Fuck Yes

[redbrunja]

From tv.tropes:

"Tsunade in Naruto can not only deliver an armour piercing slap but an earth shattering kick. Such is her incredible strength that the beat the titular character with one finger. Her student, Sakura, is following in her footsteps and Tsunade herself has commented that she could become stronger then her.
What's scary? Is that her Armor Piercing Slap is tied to her ability to increase her NORMAL attack strength."

I have no idea where they got this fact, but I just want to say: Fuck, yes. If you watch Sakura, when she is breaking down walls and punching through mountains, her posture is fucking excellent. You get hit by someone with form like that, it's going to fucking hurt.

I have no doubt, that in a straight hand to hand fight, she could beat just about anyone sans Lee or Gai, without using a smidge of chakra.

Pay attention, fanfic writers.

(Okay, it was just that fanfic that one time, but it bugged me then, and it retroactively bugs me a hella lot having seen Sakura post-timeskip.)

Also, I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I will love tvtropes.com forever for having the header quote for both "Badass Normal" and "Action Girl" be this fabulous quote by the fabulous Karrin Murphey:

"I put on the boots and kicked some monster ass. I dropped the ghoul, and I'm the one who rammed a chainsaw through the head of that plant monster thing. Crippled the ogre too. What did you do? You threw a can of Sterno at him. That's barely an assist."

-Detective Lieutenant Karrin Murphy, The Dresden Files.

....Except some jerk totally changed the quote on badass normal to something someone I don't care about said. *annoyed face*

Comments

[studentrobin.livejournal.com]

Changed it back, because that quote fits way, way more than the Devil May Cry one does. Also, I've only read Stormfront, but I agree that Murphy is just plain awesome.

At some point you mentioned having a top five or ten Urban Fantasy series. Was that a generalization? If not, I'm always, always looking for recs..

I see you have fallen into the trap of Trope Browsing. Ah, the many disappearing hours..

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I'm going to list the first (and in one case only) urban fantasty series:

Dime Store Magic (technically not the first book in this series, but it's the first book with this main character)

War For the Oaks, Emma Bull (unfortunately the only book. I lost my urban fantasy virginity with this book, and it stand the test of time).

Dead Witch Walking

Kitty & The Midnight Hour.

Ill Wind, Rachel Cain (the first one is the best, after that I think they start to go downhill, while still entertaining.)

[studentrobin.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't it be lovely for War for the Oaks to have a sequel? Unbelievably lovely. There is the screenplay, though, and the weird but interesting low budget 5 minute 'trailer.' I think I lost my Urban Fantasy Virginity with that one, as well. I was quite thrilled when Ironside did a little shout-out to it.

I'll have to check out those others at some point.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh my god trailer?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!

LINK, PLEASE!

[studentrobin.livejournal.com]

Here, you go! It's low budget, but it's actually really, really good. I mean, Bull had full creative control, so how could it not be?

http://greenmanreview.com/mp3/oaks.mov

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

*shakes head*

Oh, man.

That Eddi... could not act. (But she sang beautifully).

[studentrobin.livejournal.com]

No, she really couldn't. I think they probably picked her for matching what Eddi's singing voice would likely resemble. And Phouka..I didn't think he was much of a physical match, but his voice was absolutely perfect.

The lack of Hedge in the trailer I have always found disappointing.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

*nods* Yeah, when she was singing, she was perfect, and the rest of the time... no.

On that subject, she didn't look anything like what the Eddi in my head looked like (although I think she was visually pretty close to what Bull was picturing.) How did she compare/contrast to the person in your head?

[ryanitenebrae.livejournal.com]

Let's see.. I'm not great at facial descriptions, but let's see if I can manage this.
In my head, Eddi has a shorter, pointier nose, her hair was a shade darker than the almost-albino-blonde of the actress. Her face was a little more angular, less long, with thinner lips, and a pointier chin. I also pictured her hair as being slightly spikey. Not spiked, per se, but not lying flat, either. And..similar height and weight, but a slightly different shape. Flat-chested..willowier. How did you picture her?

As for Phouka..it's mostly his hair that grates on me. His voice is perfect..I would have imagined a softer face, and slightly different bone structure, and his hair, I feel, should be longer, and at least a little curly. And..the bright, bright shirts..augh..the shirts! I think they just let him act in whatever he showed up in.

The Queens looked about right, though the Queen and Air of Darkness..well, it would be physically impossible to make her as dangerous and awesome as she should be. I think the Seelie Queen was actually Bull herself, though.

God, I hope I made some brand of sense. It's also been years since I read the book. I think I read it when I was..14? Earlier? And I'm turning 18 in a week and a half, now.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh, you make total sense.

I imagined Eddi as being on of those elegant blondes with long golden hair. I pictured her looking pretty delicate, with nice cheekbones.

And for someone who is supposed to be as stylist as the Phouka... those shirts... I mean... those shirts.

[solace-adrift.livejournal.com]

…Uh, without super strength Sakura is pretty utterly de-fanged. Bear in mind that she’s cultivated a very particular strength and been taught to fight with it. Without it her fighting style would be mostly obsolete. It’s like if Neji or Hinata lost their Jyuuken: they’d probably just end up breaking their fingers trying to use the same moves. Sakura’s style is less specialized, but the principle is the same. This isn’t to say she would be defenseless, but I doubt she’s really that much stronger with than any of the other Konoha twelve, who all tend to specialize in a form of close combat. Actually with the exception of Shikamaru, Ino and Shino, who all are long range fighters, she’d probably get beaten (assuming of course that they couldn’t use their long range techniques. If they could probably everybody short of Ino could beat her).

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I disagree.

Sakura's whole style is based on hand to hand combat, and did you're throwing punches, and presumably spent the last two years training to do so correctly, that sucker is going to hurt, even if you don't throw chakra in there.

I think, if we're talking chakra-less fighing, or close combat, she's going to be a much more of an advantage than the longrange fighters, or even someone like Naruto, who's style is based around using clones.

[solace-adrift.livejournal.com]

True, but Sakura is not particularly large or tall, and matched up against up the afore mentioned Konoha twelve, who have mostly been training in their fighting styles before Sakura even heard of hers, making a punch hurt is really just the very basics. Look at their fighting styles. They’re pretty dangerous already.

And besides the three already mentioned (Shikamaru, Ino, Shino) how many of the Konoha twelve actually depend on close rang techniques? If you took Akamaru out (which I usually don’t. He’s mostly like a weapon.) I could see her taking Kiba, but that’s about it.

Naruto’s clones? He can conjure like what, two hundred, easy? Without super strength she’s only just a step ahead of Naruto (who really is no slouch in close combat) and each of those two hundred clones has Naruto’s experience. They disappear with one hit, but at least a few will land blows, and Sakura cannot afford to trade punch for punch two hundred times. Not to mention that Naruto could then just go first level Kyuubi, where he gains claws, speed, utter disregard for injury, and inhuman endurance; all things Sakura can’t match.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Okay, I don't think my point was clear.

What I was saying was, in a fight without chakra Sakura is still pretty damn dangerous, because her fighting style translates well to that arena. Most of the characters need chakra to fight (The Hyuuga clan, possibly Ten Ten, although I imagine Gai trained her pretty well in hand to hand, the characters you mentioned, Naruto) would be a significant disadvanage, in a way that she wouldn't.

And in a fight where chakra is being used, she's able to punch through mountains. Basically, I was harping on the 'fights well without chakra' because I read a fic where she had to go undercover as a fighter and couldn't use her monsterous strength, and the author has a number of training sequences where she gets pwned by Anko, and I honestly can't buy it.

[solace-adrift.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought you were saying in a fight where just she was the only one who didn’t have chakra. My bad.

In that case I’m fairly sure it’s anyone’s call, since it’s hard to say what their unchakra jujutsu skill is. Lee, Tenten, and Kiba would probably rise to the top (because one is Lee, one knows how to wield around a hundred different weapons, and one has a dog the size of a horse on his side) but yeah, Sakura would probably be up there. She’s got a lot more skill than someone like Hinata.

And, addressing that fic you read, why didn’t she just use Kunai or the stuff she learned before super strength? You’re right, it doesn’t make much sense.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Basically, the set up was that she was going to be doing cage fighting, so no weapons, and Gai and Anko were training her; what pissed me off because I couldn't believe that she was getting beaten as badly as she was by Anko when Tsunade, quotably, taught her hand to hand.