#all-consuming that it literally kills people?

[morgana-ren]

The League of Villains are cool and interesting and deserved better not only because they were easily the most interesting characters in the entire damned manga, but also because of how their particular quirks embodied their grievances with society and their reason for becoming villains in the first place.

Tomura, born of blood and ash, his hatred for everyone so fucking intense that he makes it his literal mission to destroy the world. His quirk is decay, which destroys anything and everything he touches— even himself. It destroys him in the same way that his unabashed hatred does. It took everything from him, and now he'll use it to take everything from everyone else too. Any love he held for society decayed, ironically because of decay. The world is stagnant and wrong and he would see it rot.

Dabi, whose all-consuming hatred for his father and the society responsible for his origins burns with the rage of 1000 suns. His quirk literally eating him from the inside out, spilling uncontrollably from him like a forest fire. Rage and fury made weapon, even if the flames consume him too. His inability to let go and forgive is quite literally killing him, the inferno growing and growing until there isn't anything left to burn. Not even himself.

Toga, the abandoned child. Her quirk allows her to become someone— anyone— else. Someone who doesn't have a scary quirk. Someone who is embraced by society. Someone who wasn't abandoned and branded unlovable and left to fend for themselves in a world that neglects her at best and is actively malicious at worst. Toga is an abandoned child who probably wished she was someone else at some point— someone her parents and the world could love. Her obsession with love utterly tragic because those who were supposed to love her unconditionally cast her aside, and now she grasps with fangs and claws, drawing blood in her need to keep people near. To fight the abandonment through blood.

It's the same thing with all the rest of the villains too. Idk I just think it's neat.

[distort-opia]

*bursts through your window at 4AM wearing bloodied Hamlet costume* Hey Tort beloved i got you a whole chicken and an egg for breakfast:

Batman VS. Bruce Wayne— which one, in your opinion, is the person and which one is the persona? Realistically, when hell breaks loose on a good god abiding gotham day, which one could Bruce lose and still have his identity remain somewhat intact? I know different comics and media take complete separate parts of him as what makes him, but which one do you think makes Bruce Wayne who he is at heart?

Hi! You're not the first person to ask, so I'll put these two together. Thank you for the hearty breakfast and please accept these cakes as apology for how delayed this answer is (you and Anon both).

To be honest, I consider the question of "which one is real, which one is fake" as a bit overdone... and needlessly complicated. Especially because many times when people bring up the debate, they're thinking of "Brucie Wayne" and "Batman", with arguments of Batman being the real personality seemingly always correct and almost obvious. This oversimplifies things, because there's "Brucie Wayne", there's Batman, and then there's just Bruce.

Is the persona of "Brucie Wayne", the ditzy womanizing playboy with half a braincell, fake? Yes, absolutely. That one's a mask which serves the purpose of hiding the existence of Batman. But is that the same as Bruce Wayne, the man we see joke around with Alfred in the Cave, interact honestly with Dick and the Family and Talia and Selina and so many others-- the human underneath Batman? No, it isn't. That Bruce Wayne is very real. And Batman is not a separate persona or a mask, it's just another facet of the same person, borne out of Bruce Wayne's trauma. Batman is so many things... a coping mechanism, a way to commit suicide, the fantasy of who Bruce would like to be; but he's got roots within Bruce to such a fundamental extent that calling him a mask, or a persona, feels wrong to me. Batman is both the worst and the best of Bruce Wayne. There's no separating them... no matter how badly Bruce would like to make it that way.

Because Bruce has struggled (and still does) a lot, both with admitting to himself that there's more to him than the existence of Batman, and with maintaining a balance between the many personas he wears. "Batman is the real one, Bruce Wayne is fake" is something Bruce desperately wanted to believe and make real himself, in multiple stories. This is where this long-standing fandom belief probably stems from: from Bruce having convinced himself that "Bruce Wayne" is dead, and that there isn't anything left to him but Batman. Hell, Bruce has literally tried to "kill" Bruce Wayne and only be Batman in Bruce Wayne, Murderer? and Bruce Wayne, Fugitive; this is probably the story arc that dealt with this divide in Bruce's psyche in the most depth, I absolutely recommend giving it a read.

However, the more important thing is the why. Why this constant struggle? And it's a simple reason... maintaining ties to his humanity versus giving himself over entirely to the Vow. Batman was forged out of Bruce's pain, and is a response to loss. Batman is how Bruce channels his emotions into purpose. Batman will always want to never go through the loss of loved ones again, and the simplest solution to that is to never care again. Never have romantic relationships, maintain a distance from all the people in his life. But humans can't live like that. Bruce can't live like that, he needs grounding by the many relationships he does have, despite how much the side of him that's Batman pulls in the other direction. That's why Bruce Wayne, Fugitive ends like this:

And the thing is, we keep having the same story, over and over. Bruce nearly being consumed by Batman, and then finding his way back, most of the time with the help of his Family.

Here's another instance:

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #140

And another one, which so beautifully illustrates how Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same, but also how Batman contains a suicidal and self-destructive side of Bruce too:

Batman: Ego

(Lol. Yeah this is your life, man.)

But you could find an equal number of examples in which Bruce declares that "Bruce Wayne" is useless and disposable, and that Batman is the only thing that matters (e.g., Robin 1993 #125). Because again, this is comics. There's no finality in sight, no traditional ending that everything we read is heading towards. Bruce will keep doing this dance, will keep having to learn how to balance these two sides of himself. Most recently this happened in Zdarsky's Batman run, with the conflict between Bruce and the Batman of Zur-en-Arrh... but don't even get me started on that utter disappointment.

Actually though, @psalmsofpsychosis, this part of your question is quite interesting: "Realistically, when hell breaks loose on a good god abiding gotham day, which one could Bruce lose and still have his identity remain somewhat intact?" Because there have been times of crisis in which this has happened, in comics. And what Bruce did is probably not what you'd expect. This answer got long enough though, so I'm putting the rest under the cut.

Bruce has gone through a lot. There's been many catastrophic-level events he's dealt with. And at first glance, you'd think that he'd consistently fall back on Batman, if that's who he "really" is. But when his will genuinely breaks, that isn't what always happens. In Batman: Cult, a story that takes place towards the end of Bruce's first decade as Batman, after Jason became Robin, shows that Bruce can give up:

Batman: The Cult

Bruce abandons Gotham, and with it, Batman. Obviously, he eventually comes back. But it had to be Jason dragging him around for half this issue just to make him fight, just to make him function. (Much earlier than this, in Going Sane, he also considered just leaving Batman behind. But that story is deeply intertwined with Joker's identity as much as his, so I'm just mentioning it.)

And then Barbara gets shot, Jason dies, Bane goes after Batman in the Knightfall arc... it's just one thing after the other for the poor guy. Knightfall and its continuations are very extensive and many things happen, but after Bruce's spine is broken, he leaves Jean-Paul Valley in the role of Batman. And even after Bruce's injuries get healed, making a previously proclaimed goal of becoming Batman again much easier, he tells Tim that he doesn't want to come back. That he wants to stay retired, and "rejoin humanity":

Batman: Knightquest

Tim has to tell him of a crime that Azrael as Batman did, which is impossible to ignore... and Bruce has to confront Jean-Paul and see the truth of him having gone mad himself, before he decides to retrain and "become worthy" of his Batman identity once more.

Then, in a much bigger and well-known storyline that follows the Cataclysm event, Batman disappears for months. No Man's Land starts with a world in which Bruce has been away in Monaco trying to be someone else, instead of in Gotham, being Batman and taking control of the wrecked city which had been abandoned by all. Oh he comes back, but still...

No Man's Land: Ground Zero

So. Batman isn't his "real" identity, it isn't the core of him. Many times, he's wanted to run away and leave Batman behind, just like in some stories he was ready to completely destroy the "Bruce Wayne" identity and only be Batman. But in times of crisis, he repeatedly tried to leave and find happiness outside of Gotham and carrying the mantle of Batman... without succeeding.

Sometimes, Bruce hates Batman, and tries to run away. And other times, Batman hates Bruce, and tries to destroy him. It's a constant give-and-take, and neither facet of him has managed to succeed so far, because Bruce is Batman. There's no one without the other.

[creative-classpect]

Prince of Life

The Prince of Life One who destroys life and growth, often with life and growth itself. A plague.

“You are alone, child.There is only darkness for you, and only death for your people. These ancients are just the beginning. I will command a great and terrible army, and we will sail to a billion worlds. We will sail until every light has been extinguished. You are strong, child, but I am beyond strength. I am the end, and I have come for you, Finn.”

Prince- destroy their aspect and destroy with it. They are incredibly active and a bit unstable due to their destructive nature. 

Life- major themes of life force, opportunity, growth, and luxury. Minor themes of options and optimism.

Abilities

Finality

The Prince of Life destroys life. They are a force of rot and decay. The turning of the seasons, the guiding hand of entropy, the unshakeable fact that everything that lives must die. The

At lower levels of the game the Prince of Life is simply good at killing, using nothing short of fully lethal methods. This can be anywhere from maximum efficiency like John Wick to insane overkill like say, Lobo. However they chose to go about their work they are skilled at it. No matter the tool, no matter the time, no matter their stamina, they are always ready to kill. This may manifest as extreme paranoia or a severely edgy personality. 

As the Prince of Life develops their ability to kill has begun to blossom, extending well beyond the point of death and into the decay, the rot, the decomposition. The Prince of Life has tapped into a well of necrotic energy and all the things that come with it. They may begin to unleash necrosis with each strike of their weapon, blast deadly radiation across the battlefield, take control over decomposers like insects, and even decay inorganic material, causing metals and stone to wither and corrode away.

By medium levels the Prince is no longer wielding death, they have become it. The destructive output of the Prince would multiply, becoming increasingly deadly. The faintest touch would be enough to cause any object, living or dead, to rapidly begin to decay, age, wither, rot, and die. While this effect is potent with touch, it could be spread over a massive area, unleashing clouds of thick miasma to wear down the stamina and will to persist of all creatures within their range. When the Prince destroys something it is next to impossible to heal or recover, all remaining potential drained out of it entirely. The only chance is to prevent the inevitable before the Prince brought finality.

At higher levels the Prince of Life is more than a simple force of death and destruction, they are unto the grim reaper itself. While others may struggle tirelessly against the wheel of time, the Prince is assured, unstoppable. They are the end, plucking the death that lives within all things, and allowing it to bloom. There is no need for haste, no need for worry, when the Prince arrives it is simply the end before they even need to raise their weapon. Fate itself is exhausted and all potential realities and timelines begin to collapse on the certainty of their doom.

A fully realized Prince of Life may even be able to kill other godtiers, regardless of it is heroic or just.

Biophage

The Prince of Life is able to destroy with life, harnessing the infinite potential of nature in the same way one may view an armory. Biological warfare in the most literal sense, from the smallest spore to poison to giant briar patches to ensnare. Life needs life to live. Every predatory instinct, every biological advantage, every weapon and tool loving crafted by nature to kill and consume belongs to the Prince.

At lower levels this can manifest in any number of ways. The Prince may be skilled in cultivating various poisonous plants and mushrooms, carve weapons made from wood, harvest deadly bacteria, weapons and tools made from the bones of predators, etc. As life is endless, so are the Prince’s options, it really comes down to a matter of their personal interests and combat preferences.

As the Prince of Life begins to progress this would evolve, becoming spontaneous rather than a more long term, laborious effort. Their weapon of choice would become supercharged. Creating rapidly regenerating mushrooms to use as grenades, spontaneously generating thorny spears, granting themselves augmentations like Wolverine claws or sharp fangs, etc. The Prince of Life would also begin the process of becoming the peak of what is physically possible. While all Sburb players are expected to develop superhuman capabilities, the Prince of Life would rapidly develop and exceed expectations for physical abilities, such as strength, speed, and reflexes. Wuxia levels of physical prowess. Strong like Equius, fast like Dirk, tenacious like Kanaya, etc.

At medium levels the Prince of Life has evolved to not simply wield a weapon, but to become a weapon, hosting their internal armory within themselves rather than relying on external forces. They could become a host to a deadly parasite, reshape their bones to create razor sharp weapons, and unleash laten poison stored in auxiliary organs or lying within their blood. By this point the Prince of Life would be inhuman, taking on aggressive and violent biological traits that would separate themselves from other members of their species.

At higher levels the Prince of Life would sit atop the food chain, not only in their supremacy in killing everything below them, but in that they have begun to transform past a single entity. Whereas other players and game constructs may be fierce combatants, they are ultimately a single body. Life grows, it blooms, it multiplies. The Prince of Life is not restricted to being a single physical entity in the way others may be. The Prince has become a nearly unstoppable engine, able to heal and recover from any injury as they push forward. They can become a multiplicity, creating a vast mycelium network that interweaves through the session, a hivemind swarm of ravenous predators, or exist as a parasite entity so that in the event of their death they may simply kill and replace whoever they have infected. The Prince of Life lives at the expense of others. As long as there are things left to die, the Prince of Life will continue to live.

With a fully realized god tier, the Prince of Life may be something like Doomsday from DC comics, an unstoppable juggernaut that adapts and evolves to any danger in a single minded pursuit to destroy.

Skills

Adapt and overcome- When reduced to 0 hp, respawn within 24 hours. You have developed a minor mutation, granting resistance against what killed you last.

From the root- Whenever you destroy something, you can choose to go all the way, erasing any trace of its existence and snuffing out potential to propagate. Even ideas may die

- - -

This post was commissioned! If you want to commission me or support my content, you can find me @ https://ko-fi.com/kesscal !

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads

The Undead Truth of Us

YA contemporary magical realism

a girl grieving her mother after she seemingly turned into a zombie - that only she could see

she meets a boy who lives into her building who seems to be half zombie, befriends him to see if she can figure out why she’s seeing zombies, and starts to fall for him

poetic writing, explores grief

[sophiethewitch1]

www!reader WILL call batman a pussy for not killing on her private twitter. she does it like every other day. its cathartic

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I wanna know ur Fontaine msq criticisms 👁️👁️👂I’m all ears

I'm not sure if you wanted me to talk about this secretly or publicly but! Here I go!

The TLDR: Fontaine MSQ aestheticised prison, poverty, child abuse, the justice system/court and didn't properly address any of it.

More:

Focalors/Furina has way too much of a sympathetic angle for a dictator who's lets people drown with her inaction.

Neuvillette feels Bad for sentencing some people to death/prison, but that's it. He's one of the most powerful people in Fontaine. If he felt like there are systemic injustices, I.E sending an abused Child to prison, he should be the first person to DO something about it, not just cry and be sad so the audience can be like aw, that's complex character writing isn't it? No it's not! And guilt doesn't absolve you!!!!!!! (These are stuff we deal with in OTCOJ read my fic now /j)

Meropide has children in it, both Sentenced there (Wriothesley) and BORN THERE (Lanoire), and this is just a quirk of the place. Not only that, Meropide accepts prisoners of all genders and crimes. There are abusers and abuse victims in one place. Do you know how bad that is? How much potential for crimes to happen in a place like that— oh wait, Meropide isn't under Fontaine's jurisdiction. If you are assaulted as an inmate it literally means nothing to the court.

Wriothesley had no qualifications when he took over. Depending on how long he lived on the streets, how old he was when he killed his parents, how old he was when he was first taken in by the orphanage, etc, the man might never have more than 4–5 years of formal education. Sigewinne probably had to teach him how to write reports. And do Meropide's spreadsheets. Edit because I forgot to elaborate on this one: This isn't a point brought up anywhere, which is bad, because when poverty and incarceration robs you of a proper education (and the rights to vote in many places too, too, by the way), it reduces your prospects for jobs, reduces many people's ability to get a home etc etc. Wriothesley was just, narratively, Given his position.

Meropide is an industrialized prison, and they portray this as a good thing. Prisoners are paid in coupons for their labour, and this is also portrayed as a good thing.

The One-Meal-A-Day reform was something Paimon gushed about being so great of a perk, that people might want to go to jail for food (could be interesting and reflective of systemic poverty if MHY had brains, but they don't, so I was just Pissed because essentially all Paimon wanted to say was "Prison isn't so bad, but still don't go to prison guys! Prison labour is really hard!"). By the way, in most real-world prisons they are obligated to feed you three meals a day. Because that's how much food a human needs. MHY went with one meal just so they can say "if you want to eat more, you have to work." And then the welfare meal is a goddamn gacha. So imagine you're a starving child who's too weak to work in the fucking robot assembly line, and you wander up for your first meal in 24 hours, only to luck in with a shit one. I'd kill myself.

They wrote Wriothesley, who's a victim of the system, into a guy who's say shit like "I'm the Duke I can do whatever I want" for a cool moment where he choke-slams an inmate (I know he was a bad guy. But also, in copaganda when cops are violent/disregarding protocols, they are always only portrayed to do that against bad guys, so what does our critical thinking tells us about this one?) They wrote Wriothesley, who was an inmate of a prison so bad, so notorious that it is the literal boogeyman of Fontaine, that has a legal (???) fighting pit, with an administrator who abuses his position to be unreasonable, to willingly stay in the place and become an Administrator who would choke-slam an inmate while saying a cool line about how he has the power to do whatever he wants. They wrote him, the guy who had to be fed on the streets by melusines, to think one-meal-a-day was a good enough reform (while he spends god-knows how much on his boat). This wasn't a victim-turns-into-abuser narrative either, they want all this to be seen as positive character growth.

And then, the final kicker is, they gloss over his entire abuse. You can only read about these shit in his profile, which most people don't because they don't Have Him or doesn't care to unlock it/read it online, and they jammed his entire backstory into a flaccid info-dump at the end of his character story quest. This man isn't Allowed to feel abused and neglected and show any reaction to it within the narrative of Fontaine itself, because if they actually Gave Weight to what happened to him, they'd have to confront THE FUCKING JUSTICE SYSTEM they had NO PLANS on criticising. I don't think they ever explicitly said the fucking Crime-Theatre nonsense was Bad either.

I could go on, but this is already so long. But yeah, I hope this gave you an idea.

[witheredgardenparty]

Has anyone talked about how each member of the Genius Society represents the over reliance on the belief of intelligence but not the act of intelligence?

[doyoueverstopandthink]

what does it say about me if i cry about frankenstein’s creature every time i get even slightly tipsy

[cuntwrap--supreme]

Why the fuck did 5 pro-anorexia blogs follow my main overnight? Like? I'm blocking all of you, obviously. Had a friend die from starving herself in middle school. I don't fuck with that shit. One of the blogs literally had a post like, "My mom is concerned about how much weight I've lost recently, but she's just jealous that I'm not the fat kid anymore and she still is. Skinny girls don't think about recovery." Like... Please listen to your mother. Holy shit. This is self harm and she's concerned. Your mother is not jealous that she's fat and you aren't. Stop. People literally die from this shit, and promoting an extremely unhealthy lifestyle isn't cute in the slightest.

[medicinemane]

It's amazing how quickly you can make someone turn on your company by making a stupid and insulting move

Force me to go through the front door and scan my card when I have backdoor business that never needed a card before (what? ...I was going to somehow... sneak in and... purchase things with a borrowed card? ...which I totally can't do from the front door after scanning it?)

Or like... twitterify your layout right after your users give you a bunch of money just cause they like you, and then refuse to walk it back

...or all the other things companies do that just kinda piss people off and then they refuse to acknowledge maybe it sucks and is stupid cause "hey, the customers didn't leave"... yeah... yet

[angelstrawbabie420]

hmm i think i am not coping. very well

[chalkeater]

Im thinking about how some people (ive seen) have this mild hint of Snobbiness when it comes to whether or not you save each song individually like The Old Days (I used to do that) . You download the song + edit the artist name + add a song image… but have you considered that. If you have any form of disability with your hands that its time conuming epecially if you’re just starting and have 500+ songs of backlog? Also even if youre able bodied its just so time consuming and i cant squeeze in the time to download and sort 500+ music if i have more important things to do

[vulpinesaint]

sorry for talking about the fact that i work with kids so much. i spend several hours every weekday with children and do not do much else except come on here and talk so you can imagine how it is a significant part of my life and personality by now

[virtue-boy]

Its kind of insane like genuinely insane how many people on here have no idea what life is like for average people in the third world / global majority and the Neo-colonialism that creates those conditions to support conditions in the North and how insanely cruel they can be as the absolute baseline and the type of killing and death that maintains the boundaries between the north and the south.

Like tell me you've never met an immigrant or refugee without telling me. Do you genuinely not know what happens to people who get deported, or work in the farms or meatpacking factories that feed the North?? The child deaths in the border crossings? The mines all over the globe? The people that die from lack of baseline vaccinations and sanitation and healthcare trademarked by western companies? The literal MILLIONS of third worlders killed in the wars across the globe defending US economic hegemony? The agent orange, the land mines, the carpet bombing, the drones? What the fuck is wrong with you?

[timeisacephalopod]

The fact that cigarette companies exist is fucking dystopian and a sign of the failure of capitalism as an ideology- cigarettes are a product that undeniably caused a bunch of different cancers, we've all seen the tobacco death stats on the back of cig cartons smokers have, and yet. And yet, for some reason instead of saying "zero businesses should be selling cancer causing products to their customers, certainly not when those cancer causing products are so dangerous even the smoke of the product causes cancers in the people around smokers. Businesses have zero right to cause a massive health crisis in the population like this when their only function is to make money- you cannot give people cancer for profit."

Like you'd assume giving people cancer for money would be some kind of fucked dystopian novel that'd get ripped on for being way too over the top and unrealistic but no, we literally live in such a morally bankrupt capitalist brain rotted society that we think selling cancer is fine, we won't do anything about a set of companies that exist solely to get customers addicted to their highly dangerous product for profit. Instead we'll act like it's smokers who need to take responsibility for the industry that's exploiting them. Fucking disgusting if you ask me, that we're more okay with companies giving people cancer than we are with governments giving people welfare.

[aetherive]

Anyways something about the audience’s decisions not mattering until the very end where we get to decide a person’s life and how that connects back to corporations controlling literally everything in our daily lives . (more in tags)