DE: Put 'em up

[bjornwilde]

It's feast week here in the US and likely a slow work time for some of us. Let's go with a seemingly simple question today, what’s your character's preferred method of fighting?

Comments

[sdelmonte]

Kirk has that weird style with the leaping around and the hands-clasped punch that would be no more effective than a standard punch. I could make up something about how it's a 23rd century martial arts technique, but it's just Shatner and his stunt double trying to look interesting. Later in life, Kirk learned to fight dirty, though.

Charlie prefers to avoid fighting these days, but he combines a large number of martial arts style.

Cyborg and Swamp Thing use their powers. Knox avoids fights but keeps a baseball bat in the trunk.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Kirk style is the best style.

[camwyn]

Gordon hits things repeatedly with the crowbar. Actually, his preferred method of fighting involves guns or explosives, since that puts him in less of harm's immediate way, but if it comes to close-in style he's going to hit things with the crowbar until they stop trying to attack him.

Shephard loves him some sniper rifle and Osage orange longbow. If he has to do close-in work he'll just revert to Marine Corps standard issue CQC training; he's not really a big fan of hand to hand.

Ellen is not very good at hand to hand, although she's had training from several Milliwaysers and from Paladin Gunny. Her preferred method of fighting is Heavy Energy Weapons.

Fawkes defaults to hitting things with a giant augmentic sledgehammer or blasting them with a Gatling laser, given the chance. He's a supermutant, and they're not really built for subtler things.

Stacker Pentecost prefers to fight things in a giant robot exoskeleton that is not going to kill him through radiation-induced weakened-blood-vessel-based brain aneurysm.

El Santo is of the opinion that if you do not know what his preferred method of fighting is, you should probably watch a few movies, and recommends Operacion 67 in particular.

Varric prefers to talk his way out of fights when he can, but otherwise he just cuts loose with his crossbow, Bianca. Not really a close-in fighter.

Wee Mad Arthur prefers to run up his victim's legs and headbutt their kneecaps, foreheads, or other particularly painful places; he's capable of delivering a full-grown human's worth of force to an area the size of an American dime this way. I don't think he goes for the dangly bits, though. You get more of a noisy reaction when it's skull to skull, and Pratchett never seemed to indicate that Arthur was going anywhere but the knees when he climbed one guy's trousers.

And Hernan Guerra, who I have to post into Milliways sometime soon, is awfully fond of heat vision as a weapon, but otherwise is quite happy to pick the truly deserving up, punch them a few times, and then throw them back down to the ground twenty feet below.

[a1enzo]

Enzo's methods of choice are judo, liuyedao sabre, and his gauntlet, which has been modified to fire an assortment of grapnels and bolts, both tethered and untethered, including explosive, net, tracking, paint... you know, the usual. He's flexible, though. Guardians learn a lot of styles.

[bwbw_aabb]

Zecora can create illusions,
dizziness, sneezing, and such confusions,
with powders and vapors, the herbalist's art;
the foe may then simply depart,
or be captured at leisure while pixilated
(or be kicked in the head or similarly sedated).

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam tends to grab people by the throat and throw them across the room.

And can I just answer for Eric and say that he tends to remove jaws and internal organs. Because he's soooo dramatic.

graphic descriptions ahoy

[onceaviking]

Pffft.

Eric does what he does because it's effective. Once you remove someone's jaw you both loose an opponent and gain a small weapon.

Granted, ripping people's hearts out and treating said heart as a milkshake might be a tad over the top. But it gets the point across.

Occasionally, he'll rip other things off, but that's mainly if you've been a dick to Pam.
And yes, exactly like that.

[have_no_mercy]

I don't know that it's preferred, but Tess is a bit of a brawler. The martial arts moves do come out, but sometimes bashing someone's head against the floor is all it takes.

[bjornwilde]

Ahsoka: With her lightsaber(s) and a good cause.
Quinaln: Not sure actually. Whatever works I guess. Actually, psychological. He enjoys a good physical fight from time to time though.
Rollo: His axe or his fists.
Hank: Words. When they fail, he goes for the hands and feet on approach.
Luidaeg: Other people or sleep enchantments. In certain rare circumstances, her own claws and teeth.
Sam: Air Force pararescue CQC.
Selina: Her nails or a knife, if she has to fight. She does her best to avoid fights to be honest.
Izana: Words or a Garde unit.
Sabine: Explosives or blasters.

[student_of_impossibility]

Eriond: He doesn't.

Henry: Ditto. Well, if he had to he'd kick someone in the shin hard and run away (a fairly sound plan, actually!)

Evelyn: Magic, obviously; she will develop a knack for ice magic in particular--mostly having to do with a desire to keep people away and hoping she doesn't have to resort to electrocuting them or setting them on fire--and eventually will be a Knight-Enchanter.

Lois: She has a blackbelt in some unspecified martial art, actually, and did take on a soldier at least once in-canon. She can also use a gun. She doesn't use either much these days, and arguably her favorite weapon is her pen (or more likely keyboard and accompanying word processor with a spell-check she doesn't actually trust). She will totally go for the lowest and dirtiest blow if and when she has to.

R2-D2: Sometimes he has to use his little shock-probe, or shin-butt someone. Mostly he either hacks or lets death machines do his fighting for him while he hacks and is competent.

Anakin: Force Choke Lightsaber. Or piloting.

Tavi: He would like to point out mildly that 'method of fighting' doesn't necessarily just mean 'what physical weapons do you use and how,' because as it turns out, his preferred method of fighting--whether physical, political, espionage, terrible manipulative mind games, or anything--is "try to fast-talk, persuade, diplomacy, or if necessary intimidate my way out of having to fight--and if that doesn't work, out-think them, and anything at hand to do it."

But if we're just talking physical weapons: his preferred is longsword; sometimes he goes with dual gladius, although he'd still rather go longsword-gladius and usually has a longish knife on him in case he loses one of his swords. Stylistically, there's both solo swordsman type of various schools (he has a personal style of 'mix it up') and the fairly brutal hack-and-slash of Legion foot-soldiers. These days, of course, he adds furycrafting to that.

[ceitfianna]

Will-hand-to-hand, he loves a good brawl, staff, sword or longbow

Charles-He'd rather not fight and will find ways to use his telepathy to not have to, also Erik.

Quentin-sword

Sameth-Charter magic and sword

William-hand-to-hand, he fights in a style that's from boxing but rougher and gun if he has to. He's a good shot but he'd rather punch someone.

Moist-He won't, its one of the things that he's consistent about, he doesn't fight, so he's really good at running away and blending into the crowd

Jane-Her words, she will destroy you with wit and in her fiction

Demeter-plants and transformation

Ivan-stunner or his hand-to-hand

Tumnus-he's not a fighter, but I could see him having a knife.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Most of my characters are non-fighters or would prefer to be. That said--

Bossuet knows how to use the common firearms of his period. So does Feuilly, who is presumably pretty good at it, since at the barricade he's in charge of a group of riflemen shooting from the upstairs windows. (Feuilly also shows up to the revolution brandishing a sabre. Settle down there, Mr. Bloodthirsty! I really can't think how he would have learned to fight with that on top of all the other things he's learned to do, but I like to think he's always been a little starry-eyed about sword-fighting. Hence all the cheerful work with Hotspur.)

The Chief of the ACME Detective Agency presumably has, you know, sidearms training and can probably beat people up too, but I mean, she's from a children's PBS gameshow. There's not a lot of beating up. THAT SAID if it isn't canon that she has access to a shrink ray gun, it damned well should be. (...man I keep thinking she would be fun on Security, but I don't actually play her enough.)

Gredya fights best in wolf form, with a pack. The Wyr are canonically crap at fighting in human form.

Harry is a medieval swords-and-horses war-murdery dude. I mean, I suspect there was some damned good luck involved in his defeating Hotspur, but he knows what he's doing. Interestingly at one point Hotspur dismisses him as "that sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales;" apparently by Shakespeare's time, sword-and-buckler fighting was out of fashion for the upper classes, and was associated with the kind of sketchy brawlers that Hal hangs around with. (Of course at that point it's debatable whether Hotspur actually...knows...Hal at all beyond reputation and having met once, so that line may say more about how Hotspur thinks than it does about Hal's actual combat skills.)

And Djehuty probably does complexly magical combat mathematics.

[harryhotspur]

Hotspur: SWORDS. and LANCES. and HORSES. Basically he likes any armed combat that follows strict, honorable rules. As he's proven repeatedly in Milliways, he's really not a brawler, and engaging in that kind of fighting would really be beneath him if he were in his usual context.

Arabella: 19th century polite passive aggression.

Liz: Sarcasm.

Viola: Wordplay? Not swords! Please not swords. Or any kind of fighting at all.

Segundus: hahahahaha

[lark_in_flight]

Pffffft. I'm just picturing Hotspur staring in bewildered disdain at literally all your other characters.

[harryhotspur]

Hahahahahaha yup

[varadia]

Raven: He uses knives. When that's not enough, he'll play really exciting games with reality. Sometimes he uses thread for that, because it's safer for everyone else. Sometimes he doesn't.

X-23: Prefers hand-to-hand and hand-to-claw, but she's conversant with most firearms, particularly pistols and sniper rifles, and is very good with explosives.

Ysalwen Surana: Magic. She's good with all four elements, plus death magic and entropy and hexes. And because the Dragon Age: Origins mage class is completely broken, she has two specializations -- battlemage (which are elemental spells that go right off in someone's face) and arcane warrior. This means that if it really comes down to it she can use swords and other melee weapons instead of magic. Handy! (Still magic.)

Dean Winchester: If you can fit it in the trunk of the Impala, he can probably use it. His preferences are guns, particularly pistols and shotguns, knives, and the occasional axe. Lately he's really into the knives.

Nynaeve: Really doesn't want to fight. If she has to, she'll use saidar, particularly flows of Air to knot somebody up and keep them out of her way while she gets the hell out of there. Or fire. Or -- theoretically she could do reverse-healing and kill the shit out of somebody, but she doesn't. That's -- no.

Michael the Archangel: Brawls and uses a sword. Usually not at the same time.

Wonder Woman: If it's a fighting art, she can do it. She avoids guns and other higher-tech weapons unless that's really the only thing on offer and very necessary. Usually it's her fists and feet, her lasso, swords, shields, and axes. And spears. Also javelin.

Galadan: Either his teeth, his mental powers, or a knife. Or, you know, all of his minions including the ones that don't know they are his minions.

Flemeth: Other people. Trees. Her teeth. Usually other people and trees, though. It keeps 'em guessing.

[1nv1nc1ble]

Invincible punches things until they fall down. If they get back up, he punches them again. He's not particularly fancy. Though he has been trying to learn how to fight properly.

[death_gone_mad]

Amascut uses minions. Shocking for a goddess of destruction with hardly any qualms about or restrictions on interacting with mortals. But, I guess she likes to make mortals fight to the death. God vs. mortal is so boring and predictable. If someone doesn't die in a fight, it's fireball time though, so magic combat is her go to technique. She is sort of the patron goddess of monster slayers, and since some monsters are resistant to magic, she is no slouch when it comes to various methods of flinging projectiles or swinging sharp or heavy objects at opponents. She teaches combat too!


Fairy Fixit lets accidents happen, but I suppose there are times when accidents don't happen often enough... she likely has a really nasty fungus ready to go for emergencies, something like a Cordyceps, but from what I have seen, her species is really good with tooth decaying magic and various forms of dental pain.

[maid_of_tarth]

Brienne of Tarth: Sword, though she's also fairly deadly with a morningstar.

Fantine: She's not a fighter, but she's pretty damn scrappy on a hand-to-hand level when a random bully attacks her. She basically overwhelms a well-fed grown man while she's dying of tuberculosis.

Combeferre: With his mind, and his words, and he would very much rather not fight with anything else.

...that said, if he has to, he'll take pistols, thanks. Or really any kind of firearm. As many as he can carry.

Jehan Prouvaire: with a firearm if it's at all serious. He knows how to use weapons that were considered old in his time. If it's not serious, he's perfectly happy flinging himself into a brawl with great energy and minimal skill.

[chanter1944]

Sariel prefers to do her fighting from the helm of a starship, as part of a crew. She's had Starfleet Academy standard arms training (energy-based weapons, not projectile versions), and she's overall much more comfortable with energy weaponry. See also the personal-use sidearm she's borrowed from Ellen Park on occasion. The rifle training she got from BJ Blazkowich is definitely not forgotten, but that's tech from a different world and time; it's not her first choice, but she'll use it if necessary. If thrown into close quarters conflict, she's relied on a knife before. Granted the attempt was comparatively clumsy, and she was trying not to break local cover at the time.

[cassiefuckingcage]

Cassie: This is unsurprisingly well documented. Go on Twitch to watch one of SonicFox's more recent matches if you'd like a full rundown of everything she can do. But it all boils down to guns, fists, and boots.

Garyn: A sword works quite well for his purposes. He's rather good at fighting with those.

Raiden: Raiden prefers to fight without fighting, so to speak. But he can use his powers over thunder and lightning, as well as the fists of his physical form, to kombat his foes.

Sheogorath: Once tried to fight Jyggalag by filling a pit up with clowns.

[rudderless]

Clem and Eponine go straight for the gut and the balls, every time.

Juliet has Actual technique, which she applies via her academy training.

Pinkie uses AWESOME BLASTS OF FOURTH WALL BREAKING POWER

Dixie prefers clay pots to the head. And her words.