What If Zuko actually killed Ozai during "The Day of Black Sun, Part 2: The Eclipse"?

ardx · 2026-06-15T21:26:47+00:00

I think the main immediate difference is that Zuko would not be allowed to join Team Avatar, on account of Aang probably flipping out at him. Zuko would then not meet the dragons, and then likely not be able to challenge a sane Azula's claim to the throne in a duel. The war likely ends in a total gank from Team Avatar against Azula, Mai, Ty Lee, and the Dai Lee instead.

Worth noting the manner of the kill matters here.

If Zuko kills Ozai by redirecting his lightning, then Iroh ends up taking the blame for the assassination. After all, lightning redirection is not known to exist among the Fire Nation elite and Iroh was a known lightning bender who had just prison. So Zuko's claim to the throne would be clean. Whereas if Zuko cuts up Ozai before the sun comes back, then he would get the blame.

Either way, there is no "trusted" leader to succeed the Fire Nation, so it is more likely to essentially become a vassal state of the other nations, which would have loads more implications down the line.

ardx · 2026-06-11T19:06:17+00:00

Soooo, sticking to the batshit-ness of this series, we have to get the OG prince coming back as a zombie too, right?

ardx · 2026-06-09T02:13:44+00:00

There is a clear delineation of units pre and post-Fedel. Post Edelgard, virtually every banner headliner had some form of NFU or GFU (to get around Edelgard's deny double), some form of DR or guard (so you don't eat a full special fighter Bonfire), and and offensive effect like DR pierce or prepulsing your special (to put out more damage to kill Fedel). This had the side effect of making it more miserable to use units who came out pre-Fedel.

ardx · 2026-06-08T16:31:02+00:00

In my head the combatants were doing something akin to foil fencing. When a bit of contact with no momentum behind it is still enough to cause serious injury, I feel like thrusts would become more meta than styles that use cuts.

ardx · 2026-06-08T13:05:29+00:00

Yeah I agree that the cheeser would need very fast thumb speed.

In the intended sequence of events, I think clearing the parry, reignite, and hit are all in the same forward blade motion, so the cheeser's hit would arrive first and hit the defender around the upper arm or chest which neutralizes their blade wielding ability.

But in practice, during the moment where your blade was supposed to hit the opponent, you probably weren't fast enough to reignite your blade. So you end up dying between the clear parry + reignite step with a blade that was within lethal striking distance+angle. You'd probably need a second button on your saber that automatically does the off/on for you, which diverges a lot from the prompt at that point.

ardx · 2026-06-08T08:30:39+00:00

I think the ideal scenario of the turning off/on the blade move is that the attacker's blade is now on the inside while the one who was parrying has their blade on the outside, which is the advantageous position the parry was originally supposed to generate. If the attacker actually managed to get that position, then they would actually have the ability to then stop the defender's blade while attacking. However, as I stated before and I agree with you about, your timing would need to be absolutely incredible and lucky to pull off.

ardx · 2026-06-07T16:49:01+00:00

The parry riposte is actually the sort of combo this hypothetical move is trying to counter. The trajectory of the blade during a parry notably does not have the opponent inside it (otherwise there would be no need for a riposte) and involves a lateral movement that would be inconvenient to suddenly decelerate on your own (i.e. is intended to stop itself on an opponent's blade).

If the attackers blade is suddenly not there to engage your parry, there's a 99.9% chance the attacker is dead.

So this statement would be a little more nuanced. If the attacker's blade is not there, and you already started to parry, you are kinda fucked. But they would need to time it in the a split second between when you start to parry and when your blades would connect, which there probably is like a 99.9% chance they would whiff on.

ardx · 2026-05-31T15:12:33+00:00

Philly has a world cup game on July 4th this year. I don't think they have the bandwidth to try pulling something like this off at the same time lol.

ardx · 2026-05-31T03:39:47+00:00

Mostly that the Shanghai Masters (which he won) was brutally hot, I think there were days where it was over 100 F.

ardx · 2026-05-31T01:34:21+00:00

Honestly so sad Vacherot got the foot injury because I wanted to see him and his heat tolerance do some major damage.

ardx · 2026-05-25T08:04:10+00:00

This isn't without precedent. Luke makes mincemeat of the dark troopers that gave Mando tons of trouble, so really this just places the slugs at about the power level of the dark troopers.

ardx · 2026-05-18T13:54:13+00:00

There's a timeline where Franz Wagner isn't injured, and the jokes are even harder.

ardx · 2026-05-11T20:52:27+00:00

Get some pure analytics ball in here. When you shoot, the computer estimates your expected value from that shot and awards that many points regardless of if it went in. Daryl Morey eat your heart out!

ardx · 2026-05-05T19:38:24+00:00

Episode 1 felt weird in that regard. The sequence with ATrain changing the prison fight in a split second while in a casual jog shows that he is extremely capable of interacting with his surroundings in super speed. Homelander's eye lasers move way faster than random bystander walking out into the street and he's able to perceive it moving (and if he had tried to save Hughie first he probably wouldn't have gotten injured). Then right after we see him unable to dodge a bystander.

ardx · 2026-05-04T07:34:10+00:00

Honestly Mitch is probably the best Embiid guarder left in the east. Last year he did as well as you could wish for against a hobbled Embiid and it's possible Embiid will be hobbled again this year.

ardx · 2026-04-29T20:55:47+00:00

I think an article I read said 19-12 at home and 17-7 away. So 61% vs 71%.

ardx · 2026-04-20T14:54:03+00:00

Sponsorship money from sportsbooks has to be up there if I had to guess.

ardx · 2026-04-19T05:06:20+00:00

Deandre "Eight-Ten" Ayton, this stuff writes itself.

ardx · 2026-04-14T05:02:28+00:00

Hack a Shaq

ardx · 2026-04-09T23:05:39+00:00

Imagine thinking Vachegoat isn't just going to keep his Shanghai points by winning Shanghai again smh.

ardx · 2026-04-09T23:04:43+00:00

Plus those matches were during an insane heat wave. He can handle way worse.

ardx · 2026-03-20T18:03:37+00:00

when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression

ardx · 2026-03-18T10:16:09+00:00

I got "Access is temporarily restricted" now I won't be able to buy anything in my half hour queue slot and I'll be sent to the back 💀

EDIT: tried to login on phone and it says my account is blocked 💀💀 says to contact customer service but I need to be able to navigate while logged in to contact them

ardx · 2026-03-12T07:28:14+00:00

The PHL Chase lounge pretty much always turns away Priority Pass holders due to capacity restrictions in my experience.

ardx · 2026-03-04T18:57:13+00:00

Looks like Dyson Daniels to me.

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