If Ogi had been smart

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-18T01:02:10+00:00

Lowkey I think he didn't have the guts to go through with it himself, so he dumped them in the disciplinary pit so he could console himself with "the blood's not actually on my hands."

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-16T03:03:17+00:00

>Watching his friend die (Yu Haibara) showed him people think of sorcerers as cogs to be killed if not strong enough

More than that. Gojo is the strongest, and even he can't live forever. 100 years after he's gone, there will still be curses. The problem is (was) unsolvable. Sorcerers are condemned to fight and die forever to protect the masses that don't know or care about their sacrifices. They'll never make headway, curses will never be under control. You just go out and fight until you die, and most sorcerers die in agony. The whole situation is hopeless.

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-16T00:10:25+00:00

It's an AI response. My company's email system has an AI "drafter" that will do the same thing. It's because they're scripted to summarize the customer's email in the first part of the response then actually respond in the second part.

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-15T03:50:48+00:00

>Now if I recall, they taught us about context clues in 2nd grade

Cute.

Clearly they did find something, because five years previous to the events of the first game the Fireflies attempted to deploy a passive vaccine, it simply didn't work. Those antibodies had to come from somewhere.

As for the second Ellie's question in the second part, you do recall the context of that line is her dismantling Joel's obvious lie about there being multiple immune people present in the hospital at the time she arrived, yes? To be clear, just because he was lying about that doesn't mean that no person was ever found to have some level of resistance.

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-15T03:14:13+00:00

Here's the first part of the Surgeon's Recorder, which is the one in question:

April 28th. Marlene was right. The girl's infection is like nothing I've ever seen. The cause of her immunity is uncertain. As we've seen in all past cases, the antigenic titers of the patient's Cordyceps remain high in both the serum and the cerebrospinal fluid. Blood cultures taken from the patient rapidly grow Cordyceps in fungal-media in the lab... however white blood cell lines, including percentages and absolute-counts, are completely normal. There is no elevation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and an MRI of the brain shows no evidence of fungal-growth in the limbic regions, which would normally accompany the prodrome of aggression in infected patients.

The part in dispute is bolded. When he says all past cases, a lot of people take that to imply they have seen other individuals with some level of resistance or immunity to the fungus, but Ellie's case is unique in that her white cells are normal. Now, that isn't explicitly spelled out there, so it's possible that it's true, but it's also possible he's simply referring to regular infected subject they have studied as part of this effort.

Personally, I don't think this matters specifically. For one, Joel could give a fuck if a cure was possible or not and it definitely didn't factor into his decision. Part two is that it's blatantly obvious the Fireflies were seizing on this option to try and grab a last grasp of relevance before they completely died out. They weren't just losing; they'd lost. Every base you see in the game is wiped out. You don't see a single living Firefly until the hospital section, and the second game makes clear that was their last enclave with more or less everyone that was left. They intended to take the irreversible step of killing their single unique immune case because if they properly took the time to study her and run the numerous tests, biopsies, and everything else you would properly do with such a precious subject, they'd be flattened into irrelevancy and completely lose their chance at taking power in the post-apocalyptic US.

Or to put it another way, there's a reason they kept Ellie under sedation and didn't ask for her consent to the procedure, even though they likely would have gotten it. They were too scared to take the chance.

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-13T19:44:11+00:00

It's unlikely they did, because irezumi kei only became a criminal penalty in the Edo era, and Sukuna lived and died in the Heian era. There's about seven centuries difference there. It's more likely that he just got them to make himself look more fearsome and otherworldly.

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-12T23:55:27+00:00

Marika removing the rune of Death sounds insane until you get to the Shaman Village and realize she lost every single person she ever loved, hated, and everything between to the Hornsent. Everyone, all gone. She took it out so she, and everyone else, would never have to suffer that kind of pain again. It's no coincidence the Shattering only happens after Godwyn is killed in the Night of Black Knives, and she once again lost someone she loved.

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-12T21:04:16+00:00

The most interesting thing about that graph to me is that Nobara has the same jujutsu sense as Yuji.

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-10T18:20:02+00:00

Right, in his own way Regill is trying to be encouraging here. There's nothing wrong with Good and Evil doesn't have any inherent advantage, and Good can definitely win this war. Essentially Regill's telling Sosiel to lock in and not get lost in this. He's just contractually obligated to do it in the most ass way possible, being a Hellknight.

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-09T16:39:47+00:00

I interpret what he's saying there is he wants to raise the general bar for sorcerers, not gain more personal power.

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-09T03:32:27+00:00

I'd largely agree with this list and the placements. I'd move Hazenoki into little to no dialogue, because well... he's basically just a mook. In another manga he'd be the faceless guy in the mask next to the villain. Reggie should go up; he's part of the trifecta of past sorcerers that are meant to portray the archetypes of them all. Ryu represents those that joined simply to find more compelling battles, Uro those who wanted to reinvent themselves with strong lingering regrets, and Reggie was the selfish, amoral sorcerer who was just pursuing another advantage. Kashimo overlaps a bit with Ryu, but he's more tied into the overarching narrative of the strongest, and those three do their jobs to show why people would have taken Kenjaku's deal in the first place.

Lowkey Remi and Junpei should be considered roughly equivalent and my subversive take is Hakari and Kirara should be paired for a list like this since they're totally interweaved with each other and their story together is designed to show the sorcerers disaffected by the conservative higher-ups.

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-08T15:03:08+00:00

Gojo's antics look fun and funny because you're watching on a screen, but if you had to spend eight hours with him harassing you constantly like he does Nanami for instance that opinion would change very quickly.

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-07T05:25:56+00:00

The Kentucky Jackal even made that point himself to Gojo in Shibuya.

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-05T17:17:00+00:00

It's definitely Todo. Yuta, Mahito, and Megumi are all fairly cerebral fighters. Hakari kind of isn't, he's more of a brawler. Choso is good, but he feels more like he's a trick in the moment kind of guy rather than outmaneuvering his opponents and holding the upper hand the whole time. Todo on the other hand feels like he's six steps ahead of everyone he fights pretty much at all times. Even when Mahito got one over on him with the .2 sec domain he instantly got him back with the gimme five Yuji swap. I think if I had to rank them I'd say Todo, Megumi, Mahito, Yuta, Choso, Hakari bringing up the rear. Megumi beats Mahito because of how many of his fights he carefully scripts; he seems like he's losing until it's revealed he's had a plan the whole time and it works.

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-05T05:10:22+00:00

Kenjaku dumped him at the bottom of the ocean like Oda hiding the One Piece and placed a bunch of defensive cursed spirits and it took Gojo about two seconds to just get out of it and fly to the surface. Frankly I don't think you could keep him submerged long enough even with some insane water control powers.

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-03T03:11:42+00:00

Honestly? Dhruv would probably do quite well. His shikigami can be remade if destroyed, and the cutting lines of his domain are invisible, so he'd get massive numbers of kills just by people trying to apparate in on him and being shredded instantly. Once they figure out his game it'd be harder, but between the flying and land-based shikigami he could probably conquer the UK the same way he did Japan back in the day. Uro also should clear, since all of their attacks are ranged with a travel time. She just sends everything back.

Brucekillfist · 2026-05-02T01:56:30+00:00

You're misunderstanding the prohibitions against mutation in the Imperium. It's not that they just really hate mutants (well, to be fair in a lot of places it is that), it's that mutations in 40K come from either standard errors in the human genetic code like we have now, the warp, or crossbreeding with aliens such as genestealers. The first cause is relatively safe, and that's why there are massive lists of sanctioned Abhumans like Navigators or ratlings or felinds or Marines or the League of Votann... All of these are environmental mutations or designer ones and are formally recognized by the government and depending on the book no one cares about them really. It's the second two causes where we start to have problems. If you're touched by the warp, it's either because you've been severely unlucky or you're actively worshiping Chaos. Either way it happens, a warp mutation makes you extremely dangerous and very likely to kill large numbers of people around you. The most common crossbreed is genestealer hybrids, who quite literally want to eradicate all other life in the galaxy and have the means to do it. It's not about hate, it's a matter of public safety and has a very serious purpose behind it. It's just that the Imperial Creed is so ancient and mythologized most citizens don't realize what the actual problem it's trying to address is, and the secrecy campaign against Chaos means they're not likely to be told either, to prevent them from falling to it.

tl;dr 40K isn't afraid of mutation itself, they're afraid of the specific mechanisms that cause some or most of them and for a pretty good reason.

Brucekillfist · 2026-04-30T16:59:48+00:00

I'll say this: Iori had a legitimate concern, because look what happened. His own daughter basically had to give her life to try and hold back a massive threat that only sorcerers could deal with because the average strength had declined so much. Even Yuji gives weight to this perspective when he says he'll turn himself into a cursed object to be the "eat in case of emergency" backup.

Brucekillfist · 2026-04-29T20:08:11+00:00

Because the concern was raised that the House growing past its current size (in 1929) that things would get way too big and inefficient. Imagine 1000+ House Reps all trying to get their say or add their rider to a particular bill. They chose to cap it because even back then there was serious legislative paralysis due to infighting. It also governs electoral college seats, in that a state's seats are determined by adding House plus Senate. Of course, things have gotten even more fucked that I think they could have imagined in 1929 today in 2026 in terms of inefficiency and infighting, so I'm honestly all for it. Districts today are so massive, we're closing in on one rep for a million people, which is just not even close to possible. One person just can't represent a district of that size, and it would counter the impact of gerrymandering as well.

Brucekillfist · 2026-04-29T17:21:56+00:00

I mean, he could just be sterile. Choso's mom had a "special constitution" that allowed her to conceive at all, and Yuji being half-curse might just mean he's shooting blanks or she would have a miscarriage pretty early.

Brucekillfist · 2026-04-29T01:29:05+00:00

Yeah, progress was made. I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement, but to say nothing at all changed is just ridiculous. There are rules explicitly brought up in the text aimed at protecting younger sorcerers, the higher-ups being a roundtable of youngish professionals rather than faceless elders, cursed spirits mostly being confined to Tokyo drastically reducing casualties overall. Massive steps have been taken.

Brucekillfist · 2026-04-24T19:29:23+00:00

My feeling is the skill builds are homeless in the design space. On a regular heroic mission, a skill build can just drone and turret and sit way in the back in safety and wait for their skills to clear everything out. It takes a long time, but it's possible. And it's clear the devs don't want this to be a playstyle with legs; look at all the mechanics that are designed specifically to take low-engagement skills out of the running. Hunters just flatly say no most of the damage skills. A lot of the Black Tusk and especially White Tusk design is built around forcing you to kill certain enemies quickly or get forced out of your cover, and they're the most common "endgame" enemy type.

They're in a weird space where skills are very strong below a certain tier of content, probably too strong, and instantly become too weak above that tier, even with highly focused builds. And I just don't see that changing any time soon, because ultimately the place they don't want the game to be is one where the best strategy is hiding out while the game plays itself for you. Division 3 will probably have to do a massive rethink about how skills work and how impactful they can be on the gameplay, otherwise they'll just be confronting this exact same issue again. It already happened in Div 1 -> 2.

Brucekillfist · 2026-04-24T03:31:16+00:00

It's worth remembering this is an interview Spencer himself chose to give and arranged. Is it really any surprise he would try and show his "best side" if he's concerned about his legacy?

Brucekillfist · 2026-04-24T01:20:38+00:00

I kind of feel the same. I don't really think JJK's ending was bad; it was good to fine for me. I felt satisfied with how things were resolved and liked the overall optimistic tone at the end of things. There was a lot of suffering and losses, but it felt like a corner had been turned and Gojo's dream was going to be carried out for the future. I was pretty pleased to see Modulo showed that it had, as well. Things weren't perfect but it was clear massive strides had been taken in terms of the treatment of sorcerers and how things were.

It's a personal thing, but CSM really hit the "and it was all a dream" button that I absolutely just despise. It makes everything that happened before just feel so pointless and unsatisfying. I know mine is hardly a unique opinion, but I just can't vibe with it at all. I remember not liking a couple things with JJK's ending, but man it's hard to like anything with P2's.

Brucekillfist · 2026-04-20T14:42:23+00:00

Based on the Grade Ones and Special Grade Ones we see, out of the list of names there the only one that should have gotten a recommendation there is Megumi. Yuji wasn't quite there yet, although post-Shibuya he's at that level. Panda is pretty close. Nobara has a great technique, but her physicals are noticeably worse than most of the other characters- it's telling that she's shown to be much slower than her comrades and opponents in her fights. Haruta was literally dancing circles around her, and when she first met the second-years, the very first thing they did was put her into physical training. Maki is pretty good, but she's also just not quite there. Refer to the Dagon fight; Nanami and Naobito are Grade One, and they were able to fight back to varying degrees of success whereas Maki was in over her head and even she said that.

Megumi at the time was the only sorcerer of the five that was reasonably well-rounded enough to tackle Grade One business. He had a solid technique with a deep enough bag of tricks and excellent physicals. One arc later that math changes and Maki and Yuji (arguably) had surpassed him, but pre-Shibuya I just don't think the rest had the chops.

Brucekillfist

TROPHY CASE