#good thing he only has to do it once

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: sacrifice / self sacrifice / slight suicidal themes / death mention / ]

I personally think that Leo took the wrong lessons from the movie. I definitely think he grew to understand the importance of teamwork and making sure he takes others into account so as to not harm them by proxy of whatever scheme he has cooked up, however based on the ending events I’m not quite certain he fully grasped two things.

The first thing is communication. Oh, he can communicate, and he does, when he deems it necessary. When he’s setting up a plan prior to the action. But this is where the second thing comes in.

The second thing I don’t think Leo truly grasped is “it’s not about you.” It’s so unbearably easy to take that the wrong way, especially when taking the rest of the series into account.

What I believe Leo took from this message is not “it’s not just you, everyone matters and can contribute, can help and be helped” but “put the whole of everyone above yourself” which can both be a good lesson…and a fatal one.

And it is fatal, we see as much in the movie.

Even after the big hope speech, when Leo is “fighting” Krang!Raph, he takes a huge risk. Sure, it worked, and Leo managed to get through to Raph through a well deserved apology, but it could have so easily ended in his death and yet he barely even hesitates to go for it.

And then again, to the big scene at the end, where Leo sacrifices himself not only for the sake of his family, but for the whole world.

To him, that’s the message to take from this. That the lives of everyone, of the greater good, matters…more than him. That the risk to himself is worth it if others can be saved.

Leo learned that gambling with his life as the betting chip is always the best move to make in the end.

And to make matters worse…this thinking is what works.

These risks are ultimately what is needed to save the day, so why would Leo look away from it now? Clearly it’s the right move and everything worked out!

Thing is, Leo did grow from the events of the movie. He learned to take things more seriously and be more mature, he learned to value his team’s input and capabilities enough to rely on them more, and he learned to be less self-centered and realize the turmoil others were going through (especially if that turmoil is a result of his actions.)

But still, he’s grown to accept the gamble of his life as a viable answer to their problems.

Personally, with how Leo has been shown to toy around with the idea of “it’s better me than them” I think this goes beyond sacrifice in the name of love or even sacrifice in the name of responsibility, and pushes over into sacrifice in the name of worth.

[queerprayers]

i want to say first of all that i fully respect a community's/denomination's/culture's right to have closed practices. i am not entitled to other people's traditions, and when i am a guest in a space i understand that everything is not automatically for me. and i know i do not have to understand to respect.

and also! when i go to a catholic church and can't receive communion i want to fall on the floor weeping. what do you mean i can't have him he's right there. sorry my baptism was the wrong kind of baptism. i'm hungry and you want me to become someone else before being fed.

[aroaceleovaldez]

non-exhaustive list of canon powers Nico di Angelo either has shown or is heavily implied to have:

Shadow-travel

Manipulation of shadows/darkness (also possibly use of shadows as a pocket-dimension a la Magicians using the Duat in The Kane Chronicles)

Becoming intangible/shadows

Complete control over skeletons/bones (dead or alive, including summoning, reanimation, and/or changing shape of them) and being able to sense their presence

Summoning, reanimating, commanding, and dispelling the dead/undead (Skeletons, zombies, ghosts, etc & varieties) and being able to sense their presence

Ability to understand/communicate with the dead/undead and potentially other beings of the Underworld

Inherent complete comprehension of Latin

Ability to perceive the usually unperceivable/possibly look upon a deity’s true form without repercussion (at least moreso than the average demigod, though possibly is restricted to chthonic beings) (ex: Tartarus, potentially also interacting with his parents, etc)

Interacting tangibly with ghosts (implied to be a Ghost King thing rather than a Hades/Pluto thing)

Partial or complete immunity to different effects of the Underworld/things within (can consume food/drink of or in the Underworld without repercussions, effects from the Lethe wear off over time instead of being permanent like usual for mortals, etc)

Astral projection/”Walking in dreams”

Dream manipulation and projection (Sending dreams to others, etc.) (presumably includes sharing/projecting dreams with others) alongside inflicting sleep upon others even from a distance.

Illusions

Manipulation of emotions/aura that inflicts specific emotions on others (ex.: radiating fear/death onto enemies)

Projection of emotions and memories onto others (can be so forceful it causes physical damage like a shockwave)

Geokinesis (all forms but also specifically generating black marble) (presumably also specialized control over precious gemstones & non-paper currency)

Temperature manipulation (seemingly only lowering temperature)/creating frost)

Control/manipulation of souls, including living beings (ex: ripping out Bryce Lawrence’s soul)

Perceiving/reading/judging of souls (most likely also a Ghost King thing over Hades/Pluto thing, but possibly both)

Converting living into dead/undead, aka instakill (ex: disintegrating monsters to bone with one touch)

Lowering or manipulation of own vitals (breathing, heart rate, etc)

Death Trance/pseudo-hibernation (possibly also general control over states of consciousness at least for self, in combo with control over vitals & dreams)

Sensing death (impending or when it occurs, sometimes receiving dreams/visions of it occurring)

Able to sense other children of Hades/Pluto (potentially also other chthonic beings in general/able to identify based on sense alone) and also just living beings in general, such as mortals (possibly via souls).

Improved navigation underground/in the Underworld and ability to traverse restricted or normally unnavigable parts of the Underworld

Enhanced strength/abilities when in the Underworld

Inherently unnaturally quiet (possibly able to silence sound on a designated target)

Hiding/shielding self from being perceived (seemingly related to shadows/silence)

[yellowocaballero]

So fucking glad to see someone talk about SSS Class revival hunter 😭 I lived it so much and I feel like no one ever mentions it against more popular titles like ORV or even The Lout of the counts family, so I'm so glad to come here and see your amazing takes :>

Thank you for the ask which lets me talk about SSSCRH (the version I read was titled 'Suicide Hunter', which tbh I like more - no beating around the bush).

It's hard to draw an accurate comparison since I'm going off just the webtoon for SSSCRH, while I'm going off both the webtoon and the webnovel for ORV. And I love ORV, ORV is my media blorbo right now, it hydraulic presses my brain, I am writing ORV fanfic - it's, like, funner to enjoy. But SSSRH is just better. In the vast majority of ways it is is better. It's better than the holy trinity by a wide margin. TW talk of suicide obviously.

I can't believe I'm saying this but you need a basic understanding of Buddhism in order to understand SSSCRH. It's not about Gongja's suicides - he doesn't suicide from depression or lack of self-esteem. SSSCRH is about suffering in the Buddhist sense - dukkha. I don't want to make this an essay, so I might reblog this with more information, but extremely shortly:

The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism is the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. You've heard that Buddhists say 'life is suffering'. To put it one way that doesn't require defining a lot of words: the cause of suffering is experiencing the world as we percieve it instead of how it truly is. Suffering isn't just being miserable and in pain, and life isn't suffering because life sucks and global warming exists and people voted for Trump. Life is suffering because we can experience beautiful and joyful moments in this world, but we do not exist in the moment of that happiness or place our ego/'self' between us and that happiness. Living in that moment, accepting the moment as it is unconditionally, is freedom from suffering. The Buddha tries to free people from suffering through teaching Buddhism.

"What does this have to do with the webnovel and manwha about a guy murdering himself thousands of times" it has everything to do with it. Because SSSCRH is about suffering, and it is about using suffering as a tool in order to experience a world unfiltered by ego and break down the artificial boundaries between human beings. Suffering in SSSCRH is not a bad thing. Gongja has the unique capability to (reincarnate.) experience a person's suffering in unity with them, which dissolves the delusion of separation between people and puts us in touch with the reality of oneness.

The Murim arc was fucking insane because Gongja pulls a Big Bodhisattva Move and walks through the suffering of the world in order to achieve full understanding of the human experience. He takes all of the suffering of the world into himself and is liberated. You can tell it's Buddhist because death was not presented as a bad thing - death was an aspect of a happy ending for the Heavenly Demon lady, because she was finishing her life according to her own joy, and because her teachings were passed on she did not truly die.

But the purpose of embracing suffering is to discover the ability to fully embrace life, and that's where Heavenly Demon's teachings were incomplete - as the ghost dude said, Gongja hasn't even experienced his own full life and the infinite capability for his own happiness. You can only feel the depths of sadness when you've felt the depths of happiness. Sadness deserves its place in the world and it can strengthen you, but so does happiness.

Gongja is attention-seeking, envious, and unbelievably petty. When he drills down into his own desires and why he wants the things he wants, you see that he has a very strong sense of justice and right and wrong - he realizes he doesn't want to be famous, he wants to be acknowledged, but on an even deeper level he is desperate for love and to be loved. Everything he does is to experience love, and as such he learns to love others. His love for the Flamey Asshole was purely parasocial and ego-filled, with no concern for who he was as a human. Throughout the manwha, he grows to care for people as they truly are and pierce through any delusions or misleading outward appearances. He has released all attachment to life and death, and as such does not fear death, and as such has taken a step on the road towards becoming a Boddhisatva who frees others from the cycle of samsara, and as a result has learned sick sword techniques and is sooo good at beating people up.

I think the only other thing I want to mention here because otherwise this is an essay: in almost every time loop/regression story, only the final regression matters. In stories with dungeon monsters and NPCs, only the humans matter. The regressor exists in a space where there are no consequences for their actions, so they act terribly and do whatever because none of it matters. In Groundhog Day Bill Murray acts like an asshole because he can. That's not the case here. Everything Gongja does matters. The NPCs are fake, but Gongja never treats them as anything less than real people who deserve life. Once he understands a person's life he never treats them as unimportant. No loop is thrown away and no person or life is disregarded. His choices matter, the way he treats others matters, and Gongja never treats anybody as if they don't matter except for himself.

That was not short. There is a lot more. The female characters are so good and so rich. From a craft perspective it is excellently paced and has a wonderful sense of set-up/payoff and balances tone and maintains a lot of momentum, which is really hard in a time loop story. You have to do a few very specific things to write OP characters well and SSSCRH does it very well. There's more to say from a craft perspective and it's hard to judge accurately from a webtoon but it's good. I was so strangely struck the entire time about how sincere and genuine it was, how it said what it said with no trace of irony of confusion, and I think that's what stuck with me the most.

TL;DR: SSS Class Revival Hunter is good for a lot of very normal reasons, such as excellent pacing and set-up/pay off and characters, but it's also so sincerely and genuinely Buddhist that it blew my tits clean off.

[tomwambsgans]

tomgreg is not "i could fix him" nor "i could make him worse" but "i could make him feel like a real person." from both ends.

[oatbugs]

Jack Marsh (2005), Friendship Otherwise - Toward a Levinasian Description of Personal Friendship

[puppyeared]

bestieesssss /platonic

(Xīn Yá belongs to me, Sailor belongs to @crow-cap)

[sotangledupinit]

i’m obsessed your honor

[ash-and-starlight]

.

[vv-ispy]

Also I think a lot about how Venti became a god in a nation whose land was made uninhabitable due to one god and imprisoned by another, and the instant the god who imprisoned them was toppled. He fought to topple the god and now he's a god? He's spent his whole life as a wisp barely as powerful as a human with a boy who only knew life imposed under god's power and now he's a god? What terrible circumstances to obtain godhood

[itsalwaysforyou]

just remembered a wip i had which was jay at uni meeting normal people and desperately trying to act cool and normal whilst internally screaming about being in a whole new place with all new people and not having his gang with him

[nostalgia-tblr]

i like when i see someone somewhere saying "does anyone else think mobius and ravonna had a vibe?" because YES THEY DO HAVE A VIBE I DID NOT JUST INVENT THAT IT'S DEFINITELY A TRUE CANONICAL FACT THAT THEY SECRETLY YEARN FOR EACH OTHER AND/OR THAT THEY SEMI-ACCIDENTALLY KISSED AT SOME POINT.

they had a vibe!!!!!!

[dazais-guardian-angel]

kinda wild to me that one of the most compelling aspects of both Chuuya and Kunikida's characters to me, that I never really see talked about, is how they're heavily set on a doomed crash course towards complete and utter destruction, and how I am so, so worried for them both.....

[oh-meow-swirls]

i think my favorite instances of pokemon and yo-kai with similar inspirations are the ones where you can barely tell they have the same inspiration. like. jibanyan and espeon are both based on nekomata. frostina/blizzaria and froslass are both yuki-onna. komasan and growlithe are both (at least according to bulbapedia on the latter cuz i really doubt it) komainu. honestly basically the only one i can think of where it's obvious are like. walkappa and lombre skdjfljfssfdsfdkljfds-

[carcarrot]

i wish i could articulate the experience of seeing a band you're into live like actually seeing them in person because its so strange yet fascinating

[aria0fgold]

Mermaid Alec while it's still Mermay!