#luffastuff

This week I got a commission from miss-plum.bsky.social, and it's pretty incredible. If I haven't lost count, this is the fourth one from Plum, and you can check out the others here, here, and here. This time I wanted to see her take on the "Double X" outfit I commed back in 2023, and she knocked it out of the park!

blah blah blah Goldwall blah blah blah the legendary super saiyan blah blah blah vengeance cannon blah blah

and through all of that, I have ascended. That's right, I have reached a new level. Do you hear me Duhragon!? I have finally, finished reading through your fanfiction!

Allright, now I've gotten that out of the way, I would like to ask a question. If the tournament of power was held during Luffa's time, who would be picked for the team? Part of why I ask is because I find it an interesting difference that Luffa never had any tournament incidents, except for the death matches where she met the doctor and the wampa (I promise I love them but damn their names are hard to remember) so I have no idea what she'd think of them, but honestly I just love the tournament of power as a concept. The perfect blend of chaos and order. Part of me hopes that little rpg boy who tried to steal Luffa's hair is on the team, he's one of my favourites, the whole story would have ended happily if she had succeded in adopting him.

Neat! Thanks for reading!

I like the Tournament of Power myself, but I never put much serious thought into building a team of OCs to compete in one. I think Luffa herself would do well in that sort of battle royal environment, so I think she'd be able to drag one of the mid-tier teams from DBS closer to victory. Like, Universe 2 or 4, something like that. Put her on U6 or U3's team, and I think they have an outside chance of winning the whole thing.

But if you're asking me to pick nine more characters from that era to fight alongside her, I don't think the bench is that deep. This is because I wrote the fic with the idea of Luffa being profoundly alone at her level of power. There is no rival, no Tien or Piccolo or Vegeta for her to befriend. She has friends, but they can't satisfy her craving for a worthy adversary. That's why the fight with Goku was so important, because it was her getting to exhaust herself clobbering a true peer.

I guess if I had to field a team, we're looking at

Luffa

Xibuyas

King Rehval

Zatte

Hamey

Ensign Liberty

Scotch Woodcock

Wampaaan'riix

Red Ravager

The Shockmaster.

I'm reaching pretty badly to fill out this roster. Some of these characters are Luffa's enemies, whom she killed, so you'd have to bring them back to life just to put them on the team, and then you still have to get them to cooperate with the rest of the group.

Others are just too weak to make much of a difference. I put Zatte on the team because she could turn invisible and shoot people-- wait, no, you can't bring weapons to the Tournament of Power, Zatte's doomed. She can sit in the bleachers and look hot, I don't know.

Wampaaan'riix, Liberty, and Woodcock are warriors, but they're not that powerful. It's like how they put Roshi in the Tournament of Power and everyone complained about how dumb that is, except I'd have to do that four or five times just to fill out the team.

Red Ravager was a throwaway villain I came up with around chapter 25 or so. He had devices on his costume that generated artificial ki so he could fight. He's nothing special, but I think he might be one of the stronger characters in the early part of my fic, just by default. Like it's either him or Luffa's dad, and that sounds like a can of worms Universe 7 doesn't want to open. Wait... no, Red Ravager's devices are weapons, so he can't enter the tournament either. Shoot.

I mean, I'm kind of pleased that this it turning out to be even harder than I thought it would be. I really went out of my way to avoid the sort of team dynamic found in Dragon Ball Z, where there's at least a possibility that Piccolo or Trunks or Gotenks might save the day instead. I wanted Luffa to have a very different kind of story, one where she is truly, painfully unique, and the only escape from that is to travel 1000 years into the future, where Super Saiyans are commonplace, but she's still unique because she's from the ancient past. So the fact that the Tournament of Power concept is completely incompatible with my fic is a good thing. Goku wouldn't really fit into a lot of the stuff I was writing for similar reasons.

It's night time, and that means it's the right time to post this commission I got from the amazing @miss-plum !!

Back in July, I had a lot of Luffa art I wanted to get ordered, but I couldn't decide which ideas to do, so I ran a poll to sort my priorities. Vampire Luffa was tied for third place, but it's the one I voted for, so that's why it got bumped up the queue. And Plum was open for comms in October and the timing was perfect.

I do these AU-themed Christmas specials every year, and in 2022 I went with a vampire gimmick. I couldn't decide whether Luffa should be a vampire or a vampire hunter, so I pressed both buttons and made an antihero. She still wants to eradicate vampires (saving herself for last), but she has needs now, Alfred. Dirty, horrible needs. And that's where Yamcha and Maron come in. Luffa forges an uneasy alliance with the Brief family's vampire-hunting guild, but she plans to take Yamcha from them as payment for her services. But he turns on the charm, and in the end she spares him... or does she? Maybe she just decided to take Maron in his place, or maybe she wants them both.

Anyway, this was a ton of fun to do. I had all these ideas for Luffa's costume, and it's great to see it all come to life like this. Its one thing for me to write down that she wears a corset and an ancient Pictish necklace, but Plum took all this and made it look gooooood.

I COULDNT thiNK Of how to properly thank you for the birthday gift, like, genuinely speechless, SO here’s a LUFFA!!! thank you so so much again!!! AND KEEP ON BEING YOU 💕💕💕😭💕💕🗣️🔥🔥

AAAAAA THANK YOU COZY!

Always grateful for Luffa questions on this blog. Thank you kindly.

So there was this episode of Dragon Ball Super where they made a Great Saiyaman vs. Mr. Satan movie, and Goku fell asleep in the theater because he was bored. According to the script, he preferred being in fights over watching them in a movie.

[Above: One sleepy, sleepy grandpa.]

This has always annoyed me, because Goku's always loved watching other people fight. Every time there's a tournament he's fascinated by the action. I think the only time he passed on viewing a match was Pikkon vs. Torbie, because Goku already knew Pikkon would win easily. Maybe staged, fictional battles aren't Goku's style, but he got a kick out of the ZTV re-enactment of the Cell Games.

In Goku's defense, I will acknowledge that he and I are about the same age, and naps are pretty awesome, but I've never fallen asleep in a theater, and I've seen some stinkers in my time. You'd think Goku would enjoy watching Gohan and Mr. Satan horse around on the the big screen, especially when he can get free popcorn refills and make out with his hot wife during the boring parts.

What I'm getting at is that I've always felt like the Saiyans' love of fighting must be deeply ingrained in their culture, to the point where they enjoy combat on many levels. It becomes part of their art, their storytelling, their courtship, and so on. In that context, professional wrestling looks a lot like a night at the opera to a Saiyan. Maybe Goku can't appreciate that, but Luffa can.

"Aw, but it's all fake--"

"THE PUNCHES THAT DON'T CONNECT TELL A STORY OF THE VIOLENCE THAT COULD HAVE BEEN, YOU UNCULTURED BOOB!"

I suppose that is the main difference between these two goofy goobers. Goku's a simple man who enjoys fighting for the elemental beauty of it, but Luffa's a sucker for a good story. She needs the storytelling, the drama, the intrigue, to give all of it meaning. Without it, they're all just a bunch of glowy jocks punching each other for no reason. There has to be all this emotional weight behind it all, a sense of glory and pride and destiny. Otherwise, what's the point?

And perhaps Goku could find himself appreciating that sort of thing as well, but he isn't usually conscious of it. There was that episode of DBS where he recreated all the moves from his match with Grandpa Gohan, decades after the fact. That re-enactment wasn't real, but Goku still did it just because he enjoyed the story of it so much. Same thing.

Luffa commission by @vani-e (2/3)

Zatte commission by @replica004 !