oh im gonna be SO annoying about bbh in a minute. i keep saying the same thing over and over again but his character is too fucking complex motherfucker is like:
"i'm a demon who is 11,000 years old and i refuse to acknowledge that im a demon nor that i do bad things (like steal furniture) but i will help people every chance i get despite saying im going to stop doing that and i am going to devote my life to protecting these fragile little eggs even though i know im going to lose them one day because i love them too much (and i know i can do that and it will one day be okay, because i have an immortal diamond to keep me company even if he isn't here now). when my friend throws himself beneath the spokewheel of the federation i will be there, bitter about my loss, but i will not start a revolution until he proves he deserves one. i will do what i can to safeguard his system against corruption because i am afraid the federation will use him to hurt us. i know he doesn't want to hurt us. he keeps hurting me. he is isolated by our distrust in him and he is still working hard to try to be a good person in an inherently corrupt system that cannot be fixed so i will build him a statue. i will not kill him when he takes a picture of me in the presidential chair (that was almost mine) and puts it on his wall and calls me 'employee of the month.' i didn't do all of that work for the federation i did it for him like i do it for others because they are my friends. i will exhaust every option i have to build a reason to NOT start a revolution. to not kill him. because i have to say that i tried. i feel like i have made so many compromises. i have held myself back to try to find reason. i will still remove his access to my base. when the island turns against me and he locks me in a cage for a crime i did not commit, i will remove everyone's access (except for my family the french and my family the eggs). i am having fun. when the eggs appear the next day with cracks and dirty shells i will worry, but i know they're strong. they'll be okay. (when i find my son's secret lab and his unethical experiments that cause him harm i will be proud because he has done what i do. he has helped. i want him to be safe but we are never safe and i trust him more than anyone else. i know now, and i can help him be safe.) when the eggs go missing i will be silent. i will look for them, and i will destroy for them, and i will bargain for them, and i will cry for them, and i will not accept their loss. when my friend who is president who once built a safehouse that saved my eggs' lives is finally damaged by the federation (like i knew he would be when he became president) and he starts to hurt people by pushing the same treatment onto them i will not be surprised. i will be surprised when he tries to marry me. i will not blame him (much) when he tries to kill me. our children are missing. he is forced to pretend that his is not. i wish i could too. i will not tell him yes or no because i need an open avenue to manipulate him (because to save him i will have to manipulate him). i will not marry him because he is out of his mind. i have said marriage is overrated. i have also said that i want to live with him in a house with our kids and my skeppy. when he tells me that he wants to be happy with me i will still say 'aw' because it is the most genuine thing he has said to me and i miss my friend. i will still try to kill him. i fail to kill him with someone else's plan. i don't place a block to lock him in place. i hesitate. it doesn't matter if it's on purpose because the next plan works. i will reveal an item that could destroy me to my closest allies (and tubbo) because it will let us save him. we save him. when he kills himself 18 times over i back away from the explosion in surprise and then step close again. while i have grieved i have thrown myself into mines. it doesn't matter. i am numb and want to feel something. everything has lost colour. we save him.
i visit federation workers and ask them about my eggs and they do not tell me anything. i know they are lying. i visit the graveyard to talk to my lost eggs. i have lost all of the eggs. i do not know how to save them. i lay in the mud. it rains and rain signifies the monster has returned to kill my children but my children are not here and so i do not care. when i go home i will become so angry and i will go down to my basement (which i have locked like my friend locked the entrance to his greatest fantasy. we are so alike and our delusions are different. he child was real; here is the secret to finding my children) where i have locked a federation worker away. i will not wash away the blood stains.
i am also part-time grim reaper and i only ever dress up in robes to make people drink more water."
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but what if pizza = religion?
i'm going for it i'm doing the thing
this is the pizza antichrist post i threatened to make. Incoherent ramblings and pseudo-christian imagery under the cut
so pizza, the food, the round delicious thingy, is obviously pretty important to the Pizza Tower lore. Peppino makes it, Gustavo probably does too, almost all enemies are themed after it, etc. There has to be a reason for it, right? (ignore the fact that the reason is most likely a joke please)
so let's focus on two entities in particular: the priest (also the exorcist) and the pizzard
the priest can remove status effects from you, one of which is um DEATH?? dude can straight up resurrect you. Where does he get the power for his miracles? Well, if you look at his hat (and ignore the crosses they sometimes pull out as generic iconography), you can see a red pizza symbol. So what if, right, WHAT IF the main religion of this world is pizza based?
listen. Why else would there be sentient toppins running around. Not only are they deemed to be dangerous/important enough by the inhabitants of the Tower to get put into cages, but they also have an inherent monetary value. That or they all carry $10 on them idk. But i really think they're integral to the divine art of pizza making somehow
Following from this, What if pizza making is less of a trade and more of a holy ritual that allows you to harness the godly powers of this dish? And what if - hear me out - Peppino himself is a rogue pizza priest who's cast away his robes in favour of serving the common folk. Kind of like a renegade paladin
was this just an excuse to draw peppino as a priest? maybe
ok back to pizzards. These buggers are described as practicing "pizzamancy". Don't think we need to wonder too hard where this arcane art draws its powers from. But here's the thing - while priests are generally helpful to the player/Peppino and seem to be working against the Tower and its occupants, pizzards are your enemies. There are two warring sides to this divine power. And if the pizza priests can be assumed to ask the pizza god for miracles and be under the jurisdiction of the pizza pope, why would the same godly entity help pizzards? Well, what if there's also a pizza satan. No not the one with the super hot pizza. Altho wait. Maybe? idk. Let me sleep on it.
POINT IS. whoever they are, the devil is probably off in hell somewhere, but someone else might be on earth in their stead. Someone immensely and seemingly nonsensically powerful. So pizzards serve Pizzahead - he even rents one to Noise as a minion in the comics - and they appear to be coded as this world's equivalents of satanic cultists. Pizzahead has access to vast reality bending powers for no apparent reason but is still firmly rooted in this world. Conclusion? Pizzahead is the pizza antichrist
thank you for coming to my TED talk
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anyways while I was editing earlier we have almost a precise ranking of power for the shadow killers despite most of them not actually ever saying/their official ranking never been mentioned. and most of this is either just mentioned in passing or can be guessed from the way the show presents them. up to season 4 spoilers ahead btw
so like, obviously Seven (in his prime, at least - do you think the second spot ever took his when he disappeared btw? like do you think there was a time where he was just labelled missing for ages before somebody else became number one?) was rank number one, it's said and talked about like a million times, Seven was conclusively the highest ranked and most powerful shadow killer by 18 years old.
along with this we hear one other thing: Green Phoenix is mentioned to be the (physically) weakest Shadow Killer. given how much people are sticklers for the rankings we can presume this puts him at the lowest of the seven, even if he chose to appear weaker than he is and his focus is majorly on cunning and wit rather than martial prowess, I assume this is where he's offically ranked honestly
everyone else has never had their number mentioned - or if it was said in some obscure place i don't know it's not on the wiki, but let's be fucking for real nothing is on the wiki seriously one of us might wanna update that thing one day anyways - but I believe we can roughly guess where the rest of the killers rank given by their actions in the show and the order which the show presents them.
which - this might be a controversial one tbh - puts Redtooth fairly low on the list. he is physically more powerful than Green Phoenix, but Green Phoenix is able to outwit Redtooth twice, and Green Phoenix is technically the one who kills Redtooth. But also, Seven at fairly low strength was able to fight Redtooth and almost won on his own. Redtooth is also mentioned in season 4 that naturally, he was physically weak and actually struggled with picking up qi and such - he does not have a natural nor honed talent and his power ENTIRELY relies on the Blood Demon inside him. So he's easily outwitted, he's physically weak without the Blood Demon which, up until season 4 was still restrained heavily, Seven is able to handle him all the way back in season two. Notably, Dai Bo and the rest of the cast are unable to handle him however, even though most of them are built to handle aggressive opponents liked Redtooth.
But it's mainly the fact he appears and is 'defeated' so early in the show that makes me truly believe he ranks so low. Obviously we probably haven't seen the full capabilities of Redtooth and most of the cast however, and this is a ranking with the seal. Obviously he seems to be set up to absolutely rock White Fox's shit in season 5, but it's still really important to keep in mind that this is purely the Blood Demon.
after him the other shadow killer we have the most information on is Blackbird, who Seven ultimately beat into the fuckin ground but boy did we sure almost die getting there!!
So from what we know about Blackbird, from season three, is that unlike Redtooth, he is physically strong, and similar to Green Phoenix he's largely driven by his trauma and his need to validate something that's missing within him, but his weakness seems to really only be his own ego - his weakness (aside from the sun like a fucking vampire. cringelord) is when he can't win, when he is struggling, his frustration is ultimately his downfall. This is one of - if not the only - few fights where 'prime' Seven - or even just Seven as he is now - does not appear to be physically stronger than somebody, and he's actually just barely faster than Blackbird (being able to fucking FLY he's still got a bit of an advantage but Seven's reaction time is evidently quicker, and Blackbird comments that Seven's ambushes and speed used to be infamous - a prowess that Blackbird is almost capable to keep up with) but he wins the fight with wit and outsmarting them. And ultimately, Blackbird's weakness was himself.
Which is a lot to say he's really strong. But it's hard to place him anywhere on the leaderboard without a key thing that Manjusaka says:
"It seems you're the best after all," as she turns to Blackbird. This is (presumably) the direct translation, because in English Manjusaka actually says something different that I wanna touch on again later, but she turns to Blackbird and says he's the best after all. Which would imply: Blackbird took the spot for number one when Seven was missing. Blackbird had been second to Seven in the league - and some of his contempt for Seven may be because of that. This conclusively puts Blackbird in the number two spot for me.
The next three we have even less information on, so it's really hard to put them in precise spots. As for Manjusaka though we have this: she is very cunning and manipulative, and the other Shadow Killer we know to be infamous for their cunning and wit was the lowest ranked - because the ranks seem to have FAR more value in raw martial prowess and strength than wit. Along with this, Manjusaka never actually works alone. In English in season 3, when she turns to Blackbird, she says "I guess we're just better together," which puts a lot of emphasis on her working with somebody, and emphasis on the fact that she's USING the fact that Blackbird is so high rank so that she can be powerful by proxy. She's also the only one who seems to defend her other Shadow Killers - though they aren't immune to her own scrutiny, Manjusaka outright kills three people for shit-talking Redtooth.
Along with this - Manjusaka dies to Green Phoenix (coughprobablycough) and leaves her as an opponent Seven will never (probably) fight. The Shadow Killers have kept appearing in an order of higher and higher ranking, and Manjusaka is the third to ever appear, and of the three, ALL THREE have died and one came back. Just like, the order these characters have appeared in, they usually appear in increasing power and every season has ended with Seven fighting or about to fight a new, powerful Shadow Killer. Manjusaka dying already leaves her feeling fairly low ranked, given the pattern the show has exhibited.
Manjusaka is also tied to Shimen and are inseparable - what Shimen and Manjusaka lack the other make up for. Shimen appears slow yet viciously strong and stone faced, he's nothing but muscle and qi, and Manjusaka is fast and stealthy - she teleports around, she uses deception and poisons to best her enemies. They're also hardly ever depicted apart. They're only separated twice - when Shimen leaves the fight with Blackbird due to general disinterest, and when Shimen and Manjusaka split up in season 4.
(these two symbols fading into each other feel like they represent Manjusaka and Shimen)
They're constantly depicted together and fluently work together. They coordinate easily when that's not the normal for the Shadow Killers - infighting is banned and that's it, they aren't required to get along. But these two are two inseparable halves of one whole, they are both arguably strong on their own but they have glaring weaknesses that the other fills. Their weaknesses, to a point, are when they're separated. This also would seemingly put them next to each other on the ranking - together it feels like they make up one, unstoppable person, and it makes sense that separately they are at similar ranking/strength, just simply excel together, and weaker rankings would be the most likely to bond together to form stronger ones.
Not to mention, Manjusaka dies on screen at the end of the season four and that's it, and Shimen's fate is left entirely unknown because he doesn't appear again and only the leader approaches Green Phoenix. But during the opening for the entire season we see one shot of Shimen we never actually see during the season:
Shimen left alone and unconscious without Manjusaka. And he leaves the Blackbird fight unharmed, he obviously leaves the encounter with Ouyang Zang (is that his name ? straight up might've misspelled it sorry ) alive because he appears again afterwards, and it seems to imply that without Manjusaka, Shimen is left weak and vulnerable. So these two, to me, feel like they're exactly next to each other on the rankings - and possibly ranked somewhere in the middle
Which now only leaves White Fox, who we know the least about personality wise but we've seen some of his martial abilities (AKA: hey guys I can make a nitrogen bomb from my finger. wanna see) and watched him fight the prince of Stan, which does lead to the conclusion that he is fairly powerful, though it seems it's not really physical strength but his qi, speed, and reflexes that let him overpower his opponents. Given the rankings I've given the other Shadow Killers it naturally leaves him at a semi-high spot.
Which leaves me with my final (guesstimated) ranking of the Shadow Killers, with Seven during his prime, Redtooth's seal still not broken:
Seven
Blackbird
White Fox
Shimen
Manjusaka
Redtooth
Green Phoenix
Shimen and Manjusaka feel interchangeable in their spots, honestly? And I would almost put Redtooth above Manjusaka ...? But it kind of feels natural that he's below her. Also, I went back and skimmed the show to see if anybody else was introduced by ranking, given that a lot of people in the show had been previously, and I only found these scenes:
Which are all only labelled 'the seven greats' according to the translation, unless somebody here speaks Chinese and their rankings are actually said/implied in the Chinese characters and Netflix just didn't translate it which wouldn't even surprise me honestly Netflix just fucking does that sometimes
so yea 👍 that's my estimation on the rankings of the Shadow Killers maybe the show will prove me right eventually. this post took me like 2 hours to make. help
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this might be random but I feel like we need to address the fact that Bucky’s true arc in TFATWS was never about redemption, self-forgiveness, and his guilt.
His arc was overcoming loneliness. That was the true theme of growth for him in the show. Which is why it was so frequently, verbally mentioned and also shown. His loneliness is constantly reiterated. I mean, even looking at things from a very basic standpoint, the show starts with him isolating himself and having no close relationship and his final scenes are being accepted into a family and community.
His guilt and self-hatred are not just character trait but also a facet of his loneliness, and it’s necessary to elaborate on in relation to him being lonely. However, the reason why his arc feels messily written, and why there’s confusion and criticism on it, is because they didn’t properly incorporate guilt into the story of loneliness. It wasn’t well intertwined, which only led to fans not seeing that guilt and self-esteem wasn’t supposed to be what he overcame in the show. It’s why fans feel that his development with the guilt wasn’t properly handled, it’s because that was never supposed to be resolved completely in the show.
But the way they wrote it into his arc of overcoming loneliness was so non-fitting, that it gave off the impressive of a magical solution to the problem of guilt and a watered down exploration of it. Instead of properly being weaved into the main point of loneliness, the guilt and self-hated came across as almost a separate, poorly done part of the story.
If it was written with better care and was better related to the main arc of loneliness, there likely wouldn’t be as many complaints about how it was handled because people would more clearly see the guilt wasn’t supposed to be completely overcome. The show’s inclusion of it was just intended to show a step in the journey of self-forgiveness, while mainly focusing on the other issue of finding companionship.
So basically if Bucky’s arc would have been written more clearly, the intended arc of his loneliness would have had a better chance to shine, instead of fan’s anger and confusion overshadowing it. Because his growth from self-isolation and being utterly lonely to true friendship is fantastic. It’s genuinely amazing in that aspect. The arc of loneliness was a puzzle, and the aspects of his trauma, guilt, etc. were pieces that didn’t end up in the right place. So what could have been a fabulous arc, is simply a puzzle that was put together wrong.
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