#stats equalized

This Month's Fighters...

Judge Doom vs Judge Holden!

Conditions:

No Other Restrictions.

Scenario:

Judge Holden decides to assist Judge Doom in wiping out Toon Town for the fuck of it, helping to murder Eddie Valiant to ensure no kne discovers the atrocity until it's too late. With all of Toon Kind wiped away, Doom decides to murder Holden, realizing that he has no loyalty to him and can't be trusted to not simply kill him for laughs later.

This Month's Fighters....

Not Important vs Tom Hansen!

Conditions:

No Other Reserictions

Scenario:

After Not Important's raid on the army base, Tom Hansen is sent in to stop his rampage.

Analysis: Hansen

The ocean depths are a mysterious and dangerous place. At the lowest survivable levels of Earth's surface, strange creatures straight out of Lovecraft's nightmares evolved to survive the dark, cold, crushing depths of the ocean floor. And humanity was about to unearth some of its most dangerous creatures.

In the coldest parts of the Atlantic Ocean, Russian oil diggers discovered a new form of life within the ice they were mining. Exocels. Parasitic creatures that were completely uncategorized by existing scientific theories. Capable of overtaking the higher brain functions of their host and mutating them in response to dangerous external stimuli. Naturally, the crew of the Star of Sakhalin begain trying to weaponize these new creatures to sell for a profit. Predictably, it didn't work out. The ship was quickly overrun by mutant zombies and a distress call was sent out.

The call was answered by Tom Hansen, an officer of the United States Coast Guard who really wants to be Leon Kennedy. He and his crew were sent to rescue everyone on board, only to find everyone already dead or zombified. Narrowly surviving the massacre of his crew, Tom was left alone on the ship as the only thing stopping the Exocels from falling into the shadowy hands of the CIA.

Luckily, Hansen comes equipped with every weapon a survival horror protagonist could ever need. He comes decked out with the usual affair of pistols, shotguns, and automatic weapons, each laser scoped to ensure perfect accuracy. Even his standard M1911A1 can completely pop a human’s skull like it was made from confetti, to say nothing of his MP5, AK47, and Benelli M4. But all of that pales in comparison to his sawed off M79 Grenade Launcher to blow apart any Exomutant that gets hit by it, even shredding through Exo zombies that evolved specifically to withstand bullets and fire arms.

Tom would quickly adapt against the rapidly evolving Exocels, using a modified harpoon gun whose harpoons emitted a protein gas, allowing his shots to distract Exocels with delicious smelling harpoons. Perfect for luring them into a trap or grouping them together for a grenade. Hansen has fought through squadrons of Russian mercenaries, defeated invisible Exocel zombies, dodged a steel door that was blasted at him by an explosion, and survived getting infected by an Exocel that tried to eat him alive from the inside out twice.

With nothing but raw wit, determination, and witty one liners, Tom rigged the entire ship to blow with C4 and faced down the man behind the entire disaster. Kamsky, the mad scientist turned sentient Exomutant out to replace humanity with his zombified master race.

Ultimately, Hansen defeated Kamsky, blowing the Star of Sakhalin to pieces and exterminating the Exocel threat once and for all.

Analysis: Not Important

"My name is not important... What is important is what I'm going to do. I just fucking hate this world and the human worms feasting on it's carcass. My whole life is just cold, bitter hatred... and I always wanted to die violently. This the time of vengeance and no life is worth saving. And I will put in the grave as many as I can. It's time for me to kill... and it's time for me to die."

There is absolutely nothing to Not Important other than that quote. He is a hateful man who wants the world to die, and in the span of single day he will come as close to that goal as he can. All that's none about him is he stepped out of his house one day, tripped out with guns, and began slaughtering everything in sight.

Not Important is carrying enough firepower to seem overdressed for a Texan wedding. He regularly carries a several military grade fire arms, ranging from a Glock 17 to an M16 rifle. He also carries improvised molotov flame grenades, regular grenades, and flashbang grenades. While Not Important is superhumanly durable, he relies heavily on SWAT armor to deal with bullet barrages. If he does need to amp up his assault, however, Not Important does have flamethrowers to spread chaos up close, as well as rocket launchers to obliterate vehicles.

On top of that, Not Important is blatantly superhuman. He can crush a human skull in only three stomps as well as keep up with police, SWAT, and the army in open fire fights. On top of that, he's smart enough to drive a variety of vehicles including tanks, operate nuclear reactors, as well as sneak around and ambush SWAT officers. His guns can shred through walls while his explosives can destroy tanks, when combined with his superhuman capabilities, Not Important is capable of slaughtering an entire army base singlehandedly. Is stamina is decidedly inhuman as well, with Not Important capable of slaughtering several towns full of thousands of people in a single day.

Not Important is pure, unyielding Hatred given flesh, and he has more than enough fire power to reign that Hatred down upon anyone he meets.

Throwdown Breakdown:

This fight is pretty simple. As both Fighters have very basic gun kits, and the Exocel harpoon doesn't help Tom here at all, this fight comes down to who is better in a gun fight.

Not Important has some very distinct showings in this area. Outmaneuvering entire SWAT teams by exploiting the sewers labyrinthine layout and gunning down an entire army base showcase his tactical use of hit and run tactics. But even then, he's not untouchable. He was still eventually cornered and gunned down at the power plant, boxed in with nowhere to run due to his fixation on his goal. And, more importantly, Hansen has demonstrated himself against more impressive competition.

The Exocels were so dangerously effective, that the CIA considered them to be a worthwhile superweapon to use against hostile nations despite the threat they posed to humanity at large. The fact that Hansen can still find ways to gun them down even as they actively evolve to counter his tactics speaks to his superior adaptability against far greater threats. Meanwhile, once Not Important's usual strategies stop working, he's more or less out of tricks.

The main thing that does Not Important in with regards to most of hid fights, be it this one or Michael Myers way back, is that his single minded focus on dealing out sadistic death and destruction leaves him vulnerable to being outsmarted and exploited by more experienced and subtly intelligent opponents. Not Important is a raving madman openly gloating about listening to your guardian angel cry as he shoots down your family. He's a one dimensional edge lord on purpose. That's not a knock against the guy, it's just who he is. Which leaves him with a very shallow pool of tactics against more nuanced fighters and characters.

This fight would largely be Hansen responding to Important's edgy threats with cheesy action movie quips as the two exchanged pot shots at each other, until Not Important's mounting irritation and bloodlust left him open to making a fatal mistake.

This Throwdown's Winner is....

Tom Hansen!

This Month's Fighters...

Judge Doom vs Judge Holden!

Conditions:

No other restrictions.

Scenario:

Judge Holden decides to assist Judge Doom in wiping out Toon Town for the fuck of it, helping to murder Eddie Valiant to ensure no kne discovers the atrocity until it's too late. With all of Toon Kind wiped away, Doom decides to murder Holden, realizing that he has no loyalty to him and can't be trusted to not simply kill him for laughs later.

Analysis: Judge Holden

The Old West. A time that lives on the myths and legends still told today. A time of nameless heroes, dastardly outlaws, and adventure everywhere you looked. Where every sheriff and outlaw honored the law of the sundown quickdraw. But, for all the Arthur Morgans and Good, Bad, and Uglies we fantasize about in this golden age of adventure, the real Old West was far less glamorous and far more vile.

The era of the cowboy was a dark and brutal one in reality. One where minorities were oppressed, to many people had guns, and people died of preventable disease. History runs in cycles. Yet, for all the ways that bloody days of Manifest Destiny may resemble the horrors of our modern day, we can rest easy that our era has never produced outlaws as heinous as the ones who lived back then. No man... no thing who lived back then or now has every matched the depravity of Judge Holden.

One day, there was a man. A tall, imposing man with a strange design. He was eloquent, intelligent, and acted broadly polite in the moment, certainly, but you'd be thrown by his appearance nonetheless. A tale, deathly pale man who moreso resembled a giant stone golem than a human. His skin bleached white, his smile stretched a bit too wide, and his skin completely bereft of hair. No eyebrows, no sunspots, no face fuzz. Nothing. One day, he walked into a town he'd never been to before, pointed at a preacher he'd never met, and announced with the certainty of God that that man was a pedophile and a predator, unworthy and incapable of reading the bible in his hands. The man watched with that same pastor get dragged out before the church and lynched. The man joined in the celebrations afterwards, passing drinks around the bar. And, when asked about how he knew that preacher was a monster, the man cheerfully announced he'd never met the preacher before in his life. Said man could only ever be Judge Holden.

With that story in mind, you shouldn't show any suprise that the Judge wound up traveling with the Glanton Gang, a band of scalp hunters and outlaws. Nor should you show any suprise that Holden was the most wicked and wretched among them. Suprise would imply a precedent that the Judge would do anything other than the most wrteched thing he could and I will not insult your intelligence by implying such a precedence. Just rest assured that Holden's atrocities, even those committed wuth just the Glanton Gang, are innumerable even next to your current imagination.

If you are in any way off put by themes of rape, slaughter, bloodshed, and war, then you'd best turn back now. Now four words could ever better describe Holden.

Holden saw wanton slaughter and the full depths of human evil as the heart of the American Dream. Nay, moreso than that, he saw war as God. It is with full awareness of his enemy's humanity, intelligence, and virtue that he pillaged that tribes of indigenous people. It is with full awareness of his barbarity that he raped one so hard he accidentally snapped his neck. The Judge acknowledges the worth of his victims, for it's what makes them worth killing. Holden and his gang, for it had been his ever since he set foot in it, committed countless atrocities in their march across the West. They would start a bar fight that killed a dozen people. They would lure away little children to never be seen again with candy, just as the Judge taught them too. And they would bathe in the bloodshed they caused as if it was God, just as the Judge preached.

But beyond his ability to turn an unextraordinary gang of cutthroats into demons in human skin, Holden seemed to posses a number of inhuman qualities himself. The Judge could smash a horse's skull in with a single blow, snapping the legs on which it stood in the process. He could create gunpowder out besalt and piss, can seemingly be in more than one place at a time, and can, be it through some trick of the campfire light or his own raw strength, throw a coin all the way around the world and catch it in his other hand. For the limits of man are like an unbound coin. Limitless when hurled into the dark. If there are any human explanations for the Judge's strange achievements, his Gang never found them.

Though, as with all evil men, the Judge would eventually move on from his current playground. When it became convenient, The Judge would slaughter them all, until only a young, foolish Kid remained. The Judge would hunt him for years. Watch as the Kid become the Man and appear before him years later unchanged. The Judge was not any older or kinder or wiser. Men like the Judge, if he be a man at all, don't change. They dance to the tune of the song in their heads into the music of the bloodshed stops.

And dance the Judge does with the grace of a naked cherub. He sings a song of slaughter, he dances to seduce Death. It is an artform dedicated to atrocity and as long as he dances he shall never die. Hear him call for mankind to join the dance here in this rotten old west. For as long as he dances, he shall never die. You cannot kill the Devil with the sin of murder after all.

Analysis: Judge Doom

Cartoons. Good old fashioned toons. The slapstick masterpieces that immortalized the earliest days of animation. For as much as names like Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny might be associated with childhood whimsy these days, their old shows could be shockingly dark by today's standards. And in a world full of sentient, living toons, no toon was more heinous and vile than Judge Dredd.

Judge Doom's real name has been lost to the ages (there's a comic that explains it, but the continuity is dubious on that so sush). With a suit of rubber skin, some fake eyeballs, and a fake name, he lives among humans, hunting down his own kind with a toon killing substance called The Dip. To break the metaphor down a bit, he's the member of a minority who does his best to imitate the dominant group, reap the rewards of his own groups oppression in a twisted sense of "fuck you, got mine". The real Ben Shapiro of the Looney Toons world.

To this end, Doom wanted to wipe out all of Toon Town. Not just literally erase the people who lived there, but erase any trace that they'd ever been there, replace the rubble of their homes with lines and lines of shops and businesses to line his own pockets until Toon Town may as well have never been there. Complete deletion. Fuck you, got mine. And who can even stop him?

Outside the Dip itself, Judge Doom is nigh invincible. Before the Dip was created, Toons were thought to be completely indestructible to the people of 1947. Given the first nukes were dropped in 1945, you could argue as far as them being able to take even early nuclear bombs, but that's an argument that relies on the assumption that WW2 occured the same in Who Framed Roger Rabbit as it did in our world. Popeye for his part did infamous fight a lot of WW2 racist stereotypes, so it's not impossible. Beyond that, any damage that a Toon takes will comically bounce offas the toon is crush flat, burnt to ash, or turned into a ghost before coming back like nothing happened. Judge Doom himself uses this to shapeshift his body in all kinds of horrifying ways, from literally glaring daggers to turning his arms into buzzsaws.

That being said, they aren't completely unstoppable. Toons are limited to what they find hilarious. If there's an opportunity for a gag, the Toon must go along with it, even if it is to their own detriment. Luckily, Doom thinks bloody murder is hilarious. And for all the effort Doom puts into looking human and hunting Toons, there are cracks in his fascade. He never blinks, his skin is made of rubber, and his movements are unnaturally stiff and even puppet like.

Ultimately, Judge Doom would put his everything into pinning one of his crimes into Rodger Rabbit to cover up his larger plan. This gets Detective Eddie Valient involved in the case, leading to Doom's plot being uncovered and his own dip being turned against him, melting him into golden sludge. A horrific end for a horrific and monsterous toon.

Throwdown Breakdown:

...I'm gonna be honest, I'm not sure I can call this one. I'm not entirely sure what they can really do to each other.

Any conversation involving a fight with Judge Holden is going to turn philosophical and literary. It's inevitable. He's a very philosophical, metaphorical character. He's the ultimate embodiment of his era of colonialism. He's Manifest Destiny with the mask off. And to that end... Judge Doom is just a more modern incarnation of that same evil.

Colonialism and gentrification are built off the same foundation and have the same end goal. "I want the stuff that is here and I want the people already here gone. I want all evidence that the people who are in my way were here wiped from this Earth so I can build shops and brothels and gold mines over it and make my money. I know what I do is wrong beneath all that I justify and I do not care. Blood and gold for the sake of blood and gold." In that sense, Doom cannot kill Holden because Holden is Doom. One judge just doesn't wear the mask.

But, by that same metric, Holden can't kill Doom either. Because Doom is a Toon. Without Dip, Holden cannot kill Doom, nor would he understand how Doom works in order to exploit his Toon nature, as Holden is from a different time period all together. I do think Holden is smarter and could likely manipulate Doom long term. Doom is every bit as self righteous and self justifying as those Holden has corrupted before, after all. And there's every possibility Holden could take advantage by doing something so horrifyingly evil even Doom can't find it funny. Doom is as bloodthirsty a monster as the Disney censors will allow, but Judge Holden is... Judge Holden. Even then, that remains circumstantial and given the fights set up, I find it unlikely for Doom to have let Holden get his hands on any dip up to now anyways.

Ultimately, what is capitalist displacement and gentrification if not an evolution of colonialism? It's the same way of destroying not just a people, but their very identity, jist modernized. Doom and Holden worship the same god, for to them war is God and God is hatred and greed and death and blood that washes down the American Soil ever since Columbus found it.

This Battle is a Draw!

This Month's Fighters...

Davepetasprite^2 vs Stevonnie!

Conditions:

No other restrictions.

Scenario:

Steven and Connie are going on a date fused together as Stevonnie on the beach when Davepeta crashes down to Earth right in front of them. Stevonnie asks if they've alright as they pull them from the crater, but Davepeta brushes it off, casually explaining that they've been at war with the New Galactic Republic ever since some guy named Horn beat up Sollux and now some Skywalker guy blasted them across time and space. This does not make Stevonnie any less concerned, especially as they don't know what any of that means beyond "war" and "blasted across time and space" but the topic gets side tracked when Davepeta points out that their gemstone belly button looks a lot like "that Universe guy" and asks if they've landed in Gem Territory. Stevonnie explains that they kind of are Steven and the two get into comparing and contrasting how Gems snd Sprites fuse. Davepeta ponders out loud which kind of fusion is stronger and challenges Stevonnie to a sparring match.

"Um, didn't you just say you're in a war?"

"B33 < nah, it's chill. the war's nothing purrsonal, i'm sure skyguy will understand if i hold off on kicking his ass fur a bit."

"Every word out of your mouth makes me more concerned...."

Analysis: Davepetasprite^2

Sprites. The mysterious, aloof guides of the Gods. When mortal beings play the video game SBURB to become the gods of a New Universe, the Sprites are assigned as their guides. In order for a session to be successful, Sprites most be fused with physical objects, be that an inanimate toy, a dead creature, or even a living person so that they might have the sentience to guide their assigned Player through their quest.

Davesprite was one such Sprite. Hailing from a doomed timeline where his best friend John died horribly, Davesprite traveled back to prevent this future, becoming his past self's Sprite in the new timeline.

While this did successfully prevent the death of his friend, Davesprite didn't anticipate how this would effect himself. The versions of his friends in this new timeline weren't the same people he knew in his timeline. John was back, but it wasn't his John. His friends didn't even consider him to be the "real Dave" anymore. They had a Dave. And it wasn't him. The timeline didn't need two Daves anymore. He was just leftovers.

He was just a Sprite. A figment of a dead timeline. What use would he be when the story was over?

Dave would unwittingly get his answer after inadvertently fusing with Nepetasprite. The two were merged and reborn again as something new. Part troll, part human, part crow. Reformed not as a leftover Dave or forgotten Nepeta, but as something entirely themselves.

It helps that they're indisputably the most powerful Sprite in Paradox Space. That's a nice boon.

As a fully Prototyped Sprite, Davepetasprite^2 should have all of the boons inherent to their biology. Sprites can become intangible at will, create light constructs like a green lantern ring, fly, and posses a natural nigh-omniscient understanding of SBURB and its function in the greater multiverse... at least, in so far as it would help their assigned Player. Furthermore, as a fully realized Sprite, Davepeta has very little worry of accidentally fusing with something or someone just by touching them for too long.

It helps that their components are absolute juggernauts in their own right. Any version of Dave or Nepeta could be counted among the most skilled fighters Paradox Space has to offer and Davepetasprite^2 has the combined experiences of both of them. Nepeta was a proud hunter who happily battled the beasts of hellplanet Alternia while Davesprite could go toe to toe against 3x Prototyped Jack Noir, who could slaughter entire armies single handed. Both of these fighters could demolish the armies of Derse, but combined together, they gave even Lord English, the destoyer of all Paradox Space, a good fight.

In many ways, Davepetasprite^2 is the ultimate payoff that both Nepeta and Davesprite could ask for. Two characters made irrelevant, tragically left behind by their closest friends after fulfilling their one purpose, reborn again as something new. Something themselves.

Claw claw, meowtherfuckers.

Analysis: Stevonnie

Fusion. The ultimate form of bond between Gems. The physical embodiment of a relationship between two people, coming together to create something entirely new. Literally.

With Gems, this merging is possible only because their bodies are physically made of hard light. As such, a fusion between and human and a gem is impossible. Or was, until Steven Universe came along. As a half gem, half human, Steven was able to create the first gem human fusion in history. A living statement of his close bond between him and his girlfriend Connie. Something entirely new. Stevonnie.

Naturally, Stevonnie has all of Steven's Gem powers combined with Connie's keen tactical mind, creating a skilled and versatile warrior. A hero that the Crystal Gems could be proud of. They wield Steven's nigh indestructible pink shields, which they can materialize at any time, either portably or around their entire body. They've also been known to wield Rose's Sword, an absolute giant of a sword that was specifically designed to cut through Gems with ease.

On top their weapons, Stevonnie has access to all of Steven's powers, including his limited flight, regeneration, mental projection, healing spit, and even life creation. The end result is a devastatingly versatile foe, likely the most powerful and versatile across the entire universe, as Stevonnie's three-fourths human physiology makes them immune to most gem neutralizing weapons.

Both Steven and Connie have been trained by the Cystal Gems, the thousand year old protectors of Earth, and both have fought against the toughest warriors the galaxy has to offer. As Stevonnie, they were able to defeat Jasper, a perfect quartz gem super soldier, while both of their components have teamed up to save the entire planet from the Homeworld Empire on several occasions.

All together, Stevonnie is the best attributes of both their components, making them arguably the greatest hero in the universe. The perfectly embody the compassion, trust, and hope that their relationship is built on. The perfect representation of both Steven and Connie.

Throwdown Breakdown:

This fight is an interesting one. Both characters share quite a few strengths and weaknesses. While both fusions can be undercut and even destroyed if their components aren't seeing eye to eye, the situation here is pretty unlikely to create that internal conflict and neither one of these fighters would willingly press each other's trauma buttons even if they had the means to.

Both should be pretty even in terms of skill. Both fusions are made up of some of the best fighters their universes can offer, to the point where some of their best feats were considered completely impossible. Connie can fight as an equal with and against centuries old Gem warriors, all while swinging around a sword roughly as big as she is, cutting through cars in a single swing. On the other hand, Nepeta is such a skilled fighter and proud hunter that she's completely unaffected by the hellish nightmares that plague troll kind, as for her, it's just reliving proud memories of the hunt. And so on.

On the one hand, I do think Stevonnie is going to be better coordinated tactically. Steven and Connie have been close friends since childhood, going on constant death defying adventures together while Dave and Nepeta are relative strangers brought together by happenstance. However, I would say Davepeta's skill feats as a whole edge out Stevonnie's. Both characters have fought against ancient empire built on Eons of conquest, but whereas the Homeworld Empire has always been a massive threat, Nepeta and her friends curbstomped roughly 90% of Derse with disappointing ease, minus some roadblocks here or there. So really, it all kinda cancels out skill wise, with one team being better together innately while the other is more skilled in general.

Ultimately, this is decided by powers and abilities. In which case, I'd say Davepeta's arsenal counters Stevonnie's.

Intangibility is a perfect counter against Stevonnie's shields, Davepeta has slightly better flight due to it not being just a form of self gravity manipulation like what Steven does, and Nepeta has innate mental resistances the nullify Steven's telepathic powers.

Remember those dreams I mentioned earlier? It's been very heavily implied that these nightmares are either caused by the horrorterrors, or by the purple bloods keepinh Alternia in line. Either way, that's a massive scale of mind control that Nepeta is simply unaffected by, meaning she should be able to just push Steven out of Davepeta's mind if he tries anything.

While this would by no means be an easy fight, especially with Stevonnie's fast acting regeneration, Davepeta's intagibility is a counter that Stevonnie simply has no real answer too. It would be a hard fought fight... but the Sprite beats the Gem this time.

This Month's Winner is...

Davepetasprite^2!

This Month's Fighters...

Davepetasprite^2 vs Stevonnie!

Conditions:

No other restrictions.

Scenario:

Steven and Connie are going on a date fused together as Stevonnie on the beach when Davepeta crashes down to Earth right in front of them. Stevonnie asks if they've alright as they pull them from the crater, but Davepeta brushes it off, casually explaining that they've been at war with the New Galactic Republic ever since some guy named Horn beat up Sollux and now some Skywalker guy blasted them across time and space. This does not make Stevonnie any less concerned, especially as they don't know what any of that means beyond "war" and "blasted across time and space" but the topic gets side tracked when Davepeta points out that their gemstone belly button looks a lot like "that Universe guy" and asks if they've landed in Gem Territory. Stevonnie explains that they kind of are Steven and the two get into comparing and contrasting how Gems snd Sprites fuse. Davepeta ponders out loud which kind of fusion is stronger and challenges Stevonnie to a sparring match.

"Um, didn't you just say you're in a war?"

"B33 < nah, it's chill. the war's nothing purrsonal, i'm sure skyguy will understand if i hold off on kicking his ass fur a bit."

"Every word out of your mouth makes me more concerned...."

This Month's Fighters...

Charlie Morningstar vs Feferi Piexes!

Conditions:

No Other Restrictions. Dubiously canon materials such as Epilogues and Pesterquest are ignored.

Scenario:

When the Alternian Empire launches an invasion of Hell, Feferi and Charlie try to broker a peace deal behind the scenes between the two sides. Learning of this: The Condescension murders Vaggie and frames Feferi for it to vandalize the efforts, successfully manipulating them into fighting to the death.

This Month's Fighters...

Charlie Morningstar vs Feferi Piexes!

Conditions:

No Other Restrictions. Dubiously canon materials such as Epilogues and Pesterquest are ignored.

Scenario:

When the Alternian Empire launches an invasion of Hell, Feferi and Charlie try to broker a peace deal behind the scenes between the two sides. Learning of this: The Condescension murders Vaggie and frames Feferi for it to vandalize the efforts, successfully manipulating them into fighting to the death.

Analysis: Charlie Morningstar

At what point is a soul beyond redemption?

For a lot of people, that point would be hell. The chance to be a good person was the life you had before. Your punishment is this. The seven deadly layers of eternal punishment deep in hell.

Charlie Morningstar, Princess of Hell, daughter of Lucifer himself, rejects that premise. Though she was abandoned by her mother and her dream discouraged by her father, Charlie wanted the best for her people. Hell was overcrowded, its population only kept in check by the annual exterminations sent by the angels above. Her people deserved better, even if they were the worst of the worst. So, she founded the Happy Hotel to redeem sinners of all shapes and sizes! Later mockingly renamed the Hazbin Hotel by Alastor.

Charlie is effectively the Disney Princess of Hell and she's just as powerful as that title implies. She sits right near the top of Hell's hierarchy of power, above Overlords like Alastor and royalty like Stolas. She can go blow for blow with the First Man Adam, the leader of Heaven's armies and one of the oldest beings in all creation. Her magical abilities are so inherently powerful, her musical numbers seem almost reality warping in scope, creating pianos with a finger snap, warping clouds into existence, and creating a candyland during various musical numbers. But, in a more combat oriented scenario, she can just snap her fingers and blow you the fuck up with fireworks! That works too! Or fly through the skies on her steads Razzle and Dazzle.

See, Charlie is a sinner demon on her Mom's side and an angel on her dad's, so she has the advantages of both physiologies. As an angel, nothing short of angelic weaponry can harm her due to her unreleting power, where as a demon, her body will always be rebuilt from her soul every time she dies (as stated in an interview by Viziepop herself. Sinners will simply regenerate from their souls unless killed with a holy weapon). Hell, given Lucifer was on the verge of killing Adam in their fight, it's entirely possible that her fists count as holy weapons and that she could kill an angel or demon by herself if she wanted. This makes her a nigh unstoppable force in combat... when she actually wants to fight.

See, Charlie's status in Hell leaves her fairly.... disconnected with the realities of her situation. Her compassion towards her subjects can sometimes come as condescending and she has very limited idea on how to actually help someone whose been beaten down into a place like Hell, occasionally even making their situations worse. She's well meaning, just privileged.

As such, she often hesitates to fight at all or even let herself get upset at times. So despite being easily centuries old, she has little actual combat experience.

But despite all sides working against, Charlie did indeed prove it was possible for a damned soul to get into Heaven. When she saw the best in Sir Pentious, she genuinely managed to change him as a person, inspiring him to perform a heroic sacrifice that got his soul into Heaven.

Perhaps Charlie's dream is a genuine possibility. Only time will tell. But despite everything, Charlie will always work to save her people, even the worst of them. With enough will and a little luck, she might just bring some Heaven to Hell.

Analysis: Feferi Piexes

The Alternian Empire. The scourge of the galaxy. A hellish, caste driven regime that has terrorized and subjugated all life it could find for generations, ruled over by the brutal warrior race known as the trolls.

Could such an empire ever be redeemed? It may be a naive question to ask. A hopeless endeavor to introduce kindness to a people who had only ever known fear. But, regardless, Feferi Piexes thought it was her duty to try.

Feferi was born into royalty at the top of Alternia's eugenicist caste system. With Fuschia blood pumping through her vains, Feferi is a queen amongst the sea fairing royal caste and the heiress next in line for the throne. She wishes to redefine "culling" as caring for the unfit and infirm as opposed to... well... exterminating them. To this end, she must challenge the Condescension herself to combat and earn her place on the throne.

Unfortunately, this plan gets a bit derailed when armageddon comes knocking on her door, which immediately changes her priorities to surviving the trials of a deadly reality warping video game and ensuring the continuation of her race into the next universe.

Luckily, Feferi is every bit as badass as her seat on the throne would imply, despite her kind and excitable nature. One doesn't make big plans for the seat of Alternia without the drive to back it up. Feferi and her team of friends would battle against the forces of Derse, a kingdom of destruction that has warred against its equal and opposite since its inception centuries ago, and do extraordinarily well. Even the King of Derse, fully upgraded with the powers of Feferi's eldritch mother Gl'bgolyb, stood little chance against the combined teamwork of all of them put together.

That would likely have to do with Feferi's complete immunity to telepathic attacks, such that even the psychic cry of Gl'bgolyb, which wipes out every other troll in the universe by melting their brains, can't kill her. Thanks to a lot of genetic tampering and civilization guidance from behind the scenes manipulators, Fuschia bloods are the toughest trolls around, supremely strong and resilient, capable of breathing underwater, and nigh unkillable to anything short of a god killing weapon. Or, failing that, a supremely powerful magic wand. Most highbloods can live for hundreds of thousands of years and Fuschia bloods seem to be unable to die from old age completely.

This is amplified by the versatility provided by Homestuck's... mechanics, for lack of a better term. In Homestuck, video game logic dictates reality. So, Feferi has a video game style inventory system, with her trusty trident in her weapon slot, or strife specibus. Basically, anything she picks up will be stored in hammerspace on her person, without her having to physically carry it, just like in a video game. And, just like in a video game, Feferi can get stronger and stonger by leveling up with every fight.

But, despite this warrior heritage, Feferi is still a princess. She's royalty, separated from most of her subjects and a bit naive to their actual needs. On Beforus, in the timeline where she actually becomes Empress, Feferi winds up robbing the poor and disabled of all their anatomy and free will in an attempt to provide for all their needs, making Beforus nearly as much of a dystopia as Alternia was. Sadly, her attempts to help everyone would prove to be the death of her in this timeline, as it would culminate in her murder at the hands of her vengeful, genocidal ex Eridan.

Despite that, Feferi's dream would live on. In death, Feferi would convince her mother Gl'bgolyb and the rest of her eldritch kind to create an afterlife for all of her friends. In the dreambubbles, the souls of all who died while playing the game would live on in. In a way, Feferi really did achieve her dream of helping everyone from beyond her grave.

Throwdown Breakdown:

This is a fairly simple one, I'd say.

Interestingly enough, Charlie is the fighter with a means of actually killing her opponent here that Feferi lacks. Even if you don't think Charlie can destroy souls with her bare hands like her father is implied to be able to (Lucifer would be completely incapable of beating Adam to death without that ability given how holy weapons and angels are stated to work), Feferi doesn't have any special immortalities like a demon from hell does. She just can't die of old age. Hitting her hard enough to kill her is just really hard.

That said, this isn't a Death Battle and Feferi still has ways to win. Immortal she may be, but Charlie can still get knocked unconscious or choked out with enough damage and Feferi should be fully capable of this. The skill gap between them is ginormous.

Charlie being able to box evenly with Adam is impressive... to a point. In-universe, it was only discovered that holy weapons could hurt angels the previous day. When Adam goes down to slaugher Hell, he's massacring people who cannot fight back. This is even explicitly brought up as a plot point in the show. It's discovered that Vaggie is a fallen angel when the person she's fighting notes she leaves herself too open in combat, because angels couldn't be killed by anything other than their own weapons. And when a demon finally does kill an angel, it's such a big deal that Adam vows to wipe them out to the last. Adam's basically a more sexist Homelander.

Feferi meanwhile, fought against an entire kingdom that had been at war with an equal for its entire existence and did pretty damn well. By that metric, she should be outperforming Charlie very substantially here.

While Charlie does have more powers than Feferi, her arsenal is limited outside of musical numbers and most of what she brings beyond that is nothing Feferi hasn't already seen and dealt with. Even taking soul destruction as a given, Charlie would need to land a killing blow first, and that's not something Feferi's gonna allow before pinning her between her trident's prongs.

Probably the best case scenario, frankly. Neither girl is gonna have to kill a friend over a misunderstanding. Everyone wins on that front.

This Throwdown's Winner is...

Feferi Piexes!

This Month's Fighters...

Emperor Palpatine vs Her Imperious Condescension!

Conditions:

Dark Empire Palpatine. Legends material only. "Dubiously Canon" Homestuck materials are ignored.

Scenario:

Just when Palpatine returns from the dead and sets out to conquer the galaxy with his new Dark Empire, the Alternian Empire invades, forcing him to direct his new armies at the incoming threat.

Analysis: Sidious

Of all the Dark Lords of the Sith who would come to terrorize the galaxy over the centuries, there is one and only one who could be said to have been born pure evil. He was not a man. Not a monster. But the Dark Side twisted into a barely human form. To the Sith, he is remembered as Palpatine the Great, the last of the Rule of Two who conquered the galaxy and destroyed the Jedi as no one before him ever had. To the Jedi, he is Darth Sidious, a genocidal monster behind the greatest tragedies and wars in galactic history. And to the Galaxy at large, he is just Emperor Palpatine, ruler of the First Galactic Empire.

Palpatine (not Sheev, that's Disney exclusive) always felt that the Naboo royal lineage he'd been born into was beneath him. Even as his family spoiled him rotten, he always felt he was destined for more. So, when Darth Plagueis the Wise, awed by his limitless potential in the Force, offered him secrets of the Dark Side, Palpatine did not hesitate. He murdered his family as a teenager and took the name Darth Sidious.

Sidious would manipulate his way to the top of galactic politics to become the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, before murdering Plagueis in his sleep. Then, under the guise of innocent, kindly Palpatine, he would instigate the Clone Wars, one of the bloodiest conflicts in history, to transition the Republic into a paranoid, fascist police state. Grooming the young Anakin Skywalker into the horrific enforcer Darth Vader, Palpatine would dispose of all his former allies when he took the throne, before purging the Jedi to grasp the galaxy in his iron grip.

Palpatine would reign unchallenged for decades, destroying planets with superweapons, instigating slavery and genocides, creating whole new forms of Dark Force magic, and crushing all resistance to maintain his iron grip on the galaxy. It was not until Anakin's son, Luke, reminded him of the man he was and turned him against his master that his mad reign would finally end. Palpatine would be cast into the reactor of his own Death Star, vaporized and obliterated. And at last, the Galaxy would know peace....

But, even after all that.... somehow, Palpatine returned.

Paranoid and meticulous, Palpatine planned ahead. He transferred his soul to a cloning station he'd prepared, letting the rebellion fight with the remnants of his empire as he rebuilt his armies and bolstered his strength, Palpatine would re-emerge to slaughter them all for failing and defying him. He would return not as a man, but as the embodies of the Dark Side itself. A being of the dark, twisted soul unconstrained by death or mortal morality.

Darth Sidious was a nearly unparalleled master of lightsaber combat, viewing it as little more than a way to mock the Jedi. Having mastered all seven forms, Palpatine would fight against some the greatest Jedi who ever lived, including Grandmaster Yoda, Mace Windu, Darth Maul, Galen Marek, and Luke Skywalker.

Despite their tenacity, the Jedi could not match Palpatine's sheer raw power in the Force. Galen Marek, who was powerful enough to pull starships out of the sky, Yoda, who could annihilate entire armies, and Luke, who had become an equal to his father Darth Vader by the time of Dark Empire. None of them alone could match his raw power on their own.

With Luke, Palpatine would spend months chipping away at his mind, driving him slowly mad to break him into his perfect apprentice, sucking out all his will the first time the young man challenged him. Palpatine could hide his darkness in the Force for years from all the Jedi in the Galaxy, flooding the Galaxy with his darkness so none could sense anything. Palpatine could slow down the Jedi Mace brought with him with a confusion haze, drive people mad with a thought, trap people in entire worlds made of illusions, bolster the willpower of his armies to effectively turn them into a hive mind, and even turn people into mindless drones with just a recording of his voice.

Palpatine spent so much of his time studying the Dark Side, he perfected every single power the Dark Side could provide at the time and could even invent brand new ones in a whim. He can vaporize you with lightning, suck the life our of you with Force Drain, crush you to death with telekinesis, fly, absorb energy, and will things to explode. He taunt Dooku how to create an army of zombies, can duplicate himself with hard loght copies, can shoot fire from his hands or freeze you solid, and can create fields of death that instantly kill any life form in their radius. Period. Alongside many.... many others...

Palpatine's being is nothing but a soul now. He doesn't need a physical body to survive. Whenever his current clone body dies or is defeated, he just transfers his soul to the next body or even to your body. He can take over your body and replace your personality, destroying your soul with his if you destroy his body through the power of Essence Transfer. Functionally, he is immortal so long as he has a body on hand.

But his most devastating ability of them all was dreaded Force Storm. This higher dimensional vortex in the fabric of space and time tears apart reality itself, wiping the life off planets and even punching holes in time. He used a Force Storm to teleport Luke across the galaxy and other Jedi such as Revan have tanked naturally occuring Force Storms only to end up getting teleported thousands of years across time. It is a literally apocalyptic power that could destroy the universe, higher dimensions and all, if Palpatine ever losses control of it.

So is this Dark Emperor the invincible god he says he is? ....No.

Firstly, Sidious strongly favors his force abilites. He thinks lightsaber combat is archaic, useful only to mock the Jedi. So, every single major victory against someone his own level came by way of his Force powers, with Mace and Yoda even disarming him outright before Sidious wised up. It says a lot that Palps doesn't even use his own lightsaber anymore. His old one was vaporized with the rest of him after his death, so now he uses a stolen blue Jedi one from a Jedi he killed personally. Probably one of the ones accompanying Mace. The only opponent Palpatine did beat with the blade is Maul who.... frankly, isn't even in the same galaxy as Sidious in any timeline....

Secondly, his own raw power is a detriment to his clone bodies. The more he exerts himself, the faster they rot under the weight of his might. Given that his clones range in age from fifteen to eighty, each body rots at different rates. After Leia freed Luke from Palp's control and gave him the strength boost he needed to overpower the Emperor, Palpatine had to keep transferring to weaker and weaker bodies that break down faster and faster.

Finally, if he fails to overpower the mind of his victim when possessing them, his soul will be wiped from existence, reduced to nothing and chaos. Though, for good measure, the ghost of every Jedi who ever lived did band together to destroy his soul forever and make sure he could never return.

Therein lies Palpatine's greatest achievement. He's bathed the galaxy in so much blood, that every Jedi who ever lived utterly despised him by the end. For as powerful as every Sith that came after him was, none was truly born evil like Palpatine.

Analysis: Her Imperious Condescension

The Alternian Empire. The ultimate terror in the universe, and eventually, the multiverse. A species of planet conquering trolls that has bathed the stars in blood, destroying countless civilizations and rending planets down to ash. What do you imagine when you picture such a fearsome foe? What diabolical mastermind do you see piloting the helm of this mighty empire?

Did you picture Betty Crocker, the baked goods brand? Because that's who it is.

Her Imperious Condescension was the immortal ruler of Alternia and all its colonies, forcing her empire into a bloodthirsty might-makes-right dystopia. Keeping her people in line under threat of being obliterated by an eldritch monstrosity and exterminating any blood caste that threatened her, she was a monsterous tyrant that banished all trolls to space upon reaching adulthood so they could immediately serve her eternal armies.

Until suddenly, her empire died out from under her. The eldritch monstrosity she used to keep her people in line cried out in hunger, signaling the end times of her people as their minds melted across the galaxy. Her people had died in a single cry. And now The Handmaiden, the grim reaper of her species, was staring her down.

The Condescension emerged victorious over the Handmaiden after a pitched battle and, with no one left to conquer, replaced her as Lord English's servant. She would now pave the way for her new master to destroy all reality.

Being second fiddle to the biggest threat Paradox Space has ever seen, The Condescension is monumentally powerful. As the highest of the sea dwelling high bloods, Betty is immortal and unaging, as well as completely immune to all psychic powers. She was conquering worlds for thousands of years before Lord English cursed her with "conditional mortality", keeping her from dying until her master had no further use for her. As a denizen of Paradox Space, she follows video game logic. She can store things in a hammerspace inventory known as a specibus, including objects she couldn't possibly be hiding on her person like her iconic trident, and can level up and grow stronger from any random action she makes.

Really, trolls are very hardy species just by baseline. The Condescension herself can survive the vacuum of space unharmed and several trolls could survive the heat of orbital re-entry as a freshly hatched grub. The fact that Condy stood as the unquestioned queen among them for possibly millions of years just showcases how tough she is.

With nothing but time, she manipulated the media and governments of Earth B until it was under her complete control, masterminding mankind's downfall before reducing the world to a flooded apocalyptic wasteland. In the meantime, she experimented on herself to unlock more of her latent abilities. While she could never quite get her psychic powers to work on humans, forcing her to rely on specialized mind control tiaras to deal with them, they did wonders on animals and half animal hybrids, bending them to her will absolutely. With her advanced telekinetic powers, she could throw around statues and even planets with ease, destroying entire worlds with her might, while her eye beans could blast apart entire planets.

Perhaps more daunting than even that was her power to control life. As a latent Thief of Life she could "steal" life from other people and give it to others or herself. In this way, she could keep the ones she cared about from dying, preserving the Helmsman's lifespan as he served as the battery on her ship, forcing him to live forever as the life was sucked out of him.

However, she couldn't restore the dead. As her competition might say... it was ironic that she could save others from death... but not herself.

Ultimately, the Condescension turned out to be such a formidable foe that even the heroes destined to destroy Lord English failed against her on the first go. She vaporized Kanaya with a single blast, snapped the neck of Aranea Serket, and stomped every God that stood in her way. So won so badly that John Egbert had to use an artifact that removed him from fate and break the laws of time travel just for anyone to have a chance at beating her.

Even then, she put up a very long fight. Going toe to toe with no less than four gods at once, many of whom could control space and time itself, all throughout the final battle. Next to her master, the Condescension was the toughest threat the heroes of Paradox Space had to face. Keep in mind, many of these Gods, such as John and Dave, could fight First Guardians, who could destroy entire multiverses and tank their destruction in turn!

But, eventually, even her bloody reign had to end. Millions of years of bloodshed and conquest were finally brought to an end by the Condescension's death, ending the legacy of the cruel Alternian Empire.

Throwdown Breakdown:

This fight would be a spectacle.

Both characters have plotted the rise and fall of empires through years of careful political manipulation and both are responsible for the destruction of countless worlds and the extinction of countless species. In raw power, both have the range to tear worlds apart and the power to crumble the multiverse if left unchecked. But... there can be only one.

Both Imperials have a devastating variety of powers and abilities, with both having a lot of counters to each other's arsenals. While his telekinesis doesn't quite match the sheer scope of the Condescension's, his Force Storms definitely do, tutaminus allows him to absorb her laser beams, any life force she steals from him can be yanked right back with Force Drain, and his trained immunity to mind control makes her tiaras useless. On the other hand, he can't control her mind either thanks to her natural immunity, Lord English's curse would counter out the Death Fields, and Condy's demonstrated toughness against the elements shows she could withstand Palp's fire, ice, and lightning for a long time before going down. Hard Vacuum is colder than freezing cold ice, while the heat of orbital re-entry and exploding planets can match the heat of fire, lightning, and lightsabers, giving Condy a buffer.

Now, I'm not saying she could just no-sell a lightsaber. Not at all. I'm just saying she'll endure the lightning and stabs a lot better than most people and should be capable of clashing blades with her trident just fine.

In terms of skill and intelligent, both are consummate chessmasters. Palpatine improvises his plans constantly throughout the movies to keeping coming out on top and has fallbacks for when things go wrong. Apprentice dead? Corrupt Dooku, then Anakin as a fallback when Dooku outlives his usefulness. On the Condescension's side, her first approach is usually to open with faux diplomacy before letting her armies swoop in on a helpless planet, a method that served her well when it came time to conquer the Earth. By the time anyone was ready to fight her, it was already much too late.

Sidious fought and defeated Grandmaster Yoda, someone who had been protecting the galaxy for nearly 900 years. But even that life span is a drop in the ocean to Condy, who has been conquering for thousands, if not millions of years. Sidious is a manipulative sorcerer first, warrior second, and he views combat as just a way to mock whoever he's fighting. The Condescension is the top rung of violent warrior race of planet conquers. She has more experience and a greater warrior's mindset than Palpatine. This exasperates the fact that, due to her immortality, Palpatine's win condition in this fight is to cripple the Condescension to the point that she can't fight anymore, which is much tougher to do if he can't chop her up with his lightsaber.

This fight is guaranteed to be an endurance run, and that's ultimately where Betty's victory lies. Lightning and lasers will clash through the vacuum of space, planets will be thrown around and destroyed, stars will explode until a chunk of the galaxy is gone. And through it all, Palpatine's body decays under the weight of his own power. Against an equal in power who surpasses his skill, Sidious will be forced to give everything he has even as his body rots around him, before ditching it to find another clone as it dissolves.

Despite being physically much older than him, Condy's body is stuck in her physical prime, while every clone Palpatine brings out will only grow more decrepit. Palpatine suffers from a snowball effect in this fight where once he starts losing, every action he takes to bounce back will push him down further, require exertion that makes him weaker, while every clone the Condescension kills will push her higher up her echeladder and make her stronger. Force Storms, duplicates, illusions, Palpatine surpasses in variety to be sure, but the Condescension has fought that, beaten that even during Game Over. It will be a long, drawn out batte of equals, and that's part of why Palpatine losses.

Darth Sidious's best shot is to launch the Condescension across time and space with a Force Storm, but I find that unlikely. Beyond Condy fighting Time and Space manipulators before, Force Storms are monumentally difficult to control and take an exponential amount of power, making the snowball issue even worse if it doesn't work.

Taking over the Condescension's body wouldn't work due to her in-built immunity. Interacting with the Horrorterrors does the exact same thing passively and the Condescension was raised by one just fine.

Out of trump cards, Palpatine would beg for his life beneath her heel before the trident spears his chest, the Condescension's laughter echoing through the ruins of his empire.

This Throwdown's Winner is....

Her Imperious Condescension!