#luffastuff

[duhragonball]

This week I got a commission from miss-plum.bsky.social, and it's pretty incredible. If I haven't lost count, this is the fourth one from Plum, and you can check out the others here, here, and here. This time I wanted to see her take on the "Double X" outfit I commed back in 2023, and she knocked it out of the park!

This is kind of my alternate attire for the character in the Luffa fighting game that only exists in my head. I'm not retiring the original look by any means, but it's nice to have options. Very nice...

[duhragonball]

That's right Duhragon, you wouldn't believe just how fast a reader I am. Whilst I was reading Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan, I looked deep within myself, and

blah blah blah Goldwall blah blah blah the legendary super saiyan blah blah blah vengeance cannon blah blah

and through all of that, I have ascended. That's right, I have reached a new level. Do you hear me Duhragon!? I have finally, finished reading through your fanfiction!

Allright, now I've gotten that out of the way, I would like to ask a question. If the tournament of power was held during Luffa's time, who would be picked for the team? Part of why I ask is because I find it an interesting difference that Luffa never had any tournament incidents, except for the death matches where she met the doctor and the wampa (I promise I love them but damn their names are hard to remember) so I have no idea what she'd think of them, but honestly I just love the tournament of power as a concept. The perfect blend of chaos and order. Part of me hopes that little rpg boy who tried to steal Luffa's hair is on the team, he's one of my favourites, the whole story would have ended happily if she had succeded in adopting him.

Neat! Thanks for reading!

I like the Tournament of Power myself, but I never put much serious thought into building a team of OCs to compete in one. I think Luffa herself would do well in that sort of battle royal environment, so I think she'd be able to drag one of the mid-tier teams from DBS closer to victory. Like, Universe 2 or 4, something like that. Put her on U6 or U3's team, and I think they have an outside chance of winning the whole thing.

But if you're asking me to pick nine more characters from that era to fight alongside her, I don't think the bench is that deep. This is because I wrote the fic with the idea of Luffa being profoundly alone at her level of power. There is no rival, no Tien or Piccolo or Vegeta for her to befriend. She has friends, but they can't satisfy her craving for a worthy adversary. That's why the fight with Goku was so important, because it was her getting to exhaust herself clobbering a true peer.

I guess if I had to field a team, we're looking at

Luffa

Xibuyas

King Rehval

Zatte

Hamey

Ensign Liberty

Scotch Woodcock

Wampaaan'riix

Red Ravager

The Shockmaster.

I'm reaching pretty badly to fill out this roster. Some of these characters are Luffa's enemies, whom she killed, so you'd have to bring them back to life just to put them on the team, and then you still have to get them to cooperate with the rest of the group.

Others are just too weak to make much of a difference. I put Zatte on the team because she could turn invisible and shoot people-- wait, no, you can't bring weapons to the Tournament of Power, Zatte's doomed. She can sit in the bleachers and look hot, I don't know.

Wampaaan'riix, Liberty, and Woodcock are warriors, but they're not that powerful. It's like how they put Roshi in the Tournament of Power and everyone complained about how dumb that is, except I'd have to do that four or five times just to fill out the team.

Red Ravager was a throwaway villain I came up with around chapter 25 or so. He had devices on his costume that generated artificial ki so he could fight. He's nothing special, but I think he might be one of the stronger characters in the early part of my fic, just by default. Like it's either him or Luffa's dad, and that sounds like a can of worms Universe 7 doesn't want to open. Wait... no, Red Ravager's devices are weapons, so he can't enter the tournament either. Shoot.

I mean, I'm kind of pleased that this it turning out to be even harder than I thought it would be. I really went out of my way to avoid the sort of team dynamic found in Dragon Ball Z, where there's at least a possibility that Piccolo or Trunks or Gotenks might save the day instead. I wanted Luffa to have a very different kind of story, one where she is truly, painfully unique, and the only escape from that is to travel 1000 years into the future, where Super Saiyans are commonplace, but she's still unique because she's from the ancient past. So the fact that the Tournament of Power concept is completely incompatible with my fic is a good thing. Goku wouldn't really fit into a lot of the stuff I was writing for similar reasons.

Then again, there were lots of powerful heroes running around in the Shockmaster's heyday, back when the Wist Hegemony wasn't too far into decline. If they held the Tournament of Power then, he could have led a team to victory, no problem.

[duhragonball]

It's night time, and that means it's the right time to post this commission I got from the amazing @miss-plum !!

Back in July, I had a lot of Luffa art I wanted to get ordered, but I couldn't decide which ideas to do, so I ran a poll to sort my priorities. Vampire Luffa was tied for third place, but it's the one I voted for, so that's why it got bumped up the queue. And Plum was open for comms in October and the timing was perfect.

I do these AU-themed Christmas specials every year, and in 2022 I went with a vampire gimmick. I couldn't decide whether Luffa should be a vampire or a vampire hunter, so I pressed both buttons and made an antihero. She still wants to eradicate vampires (saving herself for last), but she has needs now, Alfred. Dirty, horrible needs. And that's where Yamcha and Maron come in. Luffa forges an uneasy alliance with the Brief family's vampire-hunting guild, but she plans to take Yamcha from them as payment for her services. But he turns on the charm, and in the end she spares him... or does she? Maybe she just decided to take Maron in his place, or maybe she wants them both.

Anyway, this was a ton of fun to do. I had all these ideas for Luffa's costume, and it's great to see it all come to life like this. Its one thing for me to write down that she wears a corset and an ancient Pictish necklace, but Plum took all this and made it look gooooood.

Now I want to write a sequel just to tie it in with this scene. Or get commissions for the other AU specials. Well, one step at a time...

[duhragonball]

I COULDNT thiNK Of how to properly thank you for the birthday gift, like, genuinely speechless, SO here’s a LUFFA!!! thank you so so much again!!! AND KEEP ON BEING YOU 💕💕💕😭💕💕🗣️🔥🔥

AAAAAA THANK YOU COZY!

And happy birthday again (give or take a few days)! I hope you're doing well!

[duhragonball]

Your recent NaNo post made me wonder: what would Luffa think of pro wrestling?

Always grateful for Luffa questions on this blog. Thank you kindly.

So there was this episode of Dragon Ball Super where they made a Great Saiyaman vs. Mr. Satan movie, and Goku fell asleep in the theater because he was bored. According to the script, he preferred being in fights over watching them in a movie.

[Above: One sleepy, sleepy grandpa.]

This has always annoyed me, because Goku's always loved watching other people fight. Every time there's a tournament he's fascinated by the action. I think the only time he passed on viewing a match was Pikkon vs. Torbie, because Goku already knew Pikkon would win easily. Maybe staged, fictional battles aren't Goku's style, but he got a kick out of the ZTV re-enactment of the Cell Games.

In Goku's defense, I will acknowledge that he and I are about the same age, and naps are pretty awesome, but I've never fallen asleep in a theater, and I've seen some stinkers in my time. You'd think Goku would enjoy watching Gohan and Mr. Satan horse around on the the big screen, especially when he can get free popcorn refills and make out with his hot wife during the boring parts.

What I'm getting at is that I've always felt like the Saiyans' love of fighting must be deeply ingrained in their culture, to the point where they enjoy combat on many levels. It becomes part of their art, their storytelling, their courtship, and so on. In that context, professional wrestling looks a lot like a night at the opera to a Saiyan. Maybe Goku can't appreciate that, but Luffa can.

"Aw, but it's all fake--"

"THE PUNCHES THAT DON'T CONNECT TELL A STORY OF THE VIOLENCE THAT COULD HAVE BEEN, YOU UNCULTURED BOOB!"

I suppose that is the main difference between these two goofy goobers. Goku's a simple man who enjoys fighting for the elemental beauty of it, but Luffa's a sucker for a good story. She needs the storytelling, the drama, the intrigue, to give all of it meaning. Without it, they're all just a bunch of glowy jocks punching each other for no reason. There has to be all this emotional weight behind it all, a sense of glory and pride and destiny. Otherwise, what's the point?

And perhaps Goku could find himself appreciating that sort of thing as well, but he isn't usually conscious of it. There was that episode of DBS where he recreated all the moves from his match with Grandpa Gohan, decades after the fact. That re-enactment wasn't real, but Goku still did it just because he enjoyed the story of it so much. Same thing.

There's also the fact that Luffa has had to spend a lot of her time learning to hold back. She appreciates sparring with people much, much weaker than herself, because it's still a kind of combat, even if it's just practice for the real thing. So I think if you sat her down and showed her Earthling style professional wrestling, she'd appreciate the theatrical skill of performers simulating a fight without actually fighting. They're using their bodies to tell the story of a battle, but without the battle. For her, that's sublime.

[duhragonball]

Luffa commission by @vani-e (2/3)

So a few months back, I set up a poll for readers to decide the subject of the next commission I ordered, and the winner was "One of those pics where somebody goes 'not to be a lesbian but oh my gosh.'" I mean, it wasn't even close. Granted, there were only 23 voters, but more than half of them wanted to see Luffa cheesecake, and like the Sith Lord said, I love democracy.

I knew Vani would do a great job with this, but I still needed to settle on a concept. There's a Vendela Lindblom photoshoot where she's wearing a yellow swimsuit and a jacket, so I started there, and the legband kind of gives the whole thing a more Saiyan feel.

Costume choices are a tricky thing for Luffa, because she's a Saiyan who lived centuries before all of the Saiyan costumes came to be. It's like having a Roman soldier character, but one who lived before they came up with the Roman soldier helmets. Also I made the character a bit contrarian, where she wouldn't be particularly eager to try on a Frieza Force uniform just to fit in with modern Saiyans. She'd look cute in Seripa's gear, but it's not her style.

So what is her style? I think the above image kind of forced me to consider that question more carefully. Luffa's default outfit is a black shirt, yellow pants, black combat boots, and black fingerless gloves. But a lot of those choices are more about making her distinctive, rather than her own aesthetic. When I was playing the Xenoverse games, I just found the yellow color scheme handy to keep track of which character was me, and I went with baggy pants instead of tights because it was less, er, distracting that way. Vegeta wears gloves and Goku wears wristbands, so Luffa wears fingerless gloves to split the difference, and so on.

Eventually, I started to work it into the story. Yellow is a family color for Luffa, and he family hated the Saiyan monarchy, and the blue that represents it. So Luffa never wears blue if she can help it. And the rest is a matter of practicality. She wears her usual outfit, or something like it, just because it's familiar and comfortable.

But if she had to change things up, depending on the occasion, she might go for a Seripa-style leotard and a Raditz legband. But not the armor vest, because that implies allegiances she doesn't have. So the jacket instead. She throws all this together while rummaging through the back room of the Toki Toki City clothing shop.

So this has me thinking that I should workshop some other fashions for Luffa. She's partial to the color scheme, but she'd probably be down to wear all sorts of things. At least, this is what's been on my mind lately...

[duhragonball]

Luffa commission by @vani-e (1/3)

[duhragonball]

Zatte commission by @replica004 !

I’m really happy with how this one turned out.  They drew Luffa for me last year, so this time I decided to go with Luffa’s wife, an alien from a reclusive species of survivalists.