Happy Birthday Thor

Today is the birthday of my friend who goes online as Thor Gundersen1058. To celebrate this day, I have made a list of my favorite 5 moments from series that he introduced me too.

5: Diana defends the Cavendish Legacy (Little Witch Academia Episode 20: "Intellect and Sensibility")

The setup: Akko is a clumsy witch who heavily struggles with magic and Diana is the witch at the top of her class, who comes from a prestigous background. Diana suddenly leaves school, with Akko following, sensing her inner distress. At Diana's residence it's revealed her family have sold their precious family heirlooms and don't believe in Diana's ability to be the new head of their family after her mother's death. Diana attempts to take the mantle as leader of the family to protect her family's legacy but her aunt traps her so she won't be able to complete the ritual in time to take the family title. Akko tries to save her but gets poisoned for her troubles. Diana takes her to a secret hospital and tells her of the Cavendish Legacy: a legacy of witches who selflessly gave of themselves to others, who didn't delinate between friend and foe and healed who they could.

Why I love it: When Diana was introduced I thought she was going to be a fairly stereotypical Shojo character, the talented school bully who torments our lead over her inability. Not only is she not that, she is easily my favorite character in the series. It's revealed in this ep that Diana herself had no ability to do magic at first and only attained it by endless practice and toil. Diana, despite her stoic exterior is trying to live up to her mother's legacy, a mother who selflessly gave of herself to others.

I find Diana's struggle painfully relatable, the struggle to live up to a maternal figure who is endless altrustic and giving. I am compassionate, but I am not trusting easily and I could not imagine how someone could make oneself so vulnerable to being used or exploited. Diana's struggle of trying to live up to such an ideal was so immediatly sympathetic, and her family's degradation of their family name filled me with such internal disdain for them that when the decisoin came for Diana to complete the ritual or let them suffer, I wanted her to just leave them. But....magically both she and I understood that doing so would also be a degradation of the family name. This is why even though she does not gain control of the family, the spirit of Beatrix the foremother of their family appeared before her and showed her approval. I love this part because it feels very compelling to me, and the message is something I have tried to get better at. 

4: Danny saves Jazz (Danny Phantom Episode 9: "My Brother's Keeper")

The setup: Danny is a teenage ghost superhero. A ghost named Spectra, who feeds off the misery of teenagers to stay young, has inflitrated their school as a counselor. She manipulates people into hating themselves and thinking bad about themselves by picking on their insecurities until everyone in the school save Danny's older sister Jazz is effected. Jazz is constantly trying to be supportive to Danny, who she knows is the superhero but he doesn't know she knows, but Danny keeps pushing her away. Danny figures out what's going on and confronts Spectra who is beating him for a second time revealing she is going to kill Jazz at the spirit festival so that their misery will keep her young forever.

Why I love it: As a teenager, I didn't have a good time in school. I mercilessly deprecated myself, every little thing I did was more evidence of how terrible I was. However, the one thing that always helped me get out of it temporarily was my loved ones, was thinking about how I needed to be stronger for them now. Danny is trapped and thinks to himself, and I love how he says this, "I am so tired of you dumping on me. And I am so tired of dumping on myself...Jazz never did that to me, even when I was mad at her...and I won't let her down!" I felt chills at him saying he was tired of dumping on himself, of not liking who he was. 

Jazz's love for her younger brother being the constant that let him rise above his insecurites I thought was really heartwarming and my favorite moment in the show. I especially like it because I too have a younger brother. And it just continues on perfectly with Jazz using the Fenton Peeler to save Danny from Spectra afterwards, reassuring him without letting him know she knows his secret and the bit at the end with the double meaning when Mr Lancer says "They got their spirit back" with the usage of the word spirit meaning both the ghost superhero Danny Phantom and also spirit as in the fullness of life.

3: A flower brings back Wander's hope (Wander over Yonder Episode 42B: "The Flower")

The setup: Galactic Destroyer Lord Dominator has destroyed most of the galaxy, sending Wander the beacon of hope and kindness for the galaxy into despair. Sylvia, his trusted friend and steed thinks that if Wander loses hope then the entire galaxy loses hope and finds a flower to try and help him. The flower has a hard time surviving in the chaos of what has become the galaxy and becomes a metaphor for their dying hope, and so Wander and Sylvia try to find a place it can grow. They travel across the galaxy trying different planets, but each place is inhospitable for a new reason, and a small bit of the flower breaks off each place. Lord Dominator shows up and starts killing the flower. Wander and Sylvia escape but the flower is dead however Wander is moved by Sylvia's attempts regardless and regains his sense of hope.

Why I love it: The entire episode in my opinion builds up to one incredible, beautiful moment. As Wander and Sylvia leave into the depths of the galaxy, ready to face what comes, the camera shows all the planets that the flower visited and the small parts of it, seeds, begin to grow. This one moves me to tears seeing it. From the many sufferings of the flower, the entire galaxy begins to bloom again. We live in this world of suffering and toil and it's easy to say there's no point to it all, that we strive towards nothing. This is the heart of what it means to lose hope. But sometimes the results of what you strive towards are not immediatly visible, but instead cause life to bloom far beyond what can be imagined. A parent will struggle all their life to provide a single moment of solace for their children. Countless heroes have gone before us, who names and struggles can never be known, but who nonethless have created this beauty we see around us. 

Everything else about the immediate lead up to this moment is perfect as well. Dominator is one of my favorite cartoon villains, and this is her best appearence in my view. She is both a destroyer of galaxies and someone who will take the time to crush out the littlest of hopes and life purely out of spite. She is archetypal destruction. She actually suffers her first defeat in this, the penultimate episode. The mighty Dominator, undone by the humble flower and a bit of hay fever. It's both comical and beautiful, as Sylvia puts it, hay fever is not a great long term strategy but it is hope, symbolically Dominator's defeat sets the stage for the end of the episode and the finale, showing that the great darknesses shall be undone by the nameless tiny procession of small things doing their part.

2: Jack's parents watch over him (Samurai Jack Episode 19: "Episode XIX: Jack Remembers the Past")

The setup: A Samurai dubbed "Jack" is flung into the future by the demonic Aku. He travels the land to find ways to return to the past and slay Aku. While there he comes across his home, long destroyed and decrept. He wanders across this land, lost in memories of happy times in the past until he sees people are in need and runs off.

Why I love it: The last moment of this episode is so incredibly perfect. The entire episode has cuts back and forth from Jack's vision and what he currently sees. You can see the happiness of notalgia and the pain of seeing what has become of his home. It's really hard to see this...I am a creature of habit and nostalgia and one of the hardest days of my life was leaving my childhood home. The episode is quieter then normal, allowing one to feel the heavy pain Jack is carrying. It makes one question about the seemingly infinite degrading power of time. It makes everything one can know turn to ruin. What purpose then is there then? Is there nothing that persists across time.

And then there's the last moment. As Jack leaves to help, it cuts back to a memory where it shows Jack's parents loving smiling over their son and is framed such that they are looking at Jack as an adult again running to help those in need. What persists beyond time; the greatest palaces will fade to dust, but the spirits of those that have taught will live in us, their love across time is what will raise us up. I try so hard to live up to the ideals set by those that have come before, I get the pain Jack felt, and I get why we struggle forth regardless. We carry the spirit of all those who have come before us in our actions and in our nobility. Watching this was a very bizarre experience for me, as it was one of the first western cartoons I had seen in a long time. When I saw it, it felt like, to be honest, felt like they could actually understand. 

1: Father Time's view of history (Star vs. The Forces of Evil Episode 9A: "Freeze Day")

The setup: Star Butterfly is a magical girl princess from Mewni who came to Earth to live with the Diaz family in order to for her to train. The son of the Diaz family Marco Diaz is a very responsible, overly safety conscious boy Star's age who quickly befriends her. One day they are running late causing Marco to be in a panic. To solve this dilemma, Star freezes time, only for them to find out she can't unfreeze it. They travel to the plains of time to find that freezing time has allowed Father Time to escape. They chase him across the plains of time where they come to a place where all history is recorded. An eye looks upon people there and shows their history.

Why I love it: Ever since I was young, I've loved magical girl series. Magical Girl series are at their best I find when they are shamanistic, when they are about the personal interacting with the transpersonal, the higher plane, like the concept of time. In magical girl series, the main girl usually represents something and the series will be about expressing why that thing is important in the world. At the time of this I found western culture pretty strange, to be honest. It seemed chaotic and blunt and like people took unnecesary risks a lot. 

During this episode, when the eye shows the history of Star it shows her being how we've seen her all series, she engages in adventure daily, she lives a life full of fun and danger and embraces the chaos. The eye turns to Marco and it shows him doing the same thing every day, he constantly signals to Jackie but never moves forward, trapping himself in stasis. After seeing this he says in a double meaning I love "Wow, I've been nodding a long time" referring to both the physical act of nodding which is his daily routine, and also nodding as in sleeping, as in not being awake or aware of what's going. They find Father Time, and the eye examines him and you see him exist in an eternity, a complete perfect cycle of never-ending procession. Seeing time from the perspective of time itself, you can feel the distress of perfect stasis, the pain of unending non-change, order out of control. It explains why Father Time was so delighted at sensation, he delighed even in mud, archetypally the gross and unpleasurable just because it was some sensation. I've read Dante, and Dante is called the heart of the western canon. In Dante the final deeper pit of Hell is frozen over, it is endless and complete stasis and silence and stillness, a never-ending non-change. I see reflection in this, I see that the excess of order leads one to move closer to the archetypal eternity that torments even time.

This episode showed me what Star represents and why it's important, the sense of life and adventure....moreover it showed me why the west does what it does. And it did this in my own language of magical girls. It made me question the constancy with with I try to attain. It was one of the first series, and one of the first episodes of that series, shown to be my friend Thor, a patron of the west and it's cartoons. In his spirit I see that same spirit I felt in this episode, I feel the presence of a culture that is full of creativity and imagination and a vibratic chaotic energy of life and not sterility. A spirit of youthfulness that embraces each day with hope and optimism. The Star Butterfly to my Marco Diaz as it were. 

Happy Birthday Thor. I hope that in each day we progress together, I will have that spirit with me. 

Magical Girl Series for the Halloween Season

 

Well it's the October Season, which means it's almost time for Halloween. Halloween is traditionally said to be the day when the mortal realm and the other realm, the supernatural realm are at their closest. Magical Girls, as a genre, are in a sense about this divisionaso it should not be surprising there has been some link between them. Even since Sally the Witch first appeared as a cute witch figure, it would be clear there would be some link between Halloween imagery and MG imagery. This is going to be a countdown of some magical girl series that are generally good for the Halloween Season.

Honorable Mention:

Tokimeki Tonight: 

So this would easily be on the list if it was a magical girl series, though it technically isn't by my standards as the magical powers aren't associated with femininity in any way. Ranze is a girl in a family of spooky monsters; her father is a vampire and her mother is a werewolf. They want her to marry a boy from the demon kingdom but she's in love with a human classmate of hers called Shun. There's a lot of classic Halloween monsters in this tangled love story.

5: Magical Girls of the End (International Title: Magical Girl Apocalypse)

Most of the series are magical girl with a spooky halloween flavor over it. If you want something that's the inverse, a horror series with a magical girl flavor over it, this is the closest thing. The series plays as an occult mystery series. One day strange otherworldy girls, dark magical girls, appear and begin killing people and reviving them as zombie minions, bringing about the end of the world. The characters endeavor to try and find the source of this mayhem. If you want to actually be scared by something magical girl-y, this probably has the best bet. 

4: Black Rock Shooter

If you want something with a dark aesthetic and actiony, but not quite as grim as the above, you could try Black Rock Shooter, a rather ethereal magical girl franchise with a gothic aesthetic. It's a bit hard to talk about the franchise as a whole, as like Cutey Honey it's got 10,000 adaptations and alternate universes. I think the otherworldy feel of the 2009 OVA might work for the season, although also popular in the 2012 anime, made by the same guy who made KLK and popular with the same demographic as RWBY so if you're a fan of either of those that could be a good choice. 

3: Cute Witch Sisters Yoyo and Nene

This one is a magical girl film from 2013. The film is about cute witch sisters Yoyo and Nene. Yoyo gets trapped in the human world and tries to break a curse there, while Nene back in their magic world tries to help her break the curse and potential save the world. It's a very cute film, and it has a lot of Halloween imagery. If you're a fan of Kiki's Delivery Service, you'll probably like this.

2: Tweeny Witches

Too cutesy for you? You could try this, which is perhaps the creepiest magical girl work. Little Arusu is obsessed with magic and the occult, and is quite excited when she falls into the magical realm. However the magical realm is a much darker place then she anticipates. Will she master magic and change the cruel rules of magical realm or fall into darkness herself? Series plays as a dark alice in wonderland type adventure. If you want a cute witch series that is creepy but ultimately not depressing this would be a good Halloween series.

1: Sugar Sugar Rune

As soon as I started this list, I knew this was going to be number 1. Sugar Sugar Rune is about two witch girls that are best friends but area also competitors for the throne of the witch world to capture the hearts of human males. Because their world operates on Halloweentown logic, the scary Chocolate was much more popular with boys back home then her much tamer meeker friend Vanilla, but in the human world their role is reversed. This is cute fun adventure story about the friendship between the two main girls with pleasent of classic witch imagery. It's not particularly scary but it captures the Halloween spirit the same way "The Monster Mash" does: it's a story of the fun adventures these "spooky" monsters get up to on their own time. 

How they compare: Mr. World (American Gods)

 

Since time immemorial mankind has whispered and yelled at each other of great forces that control the world...that ARE the world. The ancients called these gods, and we refer to them so much more "enlightened" as idealogies, presuming they do not have wills of their own. But in this codependent relationship, do the humans control the idealogies, or are they possed by the gods.

Mr World is the primary antagonist of American Gods, the leader and strongest of the New Gods representing the new forces worshipped by modern society. He represents in positive terms capitalistic achievement and more negatively corporate exploitation and inevitable globalism. His motives are mysterious but for his sheer power he is feared by old gods and new gods alike.

Mr World is clearly immensely more powerful then nearly or all other gods, feared by the old and new gods alike and able to grant them greater power at will. This should make him vastly then the Zorya Sisters, a trio of the old slavic goddesses, one of whom moved the moon at relativistic speeds calced at being large planet level before turning into a coin. However this is a lowballed version of him.

American Gods strongly suggests that all myths are true so long as enough belief in the god in the myth exists. This includes numerous universal feats from mythology and even within the book the Zorya Sisters were able to trap and keep Simargl who would consume the universe trapped in the Big Dipper constellation. As such he may be as strong as universal.

Speed is somewhat irrelevant to Mr. World but he is likely comparable to Mr Wednesday, who is actually the old god Odin who can attack with lightning and if you scale him to mythological feats there are feats of the Greek Mythological being Typhon traveling at relativistic speeds.

Mr. World as a god is actually a platonic abstract force that naturally exists "Backstage", a platonic archetypal realm behind reality. From there he can manipulate his own concept, the concept of globalization and all forms of capitalism. His pure abstract self passively freezes time for all other entites. Mr. World can project avatars into reality from the backstage, making him basically nigh-omnipresent. 

These avatars can be as weak a a human or strong as he is and have a large variety of powers. He can easily warp reality to brainwash people, with which he can make his concept stronger by increasing people's belief in him, and warp matter (likely better then the Zorya Sisters who despite being weak gods sealed Simargl into the constellations and turned the moon into a coin) or delete it from existence. He like all new gods can casually control technology and the data within. He can also enter or exit into digital worlds at will. He also has a degree of cosmic awareness, seeing through every screen in America at once. His awareness has grown to such an extent that he knows almost everything about everyone at once, for all is written in the book of life that he has read. This means he knows everything they have ever done. He was even able to determine Mr. Wednesday's growing power, showing he has awareness of the abilities of beings. 

He has telekinesis which he can use to move things from a distance or levitation and can physically create illusions, such as Shadow all the things the New Gods could do for him if he allied with them, or disguise his form, such as turning into computer pixels. He can teleport or create pocket dimensions where he controls the rules within.   He can grant power to other gods or possess them (and presumably non-gods) if he wants.

As a new god, his concept is particularly flexible and can adapt to survive giving him a conceptual elasticity and malleability. Also as a god, he is can resist the powers of every other god in the series, giving him resistance to a vast string of abilities including basically every ability he has shown.

Gods in return have a weakness however, where their power and to an extent even their reality is somewhat dependent on having people believe in them. This is not a particular weakness of Mr. Wednesday who is probably the most believed in god of the setting. Also they are not Aristolean, even if they have no followers they will not disappear, though their power will be vastly diminished. They will only die if they kill themselves, symbolic of even them losing faith in themselves. 

Name: Mr. World, Globalism

Origin: American Gods

Classification: Anthromorphic Concept of Globalism and Capitalism, Leader of the New Gods

Powers and Abilities: Platonic Concept, Passive Time Stop, Conceptual Manipulation (Globalization), Avatar Creation, Mind Manipulation, Illusions, Possession, Matter Manipulation/Creation, Existence Erasure, can grow in power with his believers, Immersion, Technopathy, Global Awareness/Enhanced Sensory Perception, Levitation, Telekinesis, Shapeshifting, Dimensional Manipulation, Conceptual malleability, resistance to the abilities of every god including himself, possibly sealing

Weaknesses: Power level is dependent on his believers

Destructive Capacity: At least Large Planet Level, possibly Universal

Range: at least Planetary

Speed: True Self exists outside physical spacetime

Durability: At least Large Planet Level, possibly Universal

Stamina: Infinite, so long as he has believers

Standard Equipment: None Notable

Intelligence: Global Cosmic Awareness

So how would he do in other verses?

In the DC Universe, Mr. World would be very similar to a weaker Sphere of the Gods entity. As such he would be quite troublesome to fight, although not impossible. While his powers would make him a dangerous threat, especially if he is universal, making him as strong as one of the big-name members of the Justice League, the DC Earth has fought numerous beings like him, like Blight. Him being a conceptual isn't too big a trouble as 7 normal DC Mages could effect conceptual and Nightmare Nurse was able to fight beings made of conceptual void.

Mr. World could be a dangerous threat, partcicularly if he does his normal schtick of staying in the background and manipulating things to his advantage, but the more haxy magic-users could do things like seal him, or Wonder Woman could use her godwave blade to kill him. Passive Time Stop is tough but again that's something 3 high tier mages in DC can do on a multiversal scale so it shouldn't be unstoppable. Overall he'd be a strong villain but not unstoppable.

In the Marvel Universe, Mr. World would also be in the low herald tier in raw power, or high skyfather if you use the universal highball. On the other hand, he'd be an absolute nightmare due to his abilities. His casual planetary scale technopathy and technological sensing would absolutely mess up a much large proportion of their metahumans. His mystical abilities would be a lot harder for the Marvel Universe to fight. Passive Universal Time Stop is something most Skyfathers would struggle to fight let alone the champions of the Earth. Not to mention his conceptual existence which is consistently something that takes one of the strongest mages of the verse to do anything against.

A strong enough marvel psychic, assuming they react fast enough to not be time frozen could brainwash every single person on Earth to not believe in Mr World, but even then it would mostly be a stalemate until Mr World finds them and erases them or they can find some way to hit his conceptual form, which I don't feel comfortable they would be able to do. You would probably need a conceptual cube level being before being able to consistently beat Mr. World. The best characters in the marvel verse to be able stop Mr World on Earth would probably be Dr. Strange and Ghost Rider.

In the Riordan-verse, Mr World would be between the Demigods and the major gods who can create constellations at will in terms of raw power. That said he has a much stronger abstract existence then the Riordan-verse gods who can become too weak to manifest without believers if their domain is weakened and do not exist in a conceptual realm instead existing as incorporate essance which can be scattered to destroy them.

In a straight up fight, many of the major gods of the Riordan-verse would probably be able to beat Mr World in a straight up fight due to massively higher stats, lowballing him, and some hax abilites he wouldn't be able to resist such as Zeus' power removal. However he could simply pit them against each other like a lot of their villains too which he threatens to convince the world to turn against the old gods. This is a similar plan to his one in American Gods, however without access to the backstage, the gods of this verse would not have warning or ability to survive. Overall, he would be a major threat and need to be stopped.

The High School DxD-verse is sort of an opposite scenario. In High School DxD, they get up to planet level from character beings stated numerous times to be able to destroy the world and up to FTL speeds from people being faster then Vali who is stated many times to be able to move the speed of light. If you say Mr. World is Relativistic Large Planetary then it would actually be sort of even. The verse has an immense about of haxes and abilities, some of which Mr. World can resist, some of which he can't, like greater dimensional manipulation, power reflection, anti-magic etc. 

Mr. World's best chance of winning this one is quickly overwhelming them with his godly intelligence, and nigh-omnipresence which to be fair is a very likely possibility. He would be an immense and immediate threat to the verse, but it's likely if he's not stopped quickly someone there will be able to find some ability that can be used to stop him.

In the Hercules and Xena verse, Mr World would be incredibly powerful, more then most gods, and nearly at the level of the Fates who are low stellar from from violently destroying the Earth, although far below the god of love that created the universe. However he would not be nearly as strong as usual if he somehow found himself there as he would exist in a world pre-globalism and with limited capitalism, and without advanced technology. While he would be an impressive villain for sure, his hax would not actually be as strong as normal, as gods of the verse have comparable dimensional hax and evne better time hax, not just having time freeze, but also time loops, time rewinding and other forms of time manipulation.

His powers would be for the most part, actually fairly standard with the exception of his platonic nature which would make him nigh-unkillable. He would become pretty much an immediate long term villain, manipulating the world to try and make it a modern world, accelerating globalistic capitalistic tendencies where he could.

The Japanese word that causes problems for vs debating

 There's a word in Japanese that I have found causes signifigant problems in vs debating, not that it should mind you, just that people are exploiting the world's ambiguity to massively wank certain verses. This is a word that if you are going to be debating Japanese verses you may wish to know. This word is 世界 or "Sekai". Literally translated this means "world" and that translation is generally perfect.

You may notice the word "world" is somewhat imprecise and in the same way so too is "sekai." When you say "world" what comes to mind? Most likely what comes to mind is the planet Earth. However "world" can mean smaller things. If a 10 kilometer meteor was going to hit the Earth you would say it's "the end of the world" but in reality it would not end the planet, just most life on the planet. You can make reference to various types of world: the world of sports, the prehistoric world, the Islamic world etc. or use it in sayings such as "a world of difference between". You can also, less commonly, use world to mean something bigger then the planet. such as the universe or indeed the multiverse if you say "change is a constant in this world." The general theme here is that when you say world you mean the totality of something, in other words it's everything comprising a subset. "Sekai" functions virtually identically. When you say "sekai" the primary meaning is the planet Earth but you can use it to mean society or various subsets of the Earth (you could say a fish for instances lives in the world of a lake) or use it to mean something bigger like macrocosmic structures. 

Here's the problem: it's a usually intentionally amibigous word. It is not specific enough to use in the way people are trying to use it. There's a clear double standard here some are using. Let me tell you what this would be like if you were to use world in the same way sekai is used. There's a point during Infinite Crisis where Post-Crisis Superman and Golden Age Superman fight and their fight creates a blow that shatters the "world". They're fighting over the universe so this definitely means it should be at least a universal feat. But DC's world is way larger then a universe so it's an archetypally infinite feat.

Except no, that's completely ignoring the ambiguity of the word "world". Some people recognize this double standard but go the other way and say yep, that's a universal feat right there. I'm saying the inverse. There's a lot of times I can see where people are taking Japanese works where the word "sekai" is used and scaling that to the maximum extent of the verse regardless of the ambiguity of the word "sekai". Most times you see the word "world" by itself in a Japanese work it is translated from "sekai" and to keep that ambiguity means it should be at most planetary. There's a very common type of this where people take two seperate statements that contain the word "sekai" and then put them together to mean something that if it was in English would never be taken as evidence. Here's an example.

"The Demon World has different seas, continents, skies and stars to your reality."

"Quick! Stop him! He is threatening the Demon World!"

This is a random example that I use just to seperate from pre-conceptions. The person analyzing will take the first statement to say the Demon World is multi-stellar in size and the second to say the character is multi-stellar. But that's ignoring that "world of demons" is as ambigious as saying the world of humans and that world can be used in two different ways in two different statements. The second statement I would read as at most planetary and possibly just meaning a threat to all life there.

Try and interpret foreign works as close as possible to how you would interpret your own and don't try and read additional meaning into words. Japanese has it's own ways of saying universe ("Uchu") and multiverse ("Tagen uchu") and most times if the writer wants to say universe or multiverse, they will use those specific words for it. 

The reason this is a sore spot for me is I like to debate Sailor Moon and have history with this tactic because of it. A long time ago, people constantly downplayed SM by saying words didn't mean what they literally meant. There's a statement in SM that the Lambda Power "restores everything to the static cosmos". People would then throw at me "Sailor Moon takes places in the galaxy so cosmos here means galaxy" even though cosmos literally means universe. Now people are doing the same tactic but in reverse, including for Sailor Moon. They'll say "Sailor Moon's cosmology includes alternate universes so cosmos means multiverse" even though again Cosmos literally means universe. I try and stick as close as possible to the words in the text.

The Kardashev Scale of Civilizations

In 1964 the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev created a system with which we could assess the rough capability of any extraterrestrial civilization we came across. This system was expanded, mostly by Carl Sagan, into the current Kardashev Scale, a scale that can be used to determine how advanced a civilization is. We use this in versus debating to get a rough idea of who would win in a fight between two civilizations by comparing how technologically advanced they are (although this is not always the only factor), and I have long suggested that we use this as a way of assessing a character's intelligence. Specifically we say that with time to prepare a character can reliably create technology indicitave of a civilization of Kardeshev Scale X.

The Scale is based on the wattage of the civilization, or how many joules per second it produces. It is a logarithmnic scale, meaning that every 0.1 higher means the civilization produces 10 times the energy of the previous type. This means a Type 2 civilization produces 10^10 times more joules per second as does a Type 3 civilization over a Type 2 civilization. 

I'm going to go over a few civilization levels, and what you might expect from them to give a better intuitive sense of them. This is as far as I know, I'm not a scientist.

Type 0.1 (1e6 Watts, or about 1,000,000 joules produced per second):

When you get very primitive the system starts to struggle because biological creatures naturally produce chemical energy to do things. Generally a Type 0.1 civilization is a civilization with simple tools; things like spears, basically sharpened sticks, or like clothing. Fire is a big thing for one of these civilizations, and if you see a civilization has fire but it still caveman-ish, it's probably somewhere between Type 0.1 and Type 0.2

Type 0.25 (~3.1e7 Watts):

It is estimated that the Roman Empire at it's peak was a Type 0.25 civilization. The Roman Empire was a civilization that dominated most of it's continent, and had techology such as aqueducts, large structures and cities, and advanced weapons of war like ballista. My guess is that earlier metal age civilizations would be type 0.2 civilizations lower in type 0.2 while type 0.3 civilizations would be perhaps later civilizations in the middle ages with the invention of steel. This should be the range of most fantasy civilizations that take place in the pre-gunpowder ages.

Type 0.5 (1e10 Watts):

The Earth seems to have reached Type 0.5 during the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s to the early 1800s. This had the invention of steam and coal based energy, numerous empires which encompassed sizable portions of the Earth, trains which can transport across cities consistently, telepagrath communications, elecitricity to light up cities and so forth.

Type 0.73 (1.84e13 Watts):

As of 2018, Humanity's energy production was 1.84e13 watts, or Type 0.73, which is the current standard for a Modern civilization. As a side note we apparently reached Type 0.7 (1e13 watts) in the 1970s.

Type 0.75 (3.1e13 Watts):

This is what I generally use for "Near-Future" civilizations where it's basically our level of technology but just a bit more advanced, with a few more gadgets perhaps. Things like going to mars, global internet, genome altering, bigger satelites, and so forth.

Type 1 (1e16 Watts):

A civilization capable of harnessing all the energy of their homeworld. The amount of solar radiation that hits the Earth is somewhere in the range of 1e16 and 1e17 watts. A Type 1 civilization has technology we can understand the dynamics of fine generally but on scale we could not possibly get or involves fields of understanding we currently don't understand but we understand a prototypical form. They would make us look like the Industrial Revolution by comparison, or the Industrial Revolution look like the Roman Empire. Not unrecognizable per se, but clearly far more rudimentary. A Type 1 civilization is generally assumed to have access to technologies like weather manipulation, advanced robots (though not neccesarily AI) to take care of human needs, fusion-based power sources, virtual reality, universal translators for human languages, colonies on nearby moons or worlds, asteroid mining, creation of new species and so forth. Technology that seems feasible, but currently outside our capability. It is estimated we will reach this level of civilization in 100-200 years.

Type 2 (1e26 Watts):

A civilization capable of controlling their local star system. Harnassing a signifigant fraction of a main sequence star would reach this civilization as the sun produces 4e26 Watts. A Type 2 civilization would make a type 1 civilization look like Type 0 proto-humans by comparison with technologies beyond our current understanding, though which do not break our understanding of the physics fundamentally.  It is assumed by some this may be the level of civilization at which creating artificial but real "intelligence" or sentience. In other words fully aware androids. By energy production creations like the dyson sphere are possible, though highly difficult, and terraforming planets for hability should be possible. Other technology that is associated with this level generally includes teleportation, conciousness uploading, interstellar exploration and colonization, forcefields, manipulation of antimatter, some level of spatial warping, and often by extension of the last two some degree of ftl technology, if by bending the rule of lightspeed travel rather then breaking it. It is estimated we shall reach this level of civilization in a few thousand years.

Type 3 (1e36 Watts):

A galactic scale civilization. The energy given off by the entire galaxy is estimated at 4e37 watts so this is a civilization using a sizeable portion of the galaxy's energy. Such a civilization can do everything the prior civilizations can do on a much larger scale obviously, like many dyson spheres encompassing much of the galaxy's stars. A civilization like this could literally build planetary sized structures and weapons that could easily destroy planets in single moments (the energy to destroy the Earth for instance is 2e32 joules, while this level of civilization would be able to produce 5,000 times that energy each second). Such a civilization is likely approaching the ability to create and destroy stars themselves. Technology becomes hard to predict for a civilization that could be to the Type 2, what a Type 2 is to a Type 1. Fiction tends to depict civilizations of this type with technology like biologically engineering people to have metahuman abilities, time travel, inter-galactic travel, the ability to manipulate black holes and white holes, manipulation of time on a cosmic scale, and the ability to manipulate consciousness or thoughts via technology. It is estimated that we will reach this level in somewhere between 100,000 to a million years.

Type 4 (1e46 Watts):

Universal Civilization. It is unknown exactly but this seems to be around the power output of the visible universe. A Type 4 civilization is a civilization that has control of over the entire universe. Speculative technology at this level becomes almost entirely unpredictable as they would be like gods to us but in general a civilization of this type is speculated to be able to manipulate the fundamental forces of the universe themselves, so it would be technology like changing the value of gravity or increasing the psychic power of all people.

Type 5 (1e56+ Watts)

A civilization of Type 5 is obviously a multiversal civilization of some degree and is hypothetically the highest you can get. A civilization of such a type would be able to alter possibility of realities instead of just the status of one reality, changing the abstract nature of how things manifest as opposed to just a single reality's laws.

I should note that very often a civilization can do some things of a higher type. A Type 2.9 civilization is closer to Type 3 then a Type 2 and maybe I'll make a much extended version of this detailing the various subtypes. In general you can think of most civilizations in fiction as being between type x and type y based on how much they have colonized and control over; 1 being a planetary system, 2 being a stellar system, 3 being a galactic system, 4 being a universal system, and 5 being a multiversal system. This can be extended backwards, with a Type 0.75 civilization having control of all the landmass of it's planet, a type 0.5 having numerous continental empires, Type 0.25 controlling a small continent sized area, Type 2 controlling a country sized region, type 1.5 controlling a city-sized region, and type 1 controlling a small local territory. 

How they compare: Dr. Neo Cortex (Crash Bandicoot)

 

Neo Periwether Cortex was born to a group of funloving circus folk. Born with an abnormally large intellect, and not wanting to perform in a circus, just wanting to read his science books, caused him to be an outcast among his people, leading to a group of evil circus performers tattooning an "N" on his forehead for "Nerd"....at the age of 3. Sometime after this event during his childhood, Cortex's family died in a "mysterious" explosion and he enrolled himself in Madame Amberly's Academy of Evil where he began to develop his skills as a mad scientist.

The mad Dr. Cortex was motivated primarily by fear and an inferiority complex derived from his constant outcasting and being made fun of during his early youth. When even his other evil colleagues laughed at his ideas he engaged in a mad attempt to take over the world to prove his ideas' superiority.

This led him to create a secluded base in secluded islands off Australia where he would attempt to create an army of mutant animals to act as his army. Unfortunately the one who was meant to be the general of his army turned out to be not so bright and furthermore totally chaotic and unpredictable. This was Crash Bandicoot and the start of a long rivalry of Crash foiling Dr. Cortex's schemes for global domination.

In terms of physical capacity, Dr. Cortex is....well he's usually treated as a complete joke. He is, and always will be, a science nerd and can be physically beaten by almost any member of the Crash Bandicoot cast. That said he's not so drastically below he would not be able to scale. When he's gotten very angry he's been able to physically equal Crash Bandicoot. And while he can be beaten up fairly easily, he's hard to keep down. He can take a lot of abuse from even the stronger fighters of the verse showing his durability should definitely scale.

Now the scaling everyone tends to do is that Crash was able to fight Crunch using the power of the Elemental Masks which can do things like create large storms and volcanic eruptions and thus scale to city level. This is fine as a low ball, although there's a lot of evidence suggesting the verse's fighters could be higher. Not only have the elemental masks been stated to demolish mountains and be able to ravage the globe but one caused an ice age across the Earth, the water Mask Wa-Wa's mission is to flush the world clean, and the Earth Mask Rok-Ko is stated in the guide to have created a tremor that knocked the Earth off it's axis, which would take planetoid levels of force. Hyperbole? Perhaps, but this may be a consistent high end when taking into account the fact that 5 crystals are needed to equal the power of each Mask, and the 25 power crystals together powered a machine, the Minimizer, that effected and massively shrunk the Earth.

In terms of speed, Cortex again scales to Crash who not only has numerous lightning-timing feats but was able to react to the Minimizer whose power quickly engulfed the Earth, suggesting high end massively hypersonic speeds.

Dr. Neo Cortex is a supergenius able to create advanced robots and machines, mutant animals for his army, and created inter-dimensional technology since he was 8. His intelligence is advanced to the point that he is aware of the fact that he is in a game and has broken the fourth wall at a few points. While it has doesn't much good, he's also trained in ninja martial arts.

Cortex's intellect is best judged by his advanced technology. Some equipment is fairly standard for Cortex. This includes his standard death ray which depending on what setting is in on can be a standard energy ray or palaysis beam, but can also induce happiness, set someone on fire, or induce instant death. He also has various forms of mobility machines including a hoverboard, a jetpack and a short range teleporter. He has an energy shield passively surrounding him and tends to use various forms of explosives like mines, bombs, or TNT. 

He has shown other devices that are likely not standard but probably wouldn't take too long for him to remake. This includes cloning devices, sound and energy attacks, inter-dimensional technology, gravity machines, various power suits, and more.

His crowning invention is probably the minimizer, though this is something that took signifigant prep to make and is not standard equipment. By harnessing the power of the 25 power crystals, the minimizer shrunk the Earth small enough to fit in Cortex's hand. When it malfuncted it also showed the ability to fuse entities together creating a much stronger entity.

Cortex also invented a formula to mutate him into a massive mutant form, increasing his stats to make him much stronger then those he is normally comparable or weaker too. This form was so strong that he emanated energy and created shockwaves with his attacks.

Finally, Cortex's greatest strength is probably his own endurance. He regularly takes beating from people vastly stronger then him for comedic purposes. He can survive being in space, having his brain taken out (he simply put it back in), and being flattened completely. 

In terms of weaknesses, Cortex is a basket case, plagued by neurosis and is a bit of a comical figure, reckless and short-tempered. Also he relies heavily on his technology which can have their own weaknesses, like his ray gun having limited ammo.

Name: Dr. Neo Periwinkle Cortex

Origin: Crash Bandicoot

Classification: Mad Scientist, Nerd

Powers and Abilities: Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Supergenius Intellect, Fourth Wall Breaking, Regeneration/Superhuman Endurance, Ray Gun (Energy Manipulation, Paralysis, Mind Manipulation, Fire Manipulation, Death Inducement), various explosives, hoverboard and jetpack, teleportation, energy shield, mutant formula, various non-standard equipment

Weaknesses: Neurotic, Impulsive, Short-Tempered, Reliant on technology, Lacks common sense

Destructive Capacity: City Level, possibly Planetoid Level, higher in mutant form, likely planetary with prep (can harnass the energy of the Power Crystals, created a device that shrunk the Earth to being able to fit in his hand)

Range: Planetary at maximum

Speed: MHS+ Reactions, MHS Flight with tech or in mutant form

Durability: City Level, possibly Planetoid Level, higher in mutant form

Stamina: Unknown

Standard Equipment: Ray Gun, Explosives, Hoverboard, Energy Shield, Teleporter, Jetpack

Intelligence: Mid, possibly High Tier 3/Metahuman (Can with time create technology similar to that of a type 2, possibly a type 3 civilization like a machine that can shrink the entire Earth and inter-dimensional travel)

So how would he do in other verses?

In the Marvel Universe, assuming he's at city level, Neo would be essentially a high Street Level character. His stats are on par with a very high street leveler and his scientific abilities would actually fit the verse much. He would be at a disadvantage against basically any supergenius in the verse as they usually have intelligence feats above even his, though he would obviously be much smarter then the none supergeniuses of the verse. His powerset would be humble but decent in the MCU, particularly his ray gun's death setting (it's happy setting may not be too dangerous as low level psychics and psychics resistance is very common in the verse).

He'd overall be a fairly decent high street level supervillain that would generally require one mid+ metahuman to stop his schemes or a team of high street levelers to low metahumans. A single high street leveler to low metahuman might be able to stop him but it would be very difficult and not consistent. If he has the higher stat range he would be a more difficult but his lack of massive speed for his tier would make it so that any decently high metahuman should be able to take him on, unless he gets the jump on them with his ray gun. The big threat however is if he got his hands on some of the advanced tech the verse already has.

In the DCU, Doctor Cortex would place oddly as his stat range doesn't really fit neatly against anyone already in the verse. He would be above most local/city defenders but well below the range of any of the more brick-ish heroes in terms of physical stats. More notably is that he would be a decent supergenius in the verse, and could do pretty well joining up with any nefarious organization that exists, supplying technology in exchange for defense and resources.

His ray gun would be hypothetically more dangerous in the DC-verse as the low level of psychic resistance doesn't seem to be as common and there aren't as many technopaths that could quickly shut it off. As said it would be a more reliable one hit win condition against anyone that can't blitz. On the other hand being able to break the fourth wall may be able to give him hypertime abilities and make him way stronger then normal.

In the Sonic the Hedgehog-verse, Cortex would actually fit in well into a lot of alternate Sonic continuities many of whom have Sonic between town to island level and MHS to Sub-Relativistic which is a level of raw stats that Cortex can easily fit in with as well as having hax level that is about right for him. He would be essentially a rival mad scientist to Eggman, with perhaps less resources and not quite as intelligent or competent though hard to get rid off. 

Howevewr in the main continuity he would really struggle even if you highball him. Sonic characters scale to single chaos emeralds which can move continents as well as to black holes that can threaten the Earth, which would require a lot of prep for Cortex to even match, and Sonic has stated that lightspeed isn't even a challenge for him. In terms of stats and haxes, Cortex would be outgunned by main universe Sonic. 

In the Jimmy Neutron-verse, Cortex would fit fairly well. What's interesting about this is if you take the lower estimate, Cortex would be lower but not hugely lower then the first tier which contains most characters in the verse scaling off Jimmy's tornado feat and if you use the higher estimate or you consider Cortex's prepped tech it would be slightly below or equal to the power of the higher tier of Jimmy's tech or Meldar Prime. His level of regenerative properties defensively and his ray gun should allow him to make up the gap to the tier if you take the lower end estimate. Both also scale to similar speed range from lightning-timing. 

Intellect-wise, Cortex would be a mid tier level intellect in the JN-verse, above civilians who can get up to level 1 technology, akin to most genius characters who can invent type 2 technology, but below the high tier supergeniuses who can invent type 3 technology of greater variety then Cortex's arguable type 3.  However while he does have some ninja training Cortex would be a fodder in terms of skill as even civilians in the verse have shown superhuman levels of skill. His hax level is as far as I can tell decent but not overwhelming to the verse. He'd be a fairly decent minor villain in the series, being able to fight most villains in the series somewhat fairly with or without prep, and with prep being able to fight an unprepped Jimmy.

To make an analogy to another cartoon, I think Cortex would have roughly the place in JN that Jack Spicer has in Xiaolin Showdown. The comedic evil genius would be seen as a physically inept nerd, although wouldn't die in one hit or anything, and have an overrated ego and sense of his place, however if he allied with someone else it would be a notable shift in the balance of power and if the cast got complacent and lazy, not taking his plans serious, Cortex could be a serious threat to the world. 

In Classic-continuity Spyro, Cortex is both by feats and canonically by scaling about equal to the verse's fighters. In the crossover he and Crash were treated as comparable to Classic Spyro and his enemies. This would be true even without that assuming you take Cortex at city+ as Spyro and cast scales to very similar feats of lightning-timing and large storm creation. Spyro canonically Cortex with some difficulty. If Cortex remained longer in Classic Spyro world, he would be kind of an outside context problem. The Crash Bandicoot world powers come from science and toonforce while Spyro's worlds abilities come from mystical sources. His powers coudl be very strange and hard to fight for the verse as they would be unlike anything they've seen and be a power source they don't know, but the same could be said in reverse, their mystical abilities defying Cortex's knowledge of science. 

In the Legends continuity, Cortex would not do very well due to the massive power jump. He would be above obviously fodder, but elemental master dragons and the destroyer get into the planetary range scaling from Destroyer having the ability to destroy the planet and into the relativistic range, which would require prep for Cortex to even possibly fight. The Top Tiers scale to large planet or low star level based on Malefor's feat of planetary destruction which Cortex would have no way of damaging.

In the Skylanders continuity, it depends whether one scales to the Legends continuity as it is suggested that similar events occured. If so, it is a similar scenario. If not, the Skylanders, guardians of the realm would be an interesting fight for Cortex. They are faster, scaling into the relativistic range from light-timing, but they also scale to kiloton range from various feats in this range such as surviving a volcanic eruption or breaking a small moon. Especially with prep and his more haxy inventions, Cortex would likely be a large threat to the verse but he could get swarmed by the massive numbers of the verse especially given their speed advantage. 

Statements in versus debating

There is a worrying trend in vs debating these days in which any statement is taken immediatly as both definitely true, and also definitely literal. This is definitely a newer development, it used to be that statements were viewed with suspicion and you had to provide extra effort into showing their accuracy. Here I'm going to give my personal guidelines for what statements I use and what I don't, along with a few examples at the end. 

When I am assessing a statement, I assess it through the lense of 3 criteria, which can be positive, neutral or negative. As any negative factor can cast serious doubt on a statement's usage, I give -2 for each negative, +1 for each positive, and +0 for neutral. A statement that has negative points can never be used. A statement with 0 points, either neutral in all regards or positive in two but negative in the third, I consider only "possible" and would only use it as support for something with better evidence. Something with 1 point, having 1 positive regard and neutral in both others, I consider probable, and will state that it is probably or most likely the case that it is true though still view it as not ironclad. +2 is pretty certain and +3 is just clearly the case. The three regards are

1: Truthfulness: How likely is it that the character's words are true and literal. This is positive if the character in question is characteristically honest and direct in their words. This is negative if the character in question is generally deceitful (or has reason to be dishonest) or may be using a figure of speech or hyperbole. This is neutral if character's personality is unknown or doesn't lean particularly one way or the other. 

2: Evidentality: How likely is it that the character is likely to know what they are talking about (related to where their information comes from.) This is positive if there is reason to think the character would know about the subject in question. This is negative if there is no way for the character to verify their own statement or there is other reason to think they wouldn't know. This is neutral if a character's source of information is unknown, or if it's unknown how well known a fact in-universe is.

3: Consistency: How consistent is the information with other facts given. Positive means that the statement fits in nicely with other sources, corroborates other data, or explains things without explanation. Negative means that the statement contradicts other statements or worse other demonstated things. Neutral is if the statement is basically in a vacuum, without much else to tell if it's consistent, or if fits most data nicely but contradicts a few things.

So I'm going to be showing a few character statements and how I assess them using this. First I'm going to start with 2 statements from my favorite series that happen to be about a similar thing that statements are often used for, and so make for a good demonstration. 

Here we see Usagi see a bus go into a hole in the wall that appeared. The Black Hole statement is actually a mistranslation, but regardless it would still not be very credible. Truthfulness is probably positive actually; Usagi is a truthful person speaking to herself here so she has no reason to lie. Evidentality is clearly negative however. Usagi would have no way to confirm that's a black hole, and beyond that she's a poor student at school who would have no way of knowing what one looks like. She isn't even sure of it herself, as she asks it to herself as a question. Consistency is also negative, the portal shows no effects of being a black hole; it's visible, it does not emit radiation, it has no space-time dilation and a normal bus goes through it fine. Overall it's score is -3, very clearly not true.

Here we see King Endymion describe Nemesis as being a black hole, though formed of a planet rather then a star. This is an example of the inverse. Truthfulness is positive; King Endymion is a truthful person who is telling the Senshi about the enemy they will have to face and has no reason to lie or be metaphorical (and gives specific scientific reasons to show it's not metaphorical.) Evidentality is positive, King Endymion uses advanced computers of the far future to determine Nemesis' nature and gives again scientific explanations of what they know about Nemesis. Consistentcy is also positive; they give the exact traits of a black hole; that it distorts spacetime, that it emanates massive radiation, sucks in light (which is the definition of a black hole), invisible to the naked eye. which remain consistent throughout the arc. Overall this would be a +3, which shows that is an extremely credible statement.

This is a statement from One More Day in Marvel Comics where Mephisto stated that in nearly all of infinite realities Peter Parker ends up alone which I used to state the possible level of Peter's bad luck. Truthfulness is negative, Mephisto is a deciever known for his trickery and has reason to be manipulating Peter here. Evidentality is positive; Mephisto given his cosmic status and his awareness of suffering and torment, would likely be aware of how many of Peter's realities he ends up alone. Consistency is also positive as Peter is supernaturally unlucky canonically and this wouldn't be out of place, especially as early Mephisto had shown numerous alternate Peters who ended up unlikely alone. As such the net is 0 and I only used it as a possibility.

Here we have the famous Cell solar system statement. Truthfulness is probably neutral. Cell has a minor characterization of deceitfulness but he is in a hysteric power-rush so how truthful he is being is unknown. Evidentality is also neutral. Cell just attained this form but is technically a biological super-computer and ki users seem to possess some knowledge of how strong their power is, so it's ultimately again unknown if he knows his capacity well enough to judge. Consistenty is positive; there are guidebook statements supportive of the statement and it fits the general powerscale up to this point. As such it has a total of +1 and seems probably true.

This is the statement that got me to make this because I found it crazy people were taking this at face value. Blight here claims that the Presence fears Blight and does not have the ability to destroy him. Truthfulness is negative; Blight is mankind's conceptual shadow, every vile thought of humanity, and has no character for personality, plus has reason to be decietful here in intimidating his enemies making them think it's hopeless to fight. Evidentality is most likely negative. Blight has no way of knowing about the Presence's full capacity and the basis he makes it on is that he still exists at all which is shown to be a false reasoning (as the Presence states he allows Blight to exist for mankind's free will.) You could say it's neutral since we don't know to what extent Blight knows of Presence. Consistency is also negative. The Presence and the Phantom Stranger both say the Presence could defeat Blight and destroy him, but doesn't to give humanity free will. The Presence also has a character of not controlling people, giving them free will, and it is eventually his will given form, the embodied spirit of redemption that defeats Blight. This statement's score is -6, -4 if taking second to be neutral which is very clearly negative.