Dirk Strider (Ultimate) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
uber_marionettist) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
victory_road2022-10-18 10:15 am
uber_marionettist) wrote in victory_road2022-10-18 10:15 am
[Video; after the final tournament round]
[It's a video! A video of Dirk with the camera angle set low against the sunset, creating a very dramatic angle indeed.]
Well, well.
I suppose congratulations are in order. Though I'm reluctant to say so. Not that my opponent didn't earn his flowers, but the rest of you?
Oof. Yikes, even.
That was a test. I was testing you. And y'all almost didn't make it. Of the whole crop, only one of you had what it took to eliminate one guy running a single gimmick. Maybe a gimmick and a half, if I'm being charitable in my assessment of my own game. Which I do generally like to be, at least when I'm doing a public bit like this. But come on. I even left a comically oversized weakness in my strat and it wasn't until the very last second that anyone was successful in actually exploiting it. Some of you tried, but without any plan for actual follow-through.
It's the nature of the beast that the majority isn't meant for greatness, and I understand that. I'm not an unreasonable person. Despite claims otherwise, and the existence of actual dedicated groups founded on the principle of how I'm apparently and supposedly a danger to their children. But as a reflection on the entirety of outworlder proficiency, this tournament came so close to being an actual embarrassment that it turns my fucking stomach. Not because it reflects poorly on me. Obviously. I nearly took it all. I could have, if I'd wanted to. Easily. I let you all win. And even then barely, despite all the obvious flaws and weaknesses I left for you.
I'm not mad, though.
I'm going to turn this into a learning experience. A teachable moment, if you will.
Ask yourself: what would you have done if I'd pulled out all the stops? Just let me steamroll you like a six-second Looney Tunes gag, flattening your so-called best to a quantum superposition with the second dimension? Never once stopping to consider the consequences of allowing that 'best' (I hate to call it that, I really do) to be so predictably banal?
Contemplate that, and where you (collectively) went wrong. Where did I, very much on purpose I remind you, leave openings? What could have been done sooner to stop me?
Oh. And tick tock. I'm waiting.
Well, well.
I suppose congratulations are in order. Though I'm reluctant to say so. Not that my opponent didn't earn his flowers, but the rest of you?
Oof. Yikes, even.
That was a test. I was testing you. And y'all almost didn't make it. Of the whole crop, only one of you had what it took to eliminate one guy running a single gimmick. Maybe a gimmick and a half, if I'm being charitable in my assessment of my own game. Which I do generally like to be, at least when I'm doing a public bit like this. But come on. I even left a comically oversized weakness in my strat and it wasn't until the very last second that anyone was successful in actually exploiting it. Some of you tried, but without any plan for actual follow-through.
It's the nature of the beast that the majority isn't meant for greatness, and I understand that. I'm not an unreasonable person. Despite claims otherwise, and the existence of actual dedicated groups founded on the principle of how I'm apparently and supposedly a danger to their children. But as a reflection on the entirety of outworlder proficiency, this tournament came so close to being an actual embarrassment that it turns my fucking stomach. Not because it reflects poorly on me. Obviously. I nearly took it all. I could have, if I'd wanted to. Easily. I let you all win. And even then barely, despite all the obvious flaws and weaknesses I left for you.
I'm not mad, though.
I'm going to turn this into a learning experience. A teachable moment, if you will.
Ask yourself: what would you have done if I'd pulled out all the stops? Just let me steamroll you like a six-second Looney Tunes gag, flattening your so-called best to a quantum superposition with the second dimension? Never once stopping to consider the consequences of allowing that 'best' (I hate to call it that, I really do) to be so predictably banal?
Contemplate that, and where you (collectively) went wrong. Where did I, very much on purpose I remind you, leave openings? What could have been done sooner to stop me?
Oh. And tick tock. I'm waiting.
2/2 (Private)
(Private)
In all my time dealing with sundered heroes, preparation was not among their virtues.
Dirk thinking directly into his texts to Emet
Not sure what I could have done differently, outside of committing to villainy from the get-go....
This wasn't my original participatory aim, and raising the stakes would have required a lot more prep than I had time for. But the thing about going mask off is it's a one-time deal. You can spend an awful lot of time being an openly hostile, antagonistic monster, but as long as you pretend to think you're within bounds of the rules, they let you stay. Once you turn heel, though? You can't just rejoin society the next day, no hard feelings. You're out.
Which would have been fine if I'd realised I was going to be in that position, but I'd overestimated their collective. After what I thought was me underestimating it and watching you lose, I overcorrected. That was my mistake. But I didn't realise at the time that you lost to the only person capable of sinking our magic pet battleships.
At least he's speaking what's on his mind, I guess!!
It does not matter, I had rather meant that you should view this a touch more realistically. That, if you truly wished for them to display competency, a tournament is nary the time for it. I would not advise taking the mask off over such a venue, either.
We merely must needs press the heel more firmly to their throats next time. Truly push their capabilities, but in an environment we have more control over. A tournament gives them far too much of an excuse to not act accordingly, but should they find themselves and others threatened, then their complacency will be destroyed.
All I suggest is you waste not your time with explaining this to them, they won't listen. They are instinctual creatures, not ones that run on logic or rationale. You are not speaking their language.