Broken character feat that are silly but you like anyway.

[shades of eternity]

Just Vash the Stampede

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyz8...el=avertedeyes

[big_adventure]

Wakim and the Steel General duking it out in Creatures of Light and Darkness is one of the trippiest fights I've ever read, and possibly the best example of 'fighting back and forth in Time', with actual times worked out, people setting up defenses in the past and the future, time being rewritten due to alterations, Wakim and the General killing each other in dozens of different timelines that get eliminated due to alterations in the past, seemingly hundreds of each person fighting each other, time itself starting to break down, etc.

Amusingly, it's not even close to the craziest stuff in the book, but it's a pretty fun scene.

You forgot "planet they are standing on (Blis) is getting razed as collateral damage" as well. :-)

Temporal Fugue is soooooo hax.

[Sharpandpointies]

You forgot "planet they are standing on (Blis) is getting razed as collateral damage" as well. :-)

Temporal Fugue is soooooo hax.

Being fair, the planet getting murdered was at least in part due to Bronze and his 'doubling, doubling again, doubling again' thing. ^_^ Edit: which is, now that I think about it, pretty ridiculous on its own.

But yes, Temporal Fugue is kind of 'The Time Martial Art that other time martial arts want to be when they grow up'.

[SpiderClops]

Now that, is how you backhand someone.

[big_adventure]

Being fair, the planet getting murdered was at least in part due to Bronze and his 'doubling, doubling again, doubling again' thing. ^_^ Edit: which is, now that I think about it, pretty ridiculous on its own.

But yes, Temporal Fugue is kind of 'The Time Martial Art that other time martial arts want to be when they grow up'.

Especially how it works basically after the fact, or without conscious knowledge on the part of the wielder (of which there are... two and about 1/50th).

Steel General dropping Osiris with it was another cool moment. Osiris fires the hammer (which can blow up suns). It's shot progresses towards the target. There is a cloudy effect, the star killing shot isn't there any longer and Osiris' crossbow-ship is just parts floating through space.

I wonder how long Thoth is going to be feeding monsters to the wood-chipper that is Set? Narrative says that something will come up that requires destruction eventually.

For Bronze, yeah, narration supposes that he could build up to "circle the universe in one step" speed. Then what happens next?

[Sharpandpointies]

Especially how it works basically after the fact, or without conscious knowledge on the part of the wielder (of which there are... two and about 1/50th).

Oh yeah, a lot of it is reflexive. Set survived two impacts of the Hammer That Smashes Suns simply by dint of reflexively using Temporal Fugue. Second time even better than the first.

And yeah, Horus ain't that great.

I feel that The Prince Who Was A Thousand probably CAN use Temporal Fugue but just doesn't bother (horrifyingly enough, he doesn't need it). They do talk about him learning to 'break the time barrier'.

Steel General dropping Osiris with it was another cool moment. Osiris fires the hammer (which can blow up suns). It's shot progresses towards the target. There is a cloudy effect, the star killing shot isn't there any longer and Osiris' crossbow-ship is just parts floating through space.

Yeah, that one was weird. The General Fugues AFTER after the Hammer has been used. He kills Osiris and blows up the Hammer in the past. It rewrites time so that the Hammer's attack never happened. But Set - before this, before the General rewrites time, if that makes sense - uses Temporal Fugue to escape the impact of the Hammer-bolt because it actually hit (we don't see that, though edit: I think, must check). So what happened to HIM doesn't get rewritten.

Much like any of the Fugue fights, it's confusing. ^_^

I wonder how long Thoth is going to be feeding monsters to the wood-chipper that is Set? Narrative says that something will come up that requires destruction eventually.

Until he's needed, as you note. And then after he's finished, back to killing monsters. Forever. Non-stop.

Set is one of those literary characters I would be happy pitting against anything below someone like Comic Book Odin, back when that meant something.

For Bronze, yeah, narration supposes that he could build up to "circle the universe in one step" speed. Then what happens next?

Even narration says that. "We don't actually know what will happen next, because it has never happened." ^_^

It also grants him a (similar) ability to slam his hooves down on the ground, with the force doubling every time. Which is why during the fight between Wakim and the General we end up with (after a certain point) Bronze slamming the ground and the entire continent is quaking, cities are falling all over the planet, etc.

[Sharpandpointies]

Man, that whole sequence is trippy. When written out.

1. Set is fighting The Nameless.
2. Osiris shows up with the Hammer.
3. Everyone watching now knows what's going to happen (collective ohshit moment).
4. Set appears in a different place, floating unconscious, having been struck by the Hammer (in a few seconds from now) and having 'used' (do I use the past tense here? I dunno) Temporal Fugue to escape it.
5. Anubis swoops in and grabs his unconscious body, having anticipated this.
6. Osiris shoots the damn Hammer (this is the attack that 'will' KO Set and have him reflexively use Temporal Fugue to avoid getting killed).
7. The Steel General says 'This must not be', starts Bronze running, and Fugues to just before #6.
8. The Hammer shot disappears, and both the Hammer and the Steel General are suddenly a cloud of floating debris (Edit: Osiris as well, but nobody cares about that shithead).
9. Anubis says 'WTF?', and looks at Set, who is still chained up in his ship, having still gone through his reflexive fugue and KOing by Hammer shot that now never has happened because the Hammer got destroyed before it could fire.

Arrgh, bring me back to the easy 'Set is The Prince's father and The Prince is Set's father' stuff.

[Sharpandpointies]

For fun, I just calculated. If the Steel General fugued back enough to give Bronze time (and space!) to take twenty steps, and if Bronze - a cybernetic horse - runs 'normally' at the same speed as the top-end horses do, the General would have rammed into the Hammer at over 92 million kilometers per hour. Or about 0.085c.

Four more steps it would have been 1.36c.

O_O

No wonder the Hammer and the General (and Osiris) blew up.

Edit: Don't really feel like I'm drifting off-thread with this sort of thing, because frankly it still fits the title. ^_^ Cripes, pretty much ALL of Creatures of Light and Darkness fits the title.

[Nik Hasta]

One of the whole reasons I like Ikaruga from Fairy Tail so much (she is /objectively/ the best thing in the entire series for real no cap) was because she walked into the series was so drastically OP and was casually monstering on the then strongest of the primary protagonists and doing what could best be described as "wacky sword ****,"

Cutting through dimensions, obliterating Erza's most powerful magical armours with ease, slicing weaponised cards thrown at her in half along their edge - she was great.

yes she then lost for literally no reason but let's not dwell on that

[Sharpandpointies]

One of the whole reasons I like Ikaruga from Fairy Tail so much (she is /objectively/ the best thing in the entire series for real no cap) was because she walked into the series was so drastically OP and was casually monstering on the then strongest of the primary protagonists and doing what could best be described as "wacky sword ****,"

Cutting through dimensions, obliterating Erza's most powerful magical armours with ease, slicing weaponised cards thrown at her in half along their edge - she was great.

See, this part all sounds nice.

yes she then lost for literally no reason but let's not dwell on that

Having never read Fairy Tail, but having heard the explanations (I think?), I'm sure that reading this part would make my own brain explode.

[big_adventure]

Man, that whole sequence is trippy. When written out.

1. Set is fighting The Nameless.
2. Osiris shows up with the Hammer.
3. Everyone watching now knows what's going to happen (collective ohshit moment).
4. Set appears in a different place, floating unconscious, having been struck by the Hammer (in a few seconds from now) and having 'used' (do I use the past tense here? I dunno) Temporal Fugue to escape it.
5. Anubis swoops in and grabs his unconscious body, having anticipated this.
6. Osiris shoots the damn Hammer (this is the attack that 'will' KO Set and have him reflexively use Temporal Fugue to avoid getting killed).
7. The Steel General says 'This must not be', starts Bronze running, and Fugues to just before #6.
8. The Hammer shot disappears, and both the Hammer and the Steel General are suddenly a cloud of floating debris (Edit: Osiris as well, but nobody cares about that shithead).
9. Anubis says 'WTF?', and looks at Set, who is still chained up in his ship, having still gone through his reflexive fugue and KOing by Hammer shot that now never has happened because the Hammer got destroyed before it could fire.

Arrgh, bring me back to the easy 'Set is The Prince's father and The Prince is Set's father' stuff.

Hahaha that last bit. Plus fathers who are brothers and all that jazz. Typhon who is/contains/lives in/uses/is used by the void at the end of the universe.

In that write up, can't forget that this was just after Set used the full power of the star wand on the Nameless to off it, it didn't quite succeed: it would have taken a long time but it would have come back. This of course because Set wasn't fully equiped after Madrak stole his glove and replaced it with another glove. The glove of set being basically super duper ultra Iron Man nanotech armor. The planet was also destroyed as collateral damage. But if Set went back in time, would that cancel the shot? No and yes and maybe? The craziest thing about TF is that the two users can interact in multiple ways and don't really collapse the wavefront.

As far as the Prince/Thoth using TF - I don't think so. His big power is super mega ultra teleportation - a power commented on as being "rarer than Temporal Fugue" - and given that TF has the aforementioned 2 and 1/20th users, well, one user is less than that. For those who don't know, he just has to imagine a place and he can go to it. He doesn't have to know where that place is, doesn't have to have a name for it, if he thinks "I wanna go to a planet made of pink marshmallows populated with 6 inch tall dragons" he's there instantly. All based on the idea that the universe is infinite, so anything has to exist somewhere, so he thinks about it and it's there, no matter how ridiculous or unlikely. He's like a perfectly functioning Infinite Improbability Drive. His power is also obviously very useful in combat - he's got combat teleportation down to a ridiculously precise science combined with insane skill levels and god stats and uses them all to great effect in the one fight he enters into in the book.

Per your previous comment - yeah, Set probably crunches anyone below solid skyfather level due to the combo of TF and star wand. I don't think that "destroys planets as collateral damage" is quite enough to damage someone at that level, but he's going to, well, destroy most anyone below that level of durability. Being really really fast isn't helping when TF comes to play, so Flashes and Surfers and Gladiators are in serious trouble. I guess pre-Crisis kryptonians and their ilk might be too much?

[Nik Hasta]

See, this part all sounds nice.

If I were to sum up the vibe it would be these two pages, that are sequential:





You love to see a protagonist get worked sometimes.

Having never read Fairy Tail, but having heard the explanations (I think?), I'm sure that reading this part would make my own brain explode.

Technically, if I'm being completely fair, Erza and other characters inexplicably powering up by being all "FRIENDSHIP AND STUFF!" is a thing in the series. This was perhaps the first instance of it in the story so it was jarring at the time. As you went on you're just like...

"Oh boy, the gang sure are in trouble, I wonder how they're going to overcome this enemy,"

"Oh, they thought about friendship a bit, powered up and just won for no real reason. What surprising and refreshing end to the fight,"

-_-

While Fairy Tail was and remains pretty popular, I think it's Mashima's weakest work. Groove Adventure Rave and Eden Zero are both much more cohesive and well balanced pieces of work, especially when it comes to power hierarchy.

Ikaruga fucking ruled though.

[big_adventure]

Her "was that truly your strongest armor?" is a hell of a flex. You have to love to see that.

[Sharpandpointies]

Hahaha that last bit. Plus fathers who are brothers and all that jazz. Typhon who is/contains/lives in/uses/is used by the void at the end of the universe.

In that write up, can't forget that this was just after Set used the full power of the star wand on the Nameless to off it, it didn't quite succeed: it would have taken a long time but it would have come back. This of course because Set wasn't fully equiped after Madrak stole his glove and replaced it with another glove. The glove of set being basically super duper ultra Iron Man nanotech armor. The planet was also destroyed as collateral damage. But if Set went back in time, would that cancel the shot? No and yes and maybe? The craziest thing about TF is that the two users can interact in multiple ways and don't really collapse the wavefront.

It's a little trickier.

So, Set was getting READY to use the Star Wand in a way he had considered, after going over his original fight with the Nameless. He figured he had something he could do with it that would finish the job this time. Only Osiris (again, dick move dude) interrupted him with the Hammer.

I mean, 'all' he was doing before that was **** like 'Playing the continuous heat of a supernova over the Nameless' and such. That's 'all' (edit; and as you note, their clashes tore the planet apart beneath them, the planet in whose upper atmosphere they were fighting and never really aimed at).

And yeah, he wasn't fully equipped - Temporal Fugue allowed him to get by without the armor because the Nameless couldn't HIT him, which is kinda freaky. Which...still means that Set without his special armor, by using Temporal Fugue reflexively can only be KO'ed by a supernova level explosion in the face, and he comes back from that right quick.

...with the armor on, he likely would have been still awake. O_o

Would Set's idea about how to win have worked? *shrugs* Dunno.

As far as the Prince/Thoth using TF - I don't think so. His big power is super mega ultra teleportation - a power commented on as being "rarer than Temporal Fugue" - and given that TF has the aforementioned 2 and 1/20th users, well, one user is less than that. For those who don't know, he just has to imagine a place and he can go to it. He doesn't have to know where that place is, doesn't have to have a name for it, if he thinks "I wanna go to a planet made of pink marshmallows populated with 6 inch tall dragons" he's there instantly. All based on the idea that the universe is infinite, so anything has to exist somewhere, so he thinks about it and it's there, no matter how ridiculous or unlikely. He's like a perfectly functioning Infinite Improbability Drive. His power is also obviously very useful in combat - he's got combat teleportation down to a ridiculously precise science combined with insane skill levels and god stats and uses them all to great effect in the one fight he enters into in the book.

Absolutely, which is why the guy doesn't bother with Fugue. But the book specifically states he learned to break the time barrier, which is HOW he went back in time and became Set's dad.

Him 'learning to break the time barrier' and then his son being one of two dudes who has learned Temporal Fugue (fully) leads me to speculate that yeah, The Prince can do the Temporal Fugue thing as well. There's no sign of that, nor does he use it or even need it (as you note, his own power basically beats anything but Typhon and Set/Star Wand/Fugue). So it's speculation, but it's speculation that's worth a thought.

...at least I think it was The Prince who says he learned to break the time Barrier, when talking to the spirit of his wife. Should check. ^_^

Per your previous comment - yeah, Set probably crunches anyone below solid skyfather level due to the combo of TF and star wand. I don't think that "destroys planets as collateral damage" is quite enough to damage someone at that level, but he's going to, well, destroy most anyone below that level of durability. Being really really fast isn't helping when TF comes to play, so Flashes and Surfers and Gladiators are in serious trouble. I guess pre-Crisis kryptonians and their ilk might be too much?

Precisely my thoughts, and I really am kind of iffy on Pre-Crisis Kryptonians doing well against Set. The guy has a lot of gun, and can do a lot WITH that gun - it's like a Green Lantern Ring in what he's capable of pulling off, to the point of creating constructs and the like - and given what he attacks and damages with it, and the fact that there ARE various things that can harm Pre-Crisis Kryptonians, I would TEND to consider a fully-kitted out Set to be the more likely winner. With his actual armor on he likely eats star-killing attacks in the face without getting KO'ed, and from that point onward (when the reflexive temporal fugue kicks in) he's not getting touched.

If I were to sum up the vibe it would be these two pages, that are sequential:





You love to see a protagonist get worked sometimes.

I'll have to see the pages later (work firewall sez 'No'), but I agree - one of the reasons I love Ancestor is that he wrecks the Gary Stu main character...over and over again through the series.

Technically, if I'm being completely fair, Erza and other characters inexplicably powering up by being all "FRIENDSHIP AND STUFF!" is a thing in the series. This was perhaps the first instance of it in the story so it was jarring at the time. As you went on you're just like...

"Oh boy, the gang sure are in trouble, I wonder how they're going to overcome this enemy,"

"Oh, they thought about friendship a bit, powered up and just won for no real reason. What surprising and refreshing end to the fight,"

-_-

While Fairy Tail was and remains pretty popular, I think it's Mashima's weakest work. Groove Adventure Rave and Eden Zero are both much more cohesive and well balanced pieces of work, especially when it comes to power hierarchy.

Ikaruga fucking ruled though.

I recall you talking about the other stuff that guy wrote in good ways. Might have to look them up and read them.

I think if FT is all about 'winning inexplicably through the power of friendship' it'll be something totally not to my taste, and I'll pass. ^_^

[Nik Hasta]

I recall you talking about the other stuff that guy wrote in good ways. Might have to look them up and read them.

I think if FT is all about 'winning inexplicably through the power of friendship' it'll be something totally not to my taste, and I'll pass. ^_^

Groove Adventure Rave is his best in my opinion. It's also a tight read (for a manga series) at only like 295 chapters.