#suplexing or whatever like You're Nothing

[unproduciblesmackdown]

rogue one posting like attention everyone who didn't like all the characters or get why they did things: i Am better than you

[axel-ambassador]

Its 4 am for me and I just wanna talk about why poly shipping is so good especially in Total drama.

TD is such a unique show that is able to get away with having an extreme abundance of characters, and by extension, ships, without it coming across as overbearing. Like name a show with over 100 characters that you know the name and personality of. It's an extremely impressive feat.

That said with so many characters there are so many different shipping opportunities. Sometimes the writers give two characters really good chemistry as friends or enemies and the fans take it to the next level. Sometimes the writers completely fumble the potential they have and the fans pick it up from there. Sometimes there are rare pairs that in context make no sense but fans make them work and that's so cool.

Anyway back to my point. I personally hate needless drama, in real life and in fiction. Fiction especially because typically said drama involves character derailment and general disappointment for the fans of said characters involved.

My point is that I hate the love triangle. I hate the drama it caused. I hate how predictable it was. I hate that it was an arc spread over multiple seasons starting in season 2 and ultimately lead to nothing by the end of season 5. I hate how such a lazy trope is what defined Gwen, Duncan, and Courtney's characters for a multitude of years only for it to mean nothing, and I'm not exaggerating, nothing, by the end of All Stars; their last canonical appearances.

Duncney was destined to break up after island, that's not what I have an issue with. Duncan didn't have to frickin cheat and drag Gwen in a long with him. I love Gwuncan in concept, I really do, but the terrible execution of it which directly contributed to the down fall of both characters sours the memory and idea of the honestly awesome relationship between two of the most popular characters in the entire series.

And then All Stars rolls around and watching it as a Gwen and Courtney fan is like getting a warm embrace, two incredible characters are finally on good terms, only for that embrace to become a suplex, Sundae Muddy Sundae. So now you're on the ground feeling hurt and quite betrayed. And then the realization that it all was for nothing, Gwen and Duncan breaking up despite them getting together being such a huge plot point, Gwen and Courtney being back to square one despite a whole seasons worth of investment in their relationship, character derailment up the goddamn wazoo on all 3 ends, is like the show consecutively spitting in your face.

You wanna know how all of this frustration, pain, and shitty writing could have been avoided? Poly shipping.

Duncan and Courtney have a serious talk about their relationship, how it's incredibly toxic and they need to smooth things out if they want to progress as a couple.

Gwen over here having a bi panic as, oh no, maybe she likes Duncan more than she thought, and she's also slowly falling for his girlfriend since they've had no one but each other to talk to for half a season.

Courtney coming to terms with huh maybe she's not as straight as she thought and how Gwen calms her in a way Duncan never could.

Meanwhile Duncan realizes he likes Gwen for the opposite reasons he likes Courtney. Courtney knows how to push his buttons and he loves how much it drives him crazy. Gwen is much more down to earth but is just as chaotic and a rebel as he is.

They don't kiss in the confessional in London. They talk. Jesus Christ if there's one thing the characters in this God forsaken show don't know how to do it's fuckin communicate. Especially in relationships.

They come to the conclusion that they like each other, and they both like Courtney. So they go and talk to Courtney, and Tyler can do whatever the hell it is he planned on originally.

So there you go. What was meant to be an informative post on poly shipping turned into a rant and ultimately sloppy fix of the love triangle.

Back to my original point I was trying to make but got side tracked. Polyshipping is a multi shippers heaven. As a multi shipper, it's so much easier to make everyone date instead of just picking which ship I like more.

There are characters with great chemistry that would never be considered canon, Gwourtney, Alenoah, Gweather, Heathney, Nowen, I could go on. There's obviously an overlap in some of those.

I love Gwourtney, but Gweather and Heathney are so cool too. I don't know which one to pick. The great thing is that you don't have to pick with Gweathney. Or Gwuncaney. Or Alenowen. Or Aleheathcan.

There is so much potential with so many characters in this show that it can be challenging to figure out which dynamics you love best and which to pick from.

Not only does polyshipping make that easier but also hella more painless and comical in terms of character interactions.

Thank you for your time and I'm sorry.

[moistmailman]

Devil May Cry AU

*On top of the tower*

Cinder, gloatfully: So, you decided to show up?

Pyrrha, nonchalantly: Yep.

Cinder: You do realize climbing up here is a death sentence, right? The only way you're leaving this tower is in a coffin?

Pyrrha: Yeah yeah, can we hurry this up? I have a cute blond knight to save from a flying locker.

Cinder: Act tough all you want, that wont change your destiny.

Pyrrha, snorting: The only destiny here is you leaving this tower in a full body cast. *pulls out spear* So let's just skip the chit-chat and go straight to the good part.

Cinder: Very well. *burst into flames*

Pyrrha:.....is that it?

Cinder, flames extinguishing: What?

Pyrrha, unimpressed: The power. Is that it? Cause if so, that’s pretty....disappointing.

Cinder: What do you mean?! I can level a city with this power!

Pyrrha: A small level city maybe.

Cinder: WHAT?! HOW DARE YO- WHAT YOU WERE EXPECTING?!

Pyrrha, shrugging: Well, I don’t know, something more than a little spark. More oomph. Something that would wow me.

Cinder: *eye twitching*

Pyrrha: Meanwhile all I got is.....*motion hands* Whatever this is. I got my hopes up for a good fight, honestly. You gotta understand how disappointing that is.

Cinder, offended: I- WHAT?! THIS POWER CAN MATCH A GOD! I’M PRACTICALLY UNKILLABLE! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MANY PEOPLE WOULD KILL FOR THIS POWER?! HOW MANY PEOPLE I KILLED FOR THIS POWER?!

Pyrrha:.....are you sure you didn’t get the dollar store version of that power, cause I won’t believe this is the power Ozpin told me about. Cause my grandpa is obsessed with power, and even I think he wouldn’t take a second glance at this.

Cinder, eye twitching:.......

Pyrrha: He’ll probably scoff at it.

Cinder: THAT DOES IT! *charges*

*abrubt cutaway later*

Cinder: *in a full body cast*

Salem, awkwardly: Uhm....heeeey Cindie. How are you?

Cinder: ........

Salem: So uhm.....quick question about what happened at the tower. I heard the story but surely it was an exaggeration.

Cinder:........

Salem: She didnt, you know, juggle you in the air with like 4 different weapons for 5 whole minutes as she actively taunted you in mid fight?

Cinder:........

Salem:....is that a yes? say nothing if that's a yes?

Cinder:........

Salem: So it's also safe to assume that her suplexing you into 3 floors of the tower while exclaiming, and I quote, ‘jackpot’, is also true?

Cinder:.......

Salem: I also heard she played music on her scroll and each hit matched the rhythm of the beat. It was an original song too. And it went HARD!

Cinder:.......

Salem:......damn. This bitch sounds badass.

[ohnoproblems]

Hey, I just finished reading Peregrine Phoenix vol.1 - I adored it enough to come poke the author about it. I'm a fervid martial arts guy, and I noticed that, despite the relatively sparse description of grappling in comparison to the abundant striking, both of Mokou's barehanded fights ended with suplexes. Interestingly, she fights taurs both times. I'd love to hear more about the process behind choreographing this, particularly the process of figuring out what might and mightn't work on a quadrupedal body plan. Were you inspired by judo, wrestling, something else?

thank you so much for this ask. it's maybe the perfect question so i hope i can do it justice.

it's been about 2-2.5 years since i wrote the fight scenes in book 1, so i don't have as precise an idea anymore of my peripheral inspirations. as far as personal experience with martial arts, i don't have a whole lot - i took karate in high school at a suburban McDojo and got to... brown belt? then a whole lot of nothing. but by the time i started writing book 1, my wife's interest and appreciation of Wing Chun got me into the off-and-on habit of doing daily Si Lim Tao with her.

because of this, i'm a bit of a chameleon when it comes to my influences. i rely on media depictions a lot. i see a cool martial arts movie (like the Ip Man movies for Wing Chun, or like The Raid for Silat, etc) and i'm like "well that's cool as fuck, and mokou loves to tussle and she's lived forever so i bet she knows that." i like to give her worldly influences and i also like to give her otherworldly/larger-than-life/future influences because she's been part of this unbroken continuity of being and her knowledge and practice should reflect that. so it's things like Wing Chun and Silat, but it's also things like Lunarian CQC from the Lunar Wars, Danneskjold Pit Style from her life across the Moghra'yi, or Heaven Sundering Fist from wherever the hell you learn fake anime martial marts in the time and space between Gensokyo and Qud.

the suplex finisher is for any number of reasons. number one, there's something incredibly decisive and definitive about a suplex. number two, it's flashy as hell and i love flashy things. number three, and perhaps most critically, it gets your foe off of their feet! and when you're facing a quadruped, that's very important, that's the root of their strength! they can get twice the leverage out of the ground as you can, so the sooner you can negate that advantage, the better!

writing this series has me thinking about the ergonomics and design philosophy of centaurs more than i usually do, which, if you look at my #taurposting tag, you can probably understand is something i already think about a great deal. whenever agate fobs off mokou's interest or training offers with "i have my own techniques" i'm always like god. but actually what do those look like. how do you get gains as a centaur in a world with no gyms. one of these chapters in one of these books i'll probably go into it.

mokou's moveset in ULiL/AoCF is also a big inspiration! she's got all these great stomps and kicks and flips and nasty fire-claw punches whenever she deigns to pull her hands out of her pockets. she's not a very "honorable" fighter, she cares way more about getting to cut loose. agate's lucky she didn't catch a handful of homemade explosives to the face!

my choreography process is usually like… well i do a lot of rotating these gals in my mind and seeing what would be the coolest thing for them to do, the most sensible thing for them to do, the most emotionally or thematically resonant thing for them to do, the best nod to that dope move in the martial arts flick i just watched, etc, and then whatever i settle on i try to depict as clearly as i can. then if there's room for textual flourishes i'll spruce it up some.

Judo wasn't really a direct influence over book 1's fight scenes - i think the first judo-centric martial arts film i've seen was Sanshiro Sugata (1943), and i saw that one for the first time in may of 2022, too late to influence book 1. hilarious movie for fight choreography btw, he just fucking shuffles up and GETS them and then they fly across the room and almost die and it keeps happening. beautiful.

that said, there's some tussles coming up in book 2 that give a nod to Judo! this is because i've been getting way into Sumo lately and Judo has a good playbook to help in Sumo bouts. also Judo is a great style for someone who is too depressed to regularly keep herself in peak condition, because a lot of it is about putting what force you have to best use, and using your enemy's force against them. Wing Chun is also good for folks who aren't in the best shape, so that's another of my justifications as to why she talks that one up.

and finally, caves of qud as a game is one that has sadly underdeveloped (though not nonexistent!) barehand combat support, so there's a bit less inspiration i can pull directly from the game. mokou's new in town anyway, so she hasn't had a chance to soak in the styles regardless. i'm gonna take this opportunity to plug the Qud-Fu - Mixed Martial Arts Skills mod which i keep meaning to install and play around with but so far haven't. but if i do it strikes me as one very likely to show up in the fic XD

thank you again and i hope this gave you better insight!

[scribe-of-hael]

Id love to hear about claw some more!

Maybe also nova's relationship with Overlord too?

Claw is still under a bit of development but! I can share a few things!

-He is inspired by Kiryu from Godzilla, a mecha Godzilla and will have similar features in his bot mode that pay a bit of tribute to the bot!

-His alt mode is nothing like it thought, he is a alien like raptor, with multiple sets of eyes. All those lights on his helm are his eyes! They are visual sensors that give him a full scope of his surroundings, there is not much of anyone who can sneak up on him unless they come from under him or above him!

-He was once apart of a group of sorts, lost on a planet with little to no resources, he was the last survivor. As they all went out ine by one to go get resources but never came back.

-He didn't know to many words much like Grimlock but with some time he quickly gained his voice and learned how to speak fluently

-He is the biggest Crew Member aboard the ship!

-His voice claim is Ghostface because I can, because I wanted that sound deep but gravely and yet sounded chaotic and sarcastic.

-He's not particularly liked in terms Nemesis he's extremely loud and rowdy so stays on the ship while its docked

----

WonderNova and papa Overlord

- Depsite being antagonist ,in our story Overlord is just as good of a Father as he is a Conjunx (yeah this bot managed to hook a a partner)

-Overlord is a attentive sire and very supportive in most of Wonder's endeavors!

-He does spoil her for better or for worst, she is his little nightmare and he give sher just about anything she asks for .

-He hates having to put his foot down though, if there anyway to spare him the look of sadness on her face or even her being upset with him.

-He dose have to assert his parental authority because BlightBrite (her mother) can't be the "bad" guy in this situation all the time . And Wonder has a tendency to try and twist he fathers arm to get what she wants .

-she takes alot after him, his size, crest and battle lust. To which he has trained her , and the day she was able to suplex this behemoth of a bot, he couldn't have been prouder !

-Wonder does gets upset at the fact that her father is so hovering. He's somtimes the dad who can't the hint of "I wanna look cool infront of my friends, go awaaaaay"

-They are close and they do alot together ! but its kinda hard for him to let go esspcially when she's older and wants to spend more time with friends and do thing herself, he has to learn to learn to not take it personally

-Wonder does feel some pressure to live up to her father's reputation of strength and even her mother's intelligence. Even being insecure about her size and build. She is rather bulk and large for Femme. Having no extraordinary abilities early in her life

-he has done his best to make sure whatever she wants to be, he will be there , powers or not , a warrior or not , he knows she's make it through.

-she does love to try and sneak up on him and pounce on him , he will be the dramatic dad to just fall over and play dead

<<"Come on get up and face me !" "Can't very off-line" "no you're not!" "Of course i am, that was a very powerful attack i couldn't have POSSIBLY survived~">>

[haveyouseenthisskeleton]

How would The skele's react If a s/o Just started to give out agressive compliments ? like it sounds like there about to say a rude thing but its super Nice.

Undertale Sans - Please don't do this, you're going to give him a soul attack. Sans is a skeleton that reads faces, and when he sees you angry but after that you're just complimenting him, it's messing with his non existent brain. He's confused every time and it can make him uncomfortable if it happens to often, because it's giving him the impression he doesn't know how you are reacting and it's stressing him.

Undertale Papyrus - He's fine with it. I mean, it's pretty much like Undyne. As long as you're not trying to noogie his skull or suplex him, he doesn't mind. He might mimicate you some times just as a revenge.

Underswap Sans - It's making him giggling every time, because it gives you a silly face. He's pretty fine with it too, mostly because Alphys is kinda acting this way too. Though, he won't do it back, because he knows his brother can be easily startled by people screaming.

Underswap Papyrus - He flinches and looks at you with terrified eyes. He doesn't even understand what you said, you screamed at him for no reason and he doesn't know why and now he has litteral tears in the eyes. Yeah, maybe don't do that. Ever again.

Underfell Sans - He will happily reprocicate. Red loves this and he thinks it's a nice way to express his feelings without looking totally stupid. If you both stupid in T instant, then saying he loves you has more chance to go as a joke if you rejects him. ... right?

Underfell Papyrus - He was prepared to scream back in self defense but then you just screamed compliment at his face and now he is completely confused. Are you praising him or are you angry? Is that ironic? Oh shit, he doesn't understand irony. You broke the skeleton. Edge is looking blankly at you, sweating, unable to decide if he should thanks you or screams at you.

Horrortale Sans - Bad idea. Terrible idea. As soon as you come in the room screaming, he jerks up in alarm, then rushes next to you to protect you from whatever you're screaming out, growling at the emptiness like an animal. You can try to explain it's just a joke, he's not believing you. Now deal with your overprotective clingy boyfriend for the day, you did this to yourself.

Horrortale Papyrus - He shrieks in shock and the food he was holding fly in the air. He looks at the disaster, concerned, then turns slowly towards you. You swear you can hear him growl a little. "HUMAN. SIT DOWN. I THINK WE NEED TO TALK." Oh shit. You're in for a lecture. You sigh and obey. Behind you, you can hear Oak laughing at your misery.

Swapfell Sans - He immediately goes royal guard mode and throws bones into the wall, missing Rus who was entering the room from an inch. Now, when he realises you're not in danger, and that you just say he has a nice suit today, he coughs a little, sits back in the couch and acts like nothing happened, a bit ashamed. Ok, maybe he overeacted, but you spooked him. Rus needs a moment.

Swapfell Papyrus - Just like his brother, he goes in self defense mode, catches his shoes and throws them both in your face at full force. Strike. Twice. You falls on your butt, half knocked out. ... Oops. Rus immediately comes to apologise, worry he might have break you skull or something. Don't scream at him, it makes him panic !

[thedreadvampy]

please keep talking abt wrestling. i've kinda fallen into this hole recently and, since you're cool af, I would love to know whatever you have to say about it

Well I mostly watch AEW although I was very into Progress before the pandemic (which is a London-based indie promotion that's also basically the feed source for NXT UK) but idk whether or in what state Progress will come back not just bc of the pandemic but bc this year's wrestling abuse scandals involved a lot of their management and core roster so they've had to really reshuffle.

anyway that's an unnecessarily grim diversion let's talk AEW (I'm a few episodes behind bc I watch on Zoom with my pals and it's easy to fall behind while trying to line up our schedules, we're gonna watch Winter Is Coming tonight)

This blog's opinions are:

Women's wrestling is severely underrated and that's the fault of the promotion not the fans, AEW has a phenomenally talented women's roster with a big fan following but consistently gives them no air time, very little space to develop plots, one match per episode that the commentators half-ignore, and only ever one plot at a time. I love Hikaru Shida, Nyla Rose and Britt Baker as characters but there's a huge women's roster of compelling characters who only ever show up on Dark or for a single bout not tied into any particular plot on Dynamite and it's very wearing. When they launched AEW they made a big deal about equal pay for the men and women's rosters and paying the same regardless of gender and fan status, purely based on card position, but that means absolutely nothing if there's only ever one women's match and it's always at the same mid-card position. Sorry to open on a negative but it makes me so mad that WWE, the company which is notoriously misogynistic and whose director had to be shown Asian schoolgirl porn to accept that the audience would find Japanese wrestlers "sexy enough" to put in the ring, is somehow a better venue for women's wrestling than AEW. like fuckkkkkkkkk just treat the women's roster like you would the men's!!!!

on which note, AEW Heels, the Paid Fanclub For Women Who Like Wrestling, is the most half-assed attempt to court the female wrestling audience I've ever seen (and I watched WWE's Revolution pay-per-view where the line was 'isn't it nice that the men have allowed women to have their own PPV thanks to all the men who made this possible'). like ok I COULD give you money to Be A Female Fan OR, wild concept, you could do more than one women's match per episode on your flagship show and not relegate the women's tag title to YouTube

Relatedly, There's Too Much Wrestling. As you can probably tell from the fact I'm 4 episodes behind on Dynamite, I struggle enough to fit 2 hours of wrestling into my week, but AEW also expected me to keep up with Dark, BTE, and sometimes other side projects? and now also Impact and NWA and sometimes NJPW. and then if I want to recognise big names they're bringing in I would also have had to watch WWE which like. there's even more WWE than AEW. idk I'm a completionist and it's simply not possible to watch All The Relevant Wrestling bc that would be like. 20 hours a week and I have a job and a life and stuff. like I watch AEW Dynamite and BTE and that does me.

this is all very negative but I love wrestling! I got into it a couple of years ago and it's absolutely incredible to me I love the artistry I love the athleticism I love the creativity and the fun people have with their characters. and the reason I gave up on WWE as soon as AEW started up is that it feels so much like the wrestlers are given space to play and to find the stories they want to tell.

MJF is a DELIGHT he's like one of my favourite heels he's so loathsome and so much fun! and there's like a really good consistent emotional core to his overall storyline of desperate insecurity I'm so into it and I'm so hype about when inevitably Wardlow's gonna turn on him. I love the resonance of his relationship with Cody vs his relationship with Wardlow and also the extremely strong gay unrequited love vibes that keep popping up here.

Hikaru Shida is AMAZING I love her. did u know she makes her own ring gear and learnt to speak English pretty much from scratch when she joined AEW a year ago and is now cutting full promos in English? also her facial acting? 😘👌👌👌👌

Sonny Kiss is phenomenal I hope they're on Dynamite more bc not only is she a phenomenal character in their own right but when she started tagging with Joey Janela their in-ring chemistry actually made me LIKE Janela for the first time. also it warms my heart that JR, despite being kind of an old fogey, is regularly correcting other commentators on their pronoun use and vocally acknowledging that Sonny is nonbinary.

honestly JR does just warm my heart in general like he visibly struggled early on with getting out of the 2000s mindset on Female Wrestlers Are Sexy Divas and he accidentally misgendered Nyla Rose one time but he's been really open to criticism and often gone to bat for the trans and queer members of the roster. he seems like a nice guy and I'm glad he's here, which I didn't think I'd be saying a year ago yk?

I know I already said this but Chris Jericho is a phenomenon. he just makes everything FUCKING FUN every story he tells is wild and hilarious. The Inner Circle gives me life (on this blog we stan Ortiz) and his beef with Orange Cassidy was pure gold.

Also Matt Hardy is here!!!! I love Matt Hardy, I think his Ultimate Deletion match with Bray Wyatt was what made me realise how fun wrestling can be and he always brings the creativity. He's been through a lot of shit in his life, I'm really happy that he's able to work with a promotion that gives him room to be as hogwild as he wants because Matt Hardy's great strength is being absolutely off-the-chain weird. I love him.

Speaking of Matt Hardy and the Inner Circle have you seen the Stadium Stampede from this summer? honestly worth buying the whole PPV just for that it's wild choice after wild choice for 45 minutes it might be the best wrestling match ever. idk if I like it better when Matt Jackson Northern Lights suplexes Sammy Guevara the entire length of a football field, when Matt Hardy chases Sammy with a golf cart, the whole bit where Adam Page just goes off and gets drunk in a bar and has a brawl with Jake Hager, the bit where Proud & Powerful try to drown Matt Hardy but every time he goes underwater he comes up in a different costume and persona - holy shit it's just amazing it's everything I love about wrestling

Moving away from AEW, the best wrestling storyline I've ever seen is Progress' story with Cara Noir and Ilya Dragonov. They're both phenomenal wrestlers but also the raw power and emotional weight of the story? it's simple but it's heartachingly beautiful I was lucky enough to be in the audience for the second of 3 matches in the story and I was nearly in tears it's so theatrical and balletic???? Check it out if you can it's in Progress' video archives (those are all pay-to-watch though. I think they're also on Amazon Prime for American viewers?)

Cara Noir is probably my favourite wrestler, although Nyla Rose, Charlotte Flair, Chris Jericho, Luchasaurus and Adam Page are all up there. He's just the most phenomenal physical performer and he really gets how much theatre is in wrestling, his facial acting is impeccable and he's not afraid to take hard bumps and really sell. also he just seems like a very sound person out of character (touch wood), he's very principled and takes his work and the wellbeing of his colleagues really seriously which is what you want in a wrestler