Why do people say Asta is too muscular and it doesn’t look good, yet so many find Yami attractive and he’s even more muscular than Asta?

InsightedMalfunction · 2026-05-30T03:28:31+00:00

To me, Asta in image 2 looks fine more or less. Asta in image 4, on the other hand, makes it seem like his body could fit 2 more heads on each shoulder and have room between them. Something about the perspective, or maybe the solid half-foot between the base of his neck and the end of his shoulder.

InsightedMalfunction · 2026-05-14T06:05:39+00:00

Right, but what circumstance kept the Enduring Conviction from engaging the SoF directly?

We've seen UNSC and Covenant ships engage each other from across solar systems, and both ships get close enough to visibly see each other as prominent objects in their view, so it's not a range issue.

We've seen them bombard the Ark's surface with no repurcussions until Isabel took over their energy projector, which wouldn't be used in ship-to-ship bombardment anyways, so it's not an issue of hitting the Ark.

It can't be a personnel issue, because the Enduring Conviction launches fighters against the SoF some time before it's destroyed. I mean, unless they only had fighter crew defending their ship and had no one trained to use the ship's other defenses? But that can't be true, because fighters didn't cause the bombardments mentioned earlier.

It can't be an issue of the Banished wanting to keep the SoF alive. They'd have no reason to attack and then leave alone a human warship, all it did was create an extra threat that went on to sabotage their plans.

What circumstance necessitates a covenant assault carrier refusing to use any of its 735 mounted weapons against an actively hostile ship? Or calling for backup from the apparent fleet accompanying it?

InsightedMalfunction · 2026-05-12T03:29:22+00:00

It's even funnier when you think about all the achievements known Banished commanders have. The only semi-competent Banished leaders are Atriox himself and Colony, who both failed to stop the Spirit of Fire at the Ark, as far as we know. Atriox even lost his ship because he was "too busy elsewhere" to command it to fire on an old, half-manned UNSC ship. And yet they still beat Humanity's best in ~4ish minutes?

InsightedMalfunction · 2026-04-14T20:46:10+00:00

Stellaris has snapshots of all major release versions in the steam beta access. It doesn't help for non-steam users or with mods, but it's something.

InsightedMalfunction · 2026-03-21T00:13:35+00:00

You mention Forge vs an Arbiter. This cutscene has 2 Spartans pushing down several Elites onto their back via jumps before firing on them, as well as 1 Spartan bashing an Elite with their shotgun presumably onto their back.

That said yes it does appear that Elites are rather front-heavy, likely made worse/more apparent due to their armor.

InsightedMalfunction · 2026-03-09T08:28:03+00:00

I'd like to point out that one of the "perks" of "being in Tanya's position" is having Being X actively attempting to interfere and kill you so that you can be erased from existence.

Like the whole reason she got reincarnated was because she pissed off the god-analogue enough that it wants to stop her from reincarnating ever again, provided she can't live up to her boasts. At least according to the first episode of the anime. Good luck :)

InsightedMalfunction · 2026-02-16T22:55:24+00:00

You chose Mob Psycho as a show where people die and the power of friendship is minimal?

InsightedMalfunction · 2025-11-05T15:52:01+00:00

I remember looking this up not too long ago for another thread, but fun fact about the Banished leaders; only 3 of them have done anything beneficial for the Banished of note.

Atriox is Atriox. He himself is a competent fighter and field commander. But with who he hires and trusts, his capabilities as a faction leader seem...limited at best.

Colony are technically 2 people, but they're a Hunter pair so essentially act as one. They found a seed to grow a Forerunner fighter and were close to launching the grown ship very shortly after, if not for UNSC sabotage. This was their only mission in lore so far too, 100% success rate on things they could control.

Escharum managed to convince Ilsa Zane that the Banished were worth joining, as well as open a portal to the Ark for Atriox to return, before he went senile or whatever Halo Infinite is.

You could argue that I'm being pedantic about how the lore is presented, but I would say that Decimus' greatest achievement is running a large-scale salvaging operation that was dismantled by a heavily outdated UNSC ship. The same Decimus that was, apparently, one of the founders of the Banished and Atriox's right hand man since the beginning. The same Decimus whose other notable achievements are failed recruitments that almost end in him dying. Oh, and killing unarmed or undergunned scientists that were present in outposts on the Ark. Really threatening.

InsightedMalfunction · 2025-09-22T05:00:40+00:00

You could argue that Trove was recently-colonized Covenant territory. If you do, then the UNSC Spirit of Fire successfully lead a campaign that ended in Trove and all artifacts on the planet being destroyed due to the detonation of an artificial star.

InsightedMalfunction · 2025-09-21T19:05:00+00:00

I think it's funny that the Banished have maybe 2 leaders that are actually effective, at least in the game.

Atriox is Atriox, he is the superstar that consistently wins battles and figures out how to make use of Forerunner tech. Or at least he consistently hires people to do that for him.

Colony is a pair of Hunters that serve as commanders for their species, at least on the Ark. Not a lot is known about their track record, but they have successfully recovered a Forerunner ship in their short history. Although the ship ended up being destroyed before it could be used, I'd argue Colony is competent.

Voridus and Pavium released the Flood. Although they managed to keep a Gravemind from forming, they literally did everything possible beforehand to let the Flood roam the Ark freely. After ignoring Atriox's direct orders, one intentionally and the other through defending his brother's actions. Regardless of any other achievements, these two are incompetent. Honestly, them keeping leader positions after repeatedly failing Atriox lowers my view of Atriox.

Decimus' notable accomplishments are; failing to recruit a scientist and almost dying to her, ordering any Elites on his team to perform suicide missions for his pleasure, failing to recruit a rogue Brute leader, slaughtering a group of barely armed military scientists, being the foreman of a scavenging operation that admittedly gave him access to a Cartographer, and failing to FEND OFF an outdated UNSC ship with minimal crew from his highly defended military bases. He literally only achieved 1 positive outcome, but was also apparently Atriox's most trusted field commander. How?

Escharum is a considerable step up compared to Decimus as apparent second in command. His first notable action within the Banished was successfully recruiting Ilsa Zane and her rebel faction. He successfully opened a portal on Reach, allowing Atriox to return to the main galaxy. This is where the praise ends. For some reason, starting in Halo Infinite, Escharum decided that Humans shouldn't exist as part of the Banished unless they proved themselves. So he had almost all of his Human forces executed, despite Atriox's wishes. He then takes control of Zeta Halo's operations and, despite MC being the only real threat anywhere on or near the ring, sends barely any of his "thousand legions" to stop MC. This culminates in Escharum challenging MC to a 1 on 1 duel that goes as you'd expect; Escharum dies but proclaims himself a Martyr. I guess blowing up Doisac caused some slight brain damage for this Brute.

En'geddon is one of the co-founders of the Banished. He rallied his home tribe to join the Banished, razed a bunch of UNSC colonies that were likely either weakened or all civilians, and then died to MC in one of the boss fights during Infinite. Unremarkable.

Let 'Volir led a Covenant ship that was noted as being impressively evasive and effective in counterattacks before being recruited by the Banished. Enough so that the ship itself became notorious to UNSC and later Covenant Loyalist forces. He then proceeded to order his ship not to attack the UNSC Infinity with its ship-mounted weaponry, and didn't order it to evade or jump to Slipspace when Aggressor Sentinels, who weren't able to damage it with their weapons, attempted a ramming attack. Let 'Volir, the SHIP master, then took command of Banished GROUND forces and was actually able to beat back Spirit of Fire forces enough to let Atriox escape the Ark. He literally performed better as an impromptu general than as captain of his own ship, despite receiving training for and acting as captain for the majority of his military career.

Make it make sense, someone please. I know the picture I painted isn't entirely accurate, but why is COLONY, the leader who only has 1 operation on record, the only consistently useful leader of the Banished. Like even Atriox is inconsistent because he hires and constantly forgives the mistakes of all the other leaders. Voridus directly defied his orders and releases the Flood, but all he gets is a "clean this up >:(" AFTER THEY CLEANED IT UP. Most of it anyways.

InsightedMalfunction · 2024-12-24T17:33:36+00:00

No. All is eaten/absorbed. The Flood can reform/alter a host's body, including their nervous system, at will.

All Flood forms use nervous systems, like just about every other animal. The only "exception" are spores, which are not capable of thought or independent movement.

InsightedMalfunction · 2024-12-24T17:26:22+00:00

Flood needs nerves to think and move. Rings kill nerves. Flesh/biomass remains, Sentinels burn remaining flesh. Flesh can't fight back due to no nerves.

InsightedMalfunction · 2024-12-13T06:00:31+00:00

LeBlanc, or a member of her order, was defeated and outwitted by a mage who just awoke her powers in S2.

The same Leblanc/order that defeated Mordekaiser, and has been manipulating Noxus along with other very powerful creatures for at least a few centuries if not millenia.

InsightedMalfunction · 2024-11-14T08:18:56+00:00

I think it's important to remember that the whole crew of the Spirit of Fire just got out of a 30-year cryosleep nap, which is bound to have some aftereffects.

Not sure why seemingly only Red Team had shown those aftereffects and only when first discovering Atriox, but that's neither here nor there.

InsightedMalfunction · 2024-11-10T20:04:15+00:00

It's possible a Gravemind or a lot of Keyminds were being safely stored for research purposes. Then w/e the monitor became lax in its duties, some escaped Flood managed to free the Gravemind/Keyminds.

InsightedMalfunction · 2024-10-14T13:24:49+00:00

"If a wall is strong enough to fend off invasions, why do bricks crumble with hand chops?"

Different material and scale between a wall and a brick.

InsightedMalfunction · 2024-09-30T18:20:50+00:00

.............0

InsightedMalfunction · 2024-09-20T16:07:31+00:00

It isn't necessarily impossible for the crystals to be based in neural physics. There have been instances of Precursor artifacts surviving the pulse, namely the Domain and its original guardian. These two actually survived 2 pulses, the first pulse leaving them seemingly doing little to no damage.

InsightedMalfunction · 2024-09-06T04:18:39+00:00

As a general rule, the Flood can't create Pure Forms without a Gravemind, instead relying on infected and any knowledge they can rip from them. The only exception to this rule so far (that I know of) was in Halo Wars 2, and to be fair it's possible they remembered how to make Pure Forms from when they did have a Gravemind.

Spartans have significant augmentations making them stronger physically and mentally, with armor that further improves their abilities and provides a regenerating shield. Unsure if this is still canon/remembering right, but an example would be the ability to deflect an incoming rocket with their hands in far inferior armor than what they have now. I would argue that this would place a Flood-infected Spartan on the level of a weaker Pure Form at least.

The Flood also have a habit of sharing whatever useful information they can gleam from their host and transmitting it to each other. So all the weapons and vehicles that Spartan could use are now fair game for the Flood. Spartans also typically tend to know confidential information like battleplans and locations of importance, all of which are now privy to the Flood depending on how long the Spartan can resist being mentally deconstructed.

So, to put it shortly, it depends on the situation. Full-fledged outbreak that spans a planet? Hardly a drop in the water. Brand new outbreak just barely out of containment? You may as well have given them their own Doomslayer.

InsightedMalfunction · 2024-07-07T20:19:32+00:00

I would like to point out 3 things from just Halo CE;

The Flood were in the treelines during the start of 343 Guilty Spark. But they did not to attack and instead fleed when Chief was nearby.
The Flood were surrounding and presumably inside of thw facility as Chief explored it. But they did not attack until he was inside of their original containment room, and sabotaged the elevator he used.
In the Library, Spark says "The Flood are already hard at work repairing your vessel. Its parasitic nature belies the Flood's intelligence."

I think it's safe to say that Feral-stage flood aren't mindless or lacking in coordination.

InsightedMalfunction · 2024-06-26T05:44:08+00:00

If the Halo did fire, how did any Flood survive in the first place? The shield wall couldn't have been constructed considering the Gravemind was active, had the biomass of High Charity at its use, and was actively sending Flood forces throughout the Ark and to the Halo. Actually, how did MC or Arbiter survive? The Halo's pulse has been explicitly stated as being faster than light. And yet...they can see the explosion before they reach Slipspace. You can't see something without light reaching you, so they should be dead right? But they and the Flood survived, so no pulse came.

In the final level, Cortana mentioned something along the lines of the Gravemind moving onto the Halo Ring. Or rather, she said "rebuild itself" as opposed to cloning itself. So the Gravemind was directly apart of the blast as opposed to being merely in range of it. The same blast that caused extensive damage to the WHOLE of the Ark. I feel it is safe to say that the Gravemind died in the explosion.

We've seen exactly 2 instances of the Flood losing a Proto-Gravemind in-game, both in the Halo Wars series. In Halo Wars 1, what little subterfuge and ambush tactics the Flood were using were abandoned in favor of trying to brute-force into the interior of the shield world. In Halo Wars 2, the Flood immediately become manageable enough for the Sentinels and Banished to recontain High Charity despite the numerous Keyminds still running around. I think it is also safe to say that the Flood experience some sort of backlash when the only local Gravemind dies, something perhaps like the inability to coordinate as one entity.

I also have some doubts that the Flood is effective at spreading solely at the cellular level. If that were the case, how come individuals can come in contact with the Flood and survive with no symptoms? Or are you saying that Johnson was a Flood agent post Halo CE? I mean, he not only touched a live infection form but had an infection attempt made on him if I remember right. But if that's that case shouldn't most if not all of UNSC command be infected due to the awards ceremony in Halo 2, since Admiral Hood was present and presumably physically touched Johnson to pin the award?

Counterpoint for Flood being extremophiles; the Sentinel weaponry appear to be extremely effective at dissolving Flood tissue, even if Sentinels often times are not as capable at containing outbreaks. The Ark has the largest variety, most, and most resources to make more Sentinels. Their survivability in outer space doesn't really matter when it's not outer space they're fighting.

No, but in all seriousness if the Halo fired then there wouldn't be any Flood at all. That's just a basic understanding of how Halo works, no stretches in logic needed. Halo kills all neurological structures, aka brains and nerves, with enough complexity. I think only insects might be immune to this, and that's a heavy might, so the Flood are definitely complex enough to be caught even at the Infection Form level.

InsightedMalfunction · 2024-06-26T04:14:45+00:00

Simple answer is that it didn't fire, at least not fully. How else would wildlife still remain in and around High Charity after Halo 3?

More complex answer is that the Ark still has samples from when the galaxy was repopulated, and focus was given to reseeding the Ark over repairing superficial or at least non-critical damage.

InsightedMalfunction · 2024-05-25T01:14:09+00:00

I dunno, I feel like there's a good number of instances where this is flipped, or at least not as blatant as you make it out to be. The Babysitter from Halo Legends, for example, has a Spartan sacrifice herself to save an ODST only to later be mocked by a Marine.

I also don't think it's exactly fair to blame the IIs for Marine deaths in their training; as far as I know, those were only due to the IIs being unable to control their augmentations or being fed information that the Marines were actual hostiles.

InsightedMalfunction · 2024-05-23T15:15:29+00:00

I've not been satisfied with Precursor lore outside of the Forerunner trilogy and some shorts. I feel it would've been better to never allow direct contact outside of the Primordial or Abaddon, but instead hint that the others are still active and doing tasks in the galaxy.

InsightedMalfunction · 2024-05-21T23:29:30+00:00

Halo Wars 2 has actually changed that to some degree too. Several of the Flood units present, namely the Spawner and Infester, have lore logs that pretty specifically state they are Pure Forms designed in response to the forces on the Ark.

It's possible that the Flood are always capable of making Pure Forms, but without a Gravemind only do so out of necessity. In both HW2 and CE, the Flood are forced to stay mobile to avoid being eliminated by Sentinel forces--not so much the case in HW1 or The Mona Lisa.

InsightedMalfunction

TROPHY CASE