Toxin’s DB Corner Retrospective 2024

Welcome welcome to all who have clicked on my blog retrospective! If you don’t know who I am, then I go by the name Toxin on here and I tend to make blogs on matchups that I not only find cool but matchups that I feel deserve to get highlighted above their other popular options! It’s truly been a crazy year for Death Battle in general but within the fandom itself, tons of blogs have popped up ever since the show went on hiatus last March, April even (don’t fact check me on this). Before the year of 2024 concludes, I’d like to reflect on the many blogs I’ve worked on and released in the past year as I feel there’s a lot of takeaways I’ve gotten from blog-making and I want to fully realize my gameplan going into 2025. I went into blog writing with absolutely no idea on what the hell I was supposed to be doing but through it all, I certainly did make my presence known here. 

With all that being said, I’d like to first talk about the blogs I myself have released under what I like to call “Toxin’s DB Corner”. I do hope that y’all enjoy the read. 

Light Yagami vs Kaguya Shinomiya

Ah, Light vs Kaguya. An MU that still rests at the top as my most wanted Death Battle episode of all time. It’s still crazy to me just how long ago that first blog of mine was. In fact, I made that initial blog all the way back in 2023 but I didn’t have plans to continue making blogs for basically another year. It might not fall under the umbrella of 2024 but since I’ve never gotten the chance to talk about it in full, I’ll make an exception for it (definitely not favoritism at play haha-).

The Experience:

Nonetheless, even if I had no plans to continue making blogs, I went into the making of the blog knowing that people would have nothing but a mix of confusion and fear as to how awesome this matchup was disinterest upon hearing it for the first time. I will admit that the idea did spawn out of my reignited hyperfixation for everything Love is War, (especially when the movie had come out) but to those who think it’s simply a joke matchup that purposefully sets up Light for failure, I at the very least saw that there was more than met the eye. In fact, I wasn’t even the first person to talk about the matchup as I would go to the DBM reddit back then and see that it was, in fact, a thing already. Despite seeing it a few cool posts on it, I was disappointed in the lack of relevancy that Light vs Kaguya had on there. Combined with the reddit’s heavy preference for Light vs Walter and the inevitable episode of Light vs Columbo thanks to a certain swan, I knew I had to do something if I wanted the MU to become relevant. Once I had joined the official server, I saw that people were making blogs on matchups they liked, something that I thought would be complicated to do at first. Little did I know that it was as simple as searching up a template for versus-based blogs, and I immigrated understood what had to be done so I started typing away on Google Docs, taking inspiration from other blogs as to how make my own blog look good.

The good thing about Light vs Kaguya being my first blog was that I was already very familiar with both series as they were both actually some of my favorite series of all time. I did have hopes that Kaguya would win by the time that I had finished the verdict but frankly, I had no other biases going into figuring out who would actually win as I genuinely had no idea what the outcome would be. All I knew was that I wanted the main selling point of the blog and matchup as a whole to be two things: how similar these two turned out to be and how debatable the matchup actually was. It turned out to be really fun to go back and rewatch their animes (skipped the LiW OVA for reasons), reread their mangas, and dive into other side content that I had never touched before. For example, I found the L-centric novel to be really interesting as it dived into a whole story around L and Naomi that occurred well before Kira had come to fruition, something that I personally wish the original series delved into at one point. Kaguya’s end would especially surprise me however as there were plenty of spinoff series, novels, and other non-canon material that made me like the series even further (except for the first few chapters of the doujin manga because fuck you). It was overall a fun researching period, and since I didn’t have anyone to help me with writing, I was able to write the very blog I had imagined it as. Nearing its completion, I did reach out to the server to ask for verdicts since I knew that was a thing people did, and this was how I first met the goat Round Fight 1. He was nice enough to give his own verdict on my blog which I felt especially proud of at the time, and although the blog didn’t gain too much traction on release, I was happy with the end result.

Cut to February 2024 however, and I’d look back on the blog thinking about how I could’ve explained certain parts better and made other sections look cleaner. With that mindset, I decided to go back and revise what a lot of what I had written. I do think I made the right choice by clearing up some more of the confusing sections, adding new info altogether, and making some more thumbnails and edits so that I could make the blog all the more visually appealing. The most prominent addition however is yet another verdict of someone that I would come to be familiar with real soon: NormallyNormal (he’s still goated for liking this matchup btw). Having met both RF1 and NormallyNormal was a pretty cool way to start off my blog experience as I would not only work with them in the future but I would soon meet a ton of other cool people through them. Above everything else however, it was cool to see that upon re-release that people were, in fact, aware of the blog and the matchup as a whole. As expected, there was some more negative thoughts from certain people but for the most part, the blog was well recieved and I had created quite a few Light vs Kaguya fans with simply the blog alone. Those fans would go on to create more exposure for the matchup as they made popular posts about the matchup on DBM and even put Kaguya up high on their Light tierlists, something that I was especially proud of at the time. Turning to the reddit for satisfaction might be questionable but what really mattered to me was that my favorite matchup of all time actually got some sort of following whatsoever. I never expected to get this far really, and now I hope that it only becomes more popular with time.

The dream as of now is to make the matchup happen as an episode but alas, Light’s got his other options favored everywhere else on the internet. Even so, I’ll never stop pushing for this matchup even in a timeline where Light’s first episode isn’t my preferred (or liked for that matter), and I’ll just hope that it sticks around long enough for others to fully understand… *THE VISION*.

The Content:

Do I think the blog aged with time? Well, while I do think the majority of the blog aged well (especially because these two haven’t gotten that much new content ever since it was made) and I still think Kaguya wins the matchup overall with high-extreme levels of difficulty, I also think a lot could be improved on still. I included practically everything on both of their ends with one exception that I’m sure that anyone who’s read it would find weird: the lack of Light’s allies. It may seem like a biased disadvantage that I gave to Light so that Kaguya would take the win but it certainly wasn’t meant to come off like that.

The main thought process behind both Light’s and Kaguya’s allies was that I was mainly focusing on equalizing the battle so that I wouldn’t have to clutter the matchup with too many allies, ultimately turning it into a “Death Note verse” vs “Love is War verse” fight rather than a “Light vs Kaguya” fight. Kaguya would get the Shinomiya company but Light would get L’s resources. Light would get both Ryuk and the Task Force while Kaguya would get Hayasaka and her brothers/dad that run the company. Considering the fact that Soichiro, one of the Task Force members and Light’s dad, had used the Shinigami Eyes before in the story, I thought it’d be fine for me to not use Misa or Mikami since he’d essentially be serving the same purpose but to a much more successful degree. In fact, I said in my verdict that Misa and Mikami to the mix would only make it all the more easier for Kaguya to find Light’s identity, something I personally thought was unfair. There was also the fact that giving Kaguya certain friends of her would just as easily give her a huge advantage since giving her Mikado essentially gives her double the resources and influence she already has, Fujiwara gives her an alliance with the Prime Minister, Ilno gives her access to the Supreme Court, etc. By limiting their allies on both ends, it would make the fight seem a lot more fairer than what it’d realistically be, but after watching the recent Bowsegg episode, I’ve come to realize that a quote on quote “army fight” could actually work with Light vs Kaguya. Sure it would be a lot different than your standard army fight but both Light and Kaguya have used every resource at their disposal before so it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to give them both access to everything (granted, everything except anyone that would break the canon of the story so no L or Rem for Light).

As for everything else in the blog, I still entirely agree with it all. Kaguya is physically superior in every way, Light is generally smarter and has showcased better displays of intelligence, and while both the identities of Kira and L have a greater range with their influence, the Shinomiya company has a greater amount of control over the systems of Japan due to their long-standing relationship with Japan as a whole. The four great minds of the Shinomiya’s (Kaguya, two of her brothers, and Hayasaka) would be able to figure out the basics such as Kira being located in Japan, to which they could use their resources to eventually narrow down Kira’s location while also making it especially difficult for Light to try and close in on Kaguya. There’s of course the fact that the public identities of the 3 brothers/dying father would mean that they’d immediately be killed through the Death Note but Kaguya being next in line to getting the company would mean the resources would stay intact, and without a public image of a face + Hayasaka’s ability to hack away any attempts at finding Kaguya’s face through files, Light would practically have no lead as to where to find her. Even if he did try to find any location that would give him more info, there could always be a Shinomiya-hired bodyguard protecting the place or even an assassin ready to fire at any trespassers, something that’d be set up by Kaguya since she’s usually prepared for any situation (not involving love). That’s not to say that Light doesn’t have his advantages as the Shinigami eyes, creative uses of the Death Note, and a crazy enough scheme could get him close enough to Kaguya to finish her off in many cases, but despite this I do think Kaguya can pull out the win more than Light could.

I go more in-depth on other aspects in the blog itself but I think I would someday like to revisit this matchup for a blog as I think it warrants yet another look into it. I am impressed with what I managed to accomplish but it could certainly be updated on both ends, especially with the little bit of new content we did get such as Death Note: Killer Within, whenever those next few seasons of Kaguya-sama come out, and some novels that I was previously unable to access. I love everything about this matchup and I once again really do hope it becomes a Death Battle episode one day!

Reigen Arataka vs Grunkle Stan

Now for a matchup that I’m sure a lot more people would care about, we have the greatest psychic of the 21st century being pit against America’s most wanted con man! Being my second blog ever, I knew that I would have to do this matchup justice as there are many people who love both in their own series alone. They may not seem like the best characters to befit a versus setting but even so, you can certainly have some fun with this one!

The Experience:

I will admit that, once again, this blog idea spawned out of my dislike for an option that had gained traction within the community. I’m of course talking about Reigen vs King, a matchup I felt like, as a Reigen fan, did not do justice for him as a character while grossly underestimating what power he does actually have in favor of making it seem like a fair fight. It was basically what Light vs Columbo haters felt with their worry of how Light would be treated (except I wasn’t being vocally toxic about it). Enough negativity though, I can talk about that another time; the matchup may have came to me through that opinion but the more I looked into it, the more I had found myself becoming a bigger fan of it. I was of course a big Reigen fan but despite having watched Gravity Falls months prior, I wasn’t as big on Stan. I loved him as a character and all his jokes absolutely landed but I thought of nothing more up to that point. Once I looked into the quality of the matchup however, along with all its potential as a fight, I realized just how hilarious Grunkle Stan would be in a Death Battle episode.

Within only an hour of two or looking into Reigen vs Stan, I had practically solidified my next time and made a pretty cool trailer alongside it (one that is still my favorite to this day to be totally honest). I had a feeling that it was gonna be a much simpler blog going on due to their series having a small pool of content. I wasn’t aware of things such as the Reigen spinoff and the Gravity Falls comics, which were both pretty fun to read through, but it was basically just the original manga and anime for Reigen and the show and Journal 3 for Stan. I made some good progress on my own but I knew that I could also ask others to help comb through the material so I went to RF1’s server to ask for some help. This was actually how I met the goat darkloremaster, who luckily had a physical copy of the comics + journal 3 on hand so it made blog progress all the more smoother. I would also meet TheBiteRaptor as I asked for a recalc of that one Gravity Falls explosion feat, to which I would get results from both Normal and Raptor (thanks guys). I’ll get to those results in a bit but after that, not much else happened. It was cool working on the blog but it was also a lot more simpler than I thought’d it be.

Once I got around to the verdicts, I asked for them publicly since I didn’t have many people I could go to verdicts for but this is where I would meet yet another goat, Saul. Looking back, I’m surprised that he was willing to be a part of my blog to begin with given how I was only at my second blog but nonetheless, big thanks to Saul for being a part of my blogs this early, I really appreciate it 🙏. That aside, the blog would release soon after and it truly surprised me how many people had a positive reception towards it. Not only were people ecstatic at how good the blog was through fire reactions on the discord server but I had influenced quite a few people on reddit into becoming huge fans of the matchup. Shoutout to Hattyhattman especially for making Reigen vs Stan popular with their megapost about it, along with all the other cool stuff they made. Overall, I’d say that Reigen vs Stan truly gave me the motivation to continue making blogs, especially with how many people liked it. It convinced me that writing was actually… fun? and it only made me appreciate both characters further. Now this is what you call goated.

The Content:

Nothing crazy has changed with the blog ever since it’s release I think. Mob Psycho had completely wrapped up both its manga and anime way before I released, and while Gravity Falls did have a resurgence in the summer later that year with the Book of Bill and such, it doesn’t drastically change anything on Stan’s end specifically. The only issue that I can think of with the blog as of now is that I actually missed a feat where Reigen survives the shockwaves from that one explosion that created the giant broccoli tree. Otherwise, I think I pretty much covered everything.

The debate is something that I’m a little more iffy on nowadays. I still agree that they’re both practically equal strength wise and that Reigen is a better con artist while Stan is usually a smarter guy. Stan does have the better arsenal overall, especially when it comes to his long-ranged firepower and his smoke bombs which lets him keep his distance from Reigen. However, my issue comes with how I handled speed. While the light-dodging feats of Gravity Falls are certainly valid, I didn’t make a case for Stan being able to keep up with the Pine Twins/Ford besides assuming that “he just scales”. More specifically, I think about the one scene where Ford clearly outspeeds Stan upon his introduction, and I can’t think of any other scene where Stan blatantly keeps up with/outpaces the twins or Ford. There might be some scaling chain that could be used but I’d have to look more into that. Besides speed, everything else should be a-ok still.

Katsuki Bakugo vs Eustass Kid

Wow, how original! Yet another MHA blog? Crazy talk!

As someone who’s been dissatisfied with a majority of Bakugo’s options, I was especially astounded by the sound of Bakugo vs Eustass Kid. It was insane to me that no one had made a Bakugo blog up to that point and that One Piece of all series was lacking blogs. With both of these thoughts in mind, I knew that someone would have to step up and do it eventually and that would be me.

The Experience:

What makes Eustass Kid a good option above the quote on quote “better” options Bakugo has? Well, me personally, I liked how similar in personality they were and I especially liked the fight dynamic for these two. It’s a lot more interesting than your usual explosion vs explosion fight and there’s a cool contrast in the fact that it’s “power that destroys” against “power that creates”. Relevancy be damned, these two generally just share a lot in common and it feels like it does the best for both, even if Useless Mid jokes are all the rage nowadays. The debate in question is certainly an interesting topic but I’ll get to that in a bit.

I wouldn’t say I chose this matchup out of spite but rather out of interest as I had just finished catching up to the MHA manga and I had also caught up to One Piece a few months ago. It being a very cool matchup meant that I would have to make a very cool blog for it, so with that mindset, I knew I couldn’t do this one alone. I had asked if anyone would’ve liked to join the blog (alongside another hype trailer), and I would have quite a few people trickle in. I’d meet 4bit, Kars (I think?), and a few other chill people that would help write their own verdicts and such. I would also meet LandonTalksALot who is a pretty cool guy I’ll say! Shoutout to him for not only letting me use his dope af sprite art but also for making some nice looking scaling edits, blog wouldn’t have looked just as nice without them so thanks!

As for researching the matchup itself, both wikis would certainly be a huge help here as I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember what moves were in what chapters for both. Same goes for where exactly they were stat-wise, so having both the VS wiki and its many calcs along with the many other MHA blogs out then for reference was a life saver (and I did give credit where it was due). Blogs with MHA characters were certainly in a weird spot at the time given that a certain blog kinda shook things up a little (yes it’s the one you may be thinking of and I’ll get to it lated) but besides that, it was fun diving into both series from a VS lens for the first time. It would also be the first time that I invited a bunch of people to help me research the matchup rather than just to write some verdicts, so that was an interesting experience. I can’t say that there were many standout moments during the research or writing process but the fun thing about doing the blog at the time was that it just so happened to line up with new anime episodes that had both Bakugo’s death scene and Kid’s hilarious loss to Shanks. I couldn’t have chosen a better time to do this blog, so I sincerely all the anime staff that were thinking about me when I was making the blog (truth).

Where I think the blog experience truly peaked however was when we were all writing our verdicts. There would of course be the obvious Useless Mid jokes but we had all unanimously agreed to do a fake out with our votes and pretend that Bakugo had won the vote by a large margin. Of course, we couldn’t hide the truth that Kid had won by a landslide but even so, we managed to turn the most obvious outcome into something fun. Kars had even made a funny little video representing her verdict on Bakugo vs Kid which I thought was kinda hilarious. Result be damned, that blog came out pretty good! I’m pretty sure people liked it, and although it didn’t really make a dent in the gargantuan number of Bakugo opponents people still prefer, I’m glad to have gotten a proper Bakugo blog out as early as I did. Kid will always be my preferred for Bakugo and I need to see some respect on Kid’s end once he does come back to the manga… which he totally will… who said I was coping?

As of writing this I’m only now just realizing that I’ve never finished the script I promised in the potential section of my blog (oops) but trust me, I’ll get to it one day…

The Content:

I just mentioned it but yeah, Eustass Kid washes Bakugo no matter which way you put it. It isn’t too surprising considering that a lot of Bakugo matchups are either stomps in his favor or stomps against him but this one especially stood out. Nonetheless, a good matchup isn’t always defined by a lackluster debate as long as you can sell it as an interesting fight, and Bakugo vs Kid can make for an absolute spectacle as you can have Bakugo destroy every metal construct that Kid creates while Kid can counter with his manipulation of the environment and his own destructive metal constructs. Potential aside, I of course still think everything aged well, although that could very well change depending on if any new MHA buffs are found as well as One Piece’s many new chapters to come.

I can’t comment much on the MHA side of things since I’m currently on a different MHA blog right now but this matchup is, uh, definitely gonna have its debate changed at some point. Besides the stat debate, everything else does still line up and we covered a hefty amount of MHA and One Piece stats in the blog which I’m proud of. I’m aware that the eventual G1 Org BR is gonna give us some new One Piece stats but what I wrote here is the best we have blog-wise as of now. No matter what changes, I’ll still be proud of what I accomplished here for both Bakugo and Kid.

Wordgirl vs Underdog

Out of all the blogs that I decided to do for Wave 1, this was definitely the most out-of-pocket choice that I went with. As a matter of fact, this was actually the first time I made a blog on a matchup that I had created, and I’m 99% certain that no one’s talked about it before. Wordgirl and Underdog as a whole seemed like a series pair that felt especially fitting, and with how heroic, witty, and overpowered both heroes were, it just automatically clicked with me as a matchup. How I drew the connection is something I can’t recall but that aside, I was extremely hyped to get into this blog.

The Experience:

By the time I started Wordgirl vs Underdog, I had become very accustomed to *the process*, but unlike every other blog up to this point, I wouldn’t have much reference to go off of. I went into this blog knowing full well that I would have to do everything myself if no one had decided to join, which would include all the research, writing, calcs etc. Little did I know that I would catch a lucky break so soon into its production.

You see, it just so happened that Round Fight 1 had wanted to join the blog, which led to the reveal that he was also planning his own Underdog blog against the other fellow superdog Krypto. I had not known about this happening (especially since I didn’t know blog claiming was a thing, more on that later) but since we were essentially writing two of the same blogs in regards to Underdog, RF1 was nice enough to give me all the research that he had already done for Underdog, saving me a lot of time with the research. I thank him once again for not only giving me that research but also for sticking around to help me with the verdict later on, especially when we had to argue about Undersog scaling. Even with RF1’s help, I still had to watch through all of Wordgirl in order to take the deepest dive I could into the series, and luckily for me the show wasn’t a slog to get through. In fact, I had tons of fun watching through all 8 seasons of the show since it was one of those kids’ shows that doesn’t just appeal to toddlers with its surprisingly deeper themes and more complex jokes. It’s nothing on the level of, say, The Boys or Invincible but I didn’t actually expect the show to have some depth to it alongside the wacky action that occurs in every episode.

Once I did manage to get through all the episodes of Wordgirl, alongside other side material such as PBS Kids games, shorts, and even some comics (although a majority of them were locked away behind a paywall), the time would come to start writing everything down. I also took the time to go through some more of Underdog’s content in the form of a few episodes as well as the comics, both of which were as fun as you could get with 80s/90s cartoons. I truly was reminded of the very reasons why I loved Wordgirl as a kid along with some faint memories of Underdog, as I would find myself enjoying the entire blog the whole way through, simply because these characters are fun to tackle even in a versus sense! Since I was basically doing a duo blog with RF1 (Kars, Necrostar, and Supermonye were there too but they didn’t do too much besides Kars’ adding asbestos to Underdog’s abilities lol), progress was especially smooth on the blog, and it was only a matter of time before we finished up the blog.

I would change up the format this time around as I felt that a single verdict was the best way to handle this matchup, making it all the more simpler once we did eventually debate about who won. We really did go back and forth on a lot of aspects and I was surprised at how close this matchup turned out to be. Wordgirl came in clutch with some surprising numbers, Underdog’s abilities would truly shine when it mattered, it was just a weirdly close debate at its simplest. I don’t think the blog gained as much traction as other ones did but I don’t know… I think this one’s a hidden banger personally!

The Content:

My claims of Wordgirl vs Underdog being a debatable matchup still hold up to this day, especially since neither franchise hasn’t gotten any new content ever since their main series ended. There was the announcement of that one upcoming 3D animated Underdog show but I highly doubtttt that’s gonna change anything (don’t quote me on that). Otherwise, everything I thought when I made the blog stays the same as what I still think of the debate as of the present day.

The most surprising thing I found during the blog was the discovery of a Wordgirl feat that could dwarf even Underdog’s highest strength feat in base, which of course is him pushing the Earth back to its original position after it had been pulled away from the sun. The feat in question is that of one of Dr Two Brains’ inventions being able to send the moon from its position very close to Earth to its original position within a second, a feat that gets around 800+ ronnatons. Since Wordgirl can physically scale above every invention that Two Brains’ has created, it would actually make her stronger against base Underdog; that is, until he pops his super pill and becomes way stronger. Speed seems to favor Underdog either way as his tendency to travel from planet to planet within a short time frame is more impressive than Wordgirl scaling to Captain Huggyface, her monkey sidekick that could pilot a ship traveling a similar distance, albeit with a longer timeframe. Underdog was smarter with his super brain, Wordgirl had better abilities and a wider arsenal to keep Underdog at bay, and ultimately Underdog’s transmutation was a big advantage in this fight since Wordgirl had no resistance to it. Wordgirl also had access to transmutation but the issue was that Underdog could resist it in both his base form and with his pill. That isn’t to say that Wordgirl didn’t have her own wincon in the form of existence erasure but Underdog’s wincons seem like a safer bet than Wordgirl’s due to that speed gap.

Like I said before, we went back and forth on a ton of factors, talking about other things that could’ve changed the tide of the battle such as scaling to the Meat Dimension for Wordgirl and possible immeasurable speed feats for either. Neither of those were useful to the debate but it was quite the journey to get through all that and have the blog ready for release. Shoutout to RF1 for helping me with the verdict and just a reminder, he also released his Krypto vs Underdog blog around the same time.

Ori vs The Knight

Probably one of my best blogs this year, which is funny considering that I practically knew nothing about either Ori or Hollow Knight when I chose it as my Wave 1 finale. My good friend Necrostar had wanted to do this all the way back when I was working on Bakugo vs Kid, and no one had done a blog on it to my surprise (initially). I didn’t have too many thoughts on it outside of its appearance in the 2022 Champion Poll but I thought it was a pretty cool matchup, so once I had wrapped up Wordgirl vs Underdog, I went straight into this matchup of funny creatures representing the light and the dark.

The Experience:

I think it’s fair for me to say that I had no idea as to what I was doing when I first started this blog. I mean, my knowledge on Ori was limited to the fact that they were in Rivals of Aether (peak game btw) and while I was more aware of Hollow Knight, it was only through the copious amount of praise and spotlight it had in gaming as a whole as well as the fact that Silksong was never happening (it’s coming next year trust me guys!). Despite the lack of knowledge, I knew tons of people love the matchup and are especially hopeful that it will happen as an episode down the line. I figured that the next step in making my blogs more relevant was to tackle a matchup big enough that would get me on others’ radars, which is what ultimately pushed me to be the one to handle Ori vs Knight. Once again, I was unaware of the fact that someone was planning to do this around the same time, albeit I had started mine two weeks before DBE Blogs would announce theirs. Was I bothered? Nah, not really. In fact, I found it funny that they just so happened to start their own but later on I would find out that they had claimed Ori vs Knight a while back without me even realizing there was a system at play.

Even with there being another Ori vs Knight blog, I did manage to get a good amount of people onto the team which I am forever grateful for because of that aforementioned lack of knowledge. I’d especially like to shout out the goats Gonk and Tsubori for carrying me the whole way through, they were not only down to dive into the research head first but they were both there to explain anything I didn’t understand. Shout out to Normal too for once again helping me with calcs I should add. Now having an entire team behind the blog, the writing process did start kinda slow considering that we began with the items/abilities sections for both, and if you know either game, then you’ll totally know that Ori and Knight have quite the number of powers at their disposal (those Spirit Shards/Charms that I hate). Once we got past that section however, we really got to dive into the fun stuff as we worked our way through their backstories, their forms and their scaling over the next few weeks. During this entire period of time, I especially became familiar with both series and not only loved the gameplay I was watching but the bits of their stories that unfolded from the numerous videos I watched on the games. This may have been quite the hefty blog but it was a fun learning experience regardless, and by the time we did get close to the end, I found myself really liking Ori’s entire story as well as the grander lore of the Hollow Knight world.

This isn’t to say that there weren't any complications with the blog however. It was less things that would’ve hindered the blog’s progress and more so that there were some extremely difficult parts that we had to figure out if we wanted to deem a winner in a fight. It will, of course, be elaborated on in the next section but I’d be lying if I didn’t say this was the most complicated blog I’ve had to figure out thus yet. That being said, I’m glad that I chose a matchup that could actually be seen as a debatable win for either side, especially since it was fun making the images that went alongside it. It wouldn’t have been the first time that I made custom gifs for a blog since I had to do so for Wordgirl vs Underdog but unlike it, I really tried to make the blog stand out visually as a way to make it special among the others. Gifs in both of their abilities sections would not only be custom but the icon of said ability would accompany every gif in the corner, something that I came up with and feel like adds to the gifts themselves. The colored text that acted like a narration of the blog was an idea born out of the other custom text that other blogs used, which I felt was most appropriate here given that these characters practically don’t talk otherwise. Scaling edits also had been a trend present in this blog as Necrostar would make the scaling edits for The Knight while I made them for Ori, and I’d have plenty of amazing art to add to the potential section of my blog since this was of course a beloved matchup to many.

Ori vs Knight would be yet another satisfying blog as I felt like we had practically covered everything that was important to the matchup. As expected, the result would be kind of divisive among those who read the blog but it was cool to see that people thought we did a great job on it overall. The matchup may have strayed from my original goal of wanting to give exposure to less popular matchups but it doesn’t hurt to break that mold every once in a while I suppose. I couldn’t have done the blog without the help of everyone involved and now that I’m familiar with both series, I especially hope that this becomes an episode in the future. I’ve even bought Hollow Knight and started playing it in my free time to get the true gaming experience (and hopefully I can do the same with Ori eventually), so yeah, I’d say that this was my best blog overall.

The Content:

It’s funny how I went into this blog thinking The Knight stomped simply with Universal Hollow Knight apparently being a thing, only for it to ultimately be the complete opposite result once we got to it. I’m getting ahead of myself but while the actual victor of the matchup is still something people debate about to this day, I think it’d be fair to say that I do agree with everything in my blog.

In a base vs base scenario, Ori would just stay on top with their wider array of ranged weapons and powers to keep The Knight at bay, stronger AP that would let Ori one shot in most cases, and the fact that Ori had Spirit Shards that would actively let them heal simply by killing The Knight over and over again. The Knight did have ways around these issues by attacking Ori’s soul, which is required for them to respawn, along with The Knight having its own Charms that generally equalized the Spirit Shard/Charms battlefield, but Ori’s greater mobility and speed would also be a pain for The Knight to have to catch up with. Given enough time, I could see The Knight wearing down Ori to the point of killing them for good but this is why the debate doesn’t solely focus on their base forms.

In their forms of Spirit Tree and Lord of Shades respectively, AP ultimately wouldn’t matter in this bout as both Ori and Knight would have to rely on their purification/corruption to get the job done. This was definitely the biggest part that people disagreed with as there are just, way too many interpretations one could have for either case. These abilities only show up briefly but they’re basically the ace in the hole that will allow either side to prevail in the end. Even I couldn’t fully grasp whether Ori’s purification or The Knight’s corruption was better here, so I let Gonk handle this since he had a better understanding of it all. Once I read through his BTV section on the matter, I ultimately agreed that purification was a much more consistent wincon than that of corruption, so with all the info we had gathered, we had deemed Ori the winner.

Speaking of the BTV, before we get to if I think the results will hold up down the line, I do quickly want to touch on stats. I’m pretty sure there were like, 5 or 6 statements or other pieces of evidence in Hollow Knight that seemed like they would’ve implied higher dimensions, transcending dimensions, or even the potential of a multiverse but I think it’s safe to say that it doesn’t hold up as well as people think it does. It is true that the dream realm is a universe where powerful enough bugs control certain parts of this universe, but the issue comes when you realize that no one scales to the creation of their spaces with the exception of the Nightmare Heart, which only holds up enough area to fill the inside of the circus. Along with more appropriate interpretations of certain statements (looking at you “infinite dream realm”), a lot of higher stuff in Hollow Knight is practically not there to help The Knight scale. The only thing could give The Knight higher AP is through assuming the Radiance is, quite literally, the sun, which we argued quite a bit about and deemed it to be a little out there. The only other worthy feat, and embarrassingly the only one I missed, was the feat of someone shaking Hallownest, which to this day I haven’t got a single clue as to if it’s even real. I’ll definitely add it down the line if it pops up but it won’t change the verdict really since Island level Ori is a thing. If anything else pops up then do let me know though.

Unless Team Cherry magically announces Silksong tomorrow then I think the results won’t be changed for a good bit, especially since Ori doesn’t seem to be getting any new games anytime soon. With this being a very debatable matchup, I expect things to change the further we wait for the episode to be announced, but as of now, I’m on Team Ori til the end.

Other Blogs I Worked On

Fun fact, I didn’t just do blogs on my own blog page! I’ve also helped with a plethora of other blogs out there, including…

Saul’s VS Blog: Syndrome vs Tighten

(tn by idk who)

I… don’t actually have much to say about this one. I asked Saul if I could be on the blog, I got on, and I added some gifs and such to the doc where the blog was being worked on. I then proceeded to not be present for the rest of the debate since I wasn’t that good at public debates back then. Up until the verdicts had to be written, I was basically radio silent, and then I was asked to write mine. It was kinda funky that my verdict was last and I had to speedwrite it in a Mexican restaurant but nevertheless I think my verdict was good. The blog was also pretty good, nice job to everyone who did contribute. Sorry Saul, maybe next time I’ll be more active-

Saul’s VS Blog: Father vs Belos

(tn by Pin)

Hell yeah, now we’re talking.

Out of all the FMA and Owl House matchups that I became aware of, this one is easily my favorite from both series. I did start out as a Father vs Father (FMA vs KND) advocate but over time, I’ve come to realize that they both had way, way better matchups that actually suited their characters and powersets better. I would warm up to the idea of Father (KND) vs Big Mom and I would especially take a liking to Father (FMA) vs Belos after reading one of those “connections in comments” posts of the matchup on DBM. Soon after the matter, I heard about the announcement of Saul’s next time which would be Father vs Belos, to which I was lucky enough to get in before the team member limit had been filled.

While I didn’t have any specific moments that especially stuck out to me during the blog, it was generally a fun time to be on here. People were making cool art, I got to join my first ever vc with these guys (although my mic was broken at the time :( oh well) and it was just nice seeing people yapping about both series. I did what I could by once again adding gifs as well as writing stuff about Father with the little bit of info I had but it was awesome just being there really. The blog came out super well and is probably my favorite Saul blog to date. Everyone who worked on this blog, y’all cooked!!

Saul’s VS Blog: Diavolo vs Overhaul

(tn by idk who)

Yet another blog helmed by Saul. I’ve always been curious as to what the debate looked like for Diavolo vs Overhaul, and since I was a big Jojo and MHA nerd, I would join the blog immediately after it’s announcement. They were pretty simple characters to cover all things considered, even with the complicated stand that is King Crimson/Epitath and MHA stats in general. There was certainly a lot of back and forth on Jojo stats (as expected), and Overhaul’s scaling wasn’t as simple as slapping a top tier feat onto him since he got fraud checked by 30% Deku alone (or whatever that percentage was). I would not only assist in that scaling but I also made the accompying edits to go alongside them, which I’ve become proud of mainly because it was the first time that I did Jojo scaling images and I think I pulled it off really well. I’d also do the MHA scaling images but funny enough this would be the 3rd time I’ve made MHA scaling edits.

The debate was certainly interesting alright, as I found it hilarious that Diavolo tricking Overhaul into killing himself with his “fate manipulation” could’ve been a wincon that existed. I also tried to scale Diavolo to GER since he didn’t get obliterated™ by GER’s punch barrage but that ultimately fell through. Either way, I did agree with the overall verdict. Overhaul was stronger, Diavolo was faster, and although King Crimson’s ability would be a pain to deal with, Overhaul’s quirk had the capability of one shotting through touch or even environmental destruction. We didn’t consider Overhaul’s other forms since he needed his henchmen to get those forms but otherwise yeah, Diavolo is a very dead man (as if that hasn’t already happened 💀). Good blog nonetheless!

Falconia Blogs: Gun Devil vs Wither Storm

(tn by TripleCx3)

Besides the blogs I make in my own time, this was absolutely my favorite released blog that I’ve been a part of as of now. Deadass, when I first heard the mere concept of Gun Devil vs Wither Storm, it instantly clicked with me for all the wrong reasons. At the same time however, it was a matchup simple and hilarious enough that I knew that I needed to be a part of the blog asap. I may have only had a limited amount of knowhow on Chainsaw Man but I was definitely there for the Wither Storm and Minecraft scaling as a whole.

Upon joining the blog, I was greeted by TripleCx3 for the first time and also Normal (oh god he’s everywhere I look), and we went straight to work trying to figure out how the hell we were gonna dk this. Normal had volunteered to look through the entirety of Minecraft Story Mode (both aeasons) and everyone else would handle Chainsaw Man for the time being. I had wanted to do Minecraft scaling but I didn’t know where to start so I instead made the blog look pretty by making background edits for both and scaling edits for The Wither Storm’s side. It was really funny seeing Normal go through all of Story Mode live and noting anything worth mentioning for the blog such as whatever the gell was going on with the size of Minecraft Story Mode’s world and the actual cosmology the game had. On Gun Devil’s side, it’s still crazy to me that this guy only had like, 2-3 chapters at the time and yet he single handedly saved Chainsaw Man scaling. He was truly the potential man before the term had become popular and kinetic energy was this guy’s own saving grace.

It certainly was curtains for Gun Devil once we had found legitimate Moon-Planet level scaling for Wither Storm along with some crazy hax but the Gun Devil wasn’t too done for surprisingly. The Gun Devil had faster travel and reaction speed and possible wincons in the form of possession and such but ultimately this devil would be shot down and be a victim to the might of the Wither Storm. It was just a fun time overall and we need more unserious blogs that can actually work as a Death Battle because I would unironically be hyped if this happened somehow.

that one Deku vs Miles blog (kinda)(oh brother)(let me explain)

Saying this off the bat, I’ll be light on the slander towards the blog and its creator as I don’t want to encourage any more harassment. At the same time however… yeah this wasn’t it. I absolutely love Deku vs Miles as a matchup and I was certainly interested in seeing a blog on it, so you can certainly imagine how sad I was when I found out that 90% of it was plagerized. Lmao.

I probably should’ve assumed something fishy was going on because I never actually got to see the blog in question. The guy had only asked for some scaling edits in the server, to which I would dm him asking if I could make some. Frankly, I had no experience in making those kinds of images but I had wanted to try and make my own for quite a while. My first attempts were a dud because my ass did not understand the assignment but once I did get it down, I found that I had a knack for making these images. Unfortunately, I was unaware that my edits would be featured on this kind of blog but alas, it is what it is. I wasn’t even the only one that thought the blog would be good, and I may have been slightly responsible for the dogpiling that would follow soon after but bro should’ve typed his own stuff, I’m just saying!

Anyways, thanks to everyone who said my edits were cool when I posted them separately. It only added to my confidence as an editor so I definitely appreciate it 👍. Here’s to hoping that Deku vs Miles gets a proper blog one day…

Before I go…

For my first year of actually being active within the community, it’s been an interesting time getting to know a lot of you and I’m glad that it’s mostly been a fun time all around. I’m only just starting with my blogs and my presence in the community so you’ll definitely be seeing a lot more of me next year!

Thanks for reading through my whole retrospective and before I actually go now, I’d like to namedrop some other blogs that I’m on as of right now. You should definitely check them all out once they release!

New Horizons Blogs: All For One vs Toichiro Suzuki

RoundFight1 Blogs: Tooru/Wonder of U vs SCP-096

Falconia Blogs: Kars vs Meruem

And I’ll be seeing y’all again with my own next time… have a happy new year.

Toxin’s DB Corner: Carmen Sandiego vs Mr. Wolf