Emilia

(hopefully it's clear but this is meant to be post-canon. tho obviously not epilogues-compliant lol)

i feel the need to make really clear that there is no hidden layer to this comic, it is NOT about either of them being secretly in love with each other and dancing around it or whatever!!!! if you make this into a romantic yearning thing im fucking stealing something out your house!!!!

i hc june as aromantic and asexual (sex-neutral probably?). she has no interest in romance/dating, and generally has a pretty low libido with not much interest in sex. but occasionally she does have a desire to, and in this case as she explains it's driven by wanting to explore her now more "feminine" body with someone else.

on dave's end it's a tinyyy bit more complicated as he did used to have a crush on her back when they were kids, but that isn't really much of a thing anymore apart from him just thinking she's hot lol. he does not have any hidden agenda as to why he said yes, it really is just he thinks she's hot and she's his best friend and it would be fun while also helping june figure out stuff :)

oh also i feel the need to add a disclaimer that obviously june not caring about terms like "man" and "dude" as a trans woman is not indicative of all trans women, don't do that without knowing if it's cool 👍

i woke up yesterday and got the idea for the beginning of this conversation and then ended up just writing the entire thing in my notes app in bed for like 2 hours in a fervor. this was my first time writing dialogue for any homestuck characters and i was worried it'd be hard but it ended up being like one of the easiest things i've ever written??? their voices just came to me and it flowed so naturally and easily that i barely made any edits afterwards before making the comic

Not to be a weeb, but besides the usual martial arts tournaments depicted in films that I assume inspired Williamson (think: Enter the Dragon) and the shōnen manga he stated in an interview to be inspired by, I was also thinking a lot about tournament-centered manga as I re-read the series recently.

To make modern comparisons about 2021's Robin -- I'm going to use 2021's Tenkaichi: The Greatest Warrior Under the Sun -- each plot centers on a tournament with not only high stakes, but an emphasis on non-conventional fights/choreography, a decent amount of blood and gore, and a need to prove (as characters) that they, as an individual, are the greatest/strong/ideologically superior.

So, to give myself limits and not go on tangents; here's three things I hate about the Lazarus Tournament and how it was handled - compared to the aforementioned manga series.

1. The fights.

By far the most disappointing aspect of the comic, personally.

Issue #1 was done great, actually -- which gave me false hope. Sure, Damian's fight against King Snake isn't particularly long or deep -- but we at least get a good idea about how Damian fights compared to King Snake. He's bored, but takes the fight seriously enough to participate without gloating. He dodges like it's nothing, deflects each punch or kick, and remains silent, watching. We see how King Snake fights, aggressively but not over-extending himself. He antagonizes Damian verbally, to get a reaction from him and most likely, get him to slip up or fight back. When Damian reacts -- it's to finally take down this inferior opponent -- he grins, and finally makes his move with a flying knee to King Snake's jaw.

Each panel is large, and pays attention to each move -- on top of showcasing each character. It's not just limbs on limbs, we see their full bodies and faces. You get the sense they're each martial artists, through deliberate posing and framing. If you knew nothing about Damian or King Snake before reading the issue -- you do now -- they're each skilled fighters with confidence - but King Snake gets impatient and overplays his hand, egging on Damian when it'd be smarter to use his advantage as a strong, tall and heavily-built adult over this short pre-teen. Damian is smart and skilled enough to not take the bait, but also annoyed that this fight is too easy for him and he wants to get it over with. He's the one who decides to end it, fast, with no personal injuries, and a final clear and confident declaration that King Snake doesn't know what he's doing or who Damian really is.

That's only 3 pages. 3. And you get all of that clear enough, to know what kind of characters they are, how they fight, what they think of each other and their skills, and through dialogue/narration; why they're fighting (to get into the Tournament).

But later on through the series, that all falls to the wayside in favor of flashy, fast fights, and barely any emphasis on the characters doing the fighting. The plot of what the Tournament is supersedes how the Tournament progresses/could be used.

Not to knock on Gleb Melnikov's skill as an artist, he does beautiful work -- but it's immediately obvious later on that he (and Williamson, by way of the script) aren't really thinking of each fight beyond the steps the characters take. It's readable, and laid out on page in a way that's often easy to see each sequence of events, but there's no real weight behind the movements. Most of the shorter fights are just a flurry of small panels, limbs hitting limbs. We don't see the character's think about what they're doing (close-up of faces, or hands) nor do we read any internal narration during a fight. We don't see anyone see a blow coming towards them and react to that. There's no adequate page time allotted to each fight -- so most end in either a few pages or even panels. Every round in the tournament goes by in a flash.

Also, it's not really a true one-on-one tournament in the sense that there's time taken for each round. Every single round happens all at once, with a jumbled mess of fighters all killing each other at near the same time. Even the panels are a mess, and each fighter that isn't a main character is basically a fighting game NPC to pad out the roster.

There's also no real uniqueness in each character's fighting style or the choreography either. Punches, kicks, maybe the occasional weapon thrown in. We're told that XXL is a boxer, and then in his fight against Connor he's in the air kicking down at him? (If this is meant to signify XXL fights dirty, then it's way too short a moment and small a panel.) Respawn uses a hook on a chain, but he doesn't really take advantage of the range, or the binding possibility of the chain. (Again, if this is to show that he's uncreative with his weapon, it's too small a moment.) Tengu wildly swings his sword with no semblance of martial style, effectively making him a jobber for Damian to take down easily and not get challenged by -- and thus, makes no commentary on Damian's own skill with the sword or how he'll overcome it. Any specific fighting style/choice should, in best cases, be deeply ingrained in the character.

Here's an example of what I mean using Musashi Miyamoto, from the very first round/couple chapters of Tenkaichi.

Musashi is not just a sword wielder; he fights on sheer instinct, like an animal, maneuvering and contorting his body, then by the end of his first round, he's killing his opponent with a dual wielding technique rushing in on all four limbs. His swords are extensions of himself. Just in these selected panels, I think you can get the gist of his character; a prodigy, an animal, someone that enjoys and highly values fighting enough to risk his life on such a wild out-there fighting stance and makes very fast decisions in order to win -- but also someone somewhat inexperienced. In the midst of this fight, he grows from relying on instinct and childish jabs to needing to think about his moves and actually respecting his opponent.

(Plus, art style differences aside, you can tell there's characterization happening here too; Musashi's eyes are drawn wide and unfocused, his tall body is muscled but lanky - hunched and distorted at intentional angles, panel layouts that widen for impact and close in for expression changes. etc)

Finally, it's a death tournament with no weight to the deaths. Death is a checkmark ticked on a box, and Flatline's second death by Damian's hand is one of the only real places where emotions are brought into it. But even then, her death is vague (crushed? impaled? on rocks?) and is something that doesn't inform Damian's arc (he feels bad about it, but then he's back to arguing with Mother Soul) or Flatline's arc (she just bounces back next issue, seemingly surprised that he killed her???) Why? He's been freely killing everyone else. (We'll get to that too.)

2. The fighters.

In direct connection to the fights, there's the people doing the fights.

My issue with the fighters begin with the immediate declaration that every combatant is known for, has done, and/or is comfortable with death, killing their opponent, and potentially dying. This tells the reader that every character in the tournament is either reasonably strong enough/confident that they won't die, or suicidal on some level to be willing to die in order to test themselves in combat. These people all value their skills, talents, and reputations to that extreme degree to enter the tournament. It's then reasonable to expect interesting characters to see fight each other, and good character work regarding that aspect.

With the combatants, there's no push to prove their skills in combat, no real physical conversation happening during the fight, nothing that feels like these people are all incredibly skilled, and willing to put themselves in this dangerous situation -- to innovate, to be ruthless, to push themselves to their limits. It's all snarky dialogue - tell, but no show.

Any development we get between characters happens outside of combat, with Flatline really starting her dynamic w Damian after their first fight and Rose and Connor talking to Damian outside of the fights.

Williamson wants to touch on that, by introducing Flatline and using Rose and Connor as sort-of foils to Damian. But none of them are really used to full potential. Rose is a bystander, a woman constantly going "hey, bud, maybe this is a bad idea" and then the whole Respawn plot only pushes her to the sidelines more. There's no conversations happening about her own backstory and any similarities/contrasts she and Damian may have (because Williamson doesn't care.) Connor Hawke is written weird, and from I can tell, out-of-character. It's also strange that he's treated as a peer to Damian, when he should (and Rose too) be a good deal older. Flatline. Oh my god, Flatline. Look, I'm a sucker for goth characters, and that made me immediately like her at first. But jesus, Williamson did not know what to do with her.

As I mentioned earlier, her powers are interesting and clearly inform her personality (and should inform her fighting style too). But there's honestly not enough time given to her character to develop her properly as a love interest -- much less, a rival fighter. She's experienced with and trained by death. But as far as what's shown, her fights are punches and kicks, with the exception of the Mortal Kombat-esque finishing move. (Like, I know age ratings are a thing, but I do think Flatline should've been a more visually and distinctly brutal/gory fighter -- to contrast her fight scenes more against Damian's more methodical fights. Instead, everyone gets the same level of gore.)

3. Damian's whole place in the Tournament

For one thing, I feel like the whole "you get to kill anyone and not feel as guilty about it" part was quickly glossed over for Damian's character in favor of the plot about the mystery of the Tournament's intentions and the people behind it. I do think Damian deciding to enter the Tournament with those intentions make sense -- but my issue is that he just kind of skates through the whole life or death martial arts part of it, in favor of rationally investigating people and coldly murdering the opponents he doesn't care about.

If writers expect us to believe that this series is about Damian maturing without the influence of Batman or either of his parents -- where is any thought put into killing? Williamson writes Damian as immediately accepting he gets to kill, and there's no consequence for it -- and then that's it. No thoughts on how he shouldn't kill as Robin, and how this Tournament affects that part of his life? Nothing on how Damian feels killing people again? Not only as an assassin but how this specific scenario is sort of proving his past "the League of Assassins training is best/I am superior to you" attitudes against his opponents? (Additionally, there's zero input into how also being trained by Batman and other Bat-characters inform his fighting style either -- it's all lethal blows or aggressive moves -- its simply not in the story.)

Like, okay fine -- if Damian's just murdering all his opponents as efficiently as possible because he doesn't care about the actual Tournament as a tournament -- then where's the guilt afterwards? Where's the fear that he's regressed? Where's the opposition to him? Why doesn't he fight someone that calls him out on this? People clearly know he's Robin and is Batman's son -- why does no one actually lampshade that in a fight? And for that matter, why does no one genuinely challenge Damian?

The closest we get are his fights with Flatline, but even then, they don’t really say anything about him and how he feels fighting someone who should be a good foil to him.