Explaining one of Sailor Moon's biggest mysteries

 

Whenever you see a list of "top x Sailor Moon plot holes" or "things in Sailor Moon that don't make sense", you very often get a list from someone who doesn't know the series at all listing "differences between manga and anime", "subjective opinions", "magical girl tropes", or genuinely "things that don't happen in Sailor Moon." However, there is one overarching mystery about Sailor Moon that causes genuine confusion even for the fandom and today I'd like to give my best answer to it.

The crux of the problem is about the non-powered-up form of the Base Senshi in the future. When we see Crystal Tokyo in the Black Moon Clan Arc, we see that the Guardian Senshi are still in their base form:

And over the next three arcs, the Senshi gain super and eternal forms, which raises the obvious question: Why are the Senshi in Base form in the future? Sailor Moon isn't like many Battle Shonen where higher forms seem to require more power or a cost. Transforming into a Super Sailor or an Eternal Sailor seems no more strenous than transforming into their Base Form, so what gives?

So the default response is "Naoko hadn't thought of it yet." And while that doesn't answer the question in-universe, it would be a fairly compelling answer except for the fact that when we see the Future Senshi again in the Stars Arc they are still in their base form

Notice how this includes Sailor Pluto, but what makes this even more confusing is that this is in Act 56 when three acts ago in Act 53 we saw Sailor Pluto in the future who was in her SUPER form

This is perhaps the single most confusing form it could be. Eternal Form would be inconsistent with the Black Moon Clan Arc, but would be the intuitive one. Base Form would be counterintuitive but consistent with the Black Moon Clan Arc. To me Naoko's choice here is almost begging to be interpreted, as though she is saying "Yes, this was a conscious choice. Figure it out."

From this point, the most arguments I've seen from the fandom is that it's something to do with either time travel or changes to the timeline. That the Black Moon Clan and Chibiusa returning to the past either created an alternate timeline or changed the timeline. However, neither feels very likely to me because while it might address why the Sailor Senshi are in Base in the Black Moon Clan arc, it doesn't explain why they remain so in the Stars Arc or the strange single instance of Super Sailor Pluto. So I'm going to give what I think happened.

In order to explain this, we need to first explain what the super and eternal forms ARE, of which there's not a huge amount of info as Naoko isn't super interested in the hows of the mechanics of her world. When it comes strictly to the manga, I believe there are two variants of the Super Form. In the Infinity Arc, Act 30 this is the first description we are ever given about the Super Form

"When a Crisis Arrived, mysterious power would burst out of the grail. It granted its power to Neo-Queen Serenity and she saved the people, they say."

So what this tells us about the Super Form is that it's a power given by the Holy Grail during a crisis. At the end of Act 32 we see Sailor Moon's first henshin into Super Sailor Moon. This is during an encounter where the witch Cyprine has brainwashed the Outer Senshi and Guardian Senshi into fighting each other. She claims to Sailor Moon that this she has only brought out the Senshi's natural hatred for each other while Sailor Moon protests that she knows their hearts are unified. 

Sailor Moon calls for the Senshis' hearts to be united. Tuxedo Kamen and Sailor Chibi-Moon place their hands on hers which begins to glow and manifests the Holy Grail that itself glows. 

at the beginning of the next Act, Act 33, we see this theme continued for several pages, with the Holy Grail continuing to glow, Sailor Moon calling for the power of others. Everyone's hearts are pulled towards Sailor Moon, their powers entering the Holy Grail before Sailor Moon applies this power and transforms, causing the brooch on the other Sailors outfits to change into a heart

There's a serious emphasis on the unity of the Senshi with this henshin, to the point that later in Act 35 when the Guardian Senshis' souls are temporarily stolen, the transformation is lost

Now of the slight information we received in Act 30 this roughly matches the image we were given... but it also feels ever so slightly different. While Diana's description in Act 30 says that a mysterious power comes FROM the Holy Grail, this power is very clearly from the Senshi. While it goes into the Holy Grail, and then is applied through it to Sailor Moon, the power is consistently suggested to be formed of the Senshis' unity, not from the Holy Grail, to the extent that it relies on the other Senshi's continual connection to maintain. If it was the power of the Holy Grail, it would seem odd that the deaths of the Senshi would cause Sailor Moon to lose that power. Similarly, while the confrontation with Cyprine is very emotionally significant to Usagi, it's arguable whether it should be classified as a "crisis" in the same way that something like the cataclysmic destruction at the end of an arc. 

Still, the difference isn't massive or anything. This could be chalked up to a difference in emphasis or artistic license or Diana just being vague in her first description or any number of other factors.

At the end of the next Act, Act 35, when Pharaoh 90 is invading the Earth directly, after Sailor Moon transforms into Super Sailor Moon in a similar way, Chibi-Moon mysteriously duplicates the Holy Grail  

The mechanism isn't explained but it doesn't seem like Chibi-Moon has the same unity of hearts moment that Sailor Moon does. 

A few acts later in the Dream Arc, Act 39, Usagi and Chibi-usa can't transform due to the darkness barrier around the Earth made by Nehelenia. The Holy Grails from the Infinity Arc appear and they comment that they can't use them because the nine Sailor Senshi aren't gathered

However they express that they still have a need to fight and a new power courses within them allowing them to transform into Super Sailor Moon and Super Sailor Chibi-Moon with the henshin phrase "Moon Crisis Make Up" as opposed to the "Crisis Make Up" phrase used in the Infinity Arc (though this may be because they are going from civilian form to Super form directly as opposed to from Base to Super.)

The conclusion I would draw from this is that there seems to be two forms of Super Sailor transform, the Unity Henshin formed from the the unity between the Sailor Senshis' hearts and the Grail Henshin which is a power given by the Holy Grail in times of crisis. 

In Act 48, a Grail Henshin Super Sailor Moon is given power from the Senshi in the same way as the Super Unity Henshin after also channeling down the power of their planetary castles and their Power Guardians. This causes her to transform for the first time to transform into Eternal Sailor Moon

What this leads me to conclude is that Eternal Sailor Moon fundamentally is Super Super Sailor Moon, or in other words it's Sailor Moon using both forms of Super Henshin at the same time, both Unity and Grail Henshin.

There is one conflicting point about this and I admit it's the weakest part of my theory. Eternal Sailor Moon never reverts throughout the Stars Arc like Unity Henshin Super Sailor Moon does, even after the others have died. My only recourse is to say that the Eternal Henshin stabilizes the form, possibly because their powers were stabilized through their planetary castles which were never destroyed.

So if that's how the super and eternal forms work, why are the future Senshi in base form? Well first of all the world is not in crisis during the 900 years of almost entirely peace of Neo-Queen Serenity's reign and Neo-Queen Serenity keeps the Holy Grail in her room as a memento. As such Grail Henshin wouldn't occur. But what about Unity Henshin?

When Usagi took the throne of Crystal Tokyo, she lost much of hers powers to fight "as a soldier"

Personally I believe this to be because in the climax of the series, her Sailor Crystal changed to be the Cosmos Crystal and passed down the Silver Crystal to her daughter, though that's not important to this theory. The important part is that it seems like she's saying she could no longer transform into a Sailor Senshi. With Chibi-Moon not yet awoken in this time, the Silver Crystal couldn't be accessed and thus the unity of the Senshi's hearts could not be formed.

So that potentially explains why the Senshi were in base form during the Black Moon Clan arc, but what about Super Sailor Pluto in the Stars Arc?

In this scene, Chibiusa goes to her mother's room, and listens on to a conversation between Sailor Pluto and Neo-Queen Serenity about a great maelstrom warping spacetime reaching as far as their time.

Given the impending crisis, the Sailor Senshi were granted power by the Holy Grail. This conversation even takes place in the Queen's chambers where the Grail was kept. 

Later the Sailor Senshi lie dying so the reason they're in their base forms is the Holy Grail is no longer giving them the power to fight

Immediately following this, Chibiusa and her quartet transform into their eternal forms, showing that Senshi can still gain the power from the Grail so longer as they're still capable of fighting.

tying back to what Chibiusa said back in the fourth arc when she first used Grail Henshin that she felt the need to fight still within her.

The only unresolved question was if Eternal Henshin doesn't require the unity of hearts as seen with Eternal Sailor Moon's henshin not breaking and Chibi-Moon and the Quartet being able to transform, why was Pluto in super form, not eternal form in Act 53?

So my understanding is that because the times of crisis were over the Grail stopped giving the Senshi power which reverted them to Unity Henshin, except without the unity of their hearts since Usagi was no longer a soldier, they reverted to their base forms. In other words, the Eternal Form can maintain the unity of their powers, possibly through the usage of things like the Planetary Castles, but can't maintain without the Grail's powers, and without that, the Unity Henshin wasn't maintained. 

So that's my explanation for why the Sailor Senshi weren't in their eternal forms in the future. 

DC Exploration: Batwoman (Kate Kane)

 

Definitely a much less obscure character than last time, but a lot of people still don't know who Kate is, her power level is a contentious topic, and with International Women's Day, I thought this would be a good blog. 

Who is She?

Kate Kane is a member of the Bat-Family who was kidnapped alongside her mother and twin sister at the age of 12. Her military father broke into the terrorist's organization however only Kate could be saved, leaving Kate with emotional scars. Shaped by the experience and wanting to serve her country Kate joined the military and did fairly well though was disbanded under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" rule, due to it coming out that she was a lesbian. Despite this, Kate retained a positive view of the military and still considered herself a soldier at heart which, combined with some inspiration from Batman, lead to her taking up the vigilante persona of Batwoman in order to continue to try and serve her country.

How Strong is She?

So this is actually a fairly contested topic with DC writers tending to rank her higher in the Bat-Family hierarchy than most fans do and with her own series being infamously inconsistent feeling, with it feeling like she gets weaker later in her own series. She goes from with slight aid outright beating metahuman threats that are some of Batman's strongest rogues like Bane and Killer Croc anf fighting against and alongside mythological monsters, urban legends and magic wielders and outright demigods to struggling against a completely normal art thief like Wolf Spider. She manages to restrain and bring down a mutated monstrous Nightwing who should be as strong or stronger than normal, Nightwing being a character who was able to beat Batman who wasn't holding back in an extremely hard-pressed fight (albeit where neither of them were using any tech) yet has to use an elaborate plan of unleasing Batman's villains on Gotham and fighting him after Bane when he's worn out just to have a chance of beating a holding back Batman who is strongly implied would have won anyway. 

Some of this can be attributed to the switch in writers that changed the tone of the series very notably during her series. However if I were to try and explain it, I would say that Kate underwent heavy military and paramilitary training that trained her body to an extremely high physical level of strength, durability, and stamina which is what allows her to take blows and do considerable damage to these metahuman tier characters but that she lacks the outright supernatural feats or training in skill or intelligence that other Bat-Family members do meaning she can be relatively easily off-guarded by normal humans. Kate suggests something similar in Volume 1, Issue 30 of Batwoman saying "You'd think after fighting werewolves and child-drowning ghosts, a guy in a spider-costume would be easy. But Wolf Spider is clever. Fights dirty. Uses distractions well..."

How she compares to the other Bat-Family members therefore can be kind of tricky to tell as she is functionally somewhat of a bruiser, having stats high enough that Batman thought she could help physically train a team including Stephanie Brown, Tim Drake, and CASSANDRA FREAKING CAIN (though this was likely mostly training them in literal physical stats and teamwork), but could more than likely lose a fight due to being outwit or outmaneuvered.  The Bat-Family in general range from Mid Vigilante Tier to Low Metahuman Tier, with Kate being probably in the middle at High Vigilante tier. She's strong enough to at least temporarily go up against Metahuman threats and can win in certain conditions as well as being a threat to pretty much anyone who's not Metahuman tier, but still struggles occasionally against street crime and would likely lose most prolonged fights against metahuman tier enemies. I will mention how I think she'd fare against some other Bat-Family members later. 

What are Her Powers?

Like the majority of the Bat-Family, Kate Kane doesn't have, in-universe, any metahuman abilities and instead fights with trained physical skills and capabilities as well as tech. Due to her extreme military and paramilitary training, Kate developed a high degree of strength, speed, accuracy stamina, and willpower, the last of which gives an inordinately high pain tolerance and a minor resistance to mental manipulation. She has a very keen mind and many trained skills for vigilante work. From a cross-verse powerscaling perspective the most notable of these is the signature Bat-Family ability of stealth, hers being potent enough that she can hide her presence from Supergirl despite Supergirl's super-senses. This means that functionally speaking in most verses she would essentially have the ability to turn invisible. 

Batwoman also uses a variety of technology, mostly famously Kate has no aversion using firearms and lethal force the way Batman is due to her personal mindset as a soldier and military training. She also uses batarangs, a flamethrower, and an electrified net. Her cowl has infrared vision and telepathic shielding and her cape can be used for gliding. She also has some gold thread in her skull used to help patch up an injury which gives her a limited ability to sense electromagnetic fields. 

What are Her Weaknesses?

Like most of the Bat-Family with the possible exception of Tim Drake, Kate is working through psychological demons and trauma and is a dramatic, stubborn, and headstrong personality. Compared to her fellow Bat-Family members, Kate is not especially skilled in hand to hand or intelligent. Now that's not to say she is unskilled or dumb. She's very smart by real world standards and would be extraordinarily skilled in the real world, but she is the only member of the Bat-Family with no training from Batman or otherwise supernatural training. While her paramilitary training was extremely physically intense, compare the 14 martial arts styles she knows to the hundreds Batman is said to know. While very impressive mentally from a real world standard, she is far more grounded in mental capacities than some of her peers. 

In conclusion I think Batwoman would be roughly a High Vigilante Tier character, in the middle of the Bat-Family range which generally extends from Mid Vigilante Tier to Low Metahuman Tier.She's definitely below the tier of Bruce, Dick, and Cassie. These three though they don't technically have powers, would be classified as low metahuman tier as through physical stats mistaken for metahuman, technology, and extreme mental stats, they can beat metahuman tier enemies one on one while Kate needed at least the element of surprise and minor backup from Flamebird or Maggie Sawyer to defeat Bane or Killer Croc. However I do think she could beat Tim, Barbera (whom Kate has beaten before), and possibly Damien as being able to beat literal Batman tier opponents in any context means she could probably overwhelm them physically. I think Jason would be a more interesting fight, but would probably guess Jason would win as he could evenly fight a holding back Batman only to get beaten when Batman uses his full strength while Kate required a large plan to wear down Batman by making him fight Bane to fight a holding back Batman and would probably have lost regardless. Still being able to physically contend at all with the modern versions of Bruce, Dick, and their enemies is insanely impressive and means Batwoman would be a major threat against almost any character without outright superpowers beyond normal humanity and threaten lower metahuman tier enemies. 

How they Compare: Yuna Akamine (Yuki Yuna is a Hero)

 

While the Heroes are normally created to protect the divine tree the Shinju, what if a Hero was made for the opposite side? What if the rebelling gods made their own Hero. This was the beginning of Yuna Akamine, a mysterious "hero" of the past summoned into the present by the rebelling gods in the video game "Yuki Yuna is a Hero: A Sparkling Flower."

Yuna Akamine hails from a chaotic period after the first generation of humans when chaotic infighting among humans was normal. She was given very limited divine powers by the Shinju not for fighting the vertex... but for fighting other humans, for forcing order upon their internal world as chaos was deadly in the time of the vertex. This was a time when some humans still revered the heavenly gods and thought their vertexes were their divine manifestation, a time when humans were unsure of the rightness of either side. This was the confusing time Yuna Akamine hailed from. 

Eventually, she was brought back in the time-bending adventure of the game she features in. Finding out the tragic fates of the other Heroes, the deaths and sufferings they had to go through, she strived to keep them trapped in the Shinju's dimension to save them. Eventually, Yuna Takashima and Yuna Yuki help sway Yuna Akamine from her dark path serving the rebelling gods and to trust the generations of Heroes to save the world. 

Yuna Akamine was able to at least somewhat physically contend with Yuna Takashima. The First generation would regularly fight hundreds of unevolved Vertexes, Stardust who are said to be immune to any of the weapons of humanity and created great natural disasters requiring power in the megaton range. These Stardust underwent hyper-evolution into perfect vertex which the First Generation Heroes could fight with extreme difficulty. with Wakaba Nogi bisecting a Serpentine Vertex made of hundreds of stardust. 

In terms of speed, Yuna Akamine can keep up with the first generation of Heroes who themselves can outpace the stardust and vertexes who are said to outpace any human weapon including hypothetically missiles traveling at hypersonic speeds. Beyond that, she may scale in reaction speed at least partially to the likes of Gin Minowa who has three seperate feats of blocking light with the Heroes also able to react to the vines of the Shinju which traveled into space in seconds, calced at roughly 3%c 

Yuna Akamine also has a Mankai form which, while she's unlikely to use most of the time, can bolster her stats massively and should make her relative to Yuna Takashima's Shuten-Douji, an attack that is explictly stated to have 50 teratons of energy, which is enough energy to destroy a country. Mankai Heroes can also move fast enough to quickly travel in space at massively hypersonic speeds.

Yuna has the powers of the other Heroes. As one who is both soul and body, her regeneration and endurance are amplified as well as all of her physical stats. She can superleap hundreds of meters, has an enhanced awareness, and an immunity to time stop. Most notably, she has a fairy which grants her immortality. And when they say immortality, they really mean it with even universal-level deities being unable to kill a hero, as the fairies are a part of the gods. A hero who wanted to kill herself literally couldn't because the fairy forcibly keeps them alive no matter what.

Yuna also has unique powers given by the evil gods. The evil gods granted her the power to control the vertex to act as their general. Beyond that, she has psychic powers. She can read the minds of others and cause them to relive memories. Both her and her fairy can disguise themselves as other people. Her fairy can enter into the minds of other people and ask them questions about themselves. If they can't answer, the fairy possesses them. The fairy usually asks personal questions Akamine has surmised are difficult for them to answer honestly. It required a heart that was honest to itself like Yun aTakashima or Yuna Yuki to defeat this trick of the fairy. Beyond this Yuna Akamine can summon gusts of wind to teleport her, can perform almost literally substitution jutsu (with Akamine's family being compared to spies and ninjas), and perhaps most strongly has the ability to BFR her opponents within her mind so they can't escape. The irony is Yuna Akamine, the girl who found it hard to communicate with others, who lived in a world of confusion and mistrust, gained the ability to communicate directly with the hearts of others.  

While Yuna Akamine is far from the best fighter of the Heroes, she is quite possibly the most intelligent, having manipulated all the others after they were summoned from the time, leading them along her grand mastermind plot. Her family, the Akamine family, are also a family of highly trained spies and ninjas with her having even outside her powers, significant skill in stealth. 

In terms of weaknesses, Akamine has the same physical weaknesses as the other Heroes. Mankai can cripple her, and her fairies can't protect her from non-physical forms of attack. Compared to the other Heroes, Yuna Akamine is actually relatively physically weak, only having attained limited divine powers to fight other humans rather than the swarms of Vertexes.

Mentally she has more notable weaknesses. Yuna was never trying even somewhat hard against the Heroes, leaving them clues as to her plot, wanting to fight and enjoy fighting rather than focusing on winning, treating her enemies with a strange amount of politeness rather than using deceptive pragmatic fighting like her powers would suggest. Granted this may not apply in most situations as Yuna Akamine's true goal it was revealed was she had seen the fates of the other Heroes and wanted to keep them trapped inside the Shinju forever so they would never have to suffer death and heartbeat. So against most characters, this may not apply. Also, she has real trouble communicating with people.

Name: Yuna Akamine

Origin: Yuna Yuna is a Hero

Powers and Abilities: Enhanced Physical Stats, Regeneration, Leaping, and Senses, Physical Immortality, can control the Vertexes, Mind-Reading, Memory Manipulation, Shapeshifting, Possession, Teleportation, Wind Manipulation, Ninja Skills, Mental Plane BFR. Resistance to Time Stop

Weaknesses: Fairy can't protect against non-physical attacks, Mankai damages her body severely, can't possess people who are completely honest with themselves, can't communicate well

Destructive Capacity: City Level, Country Level with Mankai

Range: Likely hundreds of kilometers

Speed: Hypersonic, Massively Hypersonic with Mankai, Likely Relativistic Reactions

Durability: At least star level (Fairy barriers can withstand things like a black hole), potentially universe level (is a part of the universe level gods which even the other gods can't easily kill)

Stamina: Presumably higher than normal (Heroes have enhanced endurance)

Standard Armor: Hero Transformation Device

Intelligence: At least gifted, manipulated all the other Heroes, evading capture by them for a long time, comes from a line of spies and ninjas

So how would the dark Hero do in other verses?

In Marvel Comics, Yuna would be roughly a Mid Metahuman Tier fighter, comparable to other feats like Iron Fist defeating an opponent whose power was measured in the hundreds of megatons or Electro creating large electric storms. She'd be slower than almost everyone as most characters in this tier scale to lightning timing or higher, but her reaction speed is high enough that it shouldn't be a big problem.

Ironically, her unique powers are kind of meh for this tier in Marvel and it's her general hero abilities that would be much more notable. Her psychic powers are very low level for Marvel and almost any notable hero can probably just resist her powers, outside maybe her mental BFR. Similarly, her intelligence and ninja skills while impressive for her universe are pretty much bog standard for the Marvel Universe with almost every hero having impressive intelligence feats, ninja-like training in stealth and feats or training in seeing-through deception. Against characters like Spider-Man, Wolverine, or the Fantastic Four the only one of her unique powers that would be really notable is her mental BFR whcih would be a fairly unique one-shot type of attack.

What's more relevant is her general powers as a hero, in particular her fairy immortality. This would be an extremely broken type of defense on the same tier as something like Captain America's shield or Wolverine's claws. This would definitely give her a niche as a defensive type character who can fight most characters in the tier, though whether Wolverine's claws could get through Fairy Immortality would be interesting to see. Overall she'd be in the same range as most Marvel Metas with the most interesting things about her being her special BFR technique, being technically able to briefly shoot up to High Meta status, technically, and basically having a vibrainium suit at all time.

In DC Comics, Yuna Akamine would be roughly a Beta Metahuman similar in tier to characters like Hawkman, Fire, and Ice, with her Mankai form being closer to the level of a Royal Atlantean. 

In the DCU, Yuna Akamine's power would be a lot more dangerous with most Beta Metahumans being unable to keep up with her power level, especially with her ability to use Mankai, and her psychic powers may get some use with less of the tier having resistance to mental shenanigans. On the other hand, the DCU even at a relatively low tier of power has more ways around Akamine's immortality with characters like Batman having various mentally affecting gadgets and techniques including engaging in a mental plane battlefield, Harley Quinn and the Joker having mild metafictional abilities, John Constantine having just... a hundred different things he can do etc. While Yuna Akamine would be a lot more overpowering against characters without a way around her fairy immotality, it would be a higher risk scenario for her as well. 

In the Puella Magi-verse, Yuna Akamine would be a real trouble to add to the verse as she would do really well against Puella Magi but really poorly against witches, meaning she would only be able to hurt the heroes. She's roughly in the same power range as Homura thought a witch could maintain a barrier encompassing an entire copy of Mitakihara Town and the surrounding area, though Mankai can temporarily amp her to the level of someone like Isabeau who could create a barrier across all of France.

All the standard abilities of the Puella Magi are physical based abilities that wouldn't get past a Fairy's barrier. There are almost no Puella Magi normally with abilities that would be good against someone with the Hero System with many of the Magical Girls not being fully honest with themselves and likeable to Yuna Akamine's form of possession. Even Homura would struggle to get past Yuna Akamine given Yuna has time stop resistance. On the other hand, all Witches have as standard lots of non-physical powers like lifeforce draining and mentally manipulating people into suicidal homicidal insanity which would bypass fairy immortality entirely. 

There are a few Magical Girls that could take her down. In the Tart Era for instance even outside Holy Tart herself, Riz has the Gates of Hell technique which with a self-sacrifice could bfr Yuna Akamine potentially and in Oriko Magica Kirika had the power to change her own form even giving herself the powers of a witch to protect Oriko, with witch powers being able to take down Yuna. However she'd be a big threat until she was taken down by a high tier magical girl like these. 

In the Nanoha-universe, Yuna Akamine would likely rank as an upper B rank mage in terms of raw power being above overall B Rank Arf who could create a storm with her raw power but below A Rank Chrono who could freeze a sea, calced in the teraton range. However Yuna could temporarily rise into A Rank with her Mankai.

As might be expected, Yuna's fairy immortality would be difficult for most of the wizards of the Nanoha-verse to fight as their magic tends to lack the ability to hit non-physical aspects of their enemy with the most likely weapons of most TSAB Mages to work against Akamine being binding spells or dimensionally trapping her. On the other hand, whether Yuna's attacks would work on them depend a lot on whether the powers Yuna was given by the evil gods qualify as "magic" or not. Personally I'm of the opinion it would, in which case the MGLN-verse Mages barrier against magic should protect them. This is not an impenetrable defense however as it's a pretty normal forcefield proportional to their attack potency meaning assuming Yuna can reach their level of power, she can break the barrier and then use her magic on them directly (or just punch them as their forcefield is where their durability comes from.)

Overall, Yuna would likely be a relatively even match for an A Rank Mage like one of the Wolkenritter as it would be a battle of them to trying to find a way to trap an immortal enemy before she goes mankai and breaks through their defenses. That said she would be no match for one of the Aces (Nanoha, Fate, or Hayate)

In Skullgirls, Yuna Akamine would fit in pretty normally stat wise. Her level of power is consistent with most fighters in the verse scaling from Double maintaining a large dimension within her as well as Hungern being stated to consume half of New Meridian in a quick timeframe and the Skullgirl Marie throwing a tower across the city, calced into the megaton range, alongside numerous hypersonic feats. With her Mankai she would reach a higher tier in the verse, being comparable to the Skullgirl Nancy who withstood a blast from Eoberung that annihilated dozens of smaller countries and spread her aura across an entire country-spanning battlefield giving Queen Nancy and Eliza very similar stats to Mankai Yuna Akamine.

How Yuna would do against the cast varies heavily. Someone like Valentine would see Yuna Akamine as a nightmare to fight being someone who can exploit her psychological contradiction, is immune to all her attacks and poisons and even her time stopping, and can one-shot her. On the other hand someone like Peacock would be a nightmare for Yuna having metafictional toon powers that allow her to casually teleport back from mental bfr via fourth wall shenanigans, easily bypass physical immunity with metafictional interaction or a violence ball or a soul-deleting theonite cannon, things which Yuna's fairy would have no way of protecting from, can obviously see through any of her deceptions and has no real psychological complications within being completely honest with herself. Someone like Beowulf would be somewhere in the middle with most of Beowulf's tactics being unable to hurt Yuna Akamine conventionally and could be deceived by her trickery, but has metafictional attacks and teleportation to bypass mental bfr and fairy immortality, and which Yuna Akamine's form of possession may or may not work depending on your interpretation of his character.

Overall Yuna Akamine would be a fairly balanced addition to the verse having a very powerful couple of abilities but weak to the myriad forms of metaphysical forms of attack in the verse, especially to manifestations of Theonite's destruction. Nonetheless, without information, she could definitely be a valuable asset against a Skullgirl helping to tank a few blows before she finds out Akamine's weakness.

DC Exploration: Aethyr the Oversoul

Who is He?

Aethyr is a relatively obscure Superman character from the Pre-Crisis period having only three appearances during the Pre-Crisis time period as well as a few more lately. Aethyr was formed during a galactic collision where the souls of the inhabitants of multiple galaxies were ignited in rage at their sudden demise, a rage that fused them into a singular godlike being. This being appears to people alternatively as a purple dragon creature or as a talking crystal heart and is basically the reason for the Phantom Zone. 

How Powerful is He?

To make a long story short, he's one of the most powerful characters in the Superman franchise in particular having created the Phantom Zone around himself. He's a Fourth World Entity, meaning that he's stronger than basically any third world entity including any main member of the Justice League but below the fifth world entities like the Imps. What's a lot more interesting is how he compares to other Fourth World Entities.

Aethyr is comprised of "a billion-billion" souls with individual souls in DC being a power source for beings in the Godsphere, the Fourth World and each soul in the Godsphere being able to create its own universe. He created Phantom Zone and controls it purely via his will, the Phantom Zone being a many layered conceptual prison universe he keeps people within. This is a pretty impressive feat and definitely puts him above most Fourth World Entities. That said, the Phantom Zone is just a small part of the overall Underworld, and there's nothing suggesting he scales to the manipulation of one of the eight divine realms overall meaning he's more than likely weaker than the high tier members of the Godsphere like Darkseid and Zeus. If I had to say where he is, Aethyr is roughly a Mid-Fourth World Tier character, on the same level as many of the Gods of Skyland or the rules of individual provinces of Hell. 

What are His Powers?

Unsurprisingly given his origin, Aethyr is known for his soul and spiritual manipulation. He created the ghostly realm of the Phantom Zone outside spacetime "at the edge of thought, where outerverse and autoverse meet" and can completely control it and anything inside it with his thoughts. He can also send people out of it, though whether he can draw people into it is unknown. Aethyr can freely manipulate all the souls of the Phantom Zone which should at least include the quadrillion souls that comprise him, but more than likely includes infinite souls given that the Phantom Zone is connected to infinite universes. 

Aethyr is also know for his ability to use fusion and spiritual draining as anyone who gets close to him has their spirit, their individuality siphoned until they become one with Aethyr the Oversoul. This even worked on Mr. Mxyzptlk, though given the Imp had been forbidden from using his powers by the other 5D Imps, this might not actually mean much.Aethyr normally remains at the center of the Phantom Zone which is viewed as literally being Aethyr's mind, a space generated by the interaction of Aethyr's self and the outside world. 

What are His Weaknesses?

Aethyr's weaknesses are mostly mental than "physical" so to speak. Comprised of billion-billion souls, Aethyr was massively internally divided with Mxyzptlk explaining that it was like "Godhood Bi-committee" mostly acting off self-protective instinct with Mxyzptlk summarizing it as "the most powerful force in the universe an' all he knew was how to protect himself!" Aethyr also alternates between periods of being "awake" and being "dormant" where it is possible to sneak past him, though still extraordinarily difficult as none of the souls trapped in the Phantom Zone have ever been able too. 

Finally Aethyr is unable to harm someone if he's unable to find any despair within them for some reason, with Superman being able to fly right through Aethyr's center without being assimilated. Though as this is Superman, the symbol of Hope itself, your mileage may vary on who else would be able to do so with no one else ever trapped in the Phantom Zone besides Superman ever being able to escape. 

In conclusion Aethyr is an extraordinarily powerful entity and one of the strongest Superman characters, being a mid fourth-world tier enemy though wouldn't do very well against the other strongest Superman characters. I think someone like Lord Satanus or Kismet would just overpower the ghost dragon, and while Lady Blaze would be a lot more fair, I do think she would be able to decieve Aethyr. That said he should be given a lot of credit for treating End of Pre-Crisis Superman as just a thought in his mind universe. 

As a final fun trivia note, Aethyr is not evil. In Wonder Woman 778, Wonder Woman is battling the Kryptonian Criminal Xa-Du in the Phantom Zone when Aethyr appears, stops Xa-Du and gives Wonder Woman and friends safe access to leave the Zone to pursue Janus like they were trying too. 

DC Exploration: Introduction

 I'm planning on starting a new blog series called DC Exploration, which is where I will semi-consistently make blogs briefly explaining the powers of various DC Characters. This is because DC is a massive franchise and there are many odd bits and ends of DC that I think people don't know about that I'd like to introduce them too. These blogs are not meant to be very in-depth, and with each one I'm imagining three sections those being who is this character, what is their general power level, and what are their most notable powers, as well as maybe what any important weaknesses of them are. 

Before I do that I wanna give roughly what I think the tiers of DC Comics are. To my mind there are roughly seven

Tier 7: Civilian Tier

Tier 6: Vigilante Tier

Tier 5: Metahuman Tier

Tier 4: Lantern Tier (also known as Kryptonian Tier)

Tier 3: Fourth World Tier

Tier 2: Fifth World Tier

Tier 1: Sixth World Tier

I will be using then when explaining a character's rough power level inside the DCU, as well as saying whether I think they're more on the lower end, upper end, or in the middle of their tier. Most characters you actually read about in comics are between Tiers 6 and 4, with characters in Tier 2 and 1 being extremely rare. There are a couple of characters above Tier 1 and there are a number of characters Below Tier 7, namely characters that are super small but most of the characters I'll cover I think will be between Tier 6 and Tier 3, with maybe some occasional forays up or down. 

Feel free to request a particular character you want to see in this series in the comments of any of these blogs though I am trying to prioritize more obscure characters.

Valentine's Day Blog: My Favorite Ship Dynamics

I wanted to make a quick blog to celebrate Valentine's day by expressing the tropes I most like in fictional relationships. There are I think the seven tropes I like most in fictional romances, roughly in ascending order of how much I like them, as well as some of my favorite ships at the end as examples:

7: Sexually Positive and Mature:

I really don't like in fiction the unpleasant stereotype of the perverted boyfriend/husband and the nagging jealous girlfriend or wife. It's not unwholly unpleasant to watch, it doesn't have the closeness to reality that it's supposed to be conveying. But neither do I find perfectly chaste relationships that compelling. I like ships in fiction where the two characters are mature about sexuality, respectful and encouraging of each others desires and boundaries, and genuinely act like reasonable adults on the matter.  A relationship that is sex-positive where men are depicted as rational adults and women as having their own desires is much more engaging to me. 

6: Positive Gender Dichotomy:

What I mean by this is I like femininity and I like masculinity in general and therefore I like seeing the positives of either or especially both in a relationship. In Het relationships I like seeing more masculine men temperamentally with more feminine women temperamentally as well as more traditional courtship scenes. For instance I like scenes of the man bringing flowers and chocolates to the woman. I like imagining elegant wedding scenes between them. I also like Slash and Femslash ships, but often I imagine one of them  taking on the feminine role, and one the masculine. That is to say for a Femslash ship I will still imagine a traditional style wedding, it's just the woman I relate to will wear the wedding dress and her partner "crossdressing" in the groom's wear. In a Slash ship I will still imagine a traditional Valentine's scene of chocolates and flowers, it's just that the partner I relate more to will receive from his partner. I like masculinity and even Moreso I like femininity and I like seeing the two concepts depicted in a positive harmonious relationship. I am not as into relationships where the characters gender identities aren't very strong, and even less so I'm not usually into relationships of a masculine woman and a feminine man. Not that I have anything against such people in real life of course, but I like to project onto one partner in romantic scenes and this dynamic sort of makes it harder for me to do that. 

5: Spiritually Uplifting:

I really like seeing the uplifting power of love, its ability to make people better than they were as they strive to honor their love. In particular I enjoy scenes where one partner has emotional angst and the gentle or silly love of their partner can, in its simplicity, help lighten the strain on their soul. I am less fond of relationships where for one reason or another, make the partners sadder or even worse make them behave more reprehensibly.  

4: Admiration and Idealization:

For me personally, attraction is highly associated with admiration, seeing someone as having desirable traits and wanting to be around them because of it. As such I really enjoy scenes where characters honestly express their admiration for each other, including in a romantic context. For instance the sort of science in Medieval Fantasy works of a Knight kneeling before a fair lady and proclaiming her of the highest beauty and that he is at her service... I am really fond of such scenes. I don't understand relationships where the characters don't admire each other, or even seem antagonistic towards each other. 

3: Complementary Opposites:

Some people like ships based on the two characters having a similarity with the notion that their relationship is based on their shared experience and some people like them based on the characters differences with the notion that they are complementary opposite. I'm of the latter type, I like ships with two opposite kinds of people together. I have romantic ideas of a relationship helping to complete someone by filling in the parts they are missing. There's something spiritually fulfilling in my experience in seeing opposite things in harmony. When it's inanimate forces in harmony it feels like possible, but with sentient people them being in harmony rings of plausibility to me because they're able to recognize the benefit of someone different from me brings to their life. 

2: Wholesome Supportiveness:

I lack a desire for "spice" in relationships, internal conflict and relationship drama. Genuinely I prefer ships where the characters create a wholesome air and I love scenes of mutual support, where the characters encourage and trust in each other. This is the source of some of the dynamics listed before this. I don't like when characters in stories act stupid for drama, and this is ESPECIALLY so in relationships. I most enjoy relationships when they are at their most functional. It's especially good when the pair are so in-tune that they can support each other on their insecurities without them even saying what they are, the two automatically adjusting to help each other. I recognize for some people this kind of relationship comes off as boring as it lacks any spice, but I enjoy seeing people being built and happy in their relationships,

1: Serious and Goofball Dichotomy:

This is probably the central one for me, I really like pairings where one partner is cool and serious and maybe a little brooding while the other is a cute, funny, goofball. I find this dichotomy instantly really compelling and fun to watch. To be honest it's mostly because I like people who are more stoic and serious and with perhaps some emotional angst and I want to help them smile and give them a safe place to let out their inner pain. On some level I feel like the primordial opposition in the world is order and chaos but when you try and depict that in a relationship, it generally comes out as antagonistic. What I like about this dichotomy is that it's a more harmonious form of that. It's an orderly person who appreciates the chaos of being shown mundane reality in a new light that makes it out to have so much more to it then they see. It's a person who lives in chaos finding something they can rely on and depend upon, an unchanging shade they can rest under. It's order that loves chaos and chaos that loves order, the harmony of the rational mind and the emotional heart. This dynamic can be funny or sweet but it's always the kind I like to see me. 

Obviously few ships encompass all of this. However these are the elements I like. Here are some of my favorite ships to illustrate what I'm talking about, not ordered in any particular way.

Minako Aino x Rei Hino from Sailor Moon:

The Heartburn ship is the pairing of Sailor Venus and Sailor Mars. The two are opposite in almost every way. Minako is a very modern kind of girl with a rather unladylike temperament, full of antics and shenanigans and extraverted exuberance, and extremely androphillic. Meanwhile Rei is a traditionalist proper lady with quiet dignity, highly mature and responsible, mildly misandrist and potentially asexual. Their pairing is so much fun and I love the allusions to it in canon. In Rei and Minako's Exam School Battle we see how how Minako's attempts to troll Rei and attempts to imitate are born out of true admiration for her and we see how even when Minako gets Rei in trouble, her spirit is uplifted by the goofball Senshi. I also like the mythological allusion to how Mars and Venus the deities were lovers in Roman Mythology, and just think they look really pretty together.

Tamaki Suoh x Kyoya Ootori from Ouran High School Host Club

(Pictured in the Background: Me)

Kyoya's backstory is easily my favorite ep in Ouran, and it centers on this relationship. They are affectionally nicknamed the Club's Father and Mother respectively which you can really see despite the fact that Tamaki is so much more of a softie and emotional than Kyoka-senpai. Kyoya is the dark genius third son of the Ootori family, rational, mysterious and according to himself a pure utilitarian even as he protects those in need. Tamaki Suoh is the half-French heir to the Suoh family, a bombastic, flirtatious, emotionally expressive and childish prince. I absolutely love the scene where after striving for an entire ep to pretend to impress and be the perfect friend to Tamaki, Kyoya has a mental break-down when Tamaki is in his home and actually demonstrates he understand Kyoka already, that he sees thorugh all Kyoya's layers of masks, breaking Kyoya into self-realization and showing him a world of joy and possibilities he didn't allow himself to dream. It's SO good!!! Tamaki's childish whims would in no way be possible without the cunning mind of the Shadow Prince, and many suspect the Shadow Prince truly is the one running the show (and he kind of is), but that avoids the crucial point that Tamaki is the light that brought life back to Kyoya's soul, that inspires him everyday.

Koriand'r x Dick Grayson from DC Comics

Starfire and Nightwing is a ship I've always liked but I've appreciated more as time has gone on. I think they make for an exceptionally cute couple in all regards; this slightly broody angsty vigilante who's very serious and responsible with this emotional alien princess who's full of passion and life. I appreciate how Starfire is the sexual instigator of their relationship and how the two are so sexually and emotionally mature with each other in most versions. The two are a classic example of opposites attracting yet uplifting each other mentally and emotionally. I like a lot of different versions of them from their comic version most of the time to their Teen Titans animated series version to the animated film versions of them. Nightwing to Starfire represents the down-to-earth-edness almost literally being a man of the Earth who patrols the night streets of dangerous cities as a Vigilante while Starfire represents the most strange and exciting aspects of the DC Universe, it's alien races with odd powers and psychologies. I see a lot of what makes DC special in their pairing, the fact that these two elements that feel like they come from completely different universes somehow meld together and enhance each other. 

Nanoha Takamachi x Fate Testarossa from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha

My favorite part of MGLN, Nanoha and Fate are one of the single most famous yuri pairs in the MG Genre which is really saying something. The two aren't so much opposite as personalities, but opposite in what they represent, Nanoha represent the mundane world to Fate and Fate representing the magical world to Fate. Fate was a cloned girl made entirely to serve the whim of her abusive creator, trying to convince herself that her abusive "mother" actually loves her. Nanoha was able to look part the dark brooding magical girl opponent of hers to see the sad girl inside and eventually broke her from the abusive grip of Precia. This means that Nanoha showing her all the small mundane parts of life get a whole new heartwarming wholesome dimension as she is showing her the life a young girl should have. They develop from close friends to eventually girlfriends and raising a daughter together with the development feeling both natural and sweet. The two are extremely supportive of each other in every interaction and Fate idolizes Nanoha, the one who saved her. 

Aziraphale x Crowley from Good Omens

I like both the book and TV versions though they are slightly different. Aziraphale and Crowley are an angel and demon that despite their sides supposed to be opposite sides of the great war at the end of time, found companionship and more in each others embrace and saved humanity from Armageddon. I love the versatility of this pairing almost embodied in the episode that shows Aziraphale and Crowley's developing relationship over the course of human history, the two as the literal angel and devil of humanity's history across time. Aziraphale is extremely sweet and funny in his little habits and anxieties while Crowley is pragmatic, ruthless, and cunning making their relationship feel very complementary, especially as Aziraphale does help guide Crowley more than one might think. I like how they complete each other and pull each other towards being more human as Aziraphale guides Crowley towards having the slightest empathy and Crowley guides Aziraphale to be the slightest mischievous. And the way they deceive Heaven and Hell by swapping identities, knowing each other well enough to convince their side they are each other was great, treating their understanding of each other as the climactic weapon.

Honey Kisaragi x Natsuko Aki from Re: Cutie Honey

This relationship is very fun and sweet! Honey is a magical girl warrior who is a cute goofball who's very outgoing friendly while Natsuko is a workaholic serious dignified police agent who initially disliked Honey, with her opening up to Honey representing her growth in idealism. Their relationship is highly eroticized with very fanservice-y sequences, but it's treated in a very sex positive way overall, with the two not being shamed for their bodies or desires. Honey's earnest desire to befriend Na-chan is adorable and funny and Natsuko's growing acceptance and eventual love for Honey is really sweet. They even took Honey's signature pre-combat speech and turned it into a profession of Honey's love for Na-chan! That was really cute and funny! Natsuko's admiration and support for Honey are great as well. Flash is my favorite overall version of Cutie Honey but Re has my favorite of Natsuko and her relationship wit Honey.

Usagi Tsukino x Mamoru Chiba from Sailor Moon

My favorite ship in fiction, I already wrote a Valentine's day blog about these two but to summarize it, these two have every single one of the seven dynamics I mentioned above and more. The first stirrings of romance I had were watching Usagi and Mamoru together and thinking that I wanted something like that. They shaped my very idea of a supportive relationship. Usagi and Mamoru represent the duality of the Moon and the Earth. Usagi is ever-changing and mysterious just as the Moon appears on Earth and Mamoru is as reliably constant as the Earth is from the Moon, his blue eyes filled with hope and possibility so too reflecting that blue orb from space, glimmering with life and adventure. They are endlessly supportive of each other, Mamoru encouraging Usagi when she is feeling low and Usagi encouraging Mamoru towards his dreams even when it means they will be apart. There is a passion, a fire to their relationship, a primordial power. It was fated that their love should end in tragedy, but not even fate nor time nor space could keep them apart. They love each other spiritually and physically, the physicality of their relationship never presented as a threat to Usagi's purity, with Usagi being implied as the instigator of the physical side of their relationship and thinking of it for strength. The two constantly express how much they admire each other, with Mamoru in particular idolizing Usagi. The two feel gendered opposites, as distant as different worlds, yet share a mutual understanding that's clear in every scene together. Part of what makes it so great can't be expressed quickly as it has to deal perfectly it reflects the themes of the story and evolves alongside it, but for all these reasons and more Usagi and Mamoru are by far my favorite ship.