportunity. But not a good fighter. Noo.

surge: thanks for putting it into words youtube comment section. Make him like early seasons where he didn’t really give a shit about his soldiers at all. I really need that parallel theme to shine through with him berating his soldiers while Sarge uplifts them and clearly cares.

Gene: make him clearly disloyal from the start. he’s already pretty good but I’d love to see him backstab surge to climb the ranks. Simmons is bitchy and always critical, but I need gene to be a HATER. literally just straight up ready to claw at anyone to get his way. he is his ONLY priority.

cronut: instead of having an echo chamber of sex jokes how about you actually make him the most “alpha male” kind of person ever with the densest “i would never make a joke like that” shit ever make his masculinity so frail it would not only be funny but would be great contrast and make sense with how donut could have ended up. Sorry Cronut fans

the main difference here is that each of these characters would end up here due to their strained relationship, and clearly only tolerate each other due to necessity. the reds and blues don’t even have to do that much. they just have to sow the seeds of doubt that already exist, and wait for them to all crumble apart in a butterfly effect of hate that had always been there. And watch on, as every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

#rvb #red vs blue #part of my rewrite au Ofc.#takes a bow and falls on my face #s15 rewrite au #txt

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reilora-borealis · 5 months

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.... and you're NOT gonna tell us about the Shadowgast Playlist? Please 🫴, hand it over.

I said in my original post this was my toxic trait... nonetheless I am SO glad someone took the bait 😈

I'm not going to post the link because I value my spotify privacy and also I have an embarrassing username that no one needs to know about. However, since you asked nicely (and let's be honest, I wasn't expecting anyone to care! so thank you!), I will share ✨ my personal top 5 shadowgast songs ✨ with a bit of context for each.

If you're just here to roast my music taste, bear in mind... I said toxic trait. Proceed at your own risk.

1. Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce

"If I could make days last forever / If words could make wishes come true / I'd save every day like a treasure and then / Again, I would spend them with you..."

This one has two meaning imo: first, early-campaign Caleb wishing he could change the past to save his parents' lives; later, Essek wishing he had more time to spend with Caleb. The original version is beautiful, but there is also a cover by Yungblud (yes, it's on the Hobbs & Shaw soundtrack) that's badass but a very different vibe.

2. Lilith by Halsey

"I'm perfection when it comes to first impressions / I romanticize and then I get to stressing / Big brain like I'm teaching at a lesson / Baby, it's a blessing..."

Every time this song comes on I legit yell ESSEK ANTHEM! because it is. This is the Hot Villain theme song. The beat is so sexy. The lyrics are on point ("I am disgusting / I've been corrupted / And by now I don't need not help to be destructive"). The vibes are just immaculate.

3. No Halo by Brockhampton

"Went to church for the hell of it, stumbled in drunk as shit / Been going through it again / Been talking to myself, wondering who I am / Been thinking I am better than Him..."

Look. I could write an entire essay about this one song. Wizard hubris, depression, and the crisis of faith Essek goes through when the Nein find out about his betrayal. Also, for those who theorize Essek is the unwilling chosen of the Luxon - he could, in fact, be "God's special mess".

4. X&Y by Coldplay

"I dive in at the deep end / You become my best friend / I want to love you but I don't know if I can / I know something is broken / And I'm trying to fix it / Trying to repair it / Any way I can..."

Two characters who both think they are terrible people that don't deserve love, trying to be better and trying to better each other? And they fall in love? And they're narrative foils? No one is doing it like them! (Plus the chorus "You and me are drifting into outer space" just screams ~wizards in the star room~.)

5. All The Stars by Kendrick Lamar feat. SZA (album version)

"Tell me what you gon' do to me / Confrontation ain't nothing new to me / You can bring a bullet, bring a sword, bring a morgue / But you can't bring the truth to me..."

I don't know how this song manages to be both broody and uplifting at the same time, but it is and it's perfection. It's the grimness of reality and the hope for the future, the refrain of "All the stars are closer" symbolizing all the possibilities that are now within reach.

And oh boy, I don't have time to write about the whole playlist but if you've made it this far, here are some bonus mini listicles because this is my Roman Empire 😌

Entire playlist of just shadowgast-coded Hozier songs:

Arsonist's Lullabye

In The Woods Somewhere

De Selby (pt. 2)

Someone New

Like Real People Do

Moment's Silence

From Eden

All My Homies Hate Trent Ikithon songs:

Heathens by Twenty One Pilots

Eat Your Young by Hozier

Buzzkill by Mothica

Another Brick In The Wall, pt. II by Pink Floyd

My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark by Fall Out Boy

Other ships? In my shadowgast playlist? It's more likely than you think:

The Cave by Mumford & Sons (widobrave)

Cringe by Matt Maeson (widojest)

Tessellate by alt-J (blumendrei)

EDM wizard songs if you're into that sort of thing (I am):

Time Stops by Virtual Riot

I'd Love To Change The World (Matstubs Remix) by Jetta

I Could Be Anything by the Glitch Mob feat. Elohim

New Eyes by Echos

Keep in mind this is just a handful of songs out of like a hundred, so I welcome you to give me the benefit of the doubt and fill in the rest of the playlist in your mind with whatever makes me seem cool to you.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk, I am sorry it took me four days to write this... 😅

#shadowgast

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anonymoushouseplantfan · 11 months

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I’m 100% sympathetic to how crappy it would be to live a life hounded by the tabloid press. The only reason to side eye H atm is that his whole family is subjected to it and rising above is the only choice (& using it to one’s advantage when possible). Any other reaction is just fuel on the fire.

The real Q is, does H know that his family is complicit in tabloid stories about him? And that he was a foil in KC & PW (and their staffs) reindeer games? If he does, no wonder he’s enraged. And why he can’t say it/offer proof (he likely is hoping the press will say it, poor dumb H, wtf would the press bite the hand that feeds them!). Sure H’s own entitlement is to blame too, but idk, can you imagine being the butt of your family’s insults publicly? Especially if they come bc in your stupid youth your own hubris made you act out? What if Chelsy left not bc of the general family royal life pressure, but instead not wanting the same treatment (& who tf would???). I guess I can’t but help still having a little sympathy for the guy mixed in with my rage against the elites schadenfreude and popcorn.

I think a lot of people were very sympathetic toward him…before the Netflix series and the biography.

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homemadegirlbossbattle · 1 year

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ROUND 1 / SIDE B / POLL 4

Xoco (@selinas-ships, dollmaker credit here) vs. Edgar Rennington (@pvssinboots / @pandrena)

Xoco info:

Description: Xoco is an original character from the Sofia the First/Elena of Avalor franchise meant to be a narrative parallel and antagonist to my main Sofia the First OC. Xoco was one of the most powerful sorceresses in the ancient kingdom of Maru and held a very crucial part in it's destruction centuries prior to the canonical events of Elena of Avalor. She is so fascinating as a character because despite all of her crimes (and there are many), she truly believes what she's doing is right because it's for the sake of her kingdom. Her kingdom that is dead and gone in part BECAUSE of her actions. And she's so blinded by her hubris and pride that she cannot see it. Even when her victims try and make her.

Crimes:

Is the product of a very magically dependent society By that I mean her hubris is both her downfall and the reason she Will Not Die In trying to bring Maru up as a society and in reputation, despite Maru already being one of the most powerful magic societies in the world, she single-handedly brought it's downfall Plan was to summon Shadow Spirits to the mortal plane, trap them, steal their magic, and use that magic to further power Maru By that I mean further power HERSELF because she's prideful enough to believe that she alone can raise Maru's reputation even more than it already is Thwarted by her inability to communicate, her pride in insisting she was the only one who could do it right, and her own sister by discovering her plans and intending to share them with the rest of the magical priests and priestesses of Maru When confronted, stole and imprisoned said sister's magic (which includes ripping it out of her very soul and cells) in a crystal of Xoco's own design Just to enunciate how bad this was, when The Plan went sideways, it took the power of a magical atomic bomb, used by every sorcerer and sorceress in Maru by way of their most powerful relic, to seal the Shadows away, and it ended with just about every sorcerer and sorceress in Maru being sent to the Spirit World Because they died Was so determined to finish what she started that her soul Refused to Die and she just wandered through ruins for centuries after the fall of Maru, plotting on how she could get her corporeal body back to complete her work Seethed as a wayward teenager picked up the crystal holding her sister's magic because she couldn't (perks of being a ghost /sar) and would have cursed her if able Refuses to see how any actions she takes to further her goals of Immortality and Total Cosmic Power are problematic Left the ruins and spent the last of her strength to travel to an entirely new kingdom and embed her consciousness into a newborn child's mind because the child had her sister's magic bonded to her soul Watched that child be abused for the very magic she was praised for and felt nothing Watched the same child grow into a young woman and scoffed at her "attachments" (read: her friends and family) because she genuinely believed "attachments" slowed people down Resolved to get her magic and corporeal body back at any cost, no matter how long it took Including manipulation that comes as easily as breathing to her This bitch is so manipulative, she lowkey manipulates ME Gaslights a trauma survivor, aka, her narrative foil Unrepresses repressed memories in said trauma survivor to further her manipulation Attempts (key word: ATTEMPTS, this bitch's attachments are strong) to isolate and drive her victim's loved ones away to the point of them recognizing something is wrong And when manipulation alone doesn't work, she goes for mind control, kidnapping, maiming, and further gaslighting In some versions of the story, she steals back her sister's magic from her victim (which again, is excruciatingly painful) and binds it to herself to become corporeal again In other versions, she takes the ghostly form of her victim to manipulate said victim's childhood best friend/love interest and a literal child to get them to take her to her victim's imprisoned soul to steal her magic Girlie is so powerful and good at what she does, I don't even know how she gets STOPPED I just know her plan doesn't succeed cause she's Alone and Loneliness has nothing against a woman who, despite the hurt and trauma she's lived, loves with everything she's got

Other notes from the submitter: I am rotating this bitch in my mind like a microwave And thank you OP for putting this together!! I'm excited to see how this turns out :DD

Edgar Rennington info:

Description: Edgar is a pleasant, charming genderfluid individual - she is very much able to welcome her feminine side and enjoys being called a woman just as much as she would a guy. She's a parent, and she's got trouble understanding that her actions affect other people. However, she's also a mother/father and despite complicated relationships with her kids, she cherishes them more than it seems. She's also blind, though it hardly hinders her behavior.

Crimes: Murder, manipulation, lying, cannibalism, killed God and ursuped his power. Again, she does all this with lacking comprehension of how it affects others, but it's still pretty girlboss-ish.

Other notes from the submitter: N/A

#poll #oc poll #hmgbb

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bloobluebloo · 7 months

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I mean if we’re talking about the absolute final form of OoT Ganondorf, it’s 100% Twilight Princess. Wind Waker comes from a Hyrule that got flooded after escaping the sacred realm for an unspecified period of time, thus the pathos, and in the classic games he’s degraded into a mad boar. Meanwhile Twilight Princess Ganondorf is just leaving off from where he started back in OoT before he got snitched on, but now he’s older, a lot more cautious when planning, and 10x more insane than before thanks to god complex and rage.

I mean to be honest I feel like this is up to interpretation on what one considers a fitting final ending for Ganondorf.

I think we can all agree that canonically, Ganondorf has an inherent desire for power and the ability to do whatever he wishes without repercussions. This is excaberated in OoT by the fact that he is born a king. Couple that with the circumstances of his upbringing in a land that is suffering under harsh weather conditions and having lost a civil war, and you have a man who is primed to become a conqueror. We can say that his true desire has always been power, sure, but we also can’t dismiss that the desire for a life that comes easy and the desire to not be subjugated under a greater power that can turn on him at the drop of hat are also what drives Ganondorf and his entitlement.

In the Wind Waker timeline, OoT Ganondorf achieves partial success in regards to his initial plan, which was to secure the Triforce in it’s entirety and become king. He does get to live out his desire of being the king of a powerful country, but he is so maddened by the desire of having the Triforce in its entirety and subjugating the gods to his wishes that he doesn’t even get to truly experience it. Instead, he destroys the land he desired so much, and in his blindness to power he is defeated and sealed away. When he returns, there is no hero to stop him, and thus he continues his rampage, his destruction so severe that the gods flood Hyrule and seal it away, keeping it out of his reach. It is only then, when Hyrule is inaccessible to him, that he finally seems to settle down and remember why he even wanted to become the king of Hyrule in the first place. Perhaps, in seeing how the gods destroyed their own land and people he sees a reflection of himself, having destroyed everything that mattered to him when touched by divine might. Yet he cannot help himself, angry that the gods would still deny him what he wishes, yearning to restore the land that would promise him everything his heart would desire, and still willing to destroy anything that stands in his way because maybe, to him, this is his only path forward. In the final battle, witnessing the King of Hyrule make his wish just as the Triforce was right within his reach, faced by a hero that was plucked from a random island, so similar to the previous hero plucked out of a remote forest, he laughs because maybe he finally understands now; no matter what he does, this his destiny, to be forever touched and ravaged by the winds of destruction. I am certain he knew he would die to Link’s blade that day but he is not a man to go down quietly. SO, I would consider Wind Waker, in my opinion, to be a fitting character arc for Ganondorf as it pertains to his humanity. In a sane state of mind (well, as sane as he can get), he is faced with the hubris of his actions, the loss of everything that mattered to him, and nothing to show for it. It is also interesting that he never returns again to this timeline.

For Twilight Princess, I do agree that in one sense it is OoT Ganondorf continuing what he never managed to start. However, I do feel like the Twilight Princess timeline is a bit of a foil to what the Wind Waker timeline represents in that the Twilight Princess timeline explores the sins of Hyrule and its hubris in its questionable attempts to eliminate darkness. While Ganondorf is not a good man per say, there is a certain evil to condemning and executing a man who has not committed the crime he is being put to the sword for. The gods seem to agree with this as they grant him the Triforce of Power at a crucial moment, allowing him to eliminate a sage. I wouldn’t say TP Ganondorf is any more cautious than his other appearances, he seems just as cunning and patient, but his desires have grown a lot more twisted. In his anger at being executed and imprisoned by the powers of light, bearing the wound permanently and wielding the sword he despises so greatly, he reveals to Link in the final battle that his true desire is to blot out the light forever. Being granted godlike powers in the throes of death and hatred has allowed him to develop a god complex such that his desires no longer seem human (such as the desire for a better life, or to conquer a country that is rich in resources). Ganondorf dies on his feet in defiance, confident that this struggle between light and darkness will continue forever. And well, what do you know, he is reincarnated in this timeline in Four Sword Adventures. So, this Ganondorf in this timeline embraces his darkness and hatred in death, and is perhaps moreso a cautionary tale to Hyrule that its sins cannot be buried and forgotten, and that it will create people like Ganondorf if it chooses to exercise its powers without restraint or consideration.

The downfall timeline is an interesting one, (primarily because it is the timeline where whatever game that came out before OoT finds itself, barring the Oracle games and AlbW by virtue of being an AlttP) because in this timeline the implication is that Ganondorf’s initial plan succeeds and he immediately has access to the entire Triforce. Hyrule barely manages to imprison him and his followers in the Sacred Realm but he creates a world of his own there and immediately begins plotting his takeover of Hyrule which he does in a cunning way. Ganondorf is overly confident in his power here with Hyrule’s royal army under his thumb until Link kills him. What follows after is at least three botched resurrections, one in which he is mindless and incapable of even forming a proper sentence, another where he ends up being controlled by someone else, and yet another in which he loses his grip on the entirety of the Triforce, only left with Power in a land so desolate its people live in caves. So, absolute power corrupts absolutely you can say.

So! We have a timeline where Ganondorf is faced with the consequences of his own actions, a timeline where Ganondorf’s rage at what was an injustice ends in a promise that darkness will always return to shed blood, and a timeline where Ganondorf gets all the power he wants that leads to degradation and corruption as he slowly loses any control he has, even over himself. We have a whole array of fitting endings for him if you ask me.

#long post #I wanted to talk about this so I did ahahahaha #ganonthots

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simpinaintez420 · 11 days

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One Piece EP 1100 + Manga | I don’t Like Vegapunk

Rewatching this episode this week for that making Luffy v Lucci fight and it brought up an another thought in my head. I hate Vegapunk.

Hate may be strong, and he’s definitely well written don’t get me wrong, Oda has not let me down there. The problem is that Vegapunk, like many of the character’s in the show, are too well written. Vegapunk is the clear representation of science and the pursuit of knowledge in the way it primarily exists.

It definitely foils with Robin’s pursuit of knowledge in that she’s is the ideal form of the pursuit of knowledge because she displays empathy. Her whole arc in W7/EL was meant to be her biggest selfish act of wanting to live after giving up herself and her dream for her crew.

Vegapunk, on the other hand, chases life and knowledge by any and all means. He has up until Egghead, been a willing tool of the government past his own morals (as seen with Kuma’s upcoming story). And only now has he decided to defect because his third for knowledge fully encrouched on the devil’s apple that is the lost century.

That undying thirst isn’t what makes me dislike him, it’s his lack of empathy. He brazenly asks for passage on the ship of an emperor after being responsible for for the devices behind their separation. Worst of all is how he pulls in the favor form Sentomaru, It’s not merely covering his back, he knows he’s asking him to risk his life and to sign his own death warrant because at some point Vegapunk lent a hand. To be ready to sacrifice someone else because you see yourself as worth more is the ultimate hubris of modern science.

Those working in STEM and majoring in it often don’t’t see the point in classes about ethics, they tend to ignore and push out “diverse data” that makes their hypothesis less likely to come true because it’s easier than finding a real solution. Those diverse factors are every opressed group from gender based to race based to age based to sexuality based. Those points of data are sacrificed in this pursuit of what definition of worthy knowledge that exists.

Vegapunk never thought of all the people suffering when he turned down Dragon, only of his research and the money the government could provide. And now that the government is in his way he’s sacrificing his colleagues to get away and seek more knowledge.

Of course as we see later in the manga he had contingencies for all scenarios that allow him to look heroic, but make no mistake, his plan was to make to it out of Egghead alive to learn another day, at the willing sacrifice of many.

This got very long unexpectedly but TL;DR Vegapunk is a representation of modern day science and its lack of empathy.

#one piece #vegapunk #op 1100 #sentomaru #simpinspeaks #ep 1100 #nico robin

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justatalkingface · 1 year

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Occasionally in these critiques you mention the butchering of Hawks' whole character in and post The War Arc so consider this an open question of thoughts on Hawks. Because all the pre-war Hawks stuff was some of my favorite bits of the manga before the shark.

Or, if you'd prefer something more directed: why were Dabi and Hawks both strongly tied to Endeavour when they don't interact with the other's arc? Why make them foils in a self-destructive pursuit of a goal if not to examine each other through their Dark Mirror? Why the BJ fakeout? Did it matter? Should we consider what Hawks was willing to do when it's allll fine actually?

Did any of Hawks' excelltent arc even really MATTER?

In short?

No.

Like, unironically, everything before the war doesn't matter anymore because of the ending we got, they could have just introduced him during it as a generic good guy and so far everything would be the same. But as funny as it would be, a one word answer isn't all that satisfying, so let's talk about Hawks.

(I'm going to point out here that I was already planning to do this, but I figured I'd wait for the next couple of chapters since it looked like it was going to focus back on Hawks and Twice. But, since it's delayed for health issues, and there's no real guarantees we'll be back next week... screw it. I somehow doubt whatever happens will really resolve any of the problems Hori snatched screaming from what was one of the best character arcs in the story anyways, so there's really no reason not to get on with it.)

In the beginning, we get introduced to Hawks, one of the top heroes: he's young, he's cool, he's, if I dare channel Might Guy for a moment here, hip. He's got some drama queen elements to him and he's outspoken in a way that the other heroes don't seem to be; he's more real, genuine, than people like Best Jeanist or Edgeshot, who (from what we've seen) seem to have a more bland public 'face', and he's not afraid to say something that people won't agree with. In just a few scenes, he seems like more a person than a lot of the characters do with far more screen time than him.

Then we find out that, actually, he's kinda sus. And he works for sus people. And, actually, all of this is heavily related with the corrupt heroes mentioned on and off throughout the entire ass story.

And he seems genuinely impressed by Endeavour, despite his violent image, and supports his rise to Number One where everyone else seems more doubtful.

These are the big things that make him so interesting to so many people: he's a deep character, deeper than most of the cast, loaded with mysteries, secrets, and oh so juicy drama, and so different than everyone else. What's not to love?

Later, it escalates when Hawks kills a fellow hero, just for the sake of the mission and then that's when shit gets real, because it makes you wonder: how far will he go? How much can he do without being affected?

Both of them are trying to play the other, and both of them are aware of it to some extent, if not the degree to which the other is planning and willing to go to, but it's at that moment you wonder: no matter how confident Hawks is, is he too confident? Is the man who is just a bit too fast flying just a bit too close to the sun?

He was a very real Icarus metaphor, and we watched on, eagerly waiting to see if his wings would melt in the face of his own hubris.

Over time, the story fed us bits and pieces, slowly building the picture of a man being driven closer and closer to the edge... and then, the war.

So, here's the thing with the war: so much of it, so much, is terrible. The Hawks part, though? Honestly, most of it is pretty great; there's only one part I don't like, and that's Best Jeanist actually being alive the whole time.

It's weird, in a really forced kind of way, to make Hawks seem double ultra good, in the face of all his prior characterization, because of course he wouldn't kill a fellow hero! Moreover, Dabi's surprise, when he was the one prepared for his betrayal the whole time, when he his first thought on seeing the body was, 'it doesn't even matter if this is the real one or not, the fact that Hawks killed someone is stain enough', which... seems like forced stupidity on his part, not checking at all to see if, like, someone robbed a funeral home or something, but whatever.

The point is that Dabi, of all people shouldn't have been surprised by Hawks betraying him, because he was the one that was ready for it. He has a monologue about it, for fucks sake. That confusion feels like it's there just to demonstrate how sneaky and great Hawks is, that he got to have his tactical victory and his moral victory, and do it right under all the dumb old bad guys noses!

This is, in retrospect, prep for Post War Hawks.

Because while I don't like that, my big problem with Hawks isn't him in the war, my problem isn't even with him killing Twice, my problem is after the war.

After the war, you see, is where Hawks is... honestly, I can't put this any other way than replaced. Have you seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Any of the versions? You know how, when someone is replaced, they have the same knowledge, but they act different? Like the motivations that moved that person before, the emotions, the various drives that comprise a human being, are just... gone. They're hollowed out, and replaced with something that mimics the way that person used to act to blend in, and allow it to push its own agenda.

The Hawks after the war reminds me of that, like he's been replaced.

Before the war, Hawks was cheerful a lot, but it was clear that that was just his default way of acting, that a lot of the cheer, but (and this is important) not all of it, was a mask. He'd flip in an instant from silly and irrelevant to dead serious, we'd see him think dark thoughts and plan against whoever he was talking to, but we'd also see him genuinely express emotion. That cheer was a layer to him, just one over a character that was clearly far deeper than what we were seeing.

After? Until the actual fighting, and Twice 'showing up' (this is why I was thinking of waiting), he was just... cheerful. Vapidly so. No jokes, no silliness, just generically positive. He'd be cheerful and smile, or he'd turn his emotions off, and there was no... in between.

If Hawks was a character with eight, or even just five layers to him before? After the war it's just two. And for most of the characters that's a lot more that we'd usually see of them, but for Hawks, that's a lot less. Where is the darkness? Where is the doubt? Where is anything beyond what pushes the heroic agency in the most efficient way he can?

I can't possibly describe the sheer dissonance I felt in pre- and post-war Hawks, the sheer confusion I felt in how bland and empty he seemed.

So yeah, when I say, "Hawks was killed and replaced by Bodysnatcher Hawks", I'm joking, but it comes from somewhere real all the same.

Alright, now let's talk about him killing Twice.

On one level, him doing is brutal, cold logic: Twice is an enemy. Twice is the single greatest force multiplier in the setting. Killing him, now, before everything goes to shit and he can get going will save god knows how many heroic lives, and quite possibly allow them to win the day; imagine if Twice got to Tomura, or Dabi? An infinite amount of clones is bad enough, but once you give them fire power....

On the other hand, well, killing is wrong. Apparently killing is basiclly illegal for heroes... which, not going to be honest, is a bit weird to me? It feels like that got tacked on after the war as part of the way the setting is whitewashing heroism, because, well, what if they can't capture someone, but can only kill them? Should they just let them go? It's not always the right choice, or even often the right choice, but flat out not having the option is naive in a way that reminds me of a lot of the post war choices because, you know, things like that are complicated.

But like I said, I'm not down on the killing, per say, so much as the situation. The situation is actually pretty fucked up.

Because Hawks had Twice cornered. If he wanted to capture him, wanted to neutralize that greatest threat? All he'd have to do is knock him out, or tranq him, somehow, with all abundant support tech that's out there. That option was there for him, and Twice never would have seen it coming, because Twice trusted Hawks completely, and he knew it, planned on it, coldly planned to betray it. If he had wanted to actually stop him right away instead of dragging it out like that, it would have been easy.

But he didn't. Why? Well, surface level, he wanted Twice to surrender, which would allow him to be better off after he's arrested. But that's the thing with Hawks; it's generally not that simple.

Hawks is smart, you see. Hawks is a trained manipulator. Twice is as subtle as a brick to the face. Hawks had to know, in the same way we all knew, that Twice would never surrender, never abandon his friends, just to try and improve his own lot, or even to save his own life, never.

So. We ask that question again. Why'd Hawks do it that way? Why'd he drag it out so long instead of just dealing with it?

Let me put it like this: he isolated Twice, one of the greatest assets for the PLF, right at the moment he would be needed most. In that room, before Twice could start multiplying, he had total control, and he could easily slap down any attempts to escape Twice made with his feathers in that confined space.

The second anything happened, people would instantly start looking for Twice because he is, again, one of their main assets and the strongest single force multiplier in the setting.

Hawks, despite knowing all of this, started talking, going through the motions. He even attacks Twice, but only, and deliberately, injuring him but leaving him alive. All of this? All of this burns time. Hawks is delaying this, as long as he could.

Then Dabi showed up. And it could have been Dabi, or it could have been anyone else, but the moment Dabi showed, the situation slipped out his control. He could no longer easily contain Twice; he went from a helpless prisoner to an active threat instantly.

And I think that is what he was waiting for, that is what he wanted, deep down: an excuse. A justification. Because he couldn't save him even if he wanted to (and he did want to, is the thing: he moved to protect Twice from Dabi's flames, and briefly tries to plan escaping with him), and thus he had to kill him. But, he wasn't executing a someone he captured in cold blood anymore, no, he was stopping an enormous threat before it could cause enormous casualties. He had to do it, or everyone would die.

And that, I think, is the interesting thing to me, because who is he justifying this to? The other heroes? They wouldn't know any better, wouldn't even know Twice was murdered with a little work on Hawk's part. His bosses? They probably ordered this. The public? They were only a problem because Dabi broadcasted this to them, because, again, Hawks dragged it out so long.

No, Hawks was dragging it out, was trying to justify it, for himself. Because he liked Twice, but he had to, he had to kill him. He had orders.

Twice's murder is fucked up, it's heart wrenching, but characterization wise, it's incredible for Hawks, because it's showing him following him through on his dark heroic path, no matter what it takes, but it's also showing him regret it. It's showing Hawks, a hero, do a bad thing for good reasons, it's showing all that depth we love in him.

If you look for it, there's a lot of discussion, about if Twice was too dangerous to capture or not, if Hawks could have done something different or not, if the killing was the right call, and while I have stated my opinions on that.... I feel like that debate is missing the point?

Because the thing is, it's not actually about if this was bad or not. The big thing is how do people react to this?

Because Hawks kills a man. He kills his friend, deliberately, in a pretty damn premeditated way. Does he care? Body Snatcher Hawks doesn't; it was the right choice, the efficient choice, so there's no need to dwell on it, no need to regret, no matter what mouth words he says about it to appease the public.

Does anyone care? The Number Two Hero killed a man in cold blood. This was broadcasted to at least Japan. We get a press conference, Hawks says the right words for a regretful person, with absolutely no apparent emotion, and everyone just... moves on. His colleagues, far more moral than him, don't care. In what would have been a deliciously ironic twist, his morally dubious idol, who he (should have been) doubting for his dark past, but who is trying to reform himself, doesn't reject him for it. The idealistic students don't care. His seemingly amoral handlers don't cut him loose as a liability. The only ones who care are Himiko and the villains, and after the war even she only seems to mind in a distant sense, in way that says, 'They could do that to me, too?', as if she's finally learning that death is a real thing that could happen when you overthrow a government, and doesn't even hold a grudge against the man who did it.

Toga, one of the most emotional people in the setting, with a friend group she can count on her hands, who finally has a sense of belonging, of acceptance, that she's craved her entire life, has her best friend murdered, and that's all she has to say about it?

The problem with Hawks killing Twice isn't that he did it, it's that no one, including Hawks himself or Twice's best friend in the world, or the panicking masses of the sheep that is the public, or the heroes who stand for truth or justice, cared, cared that he did it, cared that he joined the villains for months, cared about anything he had done, because Hori just... didn't want to deal with it. With complex heroes, with deep plot lines, with conflicts that don't have one side as RIght and the other as Wrong. So he threw out everything that would have made that happen, the upset, the horror, and replaced Hawks with someone who didn't have the capacity to be conflicted.

Dabi and Hawks were a glorious piece of foreshadowing and drama.

They're tied together so much, in so many layers because they're literally talking, and Dabi is his handler and connection to the LOV. We don't see much of it, because they only teased at Hawks with the villains, but before he 'joined' they must have talked a lot; there had to have been a connection there.

There's also the fact that, narratively, Hawks and Dabi are foils: Endeavour, indirectly, took Hawks, who was no one special, out of obscurity and into herodom, while directly taking Touya, his own son and thus rich and important, into obscurity and the depths of villainy. Both of them share ties to Endeavour, they symbolize the positive and negative ends of his characterization, have connections to the heroic industry that were dark and hidden from the public.

They don't interact with each other's arcs, like you say, but... you can see they were supposed to. Dabi was Hawk's possible damnation and possible villianfication, he was the symbol of the failure of his greatest hero, he was the one who was suspicious of him since the beginning, and almost stopped his dramatic betrayal and crippling of the PLF.

Until the war ended, the two of them were orbiting around each other, each drawing the other in closer for a collision that was as inevitable as it was going to be explosive.

The confrontation between them, that we were all but promised, was going to be beautiful... until that, like everything else, was abandoned post war for the body snatcher.

At the end of the day, my answer is still the same one as it was in the beginning of this rant: no. All of it, everything he did, all of it has been invalidated by Hori's sudden tonal shift, and unless he pulls off something truly god-like in the next couple of chapters to salvage it, it'll stay that way.

Instead, probably what will happen is Hawks being proved right in his murder by Toga-Twice causing mass havok, without showing any of the depth of the situation, and him coming to some form of peace with the guilt he's totally feeling, that we've never once seen, over what he did, and once and for all leave everything we loved about Hawks behind.

#ask #mha critical #bnha critical #mha hawks #Hawks has been replaced by a bodysnatcher #I'm only partially joking #Hori chucking out an entire arc never to think about it again #Hawks is an Icarus metaphor that was abandoned mid flight #The Tragedy of Hawks The Good

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samueldays · 2 years

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Shared Universe Blunders 2: Immunity to Exceptions to Immunity

Part of a rambling series. Shared universes, also their relatives long-running series and kitchen-sink settings.

A great many games feature some kind of "Immunity to [element]" mechanic. A common one is Undead being immune to Poison. Sometimes the immunity is absolute, sometimes it has a deliberate exception written into the original immunity rules.

And sometimes a new attack is written to say it's an exception to someone else's previously stated immunity rules. "This super-poison attack can poison creatures that would otherwise be immune to poison." IMO, this is almost always a mistake.

In games with multiple expansions, patches, or errata, this can turn into a meta-game of which faction or unit most recently had an author on board, because the author of the original immunity may come back and say "No, stop that" and reword the original rule into a clunking paragraph like:

"Undead are immune to all poisons, even being immune to super-poisons that overcome immunity. This immunity cannot be bypassed. Super-poison is limited to poisoning humans with a ring of immunity, it's not for poisoning skeletons that don't have any poisonable organs."

Then another author/developer who really dislikes the undead might get clever and figure that if he doesn't use the word "poison", then he can still write an immunity-bypassing attack that inflicts the effects of poison on a target that it hits. In D&D, specifically, this resulted in the publication of "ravages", poison-like holy substances that had debilitating effects on undead and demons.

Ravages were a bad idea.

D&D already had Holy Water that dealt damage to undead and demons, it really didn't need a Holy Water 2: Ecclesiastic Boogaloo whose mechanics were a blatant ripoff of the Poison mechanics but with the word "Poison" replaced by "Ravage".

Tabletop games and videogames give the clearest examples of this, IMO, but the problem is also widespread in fantasy novels, fiction more generally, movies, and to some extent law, of using an overly strong word like "immunity" or "absolute" or "plenary" and then carving out exceptions and caveats until the thing should just have been called "quite strong". This plaque provides absolute sanctuary... then it doesn't. This attack is utterly unstoppable... then it's stopped. This spell is completely infallible... then it's foiled. This minister has total plenary authority... then that court says he overstepped. The US Constitution provides for the federal regulation of interstate commerce... then SCOTUS declares that growing wheat on one's own farm for one's own use is interstate commerce.

Done well, immunity-negation can be an interesting story of hubris and a false-in-character belief about one's invulnerability, the limits of power, and/or a reprise of the famous Achilles' heel.

It is usually not done well. It is often not done that way at all because of how the immunity-negation is introduced as a hamfisted retcon by a second author, where the first intended it to be a real immunity. It is a particular problem of shared settings, in my experience. It also makes a mockery of the word "immunity" when a narrative escalates too many times with "immunity-bypass" and "immunity to having my immunities bypassed" and so on.

(After the profusion of immunity-bypass in fiction, once may be too many times, because an author cannot credibly promise "It's really just this once" to a reader who's only partway through the book and has seen too many other books repeat the phenomenon.)

Immunity-bypassing effects also have bizarre effects on people's incentives. Case study from my gaming history in D&D 3.5th edition:

Like many combative games, Dungeons & Dragons has a notion of a critical hit, an attack which strikes some exposed weakpoint or lucky stroke to a vital organ, inflicting several times more damage than a normal attack, sometimes killing the target outright.

The core D&D 3.5 book provides two main means of immunity to critical hits: the first is to be a creature such as a skeleton or animated statue which lacks weakpoints or vulnerable organs, the second is to wear magical armor with the Fortification property.

The supplemental books provide ways of overcoming the first with the Grave-Strike and Golem-Strike spells, and Fortification armor can be temporarily nullified by spells such as (Greater) Dispel Magic.

The supplemental books also provide other ways of gaining immunity to critical hits, such as the Warshaper prestige class, representing a character trained in combat-oriented advanced shapeshifting to the point of forming redundant internal organs, moving them around in one's body, and regenerating injuries rapidly.

To my knowledge, no way of overcoming the Warshaper's immunity to critical hits was ever printed.

The generalization of this that I and several other D&D-players picked up on: Get your powers and immunities from as esoteric a source as possible. Intuitively, I think entirely organ-free undead running on Deathpower from the Deathdimension should be still more resistant to critical hits than a double-organs shapeshifter. In practice, undead were common and common things got targeted immunity-bypasses printed, while double-organ shapeshifters were rare and no counter had been printed to them.

This incentivized a bizarre and annoying playstyle where our characters operated on supplemental book material wherever possible, disdaining the semi-deprecated "standard" protections in the core books. Our standard was to be nonstandard. We were all, as they say, special snowflake mary sues. I am slightly ashamed of my were-giant-snake Fighter/Thief/Psychic/Warshaper/Uncarnate with Tattoo Magic.

One of the game organizers I played with eventually got sick of this and proclaimed a Fully General Nullifiers houserule. Instead of "bypassing the critical-hits-immunity of undead", the Grave-Strike spell was now "bypassing the critical-hits-immunity of literally everyone, no exceptions" and he could enforce the No Exceptions rule at his table on pain of kicking out anyone who tried to claim an exception.

This enforcement doesn't scale.

Neither does a gentleman's agreement, which another table used.

I suspect the general case of the problem may be unsolvable. Anything one author says about absolute powers, another can contradict. Your best bet is probably for the designers to create a culture and an understanding early on of why the shared universe should keep the absolute powers it currently has, which requires some foresight and planning.

Another problem with immunity shenanigans is that they undermine dramatic tension and suspension of disbelief. If protagonist Shooty McShootyface has been shooting his way through the Fey Court until he gets to the immune-to-bullets Fairy Queen, suddenly he has to get clever and find another way around the problem, such as offering mercenary work to shoot something the Fairy Queen wants shot, or threatening to shoot something the Fairy Queen loves.

With immunity shenanigans in play, the readers may simply roll their eyes and think "McShootyface is going to shoot extra hard and overcome the Fairy Queen's immunity to bullets, isn't he?" The setting gets flattened into shooting bigger numbers.

This is aggravated in shared universes, where an author who really wants to write a McShootyface protagonist may disregard (and be more likely to disregard) previously established bullet-immunities in other books by other authors. Then perhaps the first author retcons it back in again with the apparent impact of bullets on the Fairy Queen, who is very definitely immune to bullets but faked her own death in a clever plot which reveals that McShootyface was a pawn of her schemes all along, a literary elbow-jogging to the other author. The readers may get a sense that the universe doesn't have internal consistency, it has depending-on-the-author variation.

#all #essaying #shared universe blunders #game dev #mechanism design

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noblechaton · 7 months

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so I finished my rewatch of Doctor Who series 3 and wrote a bunch about it in my media thread and feel like crossposting it lol. just some scattershot thoughts in the fallout of the most mid series of the show yet - kinda like how I remembered

This one's really hard to rate, honestly

On one hand you have some of the very best episodes across the entire show's history, but on the other you have some genuinely hard to watch stories marred by overambition and/or just lazy writing

It all comes back to Martha, really, and how she's treated as an afterthought straight out of the gate. I understand the storyline at play here, I get what they were doing and even why they were doing it - but that doesn't make it fun to watch, or good. She deserved a lot better than she got here and the worst part is I think those behind the scenes sorta knew it.

She gets this fantastic introduction in Smith and Jones only to then immediately take a backseat in The Shakespeare Code (one of the worst of this era btw) and she just doesn't really get a chance to recover from that until it's way too late in the series and again, that's kind of the point, but it's also kind of a bad one. She's a rebound for the Doctor in a post-Rose universe but, rather her remain a match for the Doctor and maybe gradually find feelings for him, she's head over heels almost straight away and suffers for it. It's like they weren't sure if they could continue making the show without some sort of romantic angle but didn't want to commit to Martha in that way for one reason or another so they rushed that element so that, by the time it made sense, it was, again, way too late

I just don't really get it. Freema is a great actress, she has great chemistry with David and there was definitely something here. A doctor to help fix the Doctor's broken heart. But that's not really what we get, so much as the Doctor just gradually getting over it on his own and Martha just sort of being there. That there are multiple scenes across multiple episodes where he basically - if unintentionally, thoughtlessly- insults her to her face is just so baffling, it feels weird as a viewer and almost mean outright to the character of Martha herself, and kind of OOC for the Doctor.

Just such a shame because I love Martha. She's such a fun foil, so competent and compassionate and could certainly have stood toe to toe with the Doctor outright if they'd just let her more often than they didn't. That her being an afterthought is the story through her entire series and that she only overcomes it by the very end just feels so wrong.

More on the whole though, the series is also the most inconsistent yet. There's some rough stuff here like Shakespeare Code and 42, while the final episode of the series is so outright bad and stupid from a writing standpoint that I can't believe it didn't get another pass. But then, some of the best of the best are in here. Human Nature/Family of Blood is a fantastic story, Runaway Bride is another classic Christmas special and Blink is an outright masterpiece of an episode and might be the very best single episode there is for the entire show

The first two parts of the finale are pretty great too, Utopia does a great job of playing with expectations and the concepts of despair and hope while Sound of Drums is a great, desperate hour of the Doctor being properly backed into a corner due, in part, to his own hubris. Lazarus Experiment was a surprisingly great episode on rewatch, while I still mostly enjoyed Gridlock and the Dalek two parter as well. It's just that those that are even just solid aren't as solid as most of series 2 or even series 1, while there's some proper bad stories here too.

Last of the Time Lords in particular is just such a huge disappointment because it feels really clear that they'd built up the finale without much forethought in terms of how it would actually end. You can't let Earth stay decimated like it was, but what solution is there beyond walking it back? And that's exactly what they do. A big reset button for the whole world, with promises of trauma for those still on the Valiant (a literal helicarrier btw) that just aren't really followed up on that much. The only real consequence of the story is that the Doctor is, again, alone, but he'd felt detached from Martha all series long anyway.

Like yeah Martha's family has trauma to work through, but they never really appear again so it doesn't really matter. Jack's all smiles by the end after being tortured to death multiple times in a year. And the Master himself doesn't even stay dead. Nothing really changes and there's not much consequence to the Year that Never Was - which was the point of the reset button, but in turn it takes consequence away from the audience too.

It's a clear case of compelling, interesting and ambitious storytelling just getting the better of those involved and as such, Last of the Time Lords is easily the worst finale episode in this era at least. Just got too far ahead of themselves and didn't know what to do. Which is kind of how series 3 feels in general. As if they just didn't really know what to do about that Billie Piper shaped hole in the crew and spun the wheels for a bit, making for a very mixed bag of incredible highs and some real disappointing lows

Plenty to enjoy in this series even if it's all a bit duller, still perfectly fine television - just not what it could have been, with a lot of dropped balls and disappointments throughout. Watchable is a really good word for at least half of this series, like it's better than some stuff that gets put on TV these days but that doesn't really make it great.

Really the brightest side to the entire series being that series 4 is next and that is quite honestly, at least in my memory as of right now, the peak of the entire show to this point

#noble (not donna)

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