How The 150th Death Battle Resonated With My Own Personal Issues

Something about fictional works can be empowering at times. There are works that allow people to have emotional or mental epiphanies about themselves. They end up feeling that a situation depicted in the work relates with their own situations and personal issues, even if it isn't an exact replica, and it can be life-changing. Recent Disney and Pixar films for instance such as Frozen, Inside Out and Encanto, have been brilliant at this. Think of the many people who felt that Elsa's "screw what everyone else thinks of me" song "Let It Go" resonated with their own issues - some members of the LGBTQ+ community even ended up seeing it as their own theme song.

Death Battle shouldn't be a case of this. It is not a work that is supposed to have a family-friendly message like your typical Disney or Pixar movie. It is a family-unfriendly series that primarily focuses on pop-culture characters fighting each other to the death and murdering each other in over-the-top ways. The hosts are amoral people who enjoy violence and analysing anything to do with killing. And with its 150 episode milestone, it primarily consisted of famous wrestler Macho Man Randy Savage fighting against famous drink mascot Kool-Aid Man.

Yet there was another side to the episode too. Throughout the course of Death Battle's first 150 episodes, there has been a subplot involving co-host Boomstick (a character I like so much I took my username from him) and his deadbeat father. I already did an article on it in December that served as a sort of timeline for the events linked with it, but I will do a short summary for the sake of this article too.

Essentially, Boomstick's father left the family when he was still very young, and it has affected him ever since. He angsts about the emotionally abusive way his father treated him when he was still around and where he could possibly be. He switches between wanting revenge on his father and genuinely missing him. Sometimes he even has crying fits about it. Not helping is the fact that he's the resident wisecracker, which results in plenty of awkward moments in which he tries to use that side of himself to cover up his more depressed side.

The smirk says "I'm fine", but the tears scream "HELP ME!!!"

This mask doesn't help much either. And after the fight aspect of the episode was over, he essentially just becomes a depressed and nervous thing of himself that's not in the mood for any jokes at all - when he's not angrily snapping out at the combatants and a guest star, that is.

Eventually, Boomstick arrives at what seems to be his father's place, but turns out to be his mother's. He's downright crushed at first, but Mama Boomstick points out that sometimes you "can't worry much about what you hope for, 'cause then you might miss the way things turn out", with her pointing out that he has two good friends for starters. Boomstick is still depressed about the fact that his father is missing at first, but thanks to his mother's encouragement and realising that she has a point about having the people he needs in his life, he ends up feeling better about the whole situation and thanks his mother for helping him out.

I squeed. I even teared up a bit. Here was a character who'd been suffering intensely from his negative thoughts on a past situation, and finally he was learning to move on and appreciate the things he had in his life. Plus, the moment in which he manages to smile despite his tears beforehand is just adorable.

But there was another reason I found myself getting emotional. You know I mentioned those scenes you watch that hit close to home and sometimes trigger personal memories? That was exactly what happened whilst I watched the ending.

No, I do not have a deadbeat father like Boomstick does. I have a pretty good relationship with my own one, even if he can frustrate me on a few occasions. Otherwise, we like listening to the same music together, laugh at the same jokes and have plenty of good times together. And I can pretty much say the same about the rest of my family.

However, even if my life could be considered to be ordinary, there were plenty of disappointments and traumas I suffered. Most of it was to do with bullying in one or two years of primary school and my first year of secondary school. But there were others as well, most of which resulted in tears. And unfortunately, I tend to have the memory of an elephant when it comes to even one-off incidents.

Keep in mind that these are just "key" moments - the bullying moments for instance lasted for a few weeks. Also, scratch the "two bullies" part in the "snowball" part - there were THREE. 

As you can notice, some of these incidents would not have been a big deal for anyone else, and one of them in particular didn't even have me as the target. But I guess my then-undiagnosed autism and sensitive nature in general caused my mind to bloat these incidents out of proportion.

I didn't brood on those issues too much at the time - except for maybe the PSA incident in Year 6, which caused me to avoid TV channels and radio stations with adverts like the plague for a while. After all, I was the "confident" member of the family, the one who always "bounced back" when bad things happened, in contrast with some of the others who lacked said "confidence". But when starting at university, something changed. I guess I felt that I should have handled certain things differently or ended up with a desire to "get my own back" on the people that tormented me in the past, because I could not stop thinking about those incidents. Sure, this didn't happen all the time, but there were moments in which they just "came back" into my mind at random, usually around winter or when something else in my life was stressing me out.

The thing with negative memories is that they can completely overcloud your better sense of judgement, especially if you're suffering some sort of mental illness such as depression. Being someone who suffers from anxiety and knows of family members who also have mental illness, I'm all too familiar with this happening. There were times in which I could not get the thoughts out of my brain and they would linger for days. Sometimes I'd end up with them whilst doing something that should have allowed me to be in a relaxed environment, such as taking a bath or going to bed.

These were memories that I would honestly prefer to forget, but even trying to think about other things or purge them from my mind didn't have a great effect. In some cases, I'd honestly consider whether going to a hypnotherapist to wipe them away, even though I'm pretty sure that hypnotherapy doesn't work like that. And obviously, trying to pretend that all is okay and that you're not having these unpleasant thoughts at all just accelerates the issue.

And I think the same applies with Boomstick. There were moments in which he'd suffer breakdowns linked with thoughts about his father, most notably in "Zuko vs. Todoroki" in which he both fails to pretend that everything is fine during the intro and overall breaks down crying a total of three times. By the time the 150th episode was reaching its climax, his negative thoughts on his father had completely overwhelmed him. He snapped out at the two combatants, despite being perfectly fine with the matchup beforehand and outright idolising Macho Man to the point in which he was willing to forget his past grievances with his father if they were one and the same. Even the reveal that his beloved mother was actually alive did nothing to help - all he could do was awkwardly state that he thought his father was with her.

However, once you're able to think more lucidly, you realise that there are plenty of positive memories out there. And sometimes, the negative memories are only a small amount compared to the rest. I feel that was what Boomstick learnt - the business with his father happened when he was super young, since he had received his final stepfather by the time he was four years old. The father had made his choice to leave; it really wasn't through any fault of Boomstick's own and he shouldn't have been kicking himself about it. Otherwise, there were people in his life that genuinely liked him like his mother and his friends (even if his friendships can be rather vitriolic at times), who have stayed with him throughout his life and had a major impact on it that way. He fondly remembers the times spent with his mother, especially the martial arts training, and currently works alongside his friends in a job that suits his (admittedly violent and morbid) tastes. The father was only a small part of his life compared to them. And it is this that helps him to accept that sometimes things don't work out and that it's best to just move on. He has a bit of a cry about it, but is soon able to smile due to the good stuff in his life. As I said before, that smile is absolutely heart-melting.

Yeah, I'm never gonna get tired of this screenshot. Don't be surprised if I decide to use it again for any later blog posts.

With me in particular, sure, those thoughts I mentioned earlier were horrible moments in my life that I wish never happened. But when I see the bigger picture, they're only a small fraction of it. For instance, those bullying moments only occurred in Year 7 or for a small portion of primary school. The bully in primary school ended up moving away and everyone was relieved that the class atmosphere became less toxic as a result. At least two of those tormentors from high school would later be expelled, so it seems that I wasn't the only person they wronged in any sense, and one of the others apparently redeemed himself. And most of the teachers did respond appropriately to the situation, including one who helped me after the "shut up" incident. From Year 8 onwards, aside for some smug brat who was more of a pathetic rival than anything else and some idiots yelling out the same old bullshit about me looking like a "Year 7", I never had to deal with any other cases of bullying. I made some really good friends, some of which I'm still in contact with. I got good grades for my GCSEs and A levels which I'm still proud of, and most of the teachers were pretty supportive, which helped too.

And as for my life in general, I feel it's gone pretty well. Some of the traumas were simply one-off occasions that never happened again, but my mind simply fixated on them because of how it works. But I have a generally stable family life and I would not trade it for anything else. Even my brother, who can be an absolute pain at times, has been pretty protective and supportive of me and we've had some good times together. Plus, I was able to remember several happy moments in my life too, some of which would seem insignificant to someone else too.

And these are just the positive memories I could FIT ONTO the page. I could also mention the time when my brother and I spent time home alone for a weekend and had fun pizza nights in the process, or everything that happened in September 2018, or...

So obviously I had a pretty major epiphany myself like Boomstick did. And I've taken it into account ever since watching that episode. No, I'm not going to play the glad game at all and pretend that everything's okay- that will just be a massive strain and just results in mental health issues getting worse, as Inside Out showed effectively. But I am starting to put my whole life into perspective. Looking at the two images I uploaded, I have significantly more genuinely happy memories to remember than unhappy ones, and the way I see it, that's kind of proof that my life's actually pretty cool.

I still have those nasty flashbacks on a few occasions, sometimes without warning. And they can still hit hard. After all, it's only been four months since I watched that video. But putting them into perspective compared to the uplifting stuff makes them last for a shorter time than they did originally. I can also safely say that I haven't had any brooding moments in the bath recently since October. And since I'm not focusing on how I could get "revenge" for what happened as often now, I can just focus on working towards a healthier mental state rather than simply "forgetting" what happened. Sure, it's likely to be a long road to full recovery due to how long I brooded on them for in the past, but hey, I have a therapist and I can simply discuss this with her. Especially since originally I would have felt too awkward about discussing the full details of these incidents with her, but now don't feel so tense about it. ;)

And as for the anxiety I suffer with regard to the state of the world in general, rather than just my own personal issues? Well, that's why I try and take part in more activist work.

It took quite a bit of willpower to write this post, since this did rely on recounting old memories I'd rather forget. I originally considered writing it around October, but a combination of recovering from a prolonged anxiety attack I had in the first week of that month and stuff happening in my everyday life (pretty good stuff though - I finally got a volunteering placement after ages of searching for one) meant that it was best to wait until the other blog post on Boomstick's situation was up. I even thought of waiting until the 10th October this year, a year after the original release of the 150th death battle, but I realised it would take too long and it was best to get out my thoughts as soon as possible. It's why I'm releasing it in January during the time in which I normally catch a bad case of the winter blues. But I did it. I finally managed to vent out stuff I felt too awkward about discussing in detail before and feel a lot better now, all thanks to a video that initially just seemed like it was going to be a goofy fight between a wrestler and a jug of kool-aid.

It's weird to think that I could end up relating with someone with a completely different background, view on life and reasons for angst in the first place, but as I said before, that's the thing with certain works - anyone can end up finding something that helps them mentally and emotionally even if their circumstances are different to the ones they witness in the work. And if it's a character that they really like, it's all the better when they can relate to them, differences in personality and background aside. Fictional works don't just help us to escape from our real life problems, they can also help us to face them. And even if it's a work like Death Battle that you wouldn't expect to be "inspiring" in the first place, there may be something in them that will come off that way anyway.

Anyway, that'll be it for me going on about my own life and my nerdy interests. Boy, I ramble on a lot. It's a new year and I'm looking forward to essentially moving ahead with my life and leaving the bad times behind. And in a way, I hope the same happens with Boomstick too. I know that he has quite a few other issues in his life too, such as his failed marriages, but having an epiphany over his family situation and the people who truly matter to him is certainly a good start and could lead to good things in his future. As his mother accurately said, "you just might find what you need", and in a way him and I both did that October. :)