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vyladromeave · 3 years

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SHADOWKNIGHT HEADCANONS MASTERPOST

This is how Shadowknights work in my brain. It just is.

(Warning this is super long. like really long. its literally like 3k+ words im not kidding. i did include a couple pictures to help break up the text though. so. good luck.)

Becoming A Shadowknight

There is only one requirement for a person to become a shadowknight: they have to die. Anyone who dies has the potential to become a shadowknight. Whether they actually become one or not depends entirely on whether they would be of use to the Shadow Lord or not.

The Shadow Lord picks new knights from many factors, such as if they were an important person when they were alive, are already skilled in combat/magick, are generally vengeful, or have unfinished business making them more willing to follow the Shadow Lord’s will of destroying the Overworld and its inhabitants. (For this reason, ghosts have become less common in the Overworld, since many souls who would normally become ghosts when they die are recruited as new Shadow Knights instead.)

Not everyone who dies is able to become a Shadowknight. The Shadow Lord, especially without a physical form, is not strong enough to reach out to all dead souls. Souls that are more vengeful/angry in death are easier for the Shadow Lord to locate, and so are souls of those that die in the Nether. There are also specific rituals that can make it easier for Shadow Lord to reach out to a specific soul, but these are uncommon since they take a lot of time and effort to do successfully. Only very valuable potential Shadowknights get this kind of treatment. (This is what happened to Laurance.)

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Shadowknights and Immortality

All Shadowknights are immortal, as in immune to aging. They can’t die of natural causes, and because of this they can hypothetically live forever. Some Shadowknights choose to take this to the next level, becoming virtually unkillable. This next stage is referred to as becoming a “full Shadowknight,” and can only be achieved when a Shadowknight kills a specific target.

This target will be different for each Shadowknight. The only requirements of this target are that it has to be someone the Shadowknight cared about during their life, and that the Shadow Lord is the one who picks the final target. (So if you were a guard of a village, even if you cared about someone else more, your target would probably still be the lord you were protecting, since the death of a lord would cause a lot more chaos.)

A Shadowknight who has reached this next level of immortality is virtually unkillable. Their physical body can be destroyed, but they will reform in the Nether in a new, identical body if this ever happens. (Their new, reformed body will be identical to the first one that they reform as, not identical to however they currently look. So if they lost a hand as a Shadowknight, died, and reformed, they would reform with their hand back. If they lost a hand before becoming a Shadowknight, they would always reform without that hand.)

This next level of immortality is the expectation for all Shadowknights to achieve, although not many of them do. Shadowknights who do not are often looked down upon, and may have to prove themselves more rigorously than other Full Shadowknights. Shadowknights who are not Full Shadowknights are often referred to as “Premature,” “New,” or “Lesser” Shadowknights.

However, besides being unkillable, becoming a Full Shadowknight has no extra benefits. It is very possible for a “Lesser” Shadowknight to be much more skilled or powerful than a Full Shadowknight, since becoming a Full Shadowknight doesn’t actually increase your strength at all.

A Shadowknight who can reform can still be killed under very specific circumstances. If a Shadowknight’s soul is destroyed, the Shadowknight is killed permanently. This can ONLY be achieved through magical means, and even then can be difficult to achieve.

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Shadow Souls

Even when a killable Shadowknight dies, they don’t truly leave. When you become a Shadowknight, your soul is permanently bound to the Nether. A Shadowknight whose body has died becomes doomed to roam the Nether as a Shadow Soul for all eternity.

With no body or mind left, Shadow Souls lose themselves quickly. They lose little pieces of themself until there is nothing left but a mindless, vengeful soul. Even the strongest, most collected Shadowknight would lose themself as a Shadow Soul in a matter of days. They have no desires other than wanting to be alive and have a body again.

They have the ability to possess Shadowknights, although usually only ones who are newer or weaker. Most Shadow Souls are imprisoned in the jails of the Shadow Lord’s fortress to keep them from harassing and possessing Shadowknights.

(This possession is what happened to Alexis. A lot of weird, special circumstances had to be met for her to be possessed since she wasn’t (and still isn’t) a Shadow Knight.)

Even without possession, Shadow Souls can feed off the power and emotion of Shadowknights nearby. The most effective way to deal with a Shadow Soul is to use as little magic or power as possible, since they will feed and grow stronger on the excess, and can prevent abilities from being used by feeding off the energy that would be used to activate it. The Shadow Souls that are imprisoned in the Nether’s jails stop imprisoned Shadowknights from being able to use any of their Shadowknight abilities that might help them escape.

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Consuming a Soul

Although it is done very rarely, a Shadowknight can consume another Shadowknight’s soul. This is INCREDIBLY taboo, since it can permanently kill a Shadowknight who has the ability to reform. This fear of permanent death ensures that any knight who consumes other Shadowknight souls will be killed, or treated as an enemy/exile if they can escape with their life.

Consuming a Shadowknight’s soul can give the Shadowknight a small, temporary boost in power, both magickally and physically. The more souls they consume, the more powerful they can become, and the longer this temporary boost will last.

Most Shadowknights will fight back against being consumed. Shadow Souls are easier targets. Full Shadowknights are much harder to consume since they are much more sentient/mindful/powerful/motivated by the will to reform, and often flee instead of being consumed. Also, their body must be destroyed before their soul can be consumed, which adds an extra step to the already tiring process.

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Loss of Sentience

Some Shadowknights become nothing more than a puppet for the Shadow Lord, a creature with no thoughts or will of their own. This usually occurs immediately upon being reborn as a Shadowknight due to the trauma of the event, but can also occur over time in Shadowknights who have lost a sense of self or sense of purpose.

Some think that this happens because the soul of the Shadowknight tries to die or move on, but is unable to do so because of how it is bound to the Nether/the Shadowknight’s body. As a result, the knight is left with nothing but a mindless husk of their former self. Ultimately, there is no definite answer as to why this happens, although this is the most popular theory among Shadowknights.

Shadowknights who have lost their sentience can never regain it, presumably because parts of them have already passed on and do not wish to/are not able to return. A Shadowknight without their sentience has eyes that are permanently cloudy-looking and less reflective (like how eyes cloud over on death).

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A Reformed Body

When a person dies and becomes a Shadowknight, the new body they reform into is not the actual body they died in. The grave of a person who became a Shadowknight would still have a body in it. The body they reform into is a near perfect replica of the one that died, but it doesn’t “feel” the same.

The only exception to this rule is if the Shadowknight died as a child, and their body wasn’t already fully grown. All Shadowknights have fully-grown bodies, regardless of what age they died as. This is simply because a fully-grown body is stronger and more fit to serve as a knight. This can be very disturbing to Shadowknights who died younger, since they have to adapt to a body that they can only vaguely identify as their own. (This is what happened to Vylad.)

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A Sturdier Body

The body of a Shadowknight is different from the body of a human. All Shadowknights are naturally stronger, fastier, hardier, and heal quicker than the average human. They are literally made for the sole intention of being mass-killing soldiers, so it only makes sense that their new bodies reflect that.

When they heal, no scars are left behind. The only scars a Shadowknight will have are ones they obtained previously, before or on death. The only exceptions to this rule are if they lose a limb/eye/etc. If the Shadowknight is able to reform when they die, then their lost limb/eye/etc. will be back when they reform.

Any scars associated with the Shadowknight’s death might be a bit more prominent than a normal scar. They usually look bright red and angry, almost closer to an open wound.

All Shadowknights are completely immune to fire and heat. They can still feel fire and heat, but it doesn’t harm them. It can be a bit overwhelming to get used to at first, but most Shadowknights have to learn to grow used to it, since the Nether is like, 60% fire and lava. (Shadowknights actually take baths in lava in the Nether to stay clean, since there is no water.) (Also, technically they aren’t immune to fire on the INSIDE. If they like, ate fire, it would hurt pretty bad. Probably not as bad as it would hurt a normal human, but it would still hurt.)

Shadowknights don’t require the same things as humans do to live. A Shadowknight can survive without food, water, or sleep, and can go without these things longer before feeling any negative effects. However, a lack of these things can definitely make them weaker, and more miserable. Seeing as water cannot exist in the Nether, and nothing else naturally lives there, the lack of food and water is pretty agonizing for any Shadowknights stuck there.

Shadowknights aren’t completely exempt from natural human needs. They still need to breathe air, and they still need to keep their blood inside of them.

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Natural Abilities

When a person becomes a Shadowknight, they gain new abilities. All Shadowknights have the ability to summon Shadow Armor. This armor is an integral part of a Shadowknight, and the form it takes is unique (but similar) for each knight. It’s a bit like porcupine spikes or pufferfish in that many Shadowknights will summon it instinctively when they believe they are in danger. It also summons instinctively while in the Nether. It’s fairly sturdy, but is better at protecting against physical attacks than magickal ones. Destroying the armor won’t hurt a knight, but it can tire them. Armor that is destroyed/damaged can be resummoned, but it takes a bit of time to fix.

All Shadowknights also have the ability to summon a Shadow Weapon. Shadowknights can only form weapons that they are familiar with. They can only form tools that would be used in combat, and can only summon one at a time. (You can’t have your bow and arrows AND a sword AND a shield all summoned at once. Shadow WEAPON. Singular. No plural. Pick One.) They can also change the form of the weapon in between summonings, and in combat. Quickly switching between weapons can take some practice to perfect/get used to. Similarly to the armor, destroying the weapon won’t hurt a knight. It also won’t tire them, since a Shadow Weapon isn’t as much of a “part” of a knight as the armor is. A destroyed/damaged Shadow Weapon can be resummoned, but it takes a bit of time to fix.

All Shadowknights have the ability to sense other Shadowknights by their aura, tell if the Shadowknight is fully immortal or not, and suppress their own Shadowknight aura from being detected/identified. This ability has to be practiced in order to become effective. A knight who neglects this ability may only be able to sense large groups, or only sense a knight that is extremely close by. They also might not be able to suppress their own aura at all. A knight who practices this ability can sense another knight from, at a maximum, 350-ish feet away. They could potentially identify a specific Shadowknight from their aura (and this becomes easier if they have spent a lot of time around this Shadowknight before.) They could also potentially suppress their own aura for hours at a time, with only a little effort. These are extremes, and most Shadowknights don’t perfect these abilities to this extent.

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Additional Abilities

Some Shadowknights gain new abilities in addition to the ones all Shadowknights gain by default. Oddly enough, Shadowknights who already have a preexisting magickal/witchcraft affinity are less likely to receive one of these abilities. Most gain only one from the following list, but very rarely can gain two. From most to least common, the list is as follows:

•Dimming lights - They can blend in easier into shadows by dimming the light around them. They can also dim or put out lights, or make any light less bright for a short amount of time. (This obviously doesn’t work on stuff like The Sun, but I do think that if you got really good at using this ability, you could maybe make the moon appear dark or the stars disappear for a bit. They wouldn’t ACTUALLY stop shining, it would just appear that they did, if that makes sense?) (Sasha is a notable Shadowknight with this ability.)

•Teleportation - They can only teleport to places they know exist, and they can’t teleport between dimensions. The further the location, and the more people they are teleporting, the more energy, effort, and concentration it takes. Most Shadowknights who can teleport aren’t able to do so while in the middle of combat because it takes too much concentration to do so. Hard to teleport while you are also trying not to get stabbed. Who would guess. (Vylad is a notable Shadowknight with this ability.)

•Shapeshifting - They can change their own appearance into another. If you get really good at using this ability, you could look like someone else entirely. However, normally this ability is just useful for changing clothes/hair color/disguises. Maintaining a shapeshift also takes focus/concentration, and normally can’t be maintained for very long periods of time depending on the complexity of the shapeshift. If you just changed your clothes, you could maintain it for a couple hours. If you look like another person entirely, probably 1-2 hours max. A shapeshift is also hard to maintain in battle for the same reason as teleportation. (Zenix is a notable Shadowknight with this ability.)

•Shadow Manipulation - They can create solid forms out of shadow, and manipulate these forms as they see fit. This is probably the most difficult ability to use, and also the most difficult to master. The larger/more complex this manipulation is, the harder it is to maintain. This ability is different from the Shadow Weapon in that it can’t really be sharp, and can’t form extremely defined/specific shapes. Shadow manipulation lends itself much better to blobs. (Gene is a notable Shadowknight with this ability.)

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Overwhelming Emotions

Shadowknight’s abilities strengthen when powered by emotion. For any Shadowknights who don’t care about the danger and destruction they cause, this is only a plus. For the rest, it is a curse. The link between emotion and power can be extremely overwhelming, making it much easier to get worked up and much harder to calm down. Death and destruction is a part of a Shadowknight’s nature, making these fits dangerous for anyone who dares to get in the Shadowknight’s way.

Because of this, there are two paths that a Shadowknight must choose between. Either they make the effort to suppress your emotions, cut off friendships, family, and other bonds. Or, they let their emotions control them entirely, weaponizing their existence and becoming a tool of pure chaos. Neither choice is very appealing.

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Seeing Red

One of the most iconic and identifiable features of a Shadowknight is the eyes. Whenever using any of their abilities, wearing summoned Shadow Armor, or even feeling an emotion that is too strong, a Shadowknight’s eyes will glow red. Depending on the strength of their emotion or intensity of their action, this red can spread from their eyes to the skin around it.

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The Nether

The Nether is the home of all Shadowknights, although not by choice. The Nether was never meant to be inhabited by anyone, which is clear from the lack of food, water, and habitable land present there. However, since the Shadow Lord is trapped in the Nether and not strong enough to leave, the Shadowknights he creates are bound to the Nether in strange ways. Shadowknights feel a natural draw to return to the Nether whenever they are away, and in extreme cases can even feel ill if they are gone for long periods of time. This urge is called The Calling. With time and practice, this urge can be suppressed, though it never completely fades.

On the other hand, Shadowknights are somewhat stronger in the Nether, both magickally and physically. Fighting a Shadowknight on home turf is generally a bad idea, and it’s best to fight them in the Overworld instead.

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Lost and Altered Memories

Although it isn’t inherently a part of becoming a Shadowknight, many knights find themselves without their memories from when they were alive, or unknowingly have had parts of their memories changed. This has become much more common among more recent Shadowknights. (Vylad and Zenix are some of the last notable Shadowknights to not have their memories altered.) This is largely because of Gene, the Shadow Lord’s most trusted knight. His magicks let him manipulate the memories of others, and the Shadow Lord encourages him to use his abilities to create a more willing army. Many knights who might’ve originally questioned the Shadow Lord and his goals have their memories altered so that they are more willing to follow the Shadow Lord, and kill in his name. (Sasha is a notable Shadowknight who this applies to.)

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Thank you for reading!

Feel free to use any of these ideas in your own MCD fan-content, and if you have anything you would like to ask about/clarify, feel free to send me an ask or message!

#Minecraft Diaries #aphmau fanart #shadowknight #shadow knight #aphmau #Shad the destroyer #mcd #shadow lord #shadow soul #mcd meta #wrote like 90% on various nights at 2 am so if something makes literally no sense please let me know so i can fix it #injury tw #scar tw #body horror tw #<for the shadow souls bcs those things are terrifying. let me know if anything else should b tagged #long post #aikidoart

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of-daisies-and-dandelions · 2 years

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OMG THE LAST ONE, HE SURE IS THE BEST BOY. The jobs option 👉👈 I love it?? What's ur main job for him? And please I'd love to know the story behind him, go ahead and throw everything you've thought!! I adore how ffxiv can make me adore different mcs and yours might be one of the faves I've ever saw hahah big handsome wol vibes, I love it!! ALSO YES. Let's talk about our ocs because I'm also a viera supremacist (female, but still) ♡

gosh you are making me blush!!! ;-;

My main jobs for him currently are Dark Knight, Reaper and Bard. You are so right about how the FF community just keeps making these amazing, beautiful and interesting characters and hearing everyone's stories and backgrounds and personalities for their wols is so nice!

His story is under the cut because it's embarassingly long :')

His story basically starts with another WOL, who I've played since ARR to about level 83 of Endwalker, Mia. A miqote Bard, White Mage and Paladin. She truly was the epitome of a Warrior of Light, kind, caring, would give her all for anyone who needed her, even though she was absolutely riddled with doubts and fears, something which sadly festered over time, Shadowbringers truly was the moment where she broke, not only because of the incredible strain on her physical health, but also her mind (suddenly starting to get flashes from past lives and reliving old wounds, losing new old friends all over again, etc. you know how Shadowbringers is). That led to her growing weaker and weaker up to Endwalker, and shortly after Zenos takes control of the Wol's body, she canonically dies, killed by a blasphemy, while she was out in the field, kind of losing her mind with old memories and aching body from all the light she carried.

At the same time, Cain, who is originally from a different shard, is fed up with his miserable life in the forest with his brothers, who were always awful to him, and finally snaps and leaves, runs away, and as he runs, fast as he can, tears in his eyes, trying to escape his life that he didnt want to live anymore, Hydaelyn, sensing what is about to happen, opens a portal with the last of her strength and transports him to the Source. He runs out of a snowy forest just in time to see Mia being cut down. He runs over to see what is happening, and finds Azem's crystal in her hand, glowing.

Cain communicates with Mia and Ardbert in a little forest clearing inside his mind, where he meets her for the first time and allows her to pass into him. Thus, the two shards of Azem, Mia and Ardbert, are reunited with a third, who is, of course, none other than Cain.

Because they are all technically the same person, they are compatible. However, that is only in theory, because no matter how much people wish for that to be the case, Cain is a person of its own. He carries Mia and Ardbert's memories, feelings, but that is all.

My Azem's shards are based on animals, therefore, Mia was based on a fox, Ardbert is a wolf and Cain is a wild hare. Sometimes, Cain and other people that knew Mia can swear they see a little fox dart in the corner of their eyes, but when they look, there is nothing there.

Azem and all their shards share certain similiarities as well, like not fitting in where they were born and having to carve their own way trough life, amongst other things.

Both her and Ardbert still play a role in the story, interacting with people in their dreams (though that happens so, so rarely, I wanted their death to be actually meaningful, and not be like oh, they are still kicking!!! hahaha), and generally keeping an eye on the people they love as animal spirits. I wanted them to be a comforting presence, in a way.

Cain is immediately thrust into absolute shitstorm, because he had absolutely no time to adjust or get used to his new powers, memories and responsibilities, immediately has to fight Zodiark, which triggers the literal apocalypse, so he's one day on the job and the world is already ending!!! Im sure that's not going to be a major trauma or anything.

He struggles to find his place in Endwalker, and especially post Endwalker. He wanders, trying to find a reason to do this besides his childish dreams of wanting to be a hero, be important, be able to change something. To actually find a reason to continue fighting and understand his place in all of this.

It is in his wanderings, still wielding the bow, which was Mia's preffered weapon, that he learns how to wield a scythe and a greatsword. He learns how to derive strength from his and all the other shards' darkness that he carries, therefore becoming something of an opposite to Mia. Where Mia was the literal embodiment of a Warrior of Light, Cain becomes her mirror and basically acts as a Warrior of Darkness.

That is the main gist of it all. I dont know if this isn't the most cringe thing you have ever read :') I try with all of my characters and stories to make it magical and kind of whimsical in a way, I like to play with the lore and rules given by the world and working with it in a way that still sounds believable, despite obviously having to squint a little.

Thank you so, so much for reading all this mumbo jumbo, I had an exhausting few days and I truly wanted to sit with this and write it with actual class, but I think that would never get done at this rate, so I just wanted to hurl it out of my head and hope it is at least slightly comprehensible hahaha.

Would you like to tell me about your bunny? I would love, LOVE to read anything you have! Thank you for your patience with getting this ask answered ;-; I hope you are doing great and keeping healthy!

P.S. Heres a lil somethin' :D

#nat rambles #answered ask #ffxiv

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dumplingfaye · 3 years

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Here’s my top 30 strongest characters in Black clover

(I’m trying to be extremely fair but there is some biased so if there’s someone that doesn’t make that much sense why they’re highly ranked it’s because I’m biased one character in particular and I’m doing this because someone made a absolutely god awful top 15)

Charlotte Roselei .30

if you wonder why she’s ranked so low it’s because even though she fought Vanica and won that was when Vanica was weaker and once Vanica went 100% she creamed Charlotte plus her magic was only effective because it was cursed magic if she fought any of the other dark triad members she would have probably lost

Lumiere Silvamillion Clover/Licht .29/.28

if you’re wondering why they’re so low on the list it’s because they couldn’t defeat Zagred and contrary to some people’s beliefs Zagred is actually extremely weak at least compared to the other Devils

Zagred .27

he’s very powerful what can I say but he’s pretty low on the list because well he is smart however when it comes to fighting he’s very bland and does the exact same thing over and over

Luck Voltia/Leopoldo Vermillion/Charmy Pappitson/Mimosa Vermillion .26/.25/.24/.23

a basic summary they all have true magic and intern they all have ultimate magic (Luck has Elven magic as well which also gives him an extra boost) (Leopoldo is a Royal and trains a lot so he doesn’t gets left behind)” not that that helps”(Charmy is a hybrid of a human and a dwarf)and (Mimosa is a Royal as well as a recovery mage but that doesn’t mean that she can’t put up a good fight)

Nozel Silva/Fuegoleon Vermillion 22/.21

(Nozel to tell the truth i’m not actually sure how much powerful he’s gotten over the last six months but he’s probably going to play a big role soon so this is also kind of his biased) as for (Fuegoleon to tell the truth I kind of think he’s pretty weak but maybe he has spirit dive so that’s why he’s here if he doesn’t well he’s not even on the list in that case)

Zora Ideale .20

you’re probably wondering why he’s here This isn’t me being biased because I’m kind of indifference towards Zora but he’s here because his magic is quite interesting he can reflect someone’s attack and double its power and he possibly even has more tricks up his sleeve after all it has been six months

Magna Swing: .19

now you’re probably wondering why he’s so low on the list after all he beat Dante well that’s actually pretty simple it’s because to me this is actually kind of me being biased I don’t actually like Magna in fact I actually hate him but to me personally I think his trump card is for very pacific conditions for starters we know that Dante is extremely strong right when it comes to magic but when it comes to intellect or physical strength he has none so to me if Magna fights someone with either of those things or God for bid both I personally think he would lose but this could just be my bias talking

Gaja .18

he fought the wizard king to a stalemate and he was able to fight Devil Lolopechka to an even degree when he wasn’t even trying to hurt her but she was trying to hurt him (I could be wrong please don’t get mad at me keep in mind this is just my opinion)

Julius Novachrono(at prime) .17

Julius at his prime everyone stroke his power and even though Yami trained for six months he was still weaker than Julius he only became stronger after he surpassed his limits

Yami Sukehiro .16

(dimension slash/Equinox)(death thrust)(Black hole) etc.

Jack the Ripper .15

if I’m being honest I’m pretty sure if he fought Magna he would probably lose (because he has a weak body and doesn’t have that much intellect) but because his magic is so versatile that he can adapt to the magic attribute it’s against he possibly could do incredible things with it even though I kind a wish he would die I don’t like him either

Devil Lolopechka .14

To tell the truth I’m not exactly sure if she’s stronger than anyone who’s on the list but I assume she is at the very least I know she’s stronger than Charlotte but because she’s a devil she’s probably stronger than most of the other characters

Zenon Zogratis /Yuno Grinberryall .13/.12

if I’m being honest I don’t actually know who’s stronger because even though at the beginning of their fight (of course not in their first one) Yuno was indeed winning the fight but after Zenon went 100% it came to a stalemate so I’m not exactly sure who is stronger (one is a devil user) and the other (is a spirit user) so 50/50 ╰(0 ~ 0)╯

Dante Zogratis/Vanica Zogratis: .11/.10

I mean they’re both stupid and they’re both strong and I didn’t put them in the same boat as Zenon because when Vanica heard that “Yami was defeated by Zenon” she said that he might not be as strong as she hoped implying that she was stronger than Zenon plus Dante has the king of all devils so that’s why there here

Dorothy Unsworth .9

this might be my bias talking but because she has her own world (created by magic) she can conjure up anything she wants and of course she’s gotten stronger over the six months so that’s why she’s highly ranked

Mereoleona Vermillion .8

She’s fighting a demon God and even though her magic is being absorbed she can still fight so yeah

Noelle Silva/Acier Silva .7/.6

to me personally they don’t actually have that many differences when it comes to strengths because both of them defeated Vanica and sure Vanica was weaker when she fought Acier but (Acier had to protect both of her children plus she died because of Megicula’s interference) and Acier was able to leave a permanent mark on Vanica

Nacht Faust .5

(OKAY if I’m being honest this is extremely biased I really like him a lot) but Nacht was able to cream Asta and Liebe for two days straight and while they were being cured he wasn’t (I mean it’s possible he was but I didn’t see it and neither did you” except in Fanart”) and they were able to defeat Dante and fight on par with Yami when they were weaker and out of breath and not even working in conjunction with each other so yeah and when he fought Naamah and Lilith he was able to perform a spell that is on the same level as supreme devils and the only reason why they were able to break through it is because Naamah and Lilith burn/freeze everything even invincible concepts/constructs and they were the strongest Devils we’ve seen so far at that pint in time and even though they were playing with him at a stalemate they were still stronger than anything they faced before and he was able to keep them busy for a little while wow this one was long

Naamah and Lilith .4

I just said it before but they’re able to burn/freeze everything you need including invincible concept/constructs anyhow they’re basically extremely strong and they could cream everyone on the list except the people who are higher than them

Megicula .3

well he/she (I don’t want to assume genders and be wrong) basically trashes on everyone in mere instant

Asta & Liebe .2

Devil union is just that over powered I mean it’s able to take out transformations such as spirit dive possibly other devil unions and of course normal spells such as Valkyrie dress or princess healing flower robe as well spirit of hellfire etc. able to dispel mana-zone based rooms is able to cut through any type of magic even if it’s a physical being and the sword themselves already pack a punch by themselves so with extra power that’s just over powered

Lucifuge/Lucifero .1/.0

Who the fu*k did you think was going to be number one/number zero Seriously who they’re literally the main bad guys in this arc it is impossible to tell what they’re capable of but whatever it is we know that they can kill anyone they want in an instant without even trying this isn’t me overhyping them this is a factual thing they are practically the most overpowered creatures in Black clover we have yet to see them and frankly I don’t think we want to I mean both of them killed really kind people Lucifero killed Licita Lucifuge I mean technically he didn’t kill Morgan (Morgen died because he interfered with the Devil ritual) but they killed Nacht and Morgan parents and if we’re being honest their parents well they kind of did deserve death

#Black clover #Black clover Asta #Asta #Black clover Liebe #Black clover Nacht #Black clover Nacht Faust #Nacht Faust #Black clover Noelle #Noelle #Black clover Noelle Silva #Noelle Silva #Black clover Yuno #Yuno #Black clover Yuno Grinberryall #Yuno Grinberryall

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bloodfromthethorn · 3 years

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Training Days

Riley had never really considered herself much of a physical fighter. Sure, given her background she’d been in more than her fair share of scrapes and she knew how to fight dirty with the rest of them, no hesitation, if that was what the situation in front of her required. Even setting aside the absolute nightmare prison had been, she’d been butting heads with self-entitled dickbags since she was about seven years old and she had long since learned the quickest way of using her body to turn someone else into a non-threat.

But for all of that, given her choice of scene, she knew that her skills were best served behind a laptop, ruining someone’s day from an entirely different country, rather than from two feet away, sweating and panting.

Unfortunately, government agents didn’t always get that choice.

Which really was all just a very roundabout way of saying that one of the stipulations of her admittedly pretty shady and very much classified contract with The Phoenix Foundation was that she participate in extensive hand-to-hand combat training and physical fitness drills, and that meant getting sweaty on the training mats every Tuesday and Thursday. Some days it wasn’t so bad - there were a handful of other newish recruits who were at around the same level of training as her and she generally had a good time working through her sets with them to guide her, and guiding them in turn. Other days, it was rough; training with Thornton had been a minefield of expectations, admiration, and pressure, and training with Jack always left her aching and sore. She always walked away knowing something new, without fail, but she still wouldn’t call it a highlight of her working life.

Training with Mac though, that was something altogether different.

She ducked low just as a heavily muscled arm flew through the space where her head had just been, then immediately staggered back as his knee swung up to meet her. Mac didn’t let her get far, effortlessly pivoting the kick into a long stride forwards, keeping himself in her space to launch another flurry of attacks that she just barely managed to avoid. Strong and quick and well trained, Mac had every possible physical advantage in a fight, and to top it off, he was always mentally at least twenty steps ahead of anything she could even begin to plan to do.

Another punch came at her right side and she took a chance on Mac’s ever so slightly weaker left-hand-side reflexes to slide under the blow and put herself at his back. Against most opponents, the move would have been enough to give her an opening to throw a punch of her own or maybe even go for a grab; against Mac, he had already twisted to face her head on before she’d even finished moving.

“Nice,” he offered charitably, even though it had earned her no ground. Her one consolation was that he was starting to sound winded, not quite as unaffected as he likely wanted to appear by the intense physical exertion they’d been going through.

Riley, for her part, decided not to waste air responding. Instead she dipped low and took a cheap shot at his right knee, the same knee that had been in a brace up until three weeks ago after a gun runner in South Africa had managed to shove him clean off a rooftop and he broke his leg in the fall. Mac hissed in alarm - while technically cleared for duty, he was still healing and he had zero desire to lose the use of his limb again - and slipped sideways, right into the path of Riley’s incoming upper cut.

His agility saved him from a fist connecting with his chin, but she still managed to clip his shoulder with a hit hard enough to put him on the defensive, and for the first time the ball was in Riley’s court. As much as she knew she was still outmatched, it was a testament to how far she had come that it no longer felt like Mac was letting her go on the attack, rather than genuinely having to retreat under her advance, and she couldn’t help but feel a little bit proud of herself as she pushed forwards.

As he was wont to do when on defence, Mac went about the bizarre process of turning himself to water and slipped and slid out of every shot she could throw at him. When one of her kicks actually did connect with his thigh and sent him stumbling sideways, she was so surprised by it herself that she just barely managed to follow it up with an open palmed strike at the side of his head.

The hesitation would have been enough for any reasonably well trained fighter to get the upper hand, and Mac had ten years of military and covert experience behind him. He knocked her hand away with a fluid flick of his wrist and contorted sharply to get around and behind her in a single step, his other arm sliding up to tuck snugly against her neck and haul her back into him. To his credit, he kept himself gentle - as gentle as it was possible to be while dragging someone into a chokehold, at any rate - so his arm rested more against her collarbones than her windpipe and he caught her against him rather than crushing, but it was still enough to momentarily knock her off balance with a huff.

“Going for my knee was good instincts,” he told her breathlessly, apparently grateful to have a moment to suck in air. She could feel how his heart was pounding against her back, the rush of air in his lungs as fought to recover himself, and felt vaguely vindicated that she had enough skill to work him so hard. “Still a cheap shot though.”

Hauling in air herself and knowing that she was reaching the end of her adrenaline, Riley grinned. “You think that was cheap?”

With a twist and a grunt of effort, she cut her elbow up sharply into Mac’s stomach, catching him hard below the ribs and sending him staggering back with a pained wheeze. Momentarily thrown off and half-doubled over in breathlessness, Mac presented no threat at all when Riley darted out of his reach and spun to face him once more, smiling at her own triumph.

Mac glared at her half-heartedly, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that his face was a blazing red and he couldn’t catch his breath. “Underhanded,” he managed to gasp out after a second.

Still riding high on the joy of a rare victory, Riley just laughed. “I thought sparring was supposed to be a no-holds-barred situation? Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same.”

Giving in to the urge to drop to his knees rather than resist the gentle pull of gravity, Mac huffed out a strained laugh of his own. “Yeah, I would. Where’d you learn that?”

Winded and breathless herself, Riley followed him to the mat with an inelegant flop, just barely catching herself on her hands instead of sprawling across the mat like an oversized house cat. “Where else? Jack taught me. He might also have said something about you never remembering to guard against it.”

“Fucking Jack,” Mac wheezed, rolling over to lie flat on his back on the mats as he struggled to recover. “Old man’s not even here and he’s kicking my ass.”

“Just who are you calling old?” Another voice called from the doorway. Mac and Riley both turned to look as Jack came into sight, shaking his head as he took in the pair of them and just barely managing to maintain his facade of irritation over the amusement that so clearly wanted to burst forth.

“Especially when you’re the one wheezing like an asthmatic cat,” Riley chipped in happily, letting her smugness show through. She’d managed to get one over Mac from time to time in training before, but this was the first time she’d made him go down and stay down and the thrill of it was high in her blood. From the way Jack was beaming at her like she’d just hung the moon, she was pretty sure she had good reason to be proud.

Mac waved a hand in what might have been the beginning of retort, but he evidently decided he was too busy trying to breathe to voice whatever it was.

“I think you broke him Riles.”

“Just doing what you taught me. Worked like a charm.”

Jack snorted, dropping his gym bag by the wall and striding over to stare down at where Mac was still supine on the mat. “Always does since this one,” he nudged at Mac’s shoulder with his foot, “Never thinks to guard his ribs when he has someone in a choke.”

“I think about it plenty,” Mac protested half-heartedly. “Just don’t always manage it in time.”

“You’ve been saying that since the Sandbox man, I think it’s time to give it up.” He shot a smug look at Riley, like he was letting her in on a secret. “First time we met, this idiot tried to get me in a headlock. I popped him twice in the ribs before he realised it wasn’t going to work.”

Riley’s eyebrows rose. “You hit him?”

Even with his eyes closed, Jack knew Mac had just rolled his eyes and was bracing himself to tell her the story, so Jack beat him to it. “He started it. Caught some good for nothing punk kid messing with my gear.”

“Fixing your gear,” Mac wheezed, but tossed a smile Jack’s way to take any sting out of it. They’d never discussed it exactly, but Mac had learned early on that there was no one on Earth who knew their way around a rifle better than Jack Dalton and while he might not necessarily keep his gear in a ‘standard’ condition, he’d developed a system that worked for him. Mac hadn’t been wrong when he’d said the bolt carrier was lacking forward assist, but that was only because Jack hadn’t wanted it there. “And besides, I pulled that exact same move on you and you bitched about your bruised liver for a month.”

Riley was glancing between them with an amused smile on her face. “He touched your stuff,” she said, pointing at Mac, “So you took a swing at him?”

“Pretty much,” Mac put in, twisting his head to shoot her a can-you-believe-this-shit look. “I won that fight too.”

“You did not,” Jack argued immediately, kicking lightly at him again. “You’re just lucky I didn’t want to break your skinny little arm in front of all those nice people.”

“You couldn’t have if you’d wanted to. You’re lucky the brass came in and saved you the trouble of tapping out.”

It was obviously a well-worn fight between them, and from the fondness in both their voices, there was absolutely no animosity remaining. Riley couldn’t help but wonder just what it had taken to get them from a fist fight over equipment to the blood brother partnership standing before her in that moment. Although, on second thoughts, given what she had heard about the Sandbox, she might be better off not knowing.

Jack scoffed at the assertion, shaking his head. “You think you can take me on? Bring it wunderkind.”

Mac glanced up at him for a second, calculating, then pushed himself halfway to sitting before slouching back down with a huff. “Yeah, I’ll get on that as soon as my diaphragm starts working again, okay?”

It was said lightly, but Riley still felt herself frowning, her buoyant mood dipping in sudden concern. “You alright?”

Mac waved an unconcerned hand. “Peachy. You have very pointy elbows.”

“...Thanks?”

Jack seemingly took pity on her, because he thrust out a hand to help her to her feet and ushered her vaguely in the direction of the showers. “My turn to try and teach boy wonder here how to actually block that strike. Again. You get yourself cleaned up.”

Doing some quick maths in her head, Riley figured she could have a quick blast shower and be back in the gym within a couple of minutes, giving Mac plenty of time to get himself back upright and make sure she didn’t miss any of their sparring session. Her instructors had repeatedly told her that she could learn a lot by watching as well as doing, and honestly she was eager to see how Mac did against someone much more his equal outside of a life or death situation. With that goal in mind she rushed through a quick shower and a blessedly sweat-free change of clothes, then headed back to the gym to settle down at the edge of the mats.

As she’d guessed, Mac was back on his feet and seemed to have finally caught his breath again, but from the way he was eyeing up Jack’s muscled frame, he was probably wishing he was still on the ground. She bit back a grin.

“Hey, look at this, you get an audience to watch you getting your ass handed to you,” Jack taunted, finishing off his stretching with a small flourish and winking at Riley. “Now she can see what all of your moves are supposed to look like."

Mac didn't rise to the bait, and instead went about rolling his shoulders and shaking the fatigue out of his arms. Truthfully, he knew he wasn't a match for Jack on a good day, and he and Riley had already been going at it for a while. This was most likely going to be a lesson in damage minimisation more than actually winning. "We doing this then or what?"

Jack’s only response was a sharp, predatory smile and a lightning fast kick at Mac’s chest.

It only took a minute or so of watching them for Riley to understand just how and why Mac was so good at strike evasion - nearly a decade spent sparring with someone like Jack had no doubt taught him that being slow enough to get hit was a deeply regrettable decision. The ex-Delta soldier’s training had clearly served him well and it rapidly became apparent just how much of his ability he had been toning down when he went up against Riley on the mats. Fast, and strong, and precise, she had absolutely no idea how Mac was able to not only avoid Jack’s hits, but land a few of his own.

They were-

-Impressive.

She’d heard fighting being compared to dancing in the past and though she’d never really agreed with that particular analogy, for the first time she thought she might understand what they were getting at. Mac and Jack were a match, both incredibly skilled and both so familiar with each other that they knew exactly how hard they could push. No one watching this bout could ever not recognise them as partners.

Despite the earlier smack talk, Riley had to admit that she’d assumed Jack would be the winner hands down. Evidently, she’d been wrong about that because Mac was putting up a hell of a fight and he had the slightest edge on speed that balanced out Jack’s sheer force, but at the end of the day he was walking wounded and worse, Jack knew it. He’d zeroed in on the same weak spot she had, only he had the training and experience to properly put it to use.

Mac’s injured knee buckled like a snapped twig. He did his best to save himself from the fall, but there was only so much a man could do when he was already off-balance and his one remaining support had just turned to unresponsive water beneath him; all he could do was try not to land on his face. He was- reasonably successful. Somehow it didn’t make the whole experience look any less painful.

Almost in the same instant he was down, Mac was already moving to snatch at the offending limb, hissing out sharply between his teeth as he got his hands on the injury in genuine pain. Startled, Riley started pushing to her feet but Jack thrust his palm out towards her, waving her down from where he was hovering just out of arm’s reach of his downed partner, watching warily.

“You good man?”

Mac didn’t respond beyond rolling further onto his side, curling in around where he’d folded his leg up towards his chest. His eyes were scrunched closed, his breathing tight.

“Mac?” Riley asked softly, scrambling to her knees despite Jack’s dismissal.

Jack hesitated another moment longer, visibly torn, before he swayed half a step closer. “C’mon bud I need you to give me something here. I didn’t break that knee again did I?”

Still no response. From her vantage point, Riley could see that Mac was shaking like a leaf, fine tremors of pain racking his frame. Evidently Jack could see it too, because he only paused a second longer before muttering a curse and finally stepping forward into Mac’s range.

It was a mistake.

With a fierceness Riley hadn’t previously credited him with, Mac’s supposedly injured leg snapped out from where he’d coiled it in like a spring, cracking hard against Jack’s ankle and dropping him like a stone as his balance failed. The fall seemingly put his partner exactly where Mac wanted him, because a heartbeat later he had wormed his legs around Jack’s neck and snatched at the closest arm to him to pin it firmly along his own middle, locking it in place. It was the work of an instant and it left Jack helplessly pinned, his legs too far out of range to be of any use and his one free arm busily occupied with stopping Mac’s right leg from crushing his throat.

The leverage gave Jack just enough breathing room to speak. “You’re an ass.”

Mac let out a breathless laugh, clearly straining against the fight Jack was putting up. Even when Mac was in the far better position, Jack had him outmatched for brute strength by a country mile. “You should’ve seen it coming,” he pointed out, strained and amused.

“Forgive me for worrying I might have actually hurt you,” Jack grunted, shifting. Riley could see how the corded muscle in his pinned arm was straining against where Mac had it in a two-handed grip, fighting to get the space he needed to lash out. “Matty would kill me if I messed up that knee again.”

“Good to know you care.”

“You’re not gonna like what I do next man, fair warning.” Jack didn’t give him more than half a second to let that sentence sink in before he jerked his pinned arm back towards him. Mac had been holding it from rising, preventing Jack from getting the leverage to swing down at his face and chest; the sudden redirection of force wasn’t something he could compensate for and his grip failed. Fortunately, the warning had been a genuine lifeline - Mac knew exactly what he was going to do.

As soon as he felt Jack move, he canted his hips sharply, twisting his body so that the elbow that was about to drive down hard on a rather sensitive part of his anatomy caught him heavily in the hollow space of his inner hip joint instead. It was still a strong enough blow that he felt himself jackknife up, the muscles across his stomach rippling to attention in a sudden bolt of pain, but he wasn’t left gagging and helpless. Since the attack had already left him sitting up, he used that to his advantage, letting his momentum bring him up and over Jack, racing to get his legs where he needed them before Jack could react and preferably without kneeling on his neck or booting him in the face.

It wasn’t elegant, limbs tangled up as they were, but when the struggle settled down a few seconds later, Jack was still pinned flat on his back with most of Mac’s body weight crushing down against his chest. The arm that had very nearly threatened any possible future children was jammed flat to the floor by Mac’s left knee, while the other was trapped between Mac’s other leg and Jack’s own ribcage.

Mac smirked down at his partner. “I don’t know - this seems to have worked out alright for me,” he taunted, easing just a little more of his weight down. Strong as his position might initially appear, his balance was hanging by a thread and his only hope of keeping it was to use sheer mass to overwhelm Jack’s impossible strength.

“You know you’re not gonna hold me like this for long slick,” Jack shot back, sounding winded. With the amount of downward force currently trying to stop him from breathing, it was vaguely impressive that he could talk at all.

“Hey, Riley.” Mac shot her a quick look over his shoulder before returning his attention to Jack. Knowing the man, the momentary distraction had been something he allowed rather than something he failed to capitalise on. “You know how I managed this?”

Bemused that Mac apparently believed now of all times was the moment for a pop quiz, Riley found herself staring at him in disbelief. He didn’t continue though, and Jack was apparently willing to play possum long enough for her to answer, so she made herself concentrate. “You tricked him,” she said slowly.

“Yeah, but how?”

“Acting hurt.”

“Mhm,” he hummed in agreement, shifting ever so slightly when one of Jack’s breaths came in a little heavier than normal. The hold wouldn’t be hurting him, but it would put strain on his lungs and clearly Mac didn’t actually want to make him too uncomfortable while he tried to impart some new life lesson on their tech analyst. Not that it likely mattered - Riley had a sneaking suspicion that Jack could get himself up in a heartbeat the moment he actually wanted to and Mac was sure to know that. “But why did that work? How did I know it would?”

“Because you’re a little shit,” Jack muttered sullenly to himself.

“Because you knew he would worry about you,” Riley said instead of acknowledging the wisdom of a wheezing man trapped flat on his back. “You know he doesn’t want to see you hurt and that he’d help you if you were.”

Mac hummed again, shooting her a proud smile over his shoulder. “Same reason both of you went for my knee-” There, he threw in a peeved look at the pair of them, “-And why it worked every time. You get it?”

She did. “We used what we knew about our partners against them. We know your knee’s still recovering, so it’s a weak point to exploit. You know Jack cares about you, so he’s going to let his guard down when you’re injured.”

It wasn’t rocket science and she’d known it in principle for years, but she could see what Mac was doing. By forcing her to talk about it, to lay it out, he was getting her to actively consider it, to get in the habit of evaluating an opponent and seeing the places where she could get an advantage. Even now she recognised that she could almost certainly use Mac’s trick against Jack in the same way - provided she could manage to act half as well as he could, at any rate.

“It’s not as easy in the field,” Mac said. “We know each other really well - up to and including any recent injuries, which is a big help. You’re not going to have that with most of the people you come across. But with a bit of practice, you can start to pick up people’s tells.”

She digested that for a moment, then smirked. “So are you going to show me more of Jack’s?”

At that, he grimaced, the muscles across the back of his shoulders going tense. “Unfortunately, now he knows not to underestimate me, you’ve just seen pretty much all I have.” He looked back down at where Jack was starting to grin up at him and let his frown turn pleading. “Don't suppose I can tap out now and save myself the body slam?” He didn't sound hopeful.

Jack smiled like a cat with a mouse in its paws. “Not a chance,” he replied evenly, then struck out with the speed of a snake, so quickly Riley wasn't entirely sure what it was that he'd done. Whatever it was, the result was Mac's centre of gravity being yanked out from under him in one swift pull and sending him to the mats with a solid thud that knocked the wind clean out of him for the second time in ten minutes. In the same move, Jack swung himself up to hover over his partner, still grinning slyly to himself. “You done? Or do I need to pin you?”

Mac couldn't more obviously be out of the fight if he tried, his breathing rough and erratic, but he obligingly tapped sharply on the mat beside himself all the same. Jack let out a small whoop of victory, sending another wink in Riley's direction to show off even as he stuck out a hand to brush soothingly down Mac’s spasming rib cage. It probably wouldn’t help Mac get his muscles under control, but the gesture was fond and reassuring, and he didn’t protest the contact.

“And that’s how it’s done,” Jack said smugly, practically oozing satisfaction. “This is why you should always listen to ole’Jack when he gives you combat lessons Riles.”

“Rule two,” Mac wheezed helplessly, head thrown back and eyes closed as he fought to get his diaphragm back on side.

“Ey now, you just focus on breathing,” Jack cautioned. “You’re gonna scare Riley if you keep gasping like an old man.” He shot a glance at her that shut down any genuine concern she might have had brewing in her gut; if Mac really was hurt, Jack wouldn’t be smiling. “That slam is meant to wind, not injure. Good for incapacitating someone quickly without causing actual damage.”

“I didn’t even see what you did,” she told him honestly, trying to play the grapple back in her head and coming up blank. Jack had moved too quickly for her to grasp more than the headlines.

“Well, I’ll just have to show you again sometime. Perhaps a bit slower. Mac’ll be happy to help out, right man?” There was a disagreeable wheeze from the blonde’s general direction. “See? He’s thrilled.”

“Yeah, he sounds it.” Despite herself, she couldn’t help but laugh. Mac cracked one scrunched up eye open to watch her, fighting off a smile of his own that was cripplingly fond. Still resting above him with a hand on his partner’s chest, Jack’s expression was much the same. Her chest swelled with sudden, overwhelming warmth. “Maybe we should wait until he can breathe though, yeah?”

“Ha, he’s fine,” Jack said carelessly, patting him gently on the ribs for effect. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had to put him in his place on the mats. Always gets overconfident.”

“Screw you,” Mac replied. It might have had more weight to it if he hadn’t been struggling to haul in air at the same time. “I had you pinned.”

“Yeah, and how did that work out for you?”

Mac swatted at him, lazy and uncoordinated, and that feeling in Riley’s chest pulsed a little more fiercely. Sparring might be a bit hit or miss, but this, right here, huddled up with Mac and Jack? That was all but home and she wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“So the two of you really got in a fist fight when you first met? How did you ever become friends?”

Jack snorted. “That took some work. But of course Mac couldn’t help but warm to my sparkling personality.”

The man in question huffed a soft laugh. He finally seemed to have recovered some control over his lungs, because he was able to retort, “Sure, that’s what happened.”

“That is what happened.”

“Mhm. You’re conveniently leaving out the part where I saved your ass. Like six times.”

“Excuse me? I know you’re not forgetting about how many hours I spent protecting your skinny ass when you were so focused on an IED you didn’t even notice the guys sneaking up on you. You wouldn’t have lasted a week if I hadn’t been watching out for you.”

Riley half-expected Mac to snipe back at that, but he surprised her by finally getting his eyes back open and sending his partner a gentle smile. “That’s true,” he allowed quietly. “You promised me you’d get me home.”

“And I did.”

“And you did.”

Jack’s expression had gone very soft in a way it only ever did when he was looking at Mac, Riley, or Bozer. His hand had stilled over Mac’s heart. “I suppose you might have something to do with me getting home with all my limbs intact too. Even if you did take your sweet time about every little device we came across.”

Wordlessly, Mac extended his fist for Jack’s to bump against, a physical bond of solidarity.

She gave it another ten seconds of stillness to let the moment sink in for them all before Riley leaned forward. “You two are adorable.”

That got a good grumble out of both of them, but there was a gentleness to it that let her know there was no harm done. Despite how caught up in themselves they might have seemed to be, they were both far too well trained in situational awareness to have forgotten that she was sitting three feet away. It was just that they were both content to let her see them in a rare moment of openness.

Reawakened to the room at large - and possibly realising how uncomfortably sweaty he was - Jack clambered up to his feet with a groan, rubbing faintly at the spot where Mac’s leg had dug into his chest. “Time to hit the showers, I think. Unless you want to go another round?”

There was a muttering of disapproval before Mac pushed himself up to sitting with a groan, then stuck out a hand to let Jack drag him back to his feet. Once there he took a second to balance himself, leaning his weight awkwardly on one leg as he tested out the strength of his damaged knee. Whatever he felt, it made him frown.

Astute as ever, Jack was watching him like a hawk. “You doing okay there, slick?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m good.”

“Really? Because you look like you’re about to try limping out of here and ending up on your ass.”

Mac scowled at him, but it was fond. “Gee, thanks.”

Jack just rolled his eyes and strode back to stand beside him, sliding under Mac’s shoulder to help support his weight like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Please tell me I didn’t break that thing again. I wasn’t joking when I said Matty would have my head.”

Mac scoffed, the pain in his face lightening now that he could take his weight off the injured joint. “I think if you broke my leg a second time it wouldn’t be your head you’d need to worry about. But no, I think it’s fine. Just twisted is all.”

“‘It’s fine’, he says, hobbling about like a newborn colt,” Jack muttered, but he didn’t complain further as the pair of them began a shambling walk towards the showers.

The blonde shot him a disgruntled look, clearly about to offer some kind of retort before he swallowed it back down and shook his head with a smile.

Riley trailed after them, her thoughts shifting to her afternoon. “Dinner at yours Mac?” She called, just as they broke off from her to head towards the men’s showers.

He shot a broad grin over his shoulder at her and tipped his head. “‘Course. You did well today. Least I can do is offer up Boze’s cooking.”

She let her laugh buoy her as she waved at them both. “See you there. I’ll make sure there’s an ice pack ready for your old man knee.”

Mac’s disgruntled retort was entirely swallowed by Jack’s echoing laughter, bouncing around the walls to follow her into the main corridor that led back to the parking garage. Tired, sore, and hopelessly fond, Riley turned her steps to home.

Also on AO3

#macgyver #fanfiction #my fanfic #angus macgyver #riley davis #jack dalton #watch me try to get better at writing fighting and not really succeeding #why is it so difficult #also considering this was supposed to be a tiny short to help me work out combat wording etc #it sort of... got out of hand #ended up sappy #welp

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kannojo · 3 years

Text

doin this because @atendersun wanted me to and i love her, full homo

𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬

FULL NAME. Hannah Kent

NICKNAME. None

GENDER. Female

HEIGHT. 5′1″

AGE. 21

ZODIAC. Libra

SPOKEN LANGUAGES. Hannah is able to speak and understand any language and dialect, as long as there is another person present speaking it.

𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫��𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬

HAIR COLOR. Dirty blonde

EYE COLOR. A bluish-green jade

SKIN TONE. Rather tan, as she gets a lot of sun and doesn’t burn

BODY TYPE. Endomorph, on the curvy side with slight pudge around her belly, arms, and thighs. No matter how much energy she burns, she can’t seem to lose all her baby fat.

VOICE. Doesn’t have a particularly deep voice, it’s smooth and nice to listen to, only getting high pitched when she’s overly excited.

DOMINANT HAND. Right, but her left hand isn’t completely useless, either.

POSTURE. She doesn’t necessarily carry herself in a proud way, but her back is straight and her shoulders are even, her posture definitely confident, but not in an overbearing way.

SCARS. Considering her ability to heal physical wounds, she is unable to maintain any scars.

TATTOOS. None

BIRTHMARKS. Nothing extraordinary, just typical tiny dark marks here and there on her arms, shoulders, and back.

MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S). Two simplistic wing ‘marks’ on her back between her shoulder blades. They’re rather small, but unlike the rest of her flesh, they’re translucent and glow a faint blue.

PLACE OF BIRTH. Unknown

HOMETOWN. Verse Dependent

SIBLINGS. Technically Lucy, though she considers her more her own daughter.

PARENTS. Mistral has taken a parental role on both Hannah and Lucy, as Hannah has casually taken on the woman’s last name, Kent.

𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞

OCCUPATION. She works for Mistral at her Cafe and Bakery, doing pretty much everything from taking orders at the counter, to baking the treats and pouring coffee, to cleaning after close.

CURRENT RESIDENCE. There’s a rather large and cozy apartment above the shop in which the three girls reside, making it easy to run the shop and keep tabs on it.

CLOSE FRIENDS. While it can vary between verses, I like to have Hannah be good friends with both of my muses Opal and Edna.

RELATIONSHIP STATUS. Verse Dependent. Tho @atendersun is her main squeeze rn

FINANCIAL STATUS. Since Mistral is very wealthy, owning her own business, still receiving royalties from old projects and careers, as well as many successful investments, Hannah gets paid very well alongside this, as well as Mistral paying for most of Hannah’s needs, which leaves Hannah sitting on a pretty coin or two.

DRIVER’S LICENSE. Ye, she’s got a license, though she doesn’t drive very often (she don’t need to, the bitch can fly- it’s mostly to hold appearances in certain cases)

CRIMINAL RECORD. Clear, Hannah’s done some very illegal stuff (murder) but she’s very good at not getting caught and keeping her tracks clear. Killing the kinds of people who can’t seem to stay in jail are her personal hobby, as well as making it look like freak accidents.

VICES. A bit too quick to kill. Sure, she could get them properly arrested and tried for the crimes, but why leave them to the corrupt judicial system with the risk of more people being hurt? (as well as being a waste of tax payer money, I might add) Hannah has a long list of rapists, pedophiles, and serial killer skeletons in her closet, and she isn’t the least bit remorseful.

𝐬𝐞𝐱 & 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞

SEXUAL ORIENTATION. Demisexual/Demiromantic, she very much thrives off of an intimate connection, usually needing one before sexual acts. Though it is verse dependent for the most part, one’s environment often affecting the libido and attraction levels. She does have a heavy preference for men, but she’s had a couple romantic instances with women in past threads.

PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE. She is more of a provider of emotional comfort than a receiver. While she does very much crave having it in return, it’s more comfortable for her to be that for someone else, than to trust someone that much and be the more vulnerable one. It would take a lot of trust and development for her to allow someone that much power over her.

PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE. She’s a switch through and through, depending on her mood and who she’s with. If her partner is more of a bottom, she gravitates to a more dominant role. If she’s with a person who’s a top, she’s more submissive. Though in either instance, there will be times when she craves the latter, not always in the mood for the same thing.

LIBIDO. Hannah’s libido is attached to her romantic attraction. If she doesn’t have anyone she’s interested in, it’s rather low and she’ll masturbate infrequently. But in a relationship, her libido skyrockets and she’s very forward and blunt once she trusts her partner enough.

TURN ON’S. Seeing the person she likes being good with her daughter is a very big one- if Lucy’s happy, she’s happy. The person smelling good is also a big one, but her biggest one would have to be moaning. She’s very much driven by that alone, so pegging is a favorite of hers ofc. She’s also spurred on my seeing her partner wet, like after a shower or sumn. As well as her ears and neck being kissed, she likes that too!

TURN OFF’S. Smelling bad, being bad with kids, and entitled behavior. She doesn’t like being ordered around in bed, asking nicely will do wonders. Prideful behavior will also turn her off, not a fan of a self important braggarts (but then again, who is?)

IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES. Hannah’s not a super touchy feely person, but when it comes to people she loves, she can grow very physically intimate. She’ll often want backrubs or head pets, and in turn will do the same. She also like to give little gifts- nothing extravagant, but her partner can expect her to bring them their favorite drink or treat when hanging out. She’s not a super romantic person either, prone to simple “I love yous” and general words of appreciation, you won’t be getting a wall of text on your birthday describing her undying love for you is what I’m saying lmao

𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐬

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG. Angry Too by Lola Blanc

HOBBIES TO PASS TIME. Reading, playing story based video games, p much just getting lost in fictional worlds that she one day wants to visit in person

LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED. Right.

PHOBIAS. No real ‘phobias’, but her biggest fear is outliving the people she loves, which she ultimately will do.

SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL. Hannah has confidence in her abilities and strength, though she lacks confidence in her humanity. When comparing herself to others, it’s not a test as to who’s ‘better’, but more that she wishes she have a more simple life sometimes.

VULNERABILITIES. Physically, her heart is her only weak point, and she’s also hindered by colder temperatures, much weaker in icy climates and frigid temps. Emotionally, she struggles with admitting her insecurities and worries, wanting to appear stable and in control, when she really still feels like everything she’s worked for could crumble in an instant.

#┇•❁• ⊱ ◦ angel's breath ⊰ hannah musings; ⊱#voila #das a long ass post so imma #;long post #hell yeah #HERE U GO CHRIS U WHACK ASS HADES LOVIN BITCH #im gonna go do my drafts now so here's this fuckin BOOK #i should make one for edna later too #she's cool #i would date edna

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weaselandfriends · 4 years

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Systems vs. Individuals in Dark Magical Girl Stories

Who is the primary antagonist of Puella Magi Madoka Magica? The obvious answer is Kyubey, who deceives the protagonists into signing the Faustian contract. Homura's goal is to stop Madoka from becoming a magical girl, which sometimes causes her to fight Kyubey both directly and indirectly. Yet choosing Kyubey as the answer relies on two flawed assumptions:

1. Homura is primarily struggling against Kyubey.

2. Homura is the protagonist of Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

The first assumption is incorrect because, while Homura does on occasion oppose Kyubey, she is far more concerned with removing situations that would prompt Madoka to sign the contract. As such, her conflicts with Mami, Sayaka, and Walpurgisnacht equal or even take precedence over her conflict with Kyubey. Kyubey is impossible to defeat, something Homura recognizes. When she kills one of Kyubey's innumerable bodies, she does so solely to delay.

In the back half of PMMM, Homura enlists Kyoko to help her fight Walpurgisnacht. She stockpiles military-grade weapons and sets traps. She prepares a detailed plan of attack that is almost ridiculous in its specificity. All for the purpose of defeating Walpurgisnacht.

Despite her best schemes, Homura never even gets close to defeating Walpurgisnacht on her own. By the end of Episode 11, after Homura has unleashed enough weaponry to arm a small African nation, Walpurgisnacht laughs it off like Homura hasn't even scratched her. Before Madoka steps in and makes her wish, Homura begins to recognize that defeating Walpurgisnacht is an impossibility.

Why does Homura put this much effort into trying to defeat Walpurgisnacht and not Kyubey?

On the surface, Kyubey is seemingly unkillable. If one body is destroyed, another takes its place. Yet the fact that Kyubey grouses about the destruction of a body being "wasteful" implies he has a finite amount of them. Being charitable to Homura, we can assume that in one or several of her previous timelines she attempted to destroy every Kyubey body and failed. But in all of her previous timelines she has attempted to destroy Walpurgisnacht and failed, so why has she given up on Kyubey but not Walpurgisnacht?

This line of questioning possibly comes across as a plot hole nitpick, the kind common among YouTube video essayists. But my goal isn't to say that the story is stupid for having Homura fight Walpurgisnacht instead of Kyubey. Instead, I want to think about Homura's psychology, and about the differences between bad systems and bad individuals.

Homura's mindset is fixated totally on the individual. In particular, the individual Madoka Kaname. Her goal is, explicitly, unambiguously, to "save Madoka Kaname." The magical girl system disinterests her beyond its corrupting influence on Madoka. Homura never seems to regret becoming a magical girl herself. Even at the end of the story, when she is about to succumb to despair, she does not regret becoming a magical girl, only that she could not save Madoka. Madoka makes a miraculous wish that improves the magical girl system for everyone and Homura is upset because it means Madoka ceases to exist.

Homura cannot operate on the level of the system. It is simply not her concern. As such, she prioritizes the immediate, corporeal threat of Walpurgisnacht over the abstract, systemic threat of Kyubey. Walpurgisnacht is a "thing" that can be fought and, assumedly, killed. Kyubey appears to be a "thing," but is actually an extension of the magical girl system itself and cannot be killed, at least not with a gun.

The problem is that Homura does not realize that Walpurgisnacht is, like Kyubey, also a non-individual. The name "Walpurgisnacht" refers to a gathering of witches and demons. In Goethe's Faust, a story to which PMMM makes frequent explicit reference, Walpurgisnacht features as a Pandaemonium of sorts where innumerable ghoulish figures interact with the protagonist. Writer Gen Urobuchi, in a 2011 interview, described Walpurgisnacht as such:

It has the destructive power to bring about natural disasters powerful enough to blow away an entire town, but originally it was a single witch. It's a witch that has grown from the combination of countless other witches. Walpurgisnacht combines with other witches in the same way two powerful tornadoes are able to combine and become larger. It's essentially a "conglomeration"-type witch. Because it's so powerful, it rarely shows itself.

Much as Kyubey is an amalgam of bodies possessing a singular purpose, Walpurgisnacht is comprised of an amalgam of witches inflicting a singular destruction upon the world. Like Kyubey, the individuality is an illusion, and as such, the individual-focused Homura cannot defeat it by herself, not in any timeline.

That doesn't mean Walpurgisnacht is undefeatable. Indeed, Walpurgisnacht is shown defeated in a previous timeline; but defeated by Madoka and Homura working together, not by Homura alone. Even though at this point in the story Homura is a significantly weaker combatant, and even though Madoka is not shown to be anything more than an average magical girl herself, they somehow accomplished what a Homura possessed of perfect foresight, immaculately armed, and in peak physical condition could not. If read literally, it must be concluded that Madoka is capable of accomplishing something that Homura cannot, regardless of Homura's physical prowess and perfect (time travel-aided) intelligence.

What does Madoka possess that Homura does not?

Why is Madoka the protagonist of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and not Homura?

The second question may at first seem strange. After all, Madoka serves as the primary point of view character for most of the show, while Homura comes off as aloof and even antagonistic until near the end. Over time, however, it becomes clear that Homura is the one driving the action of the story, while Madoka, although central to Homura's motivations, is often a useless tagalong. Simply being the point of view character doesn't immediately make one the protagonist, as Nick Carraway and Dr. Watson can attest. Madoka's role for most of the story is closer to the damsel in distress than the hero.

And yet, while Homura drives the action and fights Walpurgisnacht and has the goal most central to PMMM's storyline, she is utterly incapable of achieving her goal. She doesn't simply fail, she fails over and over and over again until the prospect of success begins to appear to her as an impossibility and she teeters on the precipice of despair. She fails despite being stronger and faster and more knowledgeable than previous incarnations of her that succeeded with Madoka's help.

Madoka steps into the final episode after an entire story of uselessness, does one thing, and fixes everything.

The reason is because Madoka correctly identifies the true antagonist of PMMM. Not Kyubey, not Walpurgisnacht. Not an individual, not a monster to fight, not something that can be shot and killed. The magical girl system itself. Her ability to identify this antagonist is what sets her apart from Homura. If Homura is individual-minded, Madoka is universal-minded. She abhors the suffering of all magical girls. She is kind and compassionate to everyone. This difference is what prompts Homura's one-sided obsession with Madoka to begin with. Homura interpreted Madoka's universal kindness toward everyone as an individual kindness toward Homura in particular. It's this difference that sets the stage for the events that transpire in Rebellion.

(It's important not to conflate this distinction between individual and universal with the distinction between selfish and selfless. Of the characters in PMMM, only Mami makes a truly selfish wish. Sayaka, Kyoko, and Homura make wishes that directly help someone other than themselves. Well, sort of—Homura doesn't wish for Madoka's safety, she wishes specifically for "the power to save Madoka," which indicates a kind of selfish hero complex. Likewise, it's implied that despite the ostensible selfishness of Sayaka and Kyoko's wishes, they made them for selfish reasons, so perhaps the statement is indeed that a selflessness focused on the individual is actually disguised selfishness.)

So, how do you fight a system? As Madoka states explicitly at the beginning of Episode 12, she would not have been able to make her wish if not for Homura's constant struggling. This statement is supported by the literal explanation Kyubey provides for Madoka's immense power, that being that Homura's innumerable repetitions of the timeline have maximized Madoka's "karmic potential." The show's literal answer is obviously fantastical. But the metaphorical implication seems to be that the suffering of individuals, once it reaches a certain magnitude, is capable of prompting universal change. This statement is not particularly controversial if looked at in a historical context; almost every improvement humankind has achieved, political or technological, occurred after humans suffered a long time without it. PMMM ends with a statement of hope: Keep hoping, and eventually your suffering will come to an end. You yourself may be powerless to change the world, but that doesn't make your misery meaningless.

Regardless of its truth, it's a platitudinous statement, akin to "Never give up!" I don't think it's valuable to take that final statement of hope as PMMM's ultimate theme or moral, despite its placement Aesop-like at the show's conclusion. It's a theme one might find in any more traditional magical girl show or even any children's show in general, and it's divorced from the show's many emotional and narrative complexities. What is more valuable is how the show arrives at that conclusion. After all, as I've heard detractors state, Madoka could have technically resolved the entire story as early as Episode 2 by making the same wish as she eventually did. Something, not external but internal, prevents Madoka from doing that until the end of the story.

If Madoka is taken as the protagonist of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, despite role for most of it as a passive, helpless observer, then it's imperative to view the story not as a traditional struggle against a "thing" that can be destroyed (the way Homura views it) but as a struggle for understanding. Madoka requires a certain amount of knowledge, lacking at the show's onset, in order to make the wish she always could have made, the wish she failed to make in countless failed timelines. That knowledge is the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this essay: Who is the antagonist? Who must be defeated?

The answer, broadly, is not an individual, but the system.

I could go more into why she specifically targets the part of the system (the concept of witches) that she does, or why she doesn't eliminate the system entirely. But for now, I want to expand this discussion to another dark magical girl story, Magical Girl Raising Project.

Magical Girl Raising Project is a series of light novels, the first of which was published in 2012, one year after PMMM was released. As of the time of writing, the series has seven distinct arcs, with each arc being a mostly self-contained story (although some characters and plot elements appear in multiple arcs). The first arc was adapted into an anime in 2016. It follows sixteen people who, after a popular mobile game turns them into magical girls, are forced to fight to the death by the game's twisted administrators.

Many dark magical girl shows that came out in the wake of PMMM have been derided as imitators, but while it's possible that these shows would not have been greenlit if not for PMMM's success, narratively most of these shows are quite different outside of superficial similarities. MGRP, for instance, is much closer to Battle Royale or Hunger Games in plot progression than it is to PMMM. However, one way in which MGRP is similar to PMMM, beyond simply featuring magical girls in an unexpectedly violent situation, is the thematic emphasis on systemic change versus defeating bad individuals.

At the beginning of MGRP's first arc, the game's administrators, represented by the mascot character Fav, present themselves as legitimate officials of the "Magical Kingdom" where all magical power originates. The battle royale is justified to its participants as a natural and necessary component of the magical system—the specific excuse being that having too many magical girls drains too much mana, so the number of magical girls must be cut to save energy. Like PMMM, the cruelties that the characters experience are excused as necessary for the benefit of the system. As such, while many of the battle royale's participants are displeased by the situation, few attempt to fight against the system itself and most focus on the immediate threat of their fellow participants.

Where MGRP diverges from PMMM is that this system is eventually revealed as a lie. Fav and his partner Cranberry are indeed representatives of the Magical Kingdom, but the mana problem is a complete fabrication and magical girls can be turned back into normal humans without killing them. In truth, the system is entirely benign, with its only stated goal being to create magical girls who can help humans, and there are no actual systemic drawbacks to being a magical girl. Fav and Cranberry have manufactured the battle royale for their own sociopathic purposes, and the Magical Kingdom is ignorant of their actions. In short, they're outlaws. Once they are both killed by the end of the first arc, the battle royale ends and the survivors live on.

Like PMMM, the initial difficulty the characters have in answering the question "who is the antagonist" prolongs a story that could have ended very early into a bloodbath. Had the battle royale participants known that their true enemies were Fav and Cranberry, they might have worked together to defeat them with relatively little issue. It is the seemingly hopeless systemic explanation for their woes that causes most of them to shut up and do what is expected of them.

Even though the situations are reversed, with a systemic threat concealed by individual threats in PMMM and an individual threat concealed by a systemic threat in MGRP, the psychology of the characters remains consistent between both works. If that was where MGRP ended, then on the whole it would be a fun play on post-PMMM audience expectations without betraying many of the fundamental concepts that underlie PMMM. But MGRP continues, and in its continuations develops a much larger amount of complexity and nuance (not necessarily to be confused with "quality") over this basic dichotomy of antagonistic individuals and antagonistic systems. As I mentioned previously, PMMM's ultimate moral is somewhat platitudinous: Never give up! Homura's individual-minded approach to problem-solving is depicted as fundamentally ineffectual, and her constant failures are only valuable insofar as they inspire Madoka to action. The narrative's focus is on the discovery of the true antagonist, and the actual resolution to the conflict is immediate and abrupt, nearly to deus ex machina levels.

This simplistic resolution is possibly a byproduct of several restraints that, in most other cases, allow for PMMM's phenomenal technical quality. By that I mean, PMMM is a highly simplified story. It has a limited cast of characters, a limited runtime, and a limited narrative arc that strips out almost anything unnecessary in favor of presenting a singular storyline. Its characters are stark, almost archetypal, with few character traits that do not directly feed into their role in the story. It lacks filler and its pacing is extremely even, with a significant plot development occurring every two to three episodes. From a technical standpoint, these are all massive advantages in telling a cohesive, well-designed story, and the popular reaction to PMMM has been overwhelmingly positive despite its niche subject matter and blunt brutality. Indeed, when most people compare PMMM to other dark magical girl stories, the thesis often boils down to "Here is why PMMM is good and this story, with fundamentally similar subject matter, is bad."

But while the limited narrative elements allow for consistent technical excellence, they also limit the narrative's ability to tackle complex subject matter, such as the reformation of necessary but cruel systems for the betterment of all individuals. How do you fight a system? PMMM doesn't have narrative space to delve into that question the way it can its fundamental question of "How do you recognize the true antagonist?" Homura suffers, Madoka learns from her suffering, and then Madoka makes a wish and everything gets better. Never give up! That isn't to denigrate PMMM, which I consider to be the best anime that I've seen. It's simply recognizing that PMMM does not and cannot do everything. Its resolution isn't even bad, per se; on the contrary, it is incredibly cathartic and satisfying. What is important about Madoka's wish is that she recognizes what must be done, not the way that she achieves it. That is why I describe PMMM as a story about Madoka gaining knowledge, not a story about Homura fighting to save Madoka.

MGRP, by contrast, is not a masterpiece on a technical level. Over seven arcs it accumulates a cast of over one hundred named characters, many of whom are completely pointless and die without purpose. Its storylines promulgate and do not always add to the overarching whole. It can lurch between a breakneck pace and long periods where little happens. But this technical sloppiness allows for a much broader, more complex storyline, and through this complexity MGRP is able to accomplish things that PMMM cannot.

As MGRP continues past its initial, death-game-style arcs, it develops into an overarching narrative about an ineffectual, bureaucratic government and various attempts to improve it. The Magical Kingdom, while benign in its stated goals, is nonetheless painted as incompetent at best and corrupted by petty infighting at worst, which allows bad individuals such as Fav and Cranberry to take advantage of it and get away with various misdeeds. The question of "who is the antagonist?" or "what should we be fighting?" becomes again muddied. Should the emphasis be on defeating all the bad individuals, or should it be on reforming the ineffectual system to remove the influence those individuals have? MGRP refrains from answering this question definitively one way or another, a restraint aided by its lack of a single central protagonist. While there are prominent characters who recur from arc to arc, none is present in every arc, and even in arcs where they do appear they are not always in a central role. As such, no one character's goals are aligned with the goals of the story itself.

The most obvious answer of the question "who is the protagonist of MGRP?" would be Snow White, one of the survivors of the first arc who also has the highest number of appearances of any character across the series. The notion of Snow White as protagonist is aided by her moral purity; her goal is consistently to help people and defeat villains, and although she is technically a vigilante insomuch as she operates outside the Magical Kingdom's official law enforcement system, she never wavers in her fundamental moral values when achieving her goals. Regardless of whether she is the protagonist, she is unquestionably a "hero."

However, Snow White is, like Homura, consistently limited in what she is actually able to achieve. The moment she becomes a magical girl, she is described as being incapable of larger-scale activities:

That day marked Snow White's debut. Every night she'd sneak out her window to look for people to help: a middle schooler who'd lost her house key, a university student who'd had their car stolen, and a businessman under pressure for money, to name a few. There were also many troubles she couldn't do anything about, like concealing adultery, a boy unsure of whether or not to confess to the girl he had a crush on, or a retiree desperate for their pension.

Of the three troubles listed that Snow White can't help, the last, about the pension, sticks out to me. The pension, of course, is a problem that cannot be solved on the individual level, and would require some kind of systemic change. Snow White's limitations are delved into later by another magical girl, Ripple:

Sightings of the white magical girl were leaps and bounds ahead of sightings of the others. She wasn't even doing anything spectacular. Her assistance came in small, everyday actions like picking up dropped change, ferrying forgotten lunches, and reminding people to zip up their flies. Was helping with mundane difficulties a magical girl's true purpose? Or was she simply not capable of undertaking greater issues? [...] It wasn't that Ripple didn't want to serve the community, but she was too embarrassed to say otherwise. However, maybe boldly declaring "I want to help others!" and actually doing so was the correct way to be a magical girl, she mused.

This quote is one of the first instances in MGRP of a character wondering what the "correct way to be a magical girl" is, and this question will eventually become core to the series as a whole, with competing ideological notions leading to much of the conflict. For many, Snow White is the "ideal magical girl," morally pure and always performing selfless deeds. Even when she turns from random acts of kindness to tracking down and arresting criminal magical girls, this sense of moral purity remains with her. Yet Snow White is fundamentally incapable of fostering lasting change.

The biggest example of this inability comes in the fourth arc, in which Snow White squares off against a high-ranking but corrupt Magical Kingdom official named Grim Heart, who is attempting to cover up and profit off of illegal experimentation to create stronger magical girls. Grim Heart is not only the leader of one of the Magical Kingdom's three factions (basically, political parties), but she is also a quasi-theocratic figure said to be an incarnation of an ancient deity. Because Grim Heart is an individual, Snow White is capable of fighting and ultimately defeating her. Her criminal actions are exposed and brought to an end. Yet the removal of Grim Heart does not fundamentally improve the government as a whole in any meaningful way. Grim Heart is scapegoated by her faction and epsteined while under arrest. The faction continues its shady activities under new leadership and harangues Snow White and others as early as the very next arc.

Never, not once, does Snow White accomplish any lasting change in the Magical Kingdom. She dispatches individual villains, but that does not resolve the core problems that face her world. She is positioned in contrast to magical girls whose goals are, explicitly, to reform the Magical Kingdom itself. These characters lack Snow White's moral purity, and even the most heroic of them are willing to murder innocent people under an "ends justify the means" philosophy. Again, MGRP inverts what was established in PMMM; rather than the morally pure character being the one who attempts to correct the system and the morally ambiguous character being the one consumed by individual conflicts, the situation is flipped. Snow White is pure but ineffectual; other characters are ambiguous but capable of practical change.

Madoka's preternatural goodness eventually leads to her fantastic ability to fix almost everything. Her goodness redeems Homura as an individual, which causes Homura to struggle endlessly for her sake, which provides Madoka both the power and the understanding to fix the system at a universal scale. Boiled down, PMMM is a classic story of "good triumphs over evil," with the primary difference being that "evil" has transformed from a cackling villain to a complex, unknowable system. For a modern audience, living in an increasingly complicated world where difficulties stem less from the strong subjugating the meek and more from, say, tax brackets, it's easy to see why this modification of a classic theme was so powerful and why PMMM fundamentally works as a piece of fiction.

But MGRP seems to make a counterstatement: Moral purity is unquestionably good, but it cannot alone change a system. I could probably go on for another few thousand words detailing the various characters in MGRP who attempt to fix the system and what their position in the story adds to this theme, but to do so might be better suited to a second post more specifically focused on MGRP.

What I wanted to illustrate in this essay, and which I have probably done far too longwindedly, is that these shows possess a core focus on fighting systems over fighting individuals. Probably the most frequent criticism levied at these shows is that they are exploitative, that they revel in the suffering of innocent young girls. The second most frequent criticism, levied specifically at dark magical girl shows that came after PMMM, is that they are mere imitators of PMMM. I think neither criticism is valid. PMMM and MGRP take the traditional, morally pure concept of "magical girl" and counterbalance it against corrupt systems to make statements on the value of moral purity and the possibilities for systemic change. These themes are not incidental to the type of story but rather molded to it. They are themes that could not be easily explored in either traditional magical girl storylines or even traditional storylines in general, where the focus is primarily on a single hero fighting a single villain. On top of that, works that follow PMMM are not doomed to mimic it mindlessly, but can actually comment upon, challenge, or expand PMMM's themes.

Obviously, PMMM was not the first story to ever situate a system as its antagonist rather than an individual. But the vehicle of "dark magical girls" is particularly conducive to that type of story. After all, a "dark magical girl" story already undermines an understood set of practices and beliefs via the subversion of genre conventions. The thematic content is wedded to the semantic content.

#puella magi madoka magica #pmmm #madoka magica #mahou shoujo madoka magica #magical girl raising project #mgrp #magipro #mahou shoujo ikusei keikaku

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years

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Spider-Man: Life Story #3 Thoughts

Since I was most anticipating this issue when I read it in the solicits, I read it in the store as soon as I got it. But I always meant to take a more careful look at it when I got the chance and try to break it down a bit more.

The tl:dr version of my thoughts are: This is possible the weakest issue so far.

Massive rant under the cut.

As discussed before the perennial problem with this series is it’s muddled concept.

Is it a What If story and if so what exactly is the zag effect to where the canon zigged? Is it that Spidey ages in real time? Or that things happen more ‘realistically’ so you have a Watchmen scenario wherein real life social issues get addressed within a superhero context?

Is it an Elseworlds wherein the idea of a more ‘realistic’ worldview is the overlayed concept a top of the familiar canon?

Is it like what the Ultimate Universe was supposed to be according to some people wherin it’s a canon-free reimagining of the original stories free to take whatever liberties it desires for the new audience?

Well Life Story thus far has tried to be all of those things and winds up being none of them. This is quite aside from how it was originally marketed as a straight What If story, what if Spider-Man aged in real time.

But really this series is best described via the convoluted descriptor of:

“It’s a story where people who love and are familiar with the canon Spider-Man’s life can see how it would’ve been different if it happened in real time.

But also how it would’ve been different if the Marvel universe was more realistically wrapped up in social political issues of the different time period.

But also if it only really cared about the international military conflicts of those time periods and mostly uses all other social political issues as window dressing.

But also that realism mentioned above only goes as far as the writers decide it should go so the actual real life ramifications of superheroes involved in international military conflicts just don’t happen because Zdarsky says so.

And also those military conflicts only impact upon Spider-Man’s life directly whenever the story decides it should so half the time things are different because of the more ‘realistic’ warfare stuff and the other half of the time it’s different because it just is...not even because he’s aging in real time.

So yeah actually it’s also a what if Spider-Man’s life included all that stuff above but also things are randomly different from the canon for the sake of it, but the reader is still supposed to be surprised because they are familiar with the canon anyway.

Oh and what if also there are massive status quo changes between issues that randomly adhere and deviate from the canon on a whim and go unexplained”

THAT apparently...is Spider-Man Life Story.

It’s a fucking mess at this point, I cannot understand the people who are praising it.

Let me get my ONE positive comment out of the way first.

Mark Bagley is just slaughtering the art on this story.

This is the best his art on Spider-Man has looked this decade and it’s up there with some of the best of his Spider-Man career.

I think it comes from him benefitting from modern inking and colouring like in Ultimate Spider-Man but he’s drawing something that isn’t as reimagined from the canon as USM. So consequently Spider-Man’s physique is more traditional (because Spider-Man wasn’t 15 when he began his career), Venom and the villains don’t have their Ultimate designs etc.

But the story...oh fuck the story.

The ONLY way any of this adds up in terms of story decisions is if you take it as Zdarsky’s fanfiction.

I respect fanfiction, but this is amateurish in it’s decisions and it says too much about Zdarsky’s view of Spider-Man or Spider-Man aging.

The story is so cynical about how Spider-Man aging would ruin him. the story is cynical about Spider-Man’s idealization of Mary Jane or the alleged toxicity of the Peter/MJ marriage.

Like I’ve said before he has an agenda when it comes to MJ and I think this is further proof.

Peter being Spider-Man fucks up her life big time, she suffers big time, it destroys their relationship and she lives in the shadow of Gwen.

When you consider this is supposed to on some level be a representation of the spirit of 1980s Spider-Man, or at least the stories it’s choosing to remix, it becomes utterly insulting.

This is a story remixing Kraven’s Last Hunt, a love letter to the Spider-Marriage if there ever was one, and it’s used in part to destroy their relationship.

Shit Gwen’s ghost is brought up as a bone of contention between them when it was in an 1980s story (drawn by Bagley no less) that it was clearly spelled out that Peter loves his WIFE Mary Jane more than his DEAD GIRLFRIEND Gwen Stacy.

Now I know the situation here is different because Peter was with Gwen for longer than in canon and longer even than his relationship with MJ in this universe. But the fact that it’s beating that same old drum speaks very much towards the idea that this is Zdarsky’s actual assessment of that love triangle. This is like something of the bygone days of BND and Slott’s era FFS.

The bullshit doesn’t stop there though because wouldn’t you believe it Peter and MJ have twins. Okay cool. And one is called Ben and the other is called...Claire...Claire? Who the fuck is Claire? We have 2 major AU Spider-Man stories where Peter and MJ name their first daughter after Aunt May and their second after Aunt Anna! Who the Hell is Claire?

That’s just the tip of the iceberg though.

There is so much stuff in this that as a what if or an elseworld’s story utterly fails and even stuff that simply doesn’t add up within the context of this story on it’s own terms.

· So I guess...Vietnam ended...um...how? We already established that nonsensically Vietnam lasted longer than in the real world even though it should have ended earlier by rights. But now it’s just...over. How? How did that happen? I’m not saying it’s impossible but the story NEVER ADDRESSES this?

· Captain America is clearly participating in Secret Wars in 1984, taking on Doom himself no less. We see little of his face but from what we do see he’s in uniform and also seems to still be in his prime. Huh? Captain America went rogue and fought against the United States for over 10 years in Vietnam! How does he still hold the rank of Captain America and how could he possibly still be seemingly in his prime by 1984 if he’s aging in real time? Think about it, he’s older than Spider-Man physically (forget that he’s from the 1940s). And Spider-Man is saying he’s getting slower in his old age in this story. So how the Hell is Cap (who’s powers don’t slow his aging and don’t give him Spidey’s power levels) still in his prime when he’s definitely in his 40s! It doesn’t make sense! It could all be explained a million ways because it’s the Marvel universe. The Beyonder could’ve addressed all of this but the problem is the story doesn’t. It just presents it as Steve Rogers betrayed America in 1967 and fought against them into 1977 then between then and 1984...went back to being the Captain America you knew and loved in the canon Secret Wars story

· Doctor Octopus...is evil again. It was nonsensical enough that he was a good guy in issue #2 but now, with no explanation, he’s back to being evil. He doesn’t even seem to give a fuck that Aunt May is dying of dementia. That even highlights the stupidity of hookig them up in issue #2, Otto never actually romantically liked May, the age gap was massive!

· The story has Peter test his new costume to determine it’s a living organism and he decides to keep it because he’s getting older and wants to remain strong and relevant. Then MJ claims he’s addicted to it because he wears it a lot and then when he is buried alive by Kraven it goes to him and turns him into...Venom? There is a lot to unpack with this I need multiple points. But let’s just start with this. First of all technically the symbiote shouldn’t give you synthetic muscles as it does to Peter when it turns him into Venom. Venom had a lot of muscle because Eddie Brock was a body builder. But I won’t hold that against the story because that’s been a problem with Venom for decades now. Similarly I hate it, but I can forgive the symbiote turning Peter into a toothy Venom monster.

· More significantly the implication of this story is that the costume is corruptive of Peter, making him addictive and then feeds off his anger, threatening to permantly turn him into a monster after he’s buried alive. Er....That’s not how that works. The symbiote wasn’t originally like that outside of cartoons and films. The symbiote didn’t even corrupt Eddie Brock, Brock was already sick and twisted. It’s status as a metaphor for substance abuse also didn’t come in until later and it wasn’t a factor for Peter’s personal relationship with it at all so what gives why is that in this story? Does Zdarsky think Spider-Man 1994 is canon or something?

· Peter is using the symbiote sparingly and even puts it aside when he goes off web swinging before Kraven confronts him. yet we’re told he’s becoming addictive. There is little evidence of this, it could just as easily be Reed and MJ were being overly concerned. At best it’s a case of Zdarsky telling yet not showing. If Peter was truly addicted he’d have taken the suit with him.

· Is the implication the suit is going to take him over when he became Venom? How does that add up? If he’s not been wearing it to avoid that how does it rescuing him from the grave = now it’s in danger of taking him over?

· What is this nonsense about Peter needing the suit to remain relevant? The costume didn’t enhance his powers originally. The story isn’t even very clear on if it does that in this universe or not. They didn’t even bring up how the costume makes the wearer more durable, able to surviving being shot, which would’ve been pertinent in this tale

· Why is Peter even getting weaker? He’s 37, that’s a little older than he is now in the comics

· Moving on, there is this weird inconsistency where Reed asks Peter has figured out if an alien machine can nano-weld, implying Peter’s new costume is nano-tech. This would add up because he has Parker Industries in this universe and he had a nano-tech armour during that time period. Yet his outfit is still torn like cloth. How? In fact if he has nanotech armour why would he even need the symbiote?

· This story confirms for us that because Reed felt responsible for Dr. Doom he pushed away his friends and family and this is a warning to Peter of what he might become, and indeed does by the end of the issue...what? How the hell does that add up. Why does Reed feel more responsible for Doom and how does this result in him pushing away his family? Because he’s aging in real time? Because of...Vietnam??????? it makes no sense

· Why is Peter concerned about staying relevant to the point where he keeps a dangerous suit? In canon Tony Stark replicated the abilities of a symbiote with non-living Extremis Armour so Peter with his resources could probably make a symbiote suit that isn’t dangerous. More importantly if he has all these resources at his disposal couldn’t he either just in general make tech to help him out and compensate for his old age (Bruce Wayne has done this in different continuities) or just use his companies resources to help people out without being Spider-Man anyway?

· In canon and RYV and the MC2 universe it’s made repeatedly clear that when Peter became a parent being Spider-Man would take a backseat. Yet in this universe he’s being Spider-Man MORE at the detriment of his wife, mother and children who’ve been devoid of his presence for an extended period of time. MJ is upset to the point of swearing when the issue opens. The story is so devoid of the love and affection between the pair that’s important to the mythos.

· WTF is Peter’s problem about putting May in an old folks home? He did THAT in canon too IIRC in the Marv Wolfman run. Even if he had a problem with that he’s the head of a big company just HIRE people to look after her. He’s got the money for a high tech lab and nano-tech suits why is a carer for the elderly out of his price range. And isn’t MJ really rich after Harry and her split up? Why is this an issue?

· How did Peter wind up with Parker Industries? In canon it was because Doc Ock founded it then manipulated things behind the scenes after Peter regained his body to make the place a success. In this story without explanation Peter just has it. But Peter is a bad businessman, having money from MJ wouldn’t mean he’d be able to successfully run a company he hasn’t the aptitude for that!

· The nuclear strike is just....putting aside how cynical it is, how achingly it wants to be like Watchmen or DKR...are you honestly trying to tell me Russia’s access to superhumans never resulted in anything game changing in the world before now? There is a superhuman arms race happening but we didn’t bring it up until nearly 20 years after the first issue began and only in 1984 does anything bad happen?

· The implication is actually that Russia having superheroes of their own is a recent innovation. This makes no sense as there were Russian super powered people in the 1960s, including Red Ghost who is the perpetrator of the nuclear strike in the issue

· Wait, wait, wait. Russia launches nuclear missiles at the United States because there are less super humans there and this results in a town getting destroyed and...that’s it. That’s all that happens. Oh and Vision is sad and intangible.

Are you fucking kidding me?

How does aging in real time or the existence of super humans = The stalemate of Mutually Assured Destruction isn’t a thing in this universe.

I’m sorry to bust out the most rudimentary of 20th century history here but if America or Russia launched a nuclear strike at one another then it’d set of a chain reaction wherein everyone would launch their nukes and the most of life would be wiped out.

Zdarsky in this story displays a blisteringly ignorance of real life history to the point where it’s honestly insulting.

It’s insulting to people’s intelligence but also to the real life people who lived through the Cold War, frightened the world would end any day.

· Oh boy. Now we come to Kraven. I actually re-read this the same day I finished off Hunted so I saw a really good homage to KLH back-to-back with a really bad one.

What is Kraven’s plan here?

I will grant Kraven’s plan in KLH technically speaking made no sense but we were presented his twisted perspective and it was from that perspective we were able to deduce he was viewing Spider-Man (and the world) with blinders on. And from that limited viewpoint his plan added up.

Seemingly kill Spidey. Bury him alive. Imitate him. Be a better Spider-Man than him. when he wakes up tell him he could’ve killed him and show him you are a better Spider-Man than him. Die in glorious victory, honour restored.

It’s crazy, but it makes sense from Kraven’s POV, so much so that when he killed himself real life readers took it to be glorifying suicide.

Here we don’t get Kraven’s perspective. Which wouldn’t be a problem as much if his plan and motives were the same.

But it they aren’t because in Life Story Kraven the Hunter imitates Spider-Man, drugs him and then buries him alive...because America is at war with Russia...and he has cancer...and he needs Spider-Man to be ‘beautiful’ which seemingly means...violent and probably prone to killing.

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I’m just....what?

The worst case scenario for this is that Zdarsky should never be allowed to write Kraven the Hunter ever because this so aggressively doesn’t seem to understand his character, his relationship with Spider-Man or Kraven’s Last Hunt.

The best case scenario, Zdarsky is a terrible writer and in his head is justifying Kraven’s actions via ‘he’s crazy so it doesn’t have to make sense so I can have the character do anything.’

Let’s unpack this.

So Kraven is imitating Spider-Man (poorly because he uses a rifle) before he buries Spider-Man alive because...um...I don’t know.

Because as with so much in this story, it’s never explained.

You’d think it’d be to draw out Spider-Man but no, that’s not it because Kraven just happens to apparently know where Spider-Man is and sneaks up on him (where the Hell was the Spider Sense?)

The he shoots at Spider-Man at very close range but Spider-Man dodges. That’d be the Spider-Man who’s so old now at age 37 he maybe needs a symbiote suit to compensate. Yeah that guy can still dodge a rifle at close range just fine...without the symbiote.

Oh but then his old age catches up with him because Kraven stabs him.

Let me repeat that.

The old man, with no super powers (as he wants to remind us) who is also dying of cancer is able to stab the much younger super fast and agile guy with a precognitive danger sense.

What.

The.

Fuck.

Do you see?

Do you see how bad this series is?

This would be inexcusable writing even if we weren’t comparing it to canon!

But we aren’t done. Because remember how I said Kraven is old and has no powers? Yeah...why is Kraven old and hasn’t got any powers?

Kraven’s powers 100% grant him super human strength, speed, agility, the usual package of super powers.

It’s nowhere close to Spider-Man’s power level no, but it is beyond human nevertheless.

And KLH itself established that Kraven’s jungle herbs and potions make retard his aging immensely. In fact as real life time elapses their abilities to do this grow greater since he was a not yet an adult at the time of the 1917 Russian Revolution but looked to be in his 30s circa 1987 when KLH was originally published. As time goes by KLH didn’t happen in 1987 but much later so Kraven seriously doesn’t age! It’s to the point where he was part of a 1950s Avengers team in canon.

I get that Zdarsky in his alternate universe can take the characters in different directions but you aren’t even getting the super powers of the super heroes and villains right here!

But it gets worse.

So Kraven is doing this because after so many years in America he regards it as his home?

Fuck...Off.

Kraven the Hunter would never think that way. Kraven finds America’s ways decadent. He hates them because they lack the kind of jungle and animalistic honour he holds so dear. This is spelled out in the goddam story Zdarsky is homaging.

What? Is the implication Kraven’s cancer is affecting his brain thus making him a totally different person?

If pressed Kraven might choose America over Russia but only because ‘Mother Russia’ destroyed his family in the Russian Revolution. But I’m not convinced Kraven would take a side in general, so much as he’d regard it beneath him or just the law of the jungle playing out on a bigger scale.

But. It. Gets. Worse.

Kraven’s motivation in trying to make Spider-Man ‘beautiful’ again, into a warrior again is akin to Zdarsky gluing in a character from a story we’ve not been reading into this one.

When the Hell in this mini-series was it ever implied Spider-Man was a warrior, a killer, someone violent the way Kraven wants him to be?

It’s even stupider when you consider Kraven says America hasn’t got a real hero, i.e. a real warrior who is willing to kill and be violent because...Wolverine literally appears in this comic.

Hulk appears in this comic.

Captain America appears in this comics.

Iron Man appears in this comic

THOR appears in this comic. Thor, the Viking WARRIOR God!

What is he talking about!??????????

BUT. IT. GETS. WORSE!

Because Kraven after burying Spider-Man proceeds to go around continuing to impersonate Spider-Man (for some reason without his gun now).

Why?

In KLH it made sense.

But WTF is Kraven’s motive in pretending to be Spider-Man in this story at all?

Why was he doing it before and what is his motive in doing it after burying Spider-Man?

He isn’t trying to make himself superior to Spider-Man now.

Peter isn’t even mad ABOUT Kraven impersonating him (which he was in KLH) so Kraven wasn’t doing it to rile him up.

WHY?????????????

BUT IT GETS WORSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spider-Man only survives being buried alive because of the symbiote.

But Kraven couldn’t have known about that so his plan was either to

a) Genuinely send Spider-Man out the way of a warrior...by drugging him and burying him alive to slowly suffocate...how noble...Or

b) Burying him alive with the expectation he’d get out and be so angry he’d become a murderer and this would magically mean becoming old and weak wouldn’t be a problem any more.

*smashes head against desk*

· Not to mention, a Venom empowered angry Spider-Man shoves the old, non-superpowered, dying of cancer Kraven’s head into a brick wall and...he’s fine. He’s not even dazed or bleeding.

· What was the point of giving Kraven cancer? Like how does it make the story better? How does it at all play into anything? All I can think is that Zdarsky is weirdly planning on using it as a substitute for Eddie Brock’s cancer because he’s going to make Kraven Venom instead of Brock. Speaking of which

· Apparently if Spider-Man ages in real time this would mean that Kraven the Hunter would become Venom instead of Eddie Brock one of Spider-Man’s most iconic villains ever. What?

· Just to be clear this is a retelling of Spider-Man’s history where Eddie Brock isn’t Venom and where Kraven doesn’t kill himself. Way to ruin 2 iconic characters at once there Zdarsky

· It’s implied a major part of what motivates MJ and Peter to break up (because again there is clearly no agenda here at all) is that MJ had to risk possibly killing him with the sonic weapon when the symbiote sent him out of control.

Okay, first of all Reed Richard had sonic weapons that could be rid of the symbiote without killing the host. The only way that could happen is if they were permanently bonded which Peter clearly wasn’t. So how comes with all his tech Peter invented a potentially lethal solution?

Second of all, he entrusts this to his...wife...and the mother of his children....um...Why not entrust it to an employee? Or Reed? Or Johnny?

Johnny is his best friend in the superhero community and his natural super powers give him an advantage against the symbiote. Reed already knows the risks and surely if Reed knows who he is then Johnny does too.

Or maybe Spider-Man ‘aging in real time’ results in Spider-Man and Johnny not being friends because...er...reasons. Seriously Peter is closer to Reed than Johnny in this continuity what the fuck.

Regardless, he’s entrusting a normal human woman with no combat skills to take down an out of control super powered being. And he’s entrusting she could bring herself to potentially kill him as well.

Reed and Johnny might be friendly with him up to a point, but surely they’d find the prospect of killing him easier than Peter’s wife!

My final point is this.

Maybe there is something coming to address this problem but we’re three issues in and I have to ask...what is the point of all the war stuff?

Spider-Man is a street level, personal story right? It’s about a normal guy, not a soldier. It’s about regular crime and social group tensions and romance and rent and smaller scale things like that.

So why is there such a focus in this story upon Vietnam, superheroes in Vietnam and the nuclear arms race with Russia?

Even Spider-man vs. Wolverine played things more low key than this.

This is a Spider-Man story where a bona fide massive plot point is Russia nuking a town.

Just like...what is the point of this?

Why are we using a Spider-Man story about his life in real time to explore (badly) the horrors of war?

If you want to do that then actually finish the Spider-Nam mini-series!

Fuck this story!

P.S. Why were MJ and Peter casual about mentioning Spider-Man in front of Aunt May? Learning a bombshell like that could harm her health and in her state she could let something slip.

#Chip Zdarsky #Mark Bagley #Spider-Man #Peter Parker #Venom #Kraven the Hunter #mjwatsonedit #Mary Jane Watson Parker #Mary Jane Watson #mj watson #eddie brock #Aunt May #May Parker #Spider-Man: Life Story #Reed Richards

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insanescriptist · 6 years

Text

Rereading the Fairy Tail manga for research purposes, so having reached a little past chapter 100, here’s impressions:

-Natsu’s not a complete idiot

-He’s just a mostly thoughtless one who doesn’t see destruction as a bad thing or as something to avoid. Hence why he doesn’t try to limit it

-He’s actually bad at intentionally trying to destroy things. Accidentally however...

-Dragon Slayer Magic is technically using an Enchantment to temporarily transform parts of a person’s body to be like a dragon’s. Which makes sense considering an Enchanter made it.

-Considering that magic can change a person’s body in various ways, accidentally making it possible to turn into a dragon should have been expected.

-Actually considering that due to Lacrima, Cobra and Laxus don’t have inner dragons doing the anti-body thing to prevent that specific side-effect, chances are they will turn into dragons eventually if they keep using it.

-Same for Sting and Rogue, since their dragons are dead.

-A lot of Natsu’s attacks are actually magnified by the enchantment; Natsu’s sheer destructive power makes a lot more sense that way. Natsu however has no sense of scale so he does things like 500x times more powerful than he needs to

-Happy is a lot smarter than he appears; he’s just an obnoxious little shit-stirrer

-Lucy stayed with Mira while trying to find an apartment to rent; also it’s Mira that hands out a copy of Lucy’s apartment key to her team.

-So they’re not breaking in. Mostly.

-Gray so killed a person without blinking; he froze a guy’s head solid during the whole ‘Lullaby Incident.’

-It’s Gray’s speed with his magic that makes him dangerous

-Gray has his issues but he’s a lot more prideful than a person would expect; intelligent fighters are great okay?

-Lyon however I have issues with. Lots of. How did you get followers? Especially ones that were part of a mage guild? Did you put out an ad in Socerer’s Weekly? How did you pay for all the supplies you’d need for a group of people for three years? How did you even move Deliora?

-Also Gray’s from the ‘northern continent’ so um... plot-hole space? Unless there’s like a second ‘northern continent’ so the ‘western counties’ remark by Ur makes sense

-need to go look at that book Levy has on one of the splash pages; is a world map

-Actually there’s a lot more death, but it’s mook death so we don’t care. See how the army was ‘defeated’ by Eisenwald or whatever it was called. This is further combined with the mooks that died at the Tower of Heaven; not just in the slave revolt flashback but when the tower is destroyed and they’re crushed, followed by the unstable magic of Etherion doing whatever to the crystals

-Lucy knows she weaker than them physically; she at least makes up for it by having a wider background knowledge of magic. Too bad none of this ever gets followed up on in other ways.

-Lucy is uncomfortable taking jobs without the rest of the team; no wonder you’re a broke bitch. Taking jobs with just Natsu means your income is breadcrumbs.

-Lucy’s also had to have renegotiated her contracts with her keys several times; otherwise she’d have only access to all her spirits on Wednesday as that’s the only ‘day’ Aquarius originally let Lucy call her on.

-When Lucy got Loke? She went and accidentally renegotiated Celestial Spirit Magic contracts in general. Because for Loke’s story to logically work out, a mage could only have one Celestial Spirit out at a time. With Loke jamming Karen out, she couldn’t summon another.

-So Lucy made it possible for summoners to have two out at one time; clearly the time for Spirit Double Battles is near

-Also Karen probably had another magic of some sort. Celestial Spirit Mages by themselves are considered weak because there’s so many conditions built into using the magic; when to use the spirit mostly but also all the agreements between the contractors. Hence Lucy must have renegotiated all her contracts at least once, as Lucy uses her keys more indiscriminately as the series progresses. It’s a versatile magic, but limited to having the item, having the contract, being the day of able to use the spirit’s time/energy etc

-Lucy might want to look into learning some other magic to be more well-rounded; as intelligent as she is, runes would be easy enough. So would re-quip. You’ve lost your keys how many times now?

-Laxus what are you wearing when first introduced? Please tell me that it was laundry day and you were wearing a gag gift from Bixlow, even if Bixlow hasn’t been introduced yet. Because awful. Let Natsu burn it, please.

-Also Laxus, considering the size of the communication lacrima in the guild, how large is the one you’re carrying? Also how do they work because the one Urtear has with her later is like the size of a basketball. Not exactly portable.

-Cana is awesome and has great leadership skills; she lead the defense of the guild against Phantom while Erza was out cold and Mira was being useless

-The Guildhall clearly has several sub-levels. Mavis’ body is well hidden and probably the reason why the basement hasn’t flooded despite being next to the lake. Makarov, I love you but it’s probably Prech/Hades who reinforced the shit out of the sub-layers.

-Loke probably overdid it during the attack by Phantom Lord and probably shaved off a few months of his ability to stay in Earthland while defending the guild. No wonder he was looking so terrible after

-Juvia once dated Bora of Titan’s Nose; you know the guy in the first chapter that Natsu beat up? You’re better off without him.

-Juvia dear, a crush is not love and you’re being somewhat obsessive; that it only gets worse and is eventually reciprocated is less than ideal; maybe it’s those last few chapters of Naruto but I keep seeing Sakura/Sasuke parallels in the ‘chase the man down for a pity fuck, get it, get a child, have ongoing depressive episode’?

-I probably wouldn’t mind this so much if Juvia had more of a personality than ‘love struck, obsessive fan.’ Like what are your ideals, what do you like that’s not about Gray?

-Lucy’s tragic backstory is probably less lonely when you consider she probably could hang out in the local ‘large’ village; she’d be slumming it but she at least would have had friendly acquaintances

-The staff do love her and she them; Lucy just doesn’t have her father’s love

-Jude is a piece of work that deserves to be told off; also, marrying Lucy to nobility for land to expand business so your eventual grandson will inherit?

-Fuck you; Lucy should have slapped a bitch. As it is, refusing to do so probably put a nail in the coffin of your business Jude.

-There’s a difference between ‘army’ and ‘rune knight’ and the latter are solely answerable to the ‘Magic Council.’ Also the ‘Magic Council’ seems to be a continent spanning organization separate from the national government, meant to monitor and organize mage guilds.

-It being corrupt as it is later is not really a surprise as there’s really not a lot to hold them accountable; Jellal and Ultear infiltrated the council and it’s implied that Jellal through work for the Council was named Wizard Saint.

-There’s probably more than just those two who have infiltrated the ‘Magic Council’ organization. Those two are just notable for having reached such a high level, as they both had voting power.

-Erza’s actually a holder-type mage, who can also use caster-type magic

-Specifically re-quip is a caster-type magic but she uses both the inherent and charged abilities of her armor and weapons to further her strength and abilities physically and magically. She’s also got some telekinesis so she can also further use this to ‘wield’ more weapons

-Erza’s oblivious to a lot of social things, which is not surprising as she’s not actually the social type.

-She’s missed so many people having a crush on her: Simon, Lucy, Gray, Bisca... yeah, Erza turns people into useless lesbians. Gray somehow manages to avoid this, possibly through the power of stripping. More probably through friendship and being in a Rivalry with Natsu

-Rivals is a relationship status okay; someone where between committed and it’s complicated

-Erza’s ability to kill a bitch gets nerfed for plot purposes; namely Jellal

-Jellal, you being evil I like. You have personality. You’re an asshole but somehow charming with your teenage boy sense of humor and extra-ness. Your fashion sense however needs work.

-Jellal was clearly in charge of getting supplies and such for his minions/slaves. And yet he can’t import a fashion sense? Clearly skipped movie night too much

-Wally so did make movie nights happen; they can probably quote movies verbatim

-Jellal focused a lot on Natsu. Not for his magic but because he wanted to fight Natsu. No evil plotting here

-Simon, you are so pathetic, this is why you’re a plot point later, so you can actually be useful after death

-Also Erza, ‘Eternal Wizard Saint’? Aren’t you just going a little far in your imaginary funeral. Makarov’s speech was in character but, a little more realism

-Oh and there’s more mook death in the Tower of Heaven arc; I think I mentioned it before? Them getting crushed by a collapsing tower and then vaporized by unstable magic? No wonder Erza and Jellal were spit back out; plenty of people died.

-Erza probably ripped open her second origin/magic container here, trying to absorb and direct the unstable Etherion magical build-up

-The way the story is framed makes you think the dragons are out and in hiding somewhere, instead of being spirits inside their slayers or something

-It’s probably a flashback?

-Oh and Lucy can make fireworks too; clearly gate keys are not just for summoning spirits

#Izzy rambles #Izzy tells no lies here #reference #Sin and Power

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godbeat · 2 years

Text

HIROE’S STRENGTH.

TSUYO’S BLESSING.

tsuyo has granted hiroe his “blessing”, meaning her durability, endurance, and strength are enhanced to that of a god’s and can continue to grow and manifest, as per tsuyo’s “prosperity” blessing, the stronger she gets.

when hiroe absorbed tsuyo, she absorbed all of the properties which made tsuyo a god. she is still, technically, mortal and can die a mortal death since she refuses to take the official mantle as a “god”, and therefore refuses the “godly blessing” from creation. with tsuyo’s blessing, hiroe can absorb the essence and energy in existing things and use them at her will in an effort towards her own strength and endurance. she will encase her body and limbs in this absorbed energy, and by using tsuyo’s blessing, converts it into her energy and uses it accordingly. sapping this energy does not drain that of which she takes it from, which creates a near-limitless access to energy.

most of her general combat using tsuyo’s blessing involves imbuing her attacks with her energy to amplify and strengthen her attacks to the appropriate levels according to the threats she’s handling (she doesn’t really like overkill, though highly highly capable of it). kicks, punches, vollies, etc. are all usually imbued with tsuyo’s blessing to amplify her attacks when the threat is non-human.

in order to perform long-distance attacks (though the precision is not the best), hiroe can also use tsuyo’s blessing and the energy collected to use as projectiles / projectile weaponry. hiroe prefers not to use these unless the threat is dire because of the destructive power of the raw energy when not conducted through her in a physical attack.

GODKILLER.

a one-shot punch. hiroe will divert a large portion of tsuyo’s blessing into one fist, in which she uses to deliver a devastating and, in most cases, lethal blow. because she has to divert most of the blessing’s energy to the fist, most of her body is less guarded and more susceptible to an attack.

ARMORY.

a protective barrier using tsuyo’s blessing. hiroe can encase herself and multiple others at once with tsuyo’s blessing and gathered energy in order to strengthen their bodies and protect them from varying levels of harm (depending on how much energy was gathered and then used for the armor/shield). hiroe will often have this around herself 24/7 and has even managed to master use of armory in her sleep, though it’s at a somewhat weakened state then when she’s awake. she can form a barrier or shield with it off of a person or thing’s figure, but it is significantly weaker since it isn’t attached to a “source” of energy in midair.

ATONEMENT.

a fortifying healing technique using tsuyo’s blessing. hiroe can fortify and strengthen her body to heal her own wounds and injuries. in order to use this on other people, she has to be making physical contact with both hands in order to stabilize the transfer of energy and in order to make sure the process does not over-fortify or calcify the wound / injury being healed.

PRAYER.

the act of gathering surrounding energy / essence in order to fuel tsuyo’s blessing or other subsequent attacks. hiroe prefers to do this on her own time or from a safe location and tries to do this at least twice daily in order to remain carefully prepared with energy. though she has a near limitless capability to gather energy, she does not have the personal or physical capacity to keep limitless energy in / on herself without serious repercussions.

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ksbwnotes · 3 years

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Chapter 2

1. Oof

I’m sure, even after being told about this ‘relative’, Sangwoo kept it cool and didn’t tip off anything to the police, acting like “OH RIGHT MY RELATIVE THAT I HAVEN’T SEEN IN A FKKN DECADE”. It comes to show that he is incredibly calculating and intelligent, able to keep a facade on to an artform. This was probably something he has been able to do ever since he was a child, as we’ll later witness in his flashbacks.

Later Sangwoo says “you might as well have said you were my brother”, which is meaningful because Sangwoo doesn’t have one. So every relative Sangwoo knows is just as nonexistent as his nonexistent sibling.

2. I find this important to note

Bum obviously is prone to putting people on pedestals, only seeing them through the rose tinted glass he wants to see them in.

3. Why this though?

I find it very interesting that, because he doesn’t want to die, what he yells out is “I FELL IN LOVE!” Why this? I’m sure he’s also used this an excuse for the others he has stalked (I wonder if Sangwoo ever realized that Bum also stalked women and how he felt about that), but it most likely never worked with them.

Bum was just spouting whatever came to mind, so the fact that the word ‘love’ is what jumped out of him says a lot of how much it has been consuming his every being, even in the face of death.

4. s;jgio;sejro;gisejro;igerj wtf sangwoo

...I...well. I mean, it’s a great parallel, I think. Bum’s desperation for love making him yell that as his last words, while Sangwoo’s desperation for that same love making him stop in his tracks and even...fucking pet Bum??? I dunno, lonely or not, that wouldn’t be the first response of a completely not-gay-straight-as-an-arrow man. But obviously, Bum is a cutie pie and can appear feminine, which is why Sangwoo didn’t automatically kill him. If Bum looked like a ‘man’, then there would seriously be no saving Bum.

And I’m sure Koogi meant to emphasize Bum’s feminine attractiveness in that petting panel, maybe as a way to show what Sangwoo was seeing. I love how it’s purely white and blank behind Bum, as Bum is all Sangwoo is seeing. The fact that it’s white rather than black can suggest that Bum could be a new beginning, something pure and untainted.

I do kinda wonder if Koogi had Sangwoo as straight as a way to mitigate the stigma against homosexuality??? As a way for her to say “just because the story is between two men doesn’t mean this is supposed to be representative of homosexuality itself”.

5. Wow, the whiplash of mood and quick thinking

Boy didn’t even fkkn hesitate to destroy Bum’s legs, goddamn.

However, this does show that Sangwoo is very aware and his mental faculties are intact, even during times like these. You think he’d be fkkn furious and lose it, beating Bum to death automatically before Bum could even say anything. But Sangwoo doesn’t. The moment Bum says “love”, he stopped. He wasn’t in a haze of fury...maybe excitement (especially with that goddamn terrifying smile as Bum runs up the stairs), but even that was controlled.

In away, Sangwoo just seems...tired. He’s moving only because he knows he has to.

Also, the moment he says “not with your legs the way they are”, Sangwoo sees Bum the same way he has seen the women who’ve also been in the basement. The CEO daughter girl also had broken legs, so obviously the first thing he does is ruin their legs so they don’t run away...which...yeah, smart. I actually haven’t seen that even with Criminal Mind. xD

So that does show that Sangwoo seems really set in keeping his prey with him. Not to ‘chain’ them or anything, but to keep them from leaving him.

6. Double homicide

Ooooh 3 years ago?? Okay this is interesting...conscription age is 18 (or 17 since Koreans add that one year). I’m confused because, technically, Bum should’ve met Sangwoo first in the military, then in his college days. So did Sangwoo go to military later at age 20? Could be since his mom is...yeah. And his dad...sure.

Also, Bum and Sangwoo are four years apart. So say that Sangwoo went to college first, so Bum met Sangwoo when he was 22...then while Sangwoo was 20 and Bum was 24, they went into the military later. Since Sangwoo is 24 now (or 25 in Korean age jfc), that means he was 21 when his parents were killed.

Sangwoo also seemed to have needed to be discharged early, most likely because of his sick mom, which would explain also why he was in no position to befriend Bum.

Anyways, so that means Bum knew Sangwoo and was in love with him for about 6 years.

7. Wow

No wonder Sungbae is like this. He sees the eyes of every person he chased in Sungwoo’s dead-eyed stare. But he’s actually wrong about this, lol. Sungwoo’s mom is the culprit, technically, even though she was also a vicitm.

8. UHHHHHHH

HEY, SANGWOO, HEY, WHY IS BUM FKKN NAKED TO HIS UNDERWEAR WHAT THE HELL. WHY DID YOU UNDRESS HIM SANGWOO. HEY.

Oh my god, wait, was that really Bum’s underwear or did Sangwoo put that on him??

Also, wow, Bum’s hips. He seriously has a feminine body. Like...pear body shape lol.

Also, seriously, Sangwoo is treating Bum right off the bat like the other women. Rather than completely heterosexual, Sangwoo is more demisexual. And rather than femininity, he more prefers ‘weaker’ bodies, so that he doesn’t feel threatened by them. That is automatic towards females.

9. Hmmmmn....

Ah, for this to be the first thing you fucking wake up to, jesus christ. xD

I wonder though, why did Sangwoo cut her hair short? There’s probably multiple reasons for it...but one theory I would find interesting is that it’s because he met Bum.

Maybe he wanted to see how she looked like with a male haircut, how it would look like and compare how it felt like to see a pretty girl beside a pretty boy. He compared the two physically and made his decision that Bum was worth more than her.

I really do find it interesting that Sangwoo truly chose Bum over her, despite her being voluptuous and beautiful and actually a woman, which...you know...important for het men right.

But Sangwoo chose Bum because even though Sangwoo went straight to beating him with a goddamn bat, Bum yelled “I FELL IN LOVE WITH YOU”.

If the choice was between what’s between the person’s legs vs the person themselves, Sangwoo will choose the person.

10. Interesting insight

Into why Sangwoo killed her and his thought process. Again, interesting, the fact that he kept emphasizing how stupid she was.

Her screaming for help and stuff is a very natural reaction and no one should ever blame her for that. But, for Sangwoo, it was ridiculous because she should’ve known that would piss him off more rather than make him feel guilty.

Part of it is how he learned to survive growing up--by reading his parents’ moods and figuring out how to respond. And on a smaller scale, how to respond to other people so that they see nothing but a charming, handsome man. The fact that she can’t even do 1/100th of that is fucking infuriating...and on a personal level, I can understand that frustration.

The other part is that her begging for mercy is obviously NOT what he wants. He wants someone like Bum, who’ll respond to him with loyalty and desire. Who won’t be afraid of him and will still stay to ease his loneliness.

11. Uh

What kind of half-baked excuse was this, bro. You spared him only because of what he yelled out to you and you just don’t want to admit it to yourself...or maybe just don’t want to say it to Bum, so that you can control him better.

12. Women have hair too, asshole

Sangwoo really does try to feminize Bum throughout the whole story. So obviously, yes, his instinct is more hetero. If Bum were burly like a guy rather than delicate like a girl, there would be no saving him. Sangwoo has his preferences. And Bum fits the most important aspect--and that most important part isn’t Bum’s genitalia.

I also do think it has to do with social construct. Sangwoo most likely grew up internalizing misogynistic and homophobic belief systems, whether or not those are what he truly agreed with.

13. The first time Sungwoo snaps

Notable to mention that it’s because he sees Bum trembling in fear of him. Sangwoo doesn’t like being reminded of the monster he is. He doesn’t take pleasure in it. But because he knows that he’s unforgivable and can’t go back, he just makes the situation worse by further slipping into the skin of a monster.

Honestly, this might be more indicative towards what he witnessed with his father. He’s emulating his father’s qualities because he knows that he’s no better than him, and can’t handle that fact. He’s also locking up his women THE SAME WAY HIS FATHER DID TO HIS MOM.

But, honestly, I think it’s because his mom is just as bad as his dad, that’s why he’s doing the same things as his dad.

14. You beat the girl

This is indicative of the fact that Sangwoo would be willing to be with Bum despite being a guy. And also suggests that, again, he really was comparing them and decides that Bum, with all his ‘loser’ like qualities, is still worthier than her. Heterosexual first, but demisexual overall.

And again, I think he’s doing the same things he has seen his father has done, pouring the food over Bum’s face like that.

15. First reward

Ah, here comes the training.

Also, I can see how differently Bum responds compared to every single person he’s seen, including his mom. They all will feel humiliated and resentful, hateful towards Sangwoo, seeing him as a monster, or being completely defeated. But Bum, instead, responds exactly the opposite. This is exactly why I think Sangwoo decides to kiss Bum.

Because, despite Sangwoo calling him a retard, that is exactly what Sangwoo wanted to see (but at the same time, not...Sangwoo doesn’t want someone as messed up as Bum, but he knows that only someone as messed up as Bum can be with him, and more than anything, he doesn’t want to be lonely).

If Bum reacted with fear rather than desire, Sangwoo would’ve never kissed Bum.

This is also a huge catch-22 that will end up blowing up on both of them. Bum reacting like this will make Sangwoo feel better about his actions and like he was able to find the person who’ll be able to accept him for who he is. But in the long term, it will reinforce this behavior and truly make him into his father. It will also keep him from truly dealing with his past.

16. Oh goddamn

Great insight into Bum’s mentality. It’s amazing, also, that he sees this as a sign of ‘dating’.

What I find telling is that Bum is thinking this DESPITE SEEING PROOF OF HIM BEING A MURDERER. I do get that it could be from his dissociation from real life, so he doesn’t quite understand what is going on. But at the same time, really, if Sangwoo treated Bum better, then Bum would’ve been absolutely fine with him being a serial killer and even join him. I honestly do believe Bum is more of a natural-born murderer than Sangwoo (though Sangwoo is probably more of a natural asshole lol).

17. Why are you also mentioning the word date!?!?

And I’m not sure if Sangwoo senses that those are Bum’s thoughts, but he also is thinking about dating in this context??

I can see how Sangwoo could’ve ‘read’ his prey and responded in a way that would’ve messed with their heads, but at the same time, it could be that Sangwoo is looking at this situation in just as much a twisted way as Bum is. But rather than Bum’s “I’m disgusting, yet he’s kissing me” mentality, he’s more likely thinking “Kissing him isn’t disgusting, so he passes round 3″ (round 1 is the first time with the bat, round 2 is the one where he kills the girl instead of Bum).

The thing is, since Sangwoo didn’t find Bum’s kisses disgusting, it reinforces his desperation to keep Bum with him. If he didn’t like kissing Bum, then I truly believe Bum would’ve died right here and now.

Also, interesting: “You’ll be the only one that ends up hurt, you know?” So, obviously, Bum having one working leg increases his chances of escape. So this is Sangwoo’s way of saying ‘if you escape, then I��ll make sure to hurt/kill you because of that’.

18. Here comes the sledgehammer

This is an interesting parallel. Looking back at chapter 1, it also seems like only one of the girl’s legs are broken, like how Bum’s leg was after falling down the steps.

So to keep the girl from escaping, Sangwoo just most likely tied her up. It’s not full-proof and it limits her movements, but Sangwoo probably doesn’t give a shit because with how she’s acting, she wasn’t going to live much longer.

But for Bum...with Bum, he’s planning to let him live much longer. He doesn’t want to restrict Bum’s movements because that makes him less appealing. Instead, Sangwoo takes it personally--takes it upon himself--to actually break Bum’s legs. This is a much more permanent fixture, reflecting how he’s planning to keep Bum with him for a much longer time.

Also, now that I’m looking at this, I think Sangwoo doesn’t actually rape his victims. Yeah, he has molested the girl’s dead body, but I think that’s more of a curiosity towards a dead body than actual sexual interest. It’s natural after seeing his mom’s corpse in front of him and all that...screwed up as fuck jazz lol.

I think he has sex with them in the beginning and that’s probably when he snaps because...his mom raped him, so. After that, he tortures them according to their reaction to him. But he probably doesn’t actually touch them more than that. In the case of hypersexuality, Bum fits this much more than Sangwoo does at this point. Sangwoo seems to just use it as a weapon, while Bum does it because he wants to be fucked.

This makes sense because it seems like Sangwoo was raped once by his mom and probably molested the other times, while Bum was frequently raped.

Furthermore, Bum--as we’ll later see--is most likely the only one he truly does rape.

#chapter 2 #volume 1

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lightandconcrete · 6 years

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NATALIA GODUNKO: "I hope Yana can survive her silver medal"

LINK FB

cr: rg.sport.ua

"How can I say that Ukraine is the best when there is such a downfall - hopefully only temporary - and we end up in the 17th place?!"

+++

Natalia Godunko is an iconic gymnast for a reason. She was always someone who looked very different in Ukrainian RG yet carved out a very successful career. She's something of a "wild child", always expressing her thoughts freely, even if that causes displeasure to the local fans. One thing is sure: she is well-worth listening to. Sport.ua had a huge, 2-part question and answer session with her, these are some topics they skimmed in approximate translation. Very interesting thoughts on medals not being worth if your mental or physical health suffers, how very difficult is to start independent life after living in a very strict and controlled environment, what she thinks about the star gymnasts and Ukraine's place now in RG.

+++

On the difficulties of switching to "real" life after being in such a strictly controlled environment for a long time:

"I don't know if I want to be in elite sports at all, following in the footsteps of my great coaches. I have a task to make children happy, so they know what sport is, they learn how to work, they have a healthy psyche, they are not broken, they learn how to win, how to lose, how to fight. I try to convey my experience."

"Why do coaches allow themselves to raise their voice on children who are 10-12 years old? This is already manipulation. It cannot be done. You have to help a young athlete to reveal herself, be confident in herself, and if the kid does not have amazing natural gifts, then there is no need to humiliate her."

"I was taught to be a gymnast. But we were never taught how to be a coach. We practically did not go to school, there was no education. Until I was 26, there was nothing [outside rhythmic gymnastics]. And it was a very difficult period after the sport. I did not how to learn. To think. That's the problem."

"It occurs to me that if everything is forbidden to you, all your life, and then you are out, and everything is suddenly possible for you - it is both scary and dangerous. You do not have friends. You do not have normal education. You do not know why you cannot do certain things. I'm really grateful to the guy who was in my life then, because on our first date he understood my psychology type and never forbade me anything. He was like a mentor to me, because in my life before there was only sport."

"Sometimes I have communication barriers with my mother because of sports (...) She says I turned from an angel to an angry child when I got to elite sports. And now, as we're discussing some things, she is surprised. 'Why did you never tell me that?' I cleanly remember how the coach used to say that 'only the weakest tell everything to her parents'. And I always wanted to be the strongest."

On freedom:

"They say that you always have a choice. When I was in rhythmic gymnastics, I did not have this right. You cannot leave trainings or skip competitions (...) For 13 years in my career I did not have a choice. Let's take an example: what kind of music do you want? I want something. The coaches say to me - no, this will not work for you. And everything is like that. After the sport I could not decide on anything. I consider myself to some extent to be someone like Mowgli: a human who lived amongst animals and then got to human society."

About her relationship to the Deriuginas:

"I've recently had a conversation with them. I had to meet them to discuss some misunderstandings. I am grateful to all the people who helped me during my sports career. But the coaching part is independent of that. The Deriuginas did not teach to me how to be a coach, how to behave with the small kids, how to do masterclasses, what should they be, how a workout should be conducted. I came to this alone. I met them, I was greeted with hugs and open doors to the national team. We came to some shared opinions, in some things I had to give way. This meeting was recent, though I was offered to work with the national team before - but I never wanted to."

On her very freely expressed views, which are criticised often in Ukraine:

"Many people were scolding me, because I dare to have an opinion and express it in social media, say, like about the World Championships. Many people became very angry. But how can I say that Ukraine is the best when there is such a downfall - hopefully only temporary - and we end up in the 17th place?! I was criticised that I praised Russia. Well, there are the Averina twins, who perform brilliantly, have unreal ability with the apparatus. What they don't have, and I can also say this, is emotional channeling in their routines. We have Viktoria Mazur. She has gorgeous abilities, turns, but she does not know how to perform. Irina Deriugina should tell why the girl is dropping the apparatus for like 10 years. This is not antipathy towards Mazur. I am a free woman, I live in a free country, I can freely express my opinion. And she got better with apparatus, now she caught it at least.

I would never say something like Anna Rizatdinova had no growth in 10 years, it would not be true. Rizatdinova had an unreal growth as a gymnast. At first she was not such a good leaper, but she always had excellent pivots. At the Olympics in Rio she had everything on a high level. Another such gymnast with huge growth is Margarita Mamun. She constantly dropped the apparatus like Viktoria Mazur, but at the Olympics she made a clean competition and her improvement was fantastic: in body work, in apparatus work, in emotionality. I've only seen such huge improvements in Mamun and Rizatdinova."

On whether the Olympic results are fair:

"As for Mamun, she performed brilliantly. She was ready, that was her deserved place. For Kudryavtseva... let's go back a little! She appeared in 2013 and what she showed was just completely unreal. No-one had seen anything like it! But on the other hand, Yana remained on the same level during her career. Mamun and Rizatdinova raised their game. And of course Yana had a huge mistake in Rio, loss of apparatus - the rest she could do without mistakes. But she had a very serious surgery before, she was out for half a year, yet she was able to recover and perform - that is a very strong testimony [to her will]. I hope she can survive her silver medal. Because she always won everything, she always got the gold. I hope life after sports will not break her. She's 20 years old, she had set such a standard that it will be very difficult for her to lead a normal life. Rizatdinova had a worthy medal and the third place seemed correct. In my opinion her routines were not as difficult as her rivals' ones. Kudryavtseva had a serious mistake but had way more complicated routines, and Rizatdinova performed superbly, but for me her routines were a little light in difficulty. I felt very sorry for Salome Pazhava with her injury. I was rooting for her and thought she'd be in the medals.

On whether the Deriuginas' complete control over Ukrainian RG is good or she prefers more competition:

"[Serebryanskaya, Vitrichenko] came from very strong schools, they provided competition. I believe in that competition is needed. I can say that many talented coaches are either leaving Ukraine or have already left."

On the current Code of Points:

"I generally like it. During my career there were so many elements, up to 40. Now 10-12. Sometimes I think, oh, if I was performing now! I like these rules more. Plus there are no technical sheets, like we used to have. That means if something is going wrong, the gymnast can correct the mistake, repeat the element, and for us that was impossible to do."

On whether she's satisfied with her career:

"I'm very happy with it, because even if I was a second gymnast [behind Anna Bessonova] I was in the top five. I did not have huge mistakes, I did not let down my country, my coaches. I could even win sometimes, as a second gymnast, against Kabaeva and Tchachina. I can put a tick next to my career. Now our number one is not even in the top ten. As a second gymnast I was considered to be a star, because I could compete with the very best. And what happened during this difficult journey - maybe one day I'll write a book and tell you how everything was, what I went through in the sport and after.

On her relationship with Anna Bessonova

"We are not communicating with Anya, so I do not know much about her. There was a turning point in our relationship. I even had to go through what happened with a psychologist, because the situation was bugging me, I was questioning myself, what did I do wrong? Eventually what helped me is that I let go of the situation. I cannot say any bad things to Anya, but she ceased to exist in my life as a friend."

On the happy moments, doing things for yourself and training sensibly

"I won't say moments like eating a chocolate or drinking cola - I do not this any more, because they are harmful, and in our time we had to secretly do things like that. I always tell everyone: do it for yourself! No medal is worth your psyche, your health."

"I'll give you an example. We had a training camp in Alushta, and at 12 o'clock, when it was so hot, we had a strength circuit on a Swedish ladder made of metal. It was on the street. It was so hot, we wore caps. Now, strength circuit is useful. Physically weaker girls might tear the skin on their palms, but that's okay, you care for it and keep on working. The coach wrote on Facebook: if it was not for this, you wouldn't have become champions. And I asked, why was it impossible to do that workout at 6 PM, when the sun was down, it would not burn, and half of the children would not have problems with the hot metal ladders? It is just incomprehensible to me. Perhaps there was no other option, perhaps the site was occupied in the evening..."

PART 1

PART 2

SHE SAID IT!

#natalia godunko #rg #team ukraine

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coffeelemental · 6 years

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Anomaly Lore: Magic Part II

Hey hey! It’s Wednesday, and that means it’s time for a lore post! Here’s part two of all the fun magic technicalities (with a few updates in light of recent questions and events! <3) Jump below to learn how the different colors of magic work!

The different colors of magic govern different domains, or “schools”. Each school encompasses a certain set of characteristics such as that color's elemental aspect (ex: blue and water), or the most generally useful spells it produces (ex: yellow and ranged attacks). There is no hard limit on these aspects, especially since magical mixing can produce spells with a variety of functions, but there are certain broad, general traits that can help a student of magic define the different schools.

Basic magic can be split into the usual color spectrum of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, and Purple. There is also Void 'magic', which is not literal magic but a separate power entirely.

Note that having 'access' to a school means you have a natural aptitude for it, not that you're strictly limited to it. A Red user, for example, will still need to pull on Blue magic in order to create Purple magic; they theoretically could begin using Blue magic if given enough time to practice, but it'd be akin to trying to learn a new skill at the age of 85. Only Boss monsters and Sages live long enough to attempt cross-school mastery.

Blank Magic: “Blank” or raw magic is magic in its natural form. This is magic as pure energy fresh from the source, before it is absorbed by a magic-user and imbued with a color. Blank magic is limited in use and can only be used for utility spells, such as levitating tiny objects or forming weak ‘bullet’ attacks, although skilled casters can use it to teleport. Blank magic is what forms the majority of a monster’s body.

Red Magic: Red magic is most often described by monsters as “force” magic. This is because Red spells are as much a force of nature as they are a force of will. Comparing it to “the Force” as humans know it is actually quite apt: like the Jedi (or Sith...), Red magic users can use this school to both create potent attacks or influence minds.

Red magic is fire-aspected, making it one of the more destructive schools when used in elemental form. This “fire” can be used to “cauterize wounds” as well, but unlike Green magic, it requires Determination to use, making it somewhat risky to heal monsters with. Only a very skilled Red user like Toriel would attempt to heal using Red magic, as overhealing could actually wind up causing more damage.

Because Determination is so strongly linked to Red magic, it is the only school more easily mastered by humans rather than monsters. While the magic half of Red magic dilutes the DT enough to make it safe for monsters to use, often only Boss monsters have strong enough wills to actually master it (although elemental creatures, such as Grillby or Pyropes, also find easy mastery courtesy of the fire aspect). Because of this difficulty, monsters who have access to the Red school (Orange and Purple users), often don't bother trying to learn it.

Strength of will is everything to the mastery of Red magic, which is part of what can make it so insidious. The other half of it – the “Jedi mind trick” half – revolves around the Red user imposing their wills upon others. With Frisk, this manifests as the Act menu; Frisk uses different words and actions to quickly influence the emotions of those she interacts with. While this is a normal component of any social interaction, these interactions usually take time and investment; Frisk accelerates the desired result by imposing her will behind the actions. Thus, much like how a Jedi mind trick can instantly convince someone that these aren't the droids they're looking for, an Act can instantly change someone from aggressive to peaceful. Naturally, Acts can easily be abused, and a Red user could, in theory, use this same power to manipulate others, which is in large part why the Sages are wary of actually talking to Frisk.

It should be noted that while Frisk does not actually have magic power, she does still have access to Acts courtesy of her Red soul. The energy fueling her power simply comes from a different source.

Red users can access the Orange and Purple schools. They cannot use Green magic.

Orange Magic: Orange magic is easily the most offensive of the magic schools, making it a favorite of the Royal Guard and any martially-oriented people. The Orange school by far has the largest range of direct attack spells, and has been found to create the most potent, swift, and reliable weapons. There are few frills attached to orange magic; like its users, it tends to be – quite literally – to the point.

Orange magic is earth-aspected, so often Orange users are paired with Green and Yellow users among monsters to help grow magical food (although their powers are well-suited to traditional gardening as well). They often accounted for the greatest engineers in the Underground, able to reshape entire caverns to suit the monsters' needs. In this respect Orange users are essentially Earthbenders, and even metal lies within their capability to manipulate, making them consummate blacksmiths and industrialists as well.

Orange users can access the Red and Yellow schools. They cannot use Blue or Cyan magic.

Yellow Magic: Magicians often consider Yellow as the “neutral” color – which might be fitting given its association with Justice. And indeed, mastery of Yellow magic often requires a calm, almost stoic demeanor, as getting zealous with it can swiftly send the user out of control. The Yellow school is often the most difficult for humans to master, because human emotions all too often turn a desire for justice into vengeance instead.

Unlike the other schools, Yellow magic has no elemental aspect. Instead, its aspect has been most often described as 'Spirit'. 'Spirit' is similar in power to the repertoire of spells used by rangers and druids in D&D: Yellow users are skilled at communicating with animals and plants, and in borrowing their power. Yellow magic can grow great forests or wither entire fields; if in trouble, a Yellow user can call entire packs of animals to their aid. Likewise, Yellow users can tap into the abilities of animals to enhance their own senses to inhuman levels. A Yellow user might be able to run at cheetah speed, see in infrared, echolocate, or read the magnetic poles.

Yellow magic is most effective for long-ranged or stealth attacks. When working offensively, Yellow users often attack swiftly or quietly from a distance, using hit-and-run tactics. Often enemies go down without ever knowing what hit them. The effective allure of this power can tend to make human Yellow users think they are invincible, and all too often students of the school can devolve into “cowboy mode” where they begin getting reckless. Monsters studying the Yellow school are more in danger of becoming too engrossed in the natural aspect, and losing themselves to their bestial side.

Yellow users can access the Orange and Green schools. They cannot use Purple magic.

Green Magic: The literal “breath of life”, Green magic is wind-aspected but also far and away the most potent source of healing available. Capable of full healing, regenerating, cleansing, and even reviving the fallen, Green magic has always been highly sought after by the medical community, and many humans view it almost miraculously. Healing via Green magic is instant, causes no pain, and leaves no scars; under the care of an especially gifted healer, someone may not even realize they've been injured in the first place.

The only limit on what healing magic is capable of is dependent on how long the Green user has been practicing it. The average Green user can probably only heal physical wounds, like cuts, bruises, and broken bones; Kale, having practiced for 1500 years of life, can regenerate limbs, organs, or even revive the recently dead. Kale's level of miraculous healing power takes over 1000 years to achieve for monsters and humans both, and healers of his caliber are insanely rare.

The irony of this power over life is that it is also the power behind Necromancy. Undead and Demonic monsters use Green magic on weak or soulless human bodies in order to raise the dead or, in the case of vampires, convert a human.

Green magic has very limited offensive capabilities, but often these come in the form of air-element attacks. A highly skilled Green magician can use the air aspect to power-jump or even achieve flight. By inverting this power, Green users can immobilize enemies and trap them in place, making them highly effective at crowd control.

Green users can access the Yellow, Blue, and Cyan schools. They cannot use Red magic.

Cyan Magic: If Red magic is the unstoppable force, Cyan magic is the immovable object. Cyan magic is easily the most defensive of the schools. Because most Cyan magic relies upon patience, waiting, or not moving, it's most commonly used in the form of shields, force fields, or barriers; indeed, Tai was the main architect of the Ebott barrier. While weaker Cyan spells can be pushed through, doing so still harms the person attempting it.

Because it is technically a derivative of Blue magic, Cyan magic retains its water aspect but in ice form. Thus, Cyan magic is often used offensively in the form of piercing weapons: spears, arrows, darts, etc. Because of this, Cyan magic is often a “death by a thousand cuts” sort of school; an individual hit won't hurt much, but those hits will stack up fast. Combined with their access to Purple spells, a Cyan user can whittle down opponents with very little effort on their own part.

Cyan users have access to the Blue, Purple, and Green schools. They cannot use Orange magic.

Blue Magic: Like all of the primary colors, Blue magic is a highly dangerous school. It is most infamous for its control of gravity, allowing the user to essentially “Force throw” something; the size of what can be picked up and moved depends upon how practiced the user is. At extremely high levels of mastery, Blue users can even wield gravity to warp time and space. Because this level of mastery is so rare, it hasn't been very well studied, and thus Blue users have a bad habit of inadvertently discovering the Void when they bend space a little too hard. The more experienced a Blue user is, the more eccentric they tend to become as they start to tread along the barrier of madness.

Blue magic is water-aspected and can command seas and rivers both. This allows a Blue user to not only create water attacks, but to also breathe and move freely underwater, or to walk over it. Blue magic is especially lethal to humans as it could theoretically be used for Bloodbending.

Interestingly, Blue users tend to be highly resistant to Acts, because Blue's association with Integrity allows it to hold strong against a Red user's will. This Integrity is likely the only thing preventing Blue masters from instantly going mad the moment they begin to dabble in the Void.

Blue users have access to the Cyan, Green, and Purple schools. They cannot use Orange magic.

Purple Magic: Considered the most “passive” of the schools, Purple magic is about manipulation and illusion. A classic spell is, perhaps, a favorite of Muffet's: creating the illusion that a person can only move along a set of lines. Nothing is actually stopping that person from moving freely (as that's the domain of the Blue and Green schools), but if they believe what they see, they are powerless to resist it. Such illusions can take many forms and grow increasingly complex and believable the more skilled the Purple user is.

Illusory power can create glamours and holograms for the purposes of disguising and deceiving, but Purple magic can be literally transformative as well. Shapeshifters such as lycanthropes and mimics get their power from Purple magic.

Purple magic is lightning-aspected and is best used offensively in the form of electric attacks, although its passive nature makes it just as useful for damage over time as well. Although this electric power could technically be used at the molecular level, however, neither Royal Scientist has spent much time studying it.

Purple users have access to the Blue, Cyan, and Red schools. They cannot use Yellow magic.

They are probably insanely OP.

Black Magic: Black magic does not occur naturally, nor can it be performed by a single person. Black magic only happens when two magic users weave a spell together from colors that do not mix. Black magic is universally harmful and is normally used in the form of curses and hexes, although it's been theorized to have created some of the world's worst diseases as well. It is a favorite of demons.

Because Black magic is unnatural, it can only be fought off with pure Determination.

White Magic: White magic also does not occur naturally, but is a result of all colors being used in harmony. This is typically only possible when a monster achieves a god state, granting it access to the seven human virtues. Because it is formed from all seven colors, White magic can pull any power from any given one of the individual schools.

The Ebott barrier was technically White magic as well, as it was created with power from all seven of the Sages and required White magic to be broken. Such a spell could have only been crafted by the Sages, as they are both human and monster and, by combining their power, function the same as one god-monster.

Void Magic: While the Void is full of a certain type of latent energy, it's not really magic in the literal sense. The Void is the opposite of our reality, however, so manifesting Void energy into our reality tends to disrupt things in a way similar to magic. Typically Void power is best used to break any and all laws of physics; this is the domain of non-Euclidean geometry and nonlinear timelines. More often than not, when something from the Void manifests in our world, it tends to just destroy whatever it touches outright because the two realities do not usually compute.

Void power disrupts a monster's form so much that it will destroy them on contact. Humans can withstand this enough to wield it, but it will eventually drive them mad instead. It is impossible for a non-Void being to have mastery over Void magic.

#Undertale #The Anomaly #Undertale AUs #Lore #Headcanon

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antillonbukhari90 · 4 years

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rowingchat · 6 years

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Guest Blog: Winter Workouts: Why do Rowers Fear the Erg?

Friend. Not Foe. Courtesy: RowingRelated

I am really frustrated by our sport when it comes to the erg being viewed as a torture device rather than a helpful tool that people can enjoy. This negative mindset, which is extremely contagious, plagues the sport, preventing athletes from training to their potential and possibly serving as one of the reasons that careers in rowing, at every level, are often so short.

My main problem is that everywhere I turn in the rowing community, whether it’s high school guys and girls, college guys and girls, or even National Team hopefuls, I hear of people dreading the erg. I’ve never heard about a cross country runner ‘dreading’ a track workout. True, basketball and football players may dread running wind sprints or other such conditioning activities, but I can live with that because those are not endurance sports. In other words, when strength, power, endurance, mental toughness, and monotonous activity are the bread and butter of your sport, it seems wholly inappropriate to create a culture that disdains such fundamentally important and central activities.

When compared to other endurance sports like cycling, running, swimming, etc., I have not encountered an equal level of disdain for such fundamental mental and physical endurance training. A track runner might complain if he or she had to be on the treadmill all winter long, but the idea would not strike fear into his or her heart, as track athletes are forced to be accountable at all times. I don’t know why, every Winter, I have to go on Row2k and read Rowing News to find out about “How to get through winter training,” or, “How to find ways to spice up/find alternatives for the erg.” Why can’t people just say, “Time to erg? Okay great. What is the workout, what am I trying to accomplish and what is the best way to do that in this workout?”

Another issue: rowers complaining about mysterious injuries that only seem to affect performance on land. How common is it to have an injury that allows you to row on the water but not on the erg? I think that, in actuality, such injuries are exceedingly rare. I’ve had a number of athletes tell me about an injury they have, but somehow that injury only comes up on the erg. Rarely do I hear about an injury when coaching on the water. It is all too common for people to say, “but it doesn’t hurt in the boat.” Really? You mean that when you have to carry a heavy load, rowing by pairs, fours and sixes in an eight, have to twist out to one side with your torso and overload that side (all of this in a potentially unstable environment), that it doesn’t hurt, but that when you are on a stationary machine that is completely stable and balanced, with a resistance setting that you can control, then it hurts? It seems very unlikely. I have a hypothesis: either it doesn’t hurt on the water because you aren’t pulling very hard, or it’s because you aren’t really injured and don’t know the difference between pain and injury, or a combination of both. Again, track athletes are held accountable 100% of the time. The coach is standing there with a stop watch. When a rower is on the water, it’s up to him or her to “give full measure.”

I have a simple solution to this: you can’t erg, you can’t row. It’s amazing how many less injuries occur when this is the policy. Also, I don’t care how hard you work when running, cycling, swimming or doing whatever cross-training you might be doing — you aren’t going to be in very good rowing shape based on your potential without the sport-specific training development.

Another common phrase: “I’m just not good on the erg, but I’m good on the water.” Nonsense. Sure, you might be able to beat someone on the water with a better erg score, but that is because that person is not technically skilled, and thus isn’t able to utilize the extra power and fitness that they have. It’s not complicated. I don’t boat based on erg scores, but I give people with erg scores the presumption — they must lose a seat race to a weaker teammate in order to lose their seat in the boat. If that happens, it’s not a good thing. It just means the rower with the stronger erg score is not technically skilled. Show me any good Olympic boat and I will show you a boat with great erg scores. Hamish Bond and Eric Murray of New Zealand are excellent rowers with great boat feel and technical ability, but they also have tremendous power and fitness. What about Mahe Drysdale, or Olaf Tufte, or Xeno Muller? Tremendous erg scores. Sure ergs don’t float, but they don’t lie either. If you can’t pull an erg it means you have no engine. I don’t care how beautiful, sleek and aerodynamic your race car is, if it has V6 engine, then the only way it is going to win a race against a race car with a V12 engine is if that V12 is in an extremely inefficient car.

Now, I understand people might have a problem with the erg because it doesn’t perfectly simulate the rowing stroke, and can, undoubtedly, end up rewarding things that will hurt boat speed on the water (like rushing the slide). I don’t have a problem with those people, because that, to me, is a valid concern and viewpoint. These people are not afraid of the erg and it doesn’t cause them mental distress which affects their ability to perform and achieve their best. However, I think it’s time for the rowing community, beginning at the high school level, to be more willing to embrace the ergometer as a training tool, rather than coming up with millions of reasons to fear the machine and letting it play games with our minds. In my opinion, this attitude, which is perpetuated year after year in programs throughout the country, creates mental blocks and leads people away from the training intensity they need to achieve their best possible results.

This may be, in part, the result of coaches requiring athletes to go too hard on every workout on the machine. Sometimes, workouts should be easy. I suspect that if one went around to various rowing programs to find out how their ‘steady state’ speed on a 10k erg piece compared to their 2k or 5k time, and then went around to cross country and track coaches to find out what pace they had their runners run on a typical easy or steady state run, one would find that the rowers work much harder. For instance, let’s say a runner runs a 5k in 18:36. This works out to six minute pace per mile, and 1:51.6 per 500 meters. According to the McMillan Running Calculator, easy steady state runs should be done at 2:02.5 — 2:06 per 500 meters and easy/long runs should be done at 2:18-2:27 pace per 500 meters.

Take a rower who pulls an 18:36 for 5k, which is that same 1:51.6 pace per 500 meters. I bet many high school and college coaches would have that person doing their steady state erg workouts at 1:58-2:00, and would never have them go as slow as the running calculator recommends on the easy/long runs.

It’s possible that because rowing is so low impact as compared with running, rowers can handle a faster pace for all of their workouts than runners and still recover. But this is a difference of 8-18 seconds per mile, which would be 45 seconds to a minute and a half difference over 10k. Finishing a 10k a minute faster than someone else is a pretty significant difference, especially if done day after day and week after week. The cumulative effect on the body wearing down could potentially be significant, as the body’s physiological systems would be constantly over-taxed. Perhaps this is why so many people hate the erg and “burn out” in rowing — far more often and much earlier in their careers than the majority of runners. Many coaches seem to adopt the approach that Jack Daniels refers to as the “Eggs Against the Wall” theory of coaching, which he defines as the metaphysical act of throwing a basket of eggs against a wall and hoping one of them doesn’t break. When you train as hard as most coaches recommend, the few, stellar athletes that can handle the training will succeed, and some of them might even go on to compete in the Olympics. What about all the rest? They will burn out, get injured and leave the sport. The key is balance: your training program needs to be well thought-out, with enough days of easy, longer training to complement the extremely demanding sessions. If the erg is used purely for the most difficult of training sessions, it will not only solidify a negative mindset regarding the machine, but also, unintentionally, contribute reduced accountability on the water. If water training is looked at as ‘easier,’ you will undoubtedly underachieve when it comes time to race. Rowers should look at both kinds of training as equally as difficult. For this to happen, coaches must bring a balanced approach to both land and water training.

Finally, I think many rowing coaches fall victim to creating a crutch when it comes to an erg workout, rather than dealing the fundamental, underlying problem. Here is a common example of the kind of patchwork solution to a more serious problem: steady state erg workouts broken up into intervals like 4′ on, 1′ off when such rest is not needed to accomplish the physiological goals of the workout. In my mind, that type of rest should be used for speed intervals (in other words, when you actually need the rest to recover between intervals). I don’t think if you are trying to keep your heart rate at between 60-80% of your maximum, for example, that having a minute off every five minutes will help keep your heart rate down over the course of the workout. At that intensity, if you are in good aerobic shape, you will not notice much variation in your heart rate between an hour straight through and an hour of 4′ on, 1′ off if it is done at a consistent ‘steady state’ effort (steady state being heart rate between 60-80% of its maximum). To me, this is appears to be another way of perpetuating the problem of disliking the erg, as it is clearly a concession to the idea that the erg is difficult to deal with mentally.

This belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wonder how many running coaches would say to their athletes, “Today we are doing an easy steady state run of eight miles, I want you to run at your easy/steady state pace for four minutes and then stop, walk or jog for one minute before resuming your steady state run pace until you complete the eight miles.” I don’t believe many running coaches, anywhere in the world, at any level, would do this. I think they would say, “Today we are going to do a steady state run of 8 miles at your easy/steady-state pace to work on aerobic development. Stay within this zone by running X pace and I will see you when you get back.” Maybe running is in the dark ages and rowing is just ahead of the curve on this one, but somehow I think it might be the other way around.

-The RowingRelated Team

The post Guest Blog: Winter Workouts: Why do Rowers Fear the Erg? appeared first on Rowperfect UK.

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