A lot of fictional depictions of games feel divorced from reality when the author makes statements like “no one has ever been able to beat this boss/clear this level” or “no one has discovered this easter egg/ mystery yet”. Especially when the game in question is supposedly ultra popular and has been out for years.

I don’t think writers actually understand the psychotic levels of dedication and obsession a popular game can inspire in its playerbase. If you give a group of people with an excess of free time and no other hobbies a problem to solve, they’ll probably crack it in a fraction of the time you actually think it’ll take. Most games are designed to be solvable and no matter the difficulty, at least one insane individual will smash their head against the wall until they beat it.

In the Ready Player One film, the entire world is dedicated to discovering a secret Easter egg inside a virtual reality game called the Oasis that will supposedly transfer complete ownership of the game and the entire fortune of the creator to the first person who discovers it. Yet for almost a decade, no one has been able to find even the first hint about the Easter egg. This is such a laughable scenario. Gamers will dedicate thousands of hours to doing things in games with zero monetary incentive, just for the love of the game. If you tell that you can gain access to life changing wealth and status, the Easter egg hunt would have been cracked in like hour 1 after its reveal. Especially in the movie, the Easter egg keys are so poorly hidden that there’s no way it took this long for someone to stumble onto the method. The first key is discovered by driving backwards on a race track level of the game. This is the kind of Easter egg that could be accidentally discovered by anyone screwing around with the game. The fact that this isn’t like the second or third thing people thought to try and that no one could figure it out until the protagonist came along is a farce.

Shangri La Frontier is the only fictional depiction of a game that feels realistic in how the devs and players interact. Shangri La Frontier is a live service virtual reality game, just like the Oasis game in RPO. It has a bunch of hidden secrets, and a roster of bosses that are considered unbeatable. We actually get scenes early on with the devs saying they predict no one will be able to beat the first boss until at least a year of the game being out. Then within 6 months of the game being out, one of the secret bosses gets beaten by a group of random players and the devs lament that all their roadmaps just got upended because the players killed the boss in the wrong order. Shangri La features plenty of scenes where the players abuse game mechanics, discover niche exploits, and just bash their head against a challenge until they manage to clear it.

It’s the only fictional video game that acknowledges that a game is just as likely to be broken and played in unintended ways by curious players instead of the exact intended way the devs wanted and acknowledges the ludicrous lengths certain gamers will go to to do things in the game they’re no feasibly supposed to be able to do.

So we all know the recent Wolverine game reviews and to say it was controversial is an understatement, but we all can agree that insomniac studio is declining, specially on the writing part and the biggest red flag of this flaw is Jean and Logan having a relationship. You all know how weird this ship feels and it feels like it was made out of spite and if you feel that way you are correct.

The cursed origin of Jean X Wolverine:this abomination of a ship we have here is basically a mix of spite and agenda that plagued us.

Spite: this goes back to the aftermath of dark phoenix saga of comics that resulted in Jean dying and Scott/Cyclops ended up being alone and because of that the author of the time introduced Madelyne Pryor, a new love interest for him to move on and have a final good ending, until Marvel decided to revive Jean again and this caused a random nonsense drama and then Pryor turned into a clone and then she joined Mr sinister and after all that messy stuff the original author said F it and added Jean and Logan out of hatred for Marvel.

The agenda: this happened because of fox movies,specially because of the director Bryan Singer,a man who hated Cyclops and gave every good traits he had to Logan and in the 3rd movie it feels like Scott never mattered and Wolverine × phoenix ship was always the case and this even continued in the later reboots of fox movies where Scott remained a joke and now we have an entire generation of people who don't know anything from Scott × Jean at all.

Also there is another event i saw inside Spider man 2 game where the devs obviously added that exposed them for not touching the characters lore inside comics and that's when Norman Osborne hugged Peter Parker. Now you might ask how big of a deal is that? This Norman and Peter respecting relationship was exclusively from Sam Raimi's trilogy and this is a character assassination from the first game where Norman only cared for power and his only family.

I will never trust any other writing team for Spider man 3 saying we took inspiration from comics because they larped it by watching the live action movies or the 90s animated show at best,unless they hire the actual comic writers back because the old team actually had clue about the history of those characters.

Yeah yeah I know , Makima!!!? The most glazed sexy Fujimoto character!!? The one with the most Porn work and rule 34 pages and most Onlyfans cosplayers and and!!!

Yes , that Makima , mrs Fan service herself is shockingly one of the least sexualized fan serviced character Done by Tatsuki Fujimoto , and that despite her being his own Dream Goal and the MC of CSM Denji ultimate goal to bang

You'd think she might have the most Based on literally everything outside of the manga from the Fandom to fan arts to promotions to products and acts but surprisingly

Let's look at the manga and see what we got , there was that scene were she made Denji touch her chest and that scene where she bite his finger oh and the 1 off panel where Denji fantasy about her alongside other girls in a wedding lingerie

And.... that's it? No really that's pretty much it

You'd think it's much but let's look at other CSM girls

Power was running around naked for 2 chapters in 2 different times , Denji fantasy about her in a lingerie as well alongside the Bikini scene from the anime opening and sharing a nurse fetish cover with Makima, and if That's wasn't enough the last chapter of CSM had her running around naked with an upgrade Ass as well

Quanxi have 2 lesbian sex with 4 women on screen and then she spend half of the international assassin arc running around naked

Reze has a whole strip scene , the naked pool scene , a cover that shows her naked , another bonus chapter with her in a bikini then she spends majority of the arc either running around naked or just wearing panties

Himeno was basically like Makima in her seduce but 5x more , she's very touchy and talk with sweet tongue and horny , She had the apartment scene with Denji where she makes out with him , undress herself and try to have sex with him and later a bonus with her just in underwear

That's just part 1 , Part 2 crack this up

Asa and Yoru have multiple detailed page about them taking their highschool clothes off and just be in bra and panties for 2 chapters , there's even a close up on their breast and ass and hips by Denji , falling Devil before wearing her clothes have 2 page of her naked body , Asa and Yoru have multiple fan service bonus chapters like one with Playboy Bunny suit

Fumiko jerk Denji dick through his pants , almost always want to fuck him , have multiple pages of fan service and the nude picture and overly revealed to be the equivalent of Babylon whore , Yoru jerk Denji off , give him a butt play , acts like a brothel stripper towards him and have a magical girls transformation scene where she's totally naked while being high on power then try to fuck him multiple times alongside making out with him

Death have nearly a chapter worth of panty Flash with multiple angles of it and close up focusing on her ass and couchy , mind you this was the second time after a break week

Even Fami didn't escape the fan service wave as a bonus chapter shows her dressed up in a hooker cheerleader and a micro Bikini , the kinds that used in Japanese pornographic media

So in comparison to alot of CSM women , yeah Makima get one of the least , even in energy compared to some of them

There's one argument I tend to really dislike even when it's trying to argue for the same side as me and, to give a loose example, that argument is usually something along the lines of "You can't believe that this character could survive a 100 ft drop onto their head and survive because it's too unrealistic, yet you have no trouble believing that dragons exist? The story is already unrealistic!".

I dislike this argument because, be it intentional or not, it's an argument in bad faith. Just because a work of fiction is unrealistic in some ways that doesn't mean that it's unrealistic in every way and that anything goes.

And the reverse is true as well, where a story being realistic in some ways doesn't mean that everything is realistic, nor does that mean a story can have anything happen just because of the excuse that it's "more realistic".

The simple fact is that no story can capture every aspect of reality or the human experience. Even for a work that's trying to be as realistic as possible that's still far too big and broad to fit within a limited narrative, to say nothing about how plenty of stories don't want to be that anyway and likewise shouldn't be expected to be.

You need to let the story establish for you what would or wouldn't happen in its world, and I think this is something some people can really struggle with, causing them to make assumptions and insert ideas and possibilities into a story that the story itself does not encourage them to.

Some realism doesn't mean all realism:

I found it so bizarre how depressed I was seeing some people act after the Avatar Aang movie came out because of how Aang and the gaang had drifted apart so much...which they didn't and the movie gave no indication that they had. One of the people I talked to said that with how most of them live in different areas of the world in a time period without phones or airplanes the five probably can't see each other that often and thus would naturally drift apart more and more as time passed, which sure, that is probably what would realistically happen...but that's not a conclusion the story is at all leading the audience towards.

In the movie everyone is still presented as great friends who all get along as well as if not better than they did in the original series. Everyone immediately dropped everything they were doing to go help Aang when he asked, including the Fire Lord who runs an entire nation. Aang and Zuko are in frequent enough contact with each other that Zuko can just casually complain about his annoying attendant. For f**k's sake, Aang and Katara live together and sleep in the same bed. Yes, there is more physical distance between the gaang than there was in the original series (where they were around each other all the time because they were on a quest to save the world) but nothing even remotely implies any emotional distance or that their friendships have grown apart, and just because it'd be more realistic for that to have happened isn't a good enough reason to assume that it did. Especially for a series that has lines like "Some friendships are so strong they transcend even lifetimes." and in general shows how much value some people place on friendships even when they're nations apart or 100 years apart. It doesn't matter how "realistic" it may be, if your interpretation of events doesn't fit with what we're actually shown and how things normally go in the story, then that's probably NOT WHAT HAPPENED.

Or as an example of how edgy these interpretations can too often be, when Midnight died in the war arc of My Hero Academia, both when it originally happened in the manga and again when it was adapted for the anime, there were a noticeable number of people speculating that she'd been raped before the villain killed her.

Setting aside the possibility of it just being some of these people's barely disguised fetish, we are never shown her body, just her students' reactions of deep sadness that she's dead, and there's zero indication before, during, or after her death that this is what happened to her, so it seems like the only reason any of these people thought it was even a possibility that it did was just entirely because "Well, she's a woman and it'd be realistic that an evil person would rape her before killing her.", even though MHA never established something like that as a threat or possibility in its world facing the characters. Death or dismemberment, yes, and the war arc further reenforced that, even if only by a little more, but not sexual assault. Even with Endeavor and Rei the story went out of its way to show that Rei did want kids and did consent to having them with Endeavor. At most there was maybe coercion, which is obviously still bad, but he didn't force himself on her like some people think the villain did with Midnight.

It doesn't matter how "realistic" you think it'd be for it to have happened, if it doesn't fit with anything we've been shown of the world or story, be it the events, the dialogue, the tone, etc. then there's no reason to believe that it did happen.

It's the same problem with theories that speculate that a character is an unreliable narrator just because it's only them sharing their POV of something or that the entire story we're being shown is just in the head of someone who is either dreaming or insane. When the only basis for the theory isn't any actual evidence from the story but just simply that it could hypothetically be true since there's nothing to directly argue against it, it's not a good theory. Generally speaking, stories will give the audience actual reasons in either the text or subtext to suspect that what they're being shown isn't real or what actually happened. It doesn't matter how much more "realistic" it would be for the bizarre and unrealistic events of Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends to be taking place only in the head of Frankie, who is really an abused autistic child disassociating from the world, there is nothing in the show that even remotely points the audience in that direction, especially compared to the conclusion of "This is just a f**king weird world where imaginary friends are real and can be adopted.".

An unreliable narrator or "It was all just a dream!" needs more than just the hypothetical possibility that they could be the case, the story itself needs to provide SOMETHING to be a foundation for that theory. Otherwise basically ANY story can be being told to us by an unreliable narrator or exist only in someone's head and thus nothing we're ever being told or shown is what's actually happening in the story.

And then there's the people who go so far in trying to insert realism that doesn't fit a story that they'll essentially insist on the story outright ignoring the things it set-up that make it different from our reality.

There are people who non-joking argue that Akechi murdering Okumura in Persona 5, even if it was just to frame the Phantom Thieves, was ultimately for the greater good because Okumura was an evil CEO who viewed his employees and even his own daughter as disposable tools who he treated horribly and he was involved in a conspiracy that caused the deaths and/or psychotic breakdowns of multiple innocent people, and since in our world those kinds of people don't tend to change for the better the only real option was for him to die...even though the entire PREMISE of Persona 5 is the Phantom Thieves discovering the ability to change a person's heart by stealing the very desires that make them want to do terrible things, thus getting them to feel remorse for their actions and become better people! They have a 100% success rate with every person they've done this to, Akechi knows it works because of three separate cases where he's seen it works, and the thieves just got done doing it to Okumura when Akechi came in to kill him. There is zero reason to believe that Okumura wasn't also about to change for the better and at least try using his money and power and information he knew about the conspiracy to make up for the terrible things he'd been doing. Yes, it's sadly not a realistic outcome in our world but it's well-established to be a very realistic outcome in the story's world! So no, the more "realistic" option of Okumura being murdered was NOT for the greater good!

Some unrealism doesn't mean all unrealism:

But, like I said, this is a problem that also goes in the other direction too, where rather than inserting realism that doesn't fit the story you get people who think that a story being unrealistic in some ways means that it can be or even is unrealistic in all ways, even in ways that don't fit the story either.

When the Helluva Boss episode "Ghostf**kers" dropped I saw people who seemed like they genuinely couldn't comprehend the idea that ghosts don't exist in the Hellaverse. The idea seemed to be that because demons, angels, and magic exist in this world, all of which are unrealistic things, then there's no good reason for a character to be so disbelieving that ghosts exist too, let alone for the show to outright confirm that they don't.

Except not only do demons, angels, and magic not inherently have anything to do with ghosts outside of being supernatural, the lore of Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel is that when humans die their souls go directly to either Heaven or Hell and cannot leave, meaning a soul staying on Earth as a ghost would directly go against the established worldbuilding.

Someone made a pretty good observation to me that this mentality seems based in how used to "Kitchen Sink fantasy" people have gotten, which are fantasy worlds where every myth, legend, folklore, and campfire story coexist in some form or another, with superhero comics being the primary example, and thus many have the immediate instinct to assume any fantasy story they get into will be the same. While I do get how that mentality could have developed, that still doesn't really change the fact that not every fantasy story is Kitchen Sink fantasy and that you still need to let the given story tell you what its world is like rather than you just assuming what it's like. There's a difference between thinking that there are more gods of other pantheons than we're shown in Samurai Jack, which is a story that well established that it's a world with not just Japanese mythology running around but those from Greek, Norse, and Hindu as well, vs. thinking that there are more gods of other pantheons than we're shown in the original Yu-Gi-Oh manga when the only true mythological figures shown to exist in its world are those from Egyptian mythology. It may not be realistic for these gods and monsters to exist at all but that doesn't then mean that all gods and all monsters from all religions and mythologies are thus on the table.

But this isn't just a problem in regards to fantasy. Science fiction generally tries to have some degree realism and plausibility in the realm of actual science and fact, but even then liberties still often have to be taken in order to tell many stories of the genre, usually with the writers telling tales about stuff that doesn't actually exist, be it because we haven't discovered it yet or haven't found a way to create it yet. A starship travelling faster than the speed of light in order to get around the galaxy in a reasonable amount of time compared to a human lifespan is currently something that isn't realistic, but usually we can accept whatever explanation the story gives us for how it's doing it if it's based enough in plausibility and scientific theory, such as Star Trek's Warp Drive technology which creates a bubble of subspace around the ship that distorts space-time. It's technology that doesn't exist made of and powered by elements and materials that we either can't create or just simply don't exist, but the concepts work well enough with actual science and theory that we can handwave away the gray unexplained areas where the specifics make the technology unrealistic.

But if the story were to claim that the insane amount of energy needed to power this technology is being generated by a single potato and a couple of wires, that would be unrealistic to the point of being inexcusable, at least if you're still trying to claim it's science fiction and not outright magic. Yes, science tells and shows us that potatoes can generate electricity, but we also KNOW that the amount of electricity generated is relatively quite small. It can power a clock for about a day but it wouldn't be powering your house for even an hour, and thus it sure as f**k is hard to buy that it could power the physics-breaking engine of a spaceship!

This is why even in science fiction stories that play a bit fast and loose with how realistic its worlds and technology are (there's a big difference between Star Trek and Doctor Who), people still call out things like electricity being conducted through wood or magnetism being used to attract/repel things that aren't metal. Because there's unrealistic as in technology or biology or chemistry too advanced, different, and theoretical for us to say for certain that it can't exist and unrealistic as in stuff we've outright proven it can't happen the way the story is claiming it does.

And, of course, be it fantasy, science fiction, or something claiming to be the world outside your window, there's the argument that tries to use the unrealistic aspects of a story's world to excuse just flat out bad writing, usually in regards to character actions.

Yes, in Alien vs Predator Requiem and The Predator, the premise of an alien with infrared vision and glow-in-the-dark blood from a culture based around hunting is unrealistic compared to our usual reality, but that doesn't mean I thus have to just accept the main Predators of those respective movie randomly hunting, killing, and skinning a couple of humans upon landing on Earth when the first one is there specifically to stop the Predalien and the Xenomorph infestation and thus doesn't have time to waste and the second is there specifically to give humanity technology capable of fighting against Predators in a potential invasion and thus killing humans right now goes against its primary motivation! Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf is a completely ridiculous movie but the part I don't buy isn't Count Dracula hosting a wacky race featuring all the famous monsters, it's Dracula and his Hunch Bunch doing things that would either kill Shaggy or keep him from competing in the race at all just so that Dracula doesn't have to honor his agreement to turn him back into a human if he wins the race, when the entire reason for everything Dracula had been doing up to that point was because he wanted Shaggy to be his werewolf in the race!

Just like how the existence of angels and demons doesn't mean that ghosts thus must exist since one unrealistic thing doesn't have anything to do with the other unrealistic thing, unrealistic things physically existing in the worlds of these stories doesn't then mean that the characters can thus act in whatever unrealistic ways the story says so when those actions have nothing to do with the unrealistic physical things and in fact go directly against the world and story's own established logic and premise.

Weirdly enough I think the Looney Tunes give a good example of what I'm trying to say in regards to all of this. Specifically one of their most iconic bits, "Duck season, Wabbit season." from the short "Rabbit Fire", which involves Daffy Duck demanding (three separate times) that Elmer Fudd shoot him in the face.

Now, the thing about the Looney Tunes cartoons is that they are basically worlds upon worlds where any kind of story can be told in any way that writers want to tell it as long as they find it funny, or at least think the audience will. The world and characters are completely absurd and unrealistic and thus in a Looney Tunes story anything can happen.

However, Daffy didn't demand that Elmer shoot him just because "Anything can happen and thus this thing that can technically happen happened". There was lead up to it and a logical sequence of events that, for as silly as that logic was, the audience could follow along with. Daffy didn't demand to be shot because anything can happen, Daffy demanded to be shot because that flowed naturally as something that would happen in this world with these three characters of Bugs, Daffy, and Elmer when interacting with this set-up. Technically speaking there's no reason why, say, Witch Hazel couldn't show up out of nowhere during the bit and slap Elmer on his sweet ass, since for a world and characters as unrealistic as Looney Tunes there's nothing that says that that's too unrealistic to happen, but it wouldn't fit nearly as well as everything else in the "Rabbit Fire" short did and that had an elephant showing up to punch Elmer into the ground make sense.

Anything can technically happen in a Looney Tunes cartoon because of how unrealistic its world is, but not everything that can happen fits with what the cartoon is telling and showing us that it is, thus why not just anything does happen.

And that applies to stories in general. Fiction by its very nature is something someone is making up and thus can technically be however realistic or unrealistic as they feel like making it. But it's the job of the storyteller to be consistent in whatever degree of realism they're using and likewise the job of the audience to pay attention to that consistency.

Final wrap-up:

Now, despite what everything I've said may come across as, I'm not trying to make it sound like there's no room for discussion or debate when it comes to what too realistic or unrealistic in stories. Not at all. Most stories don't exactly give the audience a list right at the start that says "This is what can exist and happen in this world and this is what can't.". We have a term called "worldbuilding" for a reason. The world and its rules, be they the tone or the physics, tend to be something that gets established over time as the story is being told, and that can cause some gray areas.

One of the most famous/infamous events in comics, the death of Gwen Stacy, serves as a pretty good example of how and why it's understandable to have those types of discussions. Even at the time this was controversial and not just because it was the death of a beloved supporting character but also for some the way she died, her neck snapping from the sudden stop of her fall off the bridge, felt too dark and too realistic for the Amazing Spider-Man series. In their eyes it didn't fit what the book had shown and told them it was up until that point, while for others it was perfectly in-line with what they felt the book had told and shown them it was. Keep in mind that this was three years after Gwen's father Captain George Stacy had been killed off after being crushed under a falling chimney. You had two different groups of people who had been reading the same story and, regardless of whether they wanted Gwen to die or not, disagreed on how in-line the realism of her death was for the story.

This especially can happen with many other long-running series and stories. Compare A Nightmare on Elm Street to Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare and the tones are wildly different, as are how grounded the story is and what the characters can do and survive. But the film series didn't just go right from the 1st to the 6th, there were multiple movies in-between where the changes in tone and unrealism were relatively steady and gradual and thus the more comedic world and characters felt perfectly natural to plenty of fans, to the point that when Wes Craven's New Nightmare came out there was pushback against it by some fans because despite it being much closer to the first in tone and realism it was a drastic change from what the franchise had become and what they now saw the story and Freddy as.

Or to bring things back around to the world of Avatar, there's plenty of debate regarding the technological boom that happened in between Avater The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra, at least for Republic City which served as the primary setting for the majority of the latter's seasons. For some fans, even if it makes sense that the world could now develop automobiles and power plants after so many years of the four nations coming together and pooling knowledge and resources, it's a level of realism that doesn't fit the world we'd been shown in ATLA and makes it no longer feel like that world, while for other fans it's a level of realism that's perfectly in keeping with the world of ATLA, which in the span of less of a year went from not even having hot air balloons to the Fire Nation creating an entire fleet of flying warships.

Ultimately stories are another form of art and like any form of art how it's seen and interpreted is going to vary at least somewhat from person to person, and so likewise will how realistic or unrealistic something is and how well it fits with the story they've been shown. It's why we get so many discussions around things like redemption arcs, since in some people's eyes it's completely realistic that a character would change their ways after reflecting upon themselves while for others it's completely unrealistic that anyone would change unless they were outright forced to.

What's important is to make sure that what you're debating over is in regards to what's actually in the story and not just what you're inserting into it completely on your own. It's one thing to look at a painting and say that you think the blue represents the artist's depression because of amount of blue and the intensity of the brushstrokes...it's another to say that you think the blue represents the artist's depression when the only reason there's any blue on the painting is because you threw a bucket of blue paint on it. It's one thing to debate whether something is too realistic or unrealistic for the story you've been shown because of examples you can bring up from the story that it does or doesn't fit with, it's another to declare that something is too realistic or unrealistic for the story you've been shown because "Well, it hypothetically could be the case because there's nothing to directly say it isn't." (and conveniently ignoring everything that does say that).

TL:DR: You need to let the story tell you what is or isn't realistic to happen in its world, not just insert your own beliefs unprompted from outside into the story and then get mad about them.

The superhero registration is a great concept but I feel it hasn't been properly explored atleast on most Media I have consumed (correct me if I'm wrong)

Superheroes naturally exist above the law batman exists above it Spider-Man exists above it they occasionally beat people, trespass, sometimes even use surveillance and break in without proable cause and some heroes like daredevil (especially in Netflix daredevil) use excessive force , daredevil even injured and fbi agent seriously enough that the agent had to be admitted into hospital

J Jonah Jameson is one of characters that questions Spider-Man and he has good points the mask avoids accountability there is no way to hold Spider-Man accountabile if he makes mistakes or does public endangerment or causes unnecessary collateral damage

But in most of Spider-man media Jameson is made into cartoonish hater of Spider-Man which makes it hard it take his side in the argument

Civil war in comics explores the superhero registration but it just escalates into heroes trying to fuck each other with extreme and extreme methods

In mcu civil war both sides take extreme ends of arguments , captain America says 'safest hands are our own' and refused any kind of accountability (he was proven wrong eventually cause Ronin went on rampage and received zero consequences, then wanda went on two rampages and received zero consequences as well)structure while the Accords themselves are violation of human rights

Again like spidy/Jameson where Jameson is made cartoonish hater ,mcu civil war just doesn't dwell deep into the Accords at all instead both sides are made extreme ends so the heroes or protagonists (spidy and cap) have an easy way out and get to be the right guys because the guys questioning them are far too extreme

And in most fiction the government is evil they are bad guys(in reality as well) so there isn't much argument against superheroes existing outside of law superheroes not answering to anyone

Returning back to the topic of mcu civil war steve refused external oversight and says safest hands are our own is extremely arrogant especially considering Tony stark's failed Ultron project nearly destroyed the planet (a feat that the corrupt governments haven't accomplished)which means it doesn't matter what or how pure steve's intentions are mistakes can happen which makes oversight important but the movie gets sidetracked with Bucky and revenge plot and the conflict of Bucky (where steve was in right) and iron man breaking the Accords himself is used to show that steve was right and ultimately the movie says steve was right  and the Sokovia accords are functionally irrelevant for future movies.

Speaking of marvel there are multiple mutants who can read mind and use telepathy which is a fundamentally violating superpower and professor x having cerebro which is a privacy violation and cerebro is extremely dangerous especially on live action xmen movies where xavier was almost forced to commit genocide first against mutants then Magento trying to reverse it to genocide humans instead

But xmen stories usually (atleast those I have read) don't focus on registration and usually focus on mutant rights and the government is usually evil in xmen stories so most of times there aren't stories about whether there should be registration around powers of mutants like firearm registration because stories are most about xmen fighting bigot government

Is there any media where this topic is deep dived with more nuance? Where one side isn't extremely evil(but somewhat right)

I find this super interesting concept but it's never really delved in to much. I'd love to see more stories where superheroes actually get involved in politics without just being pure evil about it.

I was rewatching some clips from the Hashirama and Madara flashbacks in the war arc and I’ll just say these 2 feel so much like actual friends it’s astounding. They share inside jokes liked stone skipping, talk about their dreams together everyday and go out of their way to eat and train together. They feel like actual brothers and friends to an amazing degree and this isn’t even talking about their adult years.

Naruto and Sasuke’s friendship feels… weird to me. Naruto spends all day being pissed off at the guy and jealous of how much cooler he is than him, constantly picking stupid competitions and fights. And Sasuke in part 1 didn’t even seem to like Naruto much at all, just tolerating him because they were on the same squad. I know they shared sweet moments like them training together in the forest or sasuke’s sacrifice for Naruto, they are friends don’t get me wrong but their actual day to day dynamic doesn’t feel like a friendship at all.

It’s weird because these 4 are all the same people in different life times yet H/M feel so much closer than N/S. Like if you told kid Naruto that he had to hang out with Sasuke everyday like Hashirama did with Madara, he’d be miserable.

Idk just gimme ur thoughts.

I really wish whenever people say shit like that is when they're referring to personal preference instead of acting like all media needs to just be miserable or have a tragic and sad ending and likable characters always die and whatnot and I'm not saying the entire media(like a movie or show or video game or whatever)has to be all sunshine and rainbows 24/7 but acting like it has to just be a big ball of depression and sadness and death is just ridiculous.

And I can't stretch this Enough..if you like the kind of media that's more dark and gorey and miserable and whatnot,then that is goddamn fine,do not let me stop you from enjoying it or anything like that but I think the main issue is a lot of people just looking down on others for not liking how overly miserable and sad things are or have to be and claiming that it's more "realistic" but the issue is realism doesn't automatically mean good storytelling or make for good writing or mean something is good.

Like I'm not even saying every media has to be all happy and whatever but acting like it suddenly being the latter and being all dark and gorey and overly tragic and whatever doesn't mean good writing ,like for character deaths..if all of them are cut short or are eventful or if the entire story or game or anything else is cut short ,uneventful, then that just leaves things being unsatisfactory in the worst way possible and this also goes for characters as well.

Something that bothers me about a lot of Batman Media is people acting like he's just supposed to be a over serious loner who works alone and is this overly brutal badass 24/7 when..No,Batman is as far from a loner as he could be.

The guy has multiple adopted kids,a biological kid,many friends and a good team but the issue is that the live action refuses to adapt any of his Robins..I dunno if it's cause they're scared or whatever but this has lead to people acting like Batman himself is meant to be this overly serious Dick when he's one of the most compassionate and unintentionally social dudes out there, he's just kinda grumpy and serious.

Just like how Superman stories aren't lighthearted 24/7,Batman isn't a loner 24/7.

That logic also applies to Spider-Man and tbh,that's more so the comics fault but still,he's not meant to be a character that's meant to be 24/7 miserable in the dumps.

I also feel like the current Resident Evil movie discussion showcases this cause there are people who will look down on you and look at you funny if you don't like the ending and how miserable it was and always pull the "oh it was realistic" "symbolic" and whatnot and that doesn't automatically make it good and that's fair if people didn't like it for those reasons and felt let down by it and it's also weird cause the Resident Evil games are gorey and dark but they aren't straight up miserable and hopeless and have ended with the world being saved and the bad guys being stopped and not saying that they can't do something differently but acting like the franchise is just torture porn ain't it.

Something being miserable or anticlimactic or unsatisfactory or whatnot doesn't make a story good at all and that goes for the people who claim that cause a media is more dark or has a darker ending or has more character deaths or tragic endings or whatever suddenly makes them more mature or serious or know better stuff and act like they're better when that's straight up not true.

The Johto games gym leaders suck. It's a known fact, even people who love gen 2 and specially the amazing remakes from gen 4 recognise that the gym leaders are an issue with the core DNA of these games. They are supposed to be boss fights and stick on your mind as the most memorable fights in this RPG with many many fights. However due to a lot of new Johto Pokémon not being very good or sometimes for reasons I can't exactly comprehend a lot of Johto gym leaders if not most of them have either their ace being a Pokémon from Kanto or their entire team being composed of Kanto Pokémon

Trying to fix gym leaders and elite 4 members online, specifically regarding the first two generations, is a common topic of discussion in the fandom online

Although a lot of times, people choose to get rid of all Kanto Pokémon if they can. Sometimes this is good but other times I don't agree since gen 2 is very different from all other following generations. It tries to be as much of a direct sequel to the previous generation as it can, and part of it is done by being a region in the same continent as Kanto, and sharing a lot of the same Pokémon. It's more an expansion of Kanto than anything

Then comes your first proper boss fight outside of your rival, the first gym leader, based on flying type Pokémon. There are a lot to pick from but his team consists of a pidgey and a Pidgeotto. This is deservingly shat on. There are so many new flying type Pokémon, why have 2 from Kanto and from the same evolutionary line?

His ace could have been a noctowl or a murkrow or something. But most people change the pidgey to something else too. And I think that's missing the point

The pidgey feels to me like the only member of his team with an actual purpose. It's a pokemon your recognise from a previous generation, that if you didn't have on your team (which you most likely had), your rival did. You can even find pidgey with relative ease in the early stage of Johto. It's a way of the game telling you "don't worry this is connected to the first game, there's stuff you'll find familiar with" and it feels like the most appropriate first fight from the first gym leader

The issue is not having the second Pokémon be a new creature to introduce you to some of the new friends similar to pidgey you can use in its place.

It should have been one Kanto Pokémon followed by a Johto Pokémon.

Yes. That's right. I'm writing an essay about the themes of Street Fighter: The Movie (2026).

I saw it over the weekend with friends and, as a massive Street Fighter fan, I absolutely loved it. While I don't necessarily disagree with the internets consensus that the film is messy, clunky, overstuffed and weirdly fetishy in some of its characterization (and i concede i found that last bit especially weird), I thought the film more than made up for it with its punchy 90s style, unapologetic silliness, great action choreography, great depictions of the characters and its overall dedication to being as authentically Street Fighter as it can be. I could go on and on about its amazing animated sequences, it's stunt choreography and its use of real sets and practical effects (which . . . seriously, that's nothing to take for granted in today's film making climate of green screen and CG overuse when a less ambitious director would have never thought to do those things for the street fighter movie of all films) I instead decided to delve into the themes of the films narrative, because believe it or not it DOES try to tell a cohesive story here.

The film's central theme is the quest for glory: the cost of it, and the impact it has on your soul. An apt theme to take on for a film about the greatest fighters in the world entering a tournament to be the best.

Our protagonists are Ryu and Ken: adopted brothers who were trained and raised together by the martial arts master Gouken. Once having a bond thicker than blood, their relationship fell apart shortly after the events of the first world warrior tournament when Ryu tapped into a dark energy so he could defeat the king of Muay Thai, Sagat. This demonic energy culminated in the return of Gouken's evil brother, Akuma, who tapped into the Dark Hado long ago so that he could be the strongest warrior in the world. Akuma returns to kill Gouken in an attempt to seduce Ryu into tapping into the dark hado to save him, but Ryu follows his master's wishes and refuses, allowing Akuma to kill his brother and flee. Ryu has been struggling to contain the darkness inside, while his brother Ken has resented him for allowing their master to die.

Ryu:

In a sense, Akuma is the physical manifestation of Ryu's dark desire to win by any means necessary. The twist the film unveils is that Ryu does *not* like to lose, because his whole identity is fighting, and so he will resort to great lengths to ensure his own success . . . Including destroying Ken's invitation to the first world warrior tournament, knowing that Ken has a very real chance of defeating him. Ryu eventually gives into the Dark Hado to defeat Akuma, but this comes at too high a cost: hurting his friends and creating the circumstances in which M. Bison has the opportunity to become more powerful than ever before.

Ken:

In contrast to Ryu, while Ken has never been without ambition, he always put his relationship with his brother before his need to win. While Ken *could* be jealous of Ryu's prowess, such as his ability to throw a Hadouken before he ever could, he was ultimately in full support of Ryu as he was fighting in the first world warrior tournament. Ken's ambition to win is highest when he and Ryu are enemies, and even then, his desire to win is not for the implicit sake of winning, but for the sake of making Gouken proud. Ken loses his way when he has his family forcibly taken from him. He loses sight of what is most important, and, as Dhalsim points out in their battle, must forego his need to be better than Ryu if he is ever to find his path to salvation again.

M. Bison:

Every theme needs a villain that ties in by being the antithesis of the lesson the heroes need to learn, and M. Bison is the perfect example of this. M. Bison is obsessed with being stronger, to a psychotic and fetishy extent. This explains his deep fascination with the physique of his enemies and even the evolutionary advantages of minor things like snails. He sees weakness as something that must be completely and absolutely obliterated, and will go to any evil length to ensure he can have all the power for himself. He is a man who cannot see the value of living without power; how fitting then that it would be he who hosts a tournament of the strongest people on earth. . . Even if the tournament is just a farce to draw Ryu in.

The supporting cast:

All the heroes and villains of the cast are made distinct by their priorities: doing the right thing, bringing evil to justice, searching for family . . . . Or simply wanting to be the best by any means necessary.

Chun-Li, Guile and Dhalsim are essentially the heroes already at the end of the journey that Ken and Ryu both must take, which is realizing that the real goal is bringing M. Bison to justice. Dhalsim in particular embodies this altruism because it could be argued he lets Ken defeat him in the tournament to make a point about how winning is not the most important thing.

In contrast, we have M. Bison's henchmen: Balrog, Vega, Cammy and Juli, all people who are driven by a need to be better than the people around them. Balrog is a boxer who openly fights dirty to win: headbutting and footstomping and other maneuvers that a referee would call out in a real boxing match. Vega is vanity incarnate: thinking himself so beautiful that no one is worthy of seeing his face. Cammy and Juli are both in constant competition with Chun Li to prove who is Lord Bison's greatest asset, even though Chun Li is just doing whatever she has to to bring them down.

Ken and Ryu are both obsessed with victory for their own reasons, yet they are surrounded by villains who actively destroy lives because they share the same ambition. They themselves begin making moral compromises for their ambition, whether it be ignoring the needs of their brother or flat out sabotaging their brothers chances in secret. It is only when they forego these needs and reembrace each other that they are ready to join the heroes and bring the fight to M. Bison: the embodiment of ambition gone mad.

I think this theme is especially poignant for fighting games. As a fighting game player myself, I can't tell you how many times the obsession with winning has sullied my experience. . . And playing for fun has made it all the better. At the end of the day, fighting games aren't just about proving who is the best . . . They're about bringing people together. This movie embodies that beautifully i think.

Now, just as a warning, I’ve only read the first comic run. Apparently it gets good when they go to Scotland or something.

But, when I kept hearing that Crossed was the “corrupted version of the Walking Dead”, not necessarily in the same way The Boys is a corrupted version of Superheroes but like how people say Iron Lung is like a corrupted version of Hail Project Mary.

So I read it and….yeah, let’s get this off the bat, the Crossed are not your average zombies. Yes, I’m very aware Romero’s Zombies don’t soak bullets in their semen, I’m well fucking aware. But I’m not taking about the crossed, I’m taking about the survivors.

Why? Because the survivors might as well be one of the random survivor groups in one of the Walking Dead stories. It is literally the most generic group of zombie story archetypes; The stoic leader, the strong woman, the leader’s best friend, the leader’s best friend’s love interest, the old man, the black guy who lost his family, the asshole, the cute little kid, blah, blah, fucking blah.

Look, I’m not saying I do not want any single piece of medias to be completely different from another, S7ven was an extremely by-the-books Neo-Noir story and it’s fantastic. But if you’re gonna promote this comic run as “The Corrupted Version of the Walking Dead”, do something crazier. Like Garth Ennis, every character in the Boys is just “[SUPERHERO] but he’s [SOMETHING TABOO]” then can’t you do that with some Zombie Survivor characters? Like look, this is literally me spinning two wheels here;

Claire Redfield but she’s a Plagiarist. That’s what the wheel gave me. Try making your own Garth Ennis character at home too!

Like, the only time I actually felt like they were doing something interesting was when they revealed the old man used to be a serial killer but even then, they didn’t do much with that. If I remember correctly, he was gone as soon as he revealed it.

And I hate how the series has to go “WOW! AIN’T WE SHOCKING!” whenever they kill a kid, like aren’t two of the most popular scenes in the Walking Dead kid kills? Like stfu dude.

I just finished watching Edgerunners season 2, and while it was still very good, it didn’t hit me as hard as the first season. I’ve rolled it around in my head and I think the main reason for that is because season 2 lacks a tight narrative focus. Unlike season 1, which focus solely on a single protagonist David Martinez and follows this one story from start to finish, season 2 splits its time between three-four separate protagonists and three individual storylines that converge into each other more and more as the season goes on.

There’s one storyline following D, a nomad on a revenge quest against the people who wiped out his clan by using the power of the rogue AI construct called Capri that he happens to acquire. There’s one storyline following Weak Kingsley, a former merc who at the height of his career had a brush with cyberpsychosis. Instead of dying spectacularly like most mercs, he actually makes it out alive but is forced to de-chrome and retire, losing everything he’s worked for (very reminiscent of the Tower ending from the game). When he’s contemplating ending it all, he’s brought in by an old lover of his to talk some sense into her daughter Talia, a chrome junkie who’s basically on the same path he was and is heading towards full on cyber psychosis. The third storyline follows a kid named Roman as he films the entire events of the story and aspires to make an old school movie that feels meaningful. Roman’s storyline acts as the connective tissue between the two other stories and Capri, the AI from D’s storyline, acts as the central chuffing that drives all the external conflict in the story and forces these storylines to converge towards the end.

While it’s an interesting approach, I unfortunately feel Trigger really bit off more than they could chew here. They tried to pull all this off in a single 10 episode season of 23 minute episodes each. Any one of these storylines (D’s revenge story, King and Talia’s human drama, Roman’s documentary style storyline about filing the best movie in Night City) could have made for an amazing season on its own, if they got the full focus and screentime. Trigger’s choice to do all three simultaneously as well as tossing in a B-plot about the rogue AI Capri, means all three storylines kind of get shafted. The story keeps jumping between the three and nobody gets enough screen time to develop like David Martinez got to during season 1. None of the characters feel as fleshed out and well-realized as even the supporting cast members from season 1 like Lucy or Rebecca. Another issue with this approach is that the main cast don’t actually get to interact that much with each other. Only Roman interacts with each storyline as a node character but each of the other three protagonists (four if you count Capri and her B-plot) mainly have their own set of supporting characters they interact with. This also ends up bloating the cast because it’s essentially triple the amount of supporting characters present in the story.

Don’t get me wrong. I still loved season 2. But this is an example of a studio trying to do too much all at once without enough episodes to do it in. This season needed at least double the amount of episodes if it wanted to pull off this triple-storyline structure.

Ok, clickbait title aside, what do I mean when I say re-evaluate?

Mainly that I think this scene is mostly looked at through a specific lens by the community (aka the lens of Denji's morality in the situation), while ignoring what this scene can mean for Yoru and Asa as characters.

So let's start by removing Denji from the equation. Because regardless of which side of the argument you wanna support here, Denji is in the wrong for taking Yoru at her word.

Whether Asa does actually give her consent or not, Denji is already in the wrong for not checking.

Next, as for what is actually happening, I do genuinely believe that Asa gave her consent or that Yoru is at least acting upon Asa's desires as she's done before. And I think the thematic reading of Chainsawman (yes, we're back to Themes and Such) supports this.

One general constant throughout Chainsawman I've stumbled upon while spending way too much time thinking about this manga is that it has a rather ambivalent view on dreams and goals. This is, in a way, consistent with other works of Fujimoto like Fire Punch or Look Back, where he takes a soundbite or a commonly shared sentiment that is understood to be positive ("You have to live", "Follow your passion", "Make your dreams come true") and then goes "Ok, but what does this advice really entail for the people living it out to the fullest? And can this advice be applied universally?"

Ironically, he usually seems to land on an ambiguous, but ultimately positive note regarding whether this advice is good or bad.

Going back to Chainsawman, a recurring theme of the manga (more explicitly in Part 2, but present throughout) is "Chasing your dreams/goals, no matter what" and how this mentality is self-destructive to you and those around you and blinds you to the reality of your situation, if you don't balance it out with some pragmatism.

Countless characters experience ruin or miss their chance at success or happiness because they're too focused on their dream/fantasy/goal to consider how their actions are gonna impact their actual situation.

We see this with Reze (who gets killed/captured by Makima because she gives in and tries to live out her unrealistic fantasy of running away with Denji), Aki (who refuses to accept the fact that he just does not have the skill or ability to kill the gun devil and ignores the "easy revenge" until it's too late and he has lost too much of himself) and even Makima (who loses sight of her ultimate goal of being understood by others in favor of her grand plan, so much so that she can't see that Denji loves her enough to understand something about her even she didn't consider. Nayuta proves further that the control devil isn't incapable of love and affection, Makima just refused to think she could find it in humans). I'm half-tempted to add Pochita to this list (who desperately wanted a friend and a hug, which he can do as the finale implies, despite him claiming he couldn't because of his form), but that could be a bit of a stretch.

And of course, our dual protagonists in Part 2, both Denji and Asa routinely make their situation worse by chasing their dreams or their fantasy without facing reality. Denji, who refuses to admit that being Chainsawman is in direct opposition to the normal life he claims to want and is trying to use hedonistic/immediate pleasure to fill the emotional void he feels and that the events of Part 1 have made even more gnawing.

And Asa, who also clings to the superhero fantasy (and actively drives Denji deeper in it at one point) as a way to cope with the fact that she is a corpse piloted by the War devil and to continue to wear her mask to avoid having to be honest with her feelings. To live out that fantasy she is willing to put up with the Chainsawman Church and others with little to no question. To avoid being vulnerable and confronting her own fear and emotion and keep the fantasy going, she avoids reading/acknowledging Yoru's thoughts and her plan until she has handed basically all control over to the War devil (at least, I think it would make sense for her character to have been able to do it before but just... not doing it, but I'm willing to concede that this is more speculation on my part)

Having said ALL OF THIS (and I'm sorry this got so long), let's go back to the moment itself. It's the moment immediately after Yoru shows her emotional connection and care for Asa, where things finally seem like they could calm down. And it's, in my opinion, the moment the story wants to drive home how the events and trauma of Part 2 have driven both Denji and Asa to such a level of delusion that they, faced with a seemingly harmless choice compared to what has come before, fail one last time to such a degree that they betray their own principles. If we want to keep the parallel between the two protagonists going (which I think is apt), I do think it's important that this moment represents not only Denji's lowest point (and I'll go over why that is in a sec), but also Asa's. I don't think there's anything gained narratively by having Asa just be trapped within Yoru and being the victim here. It doesn't change the fact that Denji is in the wrong for not considering her. On the other hand, her wanting to engage with Denji, but delegating to Yoru does actually add something to her story, shows her lowest point to compare to Denji.

Denji is easy to explain here. It's his disregard for Asa's wishes, the person he's supposed to save, in favor of his carnal desires. And notice how stupid of a mistake that is on Denji's part, it would cost him nothing to ask Yoru to have Asa confirm her position and he does not do it. This is especially relevant because Denji, for all he enjoys violence and carnal pleasure, is never the one that initiates, unless he knows the desire for violence/contact is mutual. I don't think there's a single instance in the manga where Denji's violence is pre-emptive and I don't have to highlight the multiple scenes where he resists his base urges and refuses to touch someone without consent. Hell, even in this scene, he does ask, he just doesn't ask the right person.

If we assume that Yoru is not lying here, then I think Asa's consent communicated through Yoru highlights a few things. First of all, Asa once again delegating Yoru as the "executive" personality when it comes to matters of love and especially sex. It's something she has done throughout the story, letting Yoru engage sexually with Denji (even in very questionable/forceful ways) and then immediately after taking control back and lambasting the War Devil. Yoru does often defend herself saying that she's acting on Asa's feelings and while that defense is stupid and a way for Yoru to shirk responsibility (and highlight again the moral disconnect between humans and devils), I think it's telling that Asa never intervenes until after these encounters are over. I don't think the reading of Asa using Yoru as an outlet for her more selfish and unrefined desires and impulses is particularly novel too, so I won't hark on this. But basically Asa is once again refusing to face the "ugly" parts of her emotions, letting the big, bad devil handle it for her so she can eventually pretende to moralize it afterwards.

Another thing that Asa "hiding" behind Yoru (consciously or unconsciously) would mean is that she is once again trusting Yoru and hoping for some sort of communication with her. Which honestly isn't even too farfetched considering Yoru literally lost the fight just to not hurt Asa further.

More than anything however, I think that Asa retreating to the Jekyll-Hyde situation she's got going on with Yoru in regards to Denji is her failure as a way to shirk responsibility away from the promise she made with Denji. And that is her ultimate failure. She refuses emotional honesty and physical availability to the guy with whom she literally managed to have a fucking soul-dialogue with at some point about how both her and Denji are awful people.

So Denji's failure is betraying his established principles in favor of immediate carnal satisfaction. And Asa's failure is betraying the bond of honesty she had formed with Denji to protect her own pride and not show any vulnerability.

Now, I'm not really "judging" both of these characters in the literal sense of the word, despite what my word salad may make you think. They're both traumatized to hell and back (literally) and their retreat into the comfort of a fantasy to avoid the uncomfortable situation they're in is understandable. I think moreso that this scene cements how impossible their dreams were, at least in the way and totality with which they were chasing them. They were chasing an impossible dream and an impossible standard and they were crushed and changed under the weight of that chase clashing with reality.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk

I've noticed how often people confuse good presentation with good writing, especially in anime discussions.

Take Demon Slayer. The animation is phenomenal, but is the writing really on the same level? Would people praise it as much if the animation were average? Compare it with Monster or Legend of the Galactic Heroes, where the appeal comes from character psychology, political ideas and long-term storytelling. Spectacle isn't bad, but it can make fairly ordinary writing look exceptional.

This happens in games and films too. The Lord of the Rings combines spectacular filmmaking with meaningful themes and believable character development. Disco Elysium trusts players to engage with complicated ideas. Meanwhile, plenty of modern blockbusters rely on familiar formulas and emotional manipulation. They're entertaining, but being entertaining and being exceptionally well written aren't the same thing.

What concerns me more is our growing intolerance for media that demands something from its audience. Stories requiring historical context get criticized for not explaining enough. Morally unpleasant protagonists are judged by whether they're likable. Ambiguous endings are called bad writing because they don't provide closure. Everything has to be immediately understandable and emotionally satisfying.

Consider Neon Genesis Evangelion. Its characters are deeply flawed and its themes aren't always straightforward. You're expected to interpret what you're watching rather than have everything explained to you. Not every confusing story is brilliant, obviously, but there's a difference between bad writing and writing that expects you to think.

Meanwhile, reading performance is declining. OECD data showed that the average reading score among 15-year-olds across member countries fell by 10 points between 2018 and 2022. This doesn't prove that short-form content is responsible, but it's worth considering what happens when younger generations grow up consuming increasingly fragmented media.

My concern is what happens when these audiences become the next generation of writers and directors. They might become incredibly good at making things look profound without having anything profound to say. They'll know how to create emotional scenes, spectacular fights and shocking twists, but will they understand what makes those moments meaningful?

The industry has little reason to care if audiences keep rewarding presentation over substance. Why take risks on original stories when familiar formulas wrapped in impressive animation or CGI can generate just as much hype? AI could make this worse by flooding the market with technically impressive but ultimately forgettable content.

In other words I fear we're cooked.

In the 2005 series, she used to be the annoying relative that didn't even want to go to with her grandfather for a trip throughout America alongside Ben but was forced to because her mother suggested it and how she already had plans for the summer vacation. However, instead of moping about it, she actually went along with it and decided to make the best out of it and ever since Ben got the Omnitrix, she would always help him whenever he fights some villain whether that be Animo, Rojo and etc. Once she acquired Charmcaster's spell book, she no longer became the annoying cousin and instead became the helping hand for her cousin through sorcery.

Unfortunately, things changed in AF. The writers behind the show made her head over heels for Kevin which doesn't make any sense since they barely interacted in the OG series. An example of this is from S1 Ep 5, All That Glitters, where Ben, Gwen and Kevin were recruiting some Plumber kids but all of a sudden Gwen is mad at Kevin for not asking her out way sooner but he replied this by saying that the guy has to ask her out on a date while ordering her to be patient or something related. Like 5 episodes in the first season, we get this instead of making Kevin explore the reason why he joined Team Tennyson in the first place such as following his father's footsteps while facing his own past mistakes.

It gets worse in the OV flashback episodes where it is shown that Gwen has a crush on Kevin at the age of 11 which is insane because that takes place a year after the OG series and they just talk to each other as if they met several times before which never even happened in the first place.

Also moving on from the personality changes, what I hate about this is that the animators made her powers pink instead of remaining it as blue from the OG series because I'm tired of this trend/trope where 'Women with projection based abilities have pink as the colour of their powers' such as Atom Eve from Invincible and Jean Grey from Marvel's Wolverine. It's annoying asf.

I feel like how murder drones depicts NULLs (black holes) often isn’t really spoken about enough & is constantly dumbed down as like the ones in Ultrakill (orbs just do damage) when it’s not like that at all.

For anyone unaware of how the series interprets black holes- it does so from solver hosts creating black holes from thin air with a giant “NULL“ text in the center (NULL meaning nothingness). As shown in episode 6, these NULLs are created using the solver’s power with the command COMPRSR EXE (compress) to compress gravity & space. The solver can use this to create NULLs of any size from anywhere, but solver hosts can also create very small ones nearby their hands which can be launched & quickly explode (which can happen with super small black holes). The solver is a eldritch entity.

The NULLs are also constantly shown to bend space (of air & objects), display event horizons, distort things, move & pull in matter orbitally, pull in light, display gravitational lensing, mess with gravity, NULLs can attract & orbit eachother, & NULLs instantly consume any matter (on a subatomic level) it comes into contact with. Even with massive NULLs like the one that destroyed earth, the series points out that gravitational waves came from it. Liam has also pointed out that he put deep thought & research into the solver while directing how he wanted it’s effects to be depicted (& that contrary to fandom opinions, most of it wasn’t “just for rule of cool so he likely didn’t think about it”).

If we use more information from the series, then from the background of episode 5 we can see Cyn / the solver‘s notes where it studied schwarzschild radius, newtonian gravitational force, Delta Feynman's notation, Planck's constant, Wave Positions, Einstein’s Space-Time & Special Reality, Anti-de sitter Space-Time, Enstein’s equations, etc. In episode 2, Uzi says that matter cannot be created nor destroyed. In the recently released murder drones script book, it’s confirmed that the NULL have some kind of dark energy or matter within them, & the script contains a deleted scene (presumably due to time constraints & the issues it would be to animate) of N’s arm getting spaghettified from the gravity of the solver’s singularity form.

Murder Drones also has the perfect explanation for NULLs even if someone tries to disprove it:

“How can the solver create black holes?” Because it’s a eldritch entity that is “the absolute fabric, the void, the exponential end, a living singularity” that can reality warp- which allows it to manipulate matter, all atoms, quantum mechanics, mass, force, gravitational fields, gravity, density, space, time, energy, etc. So the solver creating black holes isn’t exactly far fetched, nor “unrealistic scientifically & therefore a plot hole”.

”How do we know the NULLs was intended by Liam to be black holes & not just black orbs with black hole properties?” The series (dialogue from the characters calling them black holes or singularities, the backgrounds of the series & novels, the animators, creator (Liam Vickers) & the official script all states they were intended to be black holes.

”Even a real life black hole the size of a hand would instantly destroy earth so NULL either isn‘t a black hole, or Liam is a horrible writer” the series showcases that solver hosts can freely manipulate & suppress a black hole’s properties & destructiveness.

The only non-black-hole-like thing that they do is transform into mini NULL saws (which only happens once- right when Cyn uses TRANSLATE & EDIT on the main NULL), the 3 times that the NULLs explode into eldritch flesh (the 1st & 2nd time happens while the solver is malfunctioning upon creating a NULL, & the 3rd times in a very specific scenario where the solver eldritch horror accidentally consumes itself using NULL), & 2 times where Uzi & Cyn are able to crush the black holes (which can easily be explained by them being solver hosts).

So, in short, I think people should appreciate NULLs more instead of denying the narrative & power consistency of the series. You may not like the thought of powerscalers saying the verse is large star - brown dwarf but narratively & power consistency wise, NULLs are objectively intended to be black holes.

…But it’s also obvious it’s sometimes underestimated by some writers just how difficult it is to both justify doing it (if you still intend to do a “popular” story) and to say anything “new” with it…

So sometimes, the cheaper, “fan service” ending is genuinely the better artistic choice, not just the monetary one.

Yes, it may be “cheap” to have Nolan’s Batman retire with Catwoman, but for an ending, it’d be more difficult to sell that Batman dying in action as particularly noteworthy.

Sometimes, of course, it’s obvious and maybe even more a case of redundancy - very few Robin Hood fans are going to turn up for a worse version of Robin and Marian with The Death Of Robin Hood, on top of how that mythos has already gotten too dour this century.

Other times, it’s more debatable - clearly, The Last Jedi’s version of Luke spoke deeply to some fans, including many who had never really connected with the character before (even possibly “professional fans” like Pablo Hidalgo), although the general assessment as time has gone on is that it wasn’t worth it to the majority of audience members and seems to be stifling creators with the character.

But occasionally, like with Indiana Jones, it may just be that the nature of the character is made repellent by certain types of bittersweet endings, simply because the audience has too much invested in a character in a certain way, so some types of bitterness just aren’t worth it (like killing the controversial but still useful character of Mutt.)

You've probably seen people in anime or manga spaces complaining about power scalers, and how they value feats to wank their favourite character, over appreciating the story. To a certain extent this is legitimate criticism, there's more to a story than how strong a character is, but it's not something that can just be disregarded - especially in a shonen.

Even a normal viewer has an idea built into their minds on who can beat what character, it's just common sense. As an example, it would be weird for a character that's done nothing noteworthy the whole show to suddenly be able to beat a powerful antagonist; they haven't done anything to show they can hang at that level, and it would break immersion if stronger characters were unable to beat them.

I bring this up mostly due to the latest episode of bleach having absolutely atrocious scaling, which is simply an example of poor writing. I have no doubt in my mind that Kubo couldn't give two shits about coherent scaling, but it has the unintended effect of making his main villain look stupid and the power hierarchy look nonsensical.

Picture this: Yhwach managed to beat the strongest captain of the gotei 13, then the captain of a stronger squad than even that, and beat the MC multiple times, before and after absorbing literal God himself. Now in the latest episode, he's shown having his God level attacks being slashed away by characters that were inconsequential for someone like Aizen (another powerful character) multiple arcs ago, yet now for no reason these same characters can survive against this godly character, while stronger characters couldn't.

A casual viewer might not pick up on this nor care, but that doesn't change the fact that there being little consistency behind power scaling makes the show seem like it doesn't take anything seriously; in the end the good guys will win.

Okay, hear me out.

The first Disney film is built on one question: who is the real monster? Quasimodo is judged for his face his whole life, but Esmeralda sees Quasimodo for who he is, and that’s the heart of the movie.

Then the sequel gives him Madellaine, and the whole theme falls apart.

What the sequel gets wrong

• Madellaine is conventionally attractive. Nobody in the story ever treats her the way they treat Quasimodo, so the “acceptance” arc ends with him getting the girl who was never rejected for how she looks. That’s a reward, not a message.
• The theme shrinks from “look past appearances” to a generic “be yourself.”

My fix

I would give Madellaine a visible difference that covers her whole body, so she hides under sackcloth from head to toe, hands wrapped. The sackcloth is a nod to Victor Hugo’s novel, where the recluse Sachette lives in sackcloth in the “Rat Hole.”

My pick is hypertrichosis, which means her whole body is covered in hair. In the 1400s, people with it were put on display as “wild” or “beast” people. So Sarousch found her as a child and exhibited her, then convinced her that being stared at is all she’s worth and no one else will ever accept her. That makes him a real villain with a real link to the theme, because he profits from her difference.

I considered leprosy at first, since it’s historically plausible, but it comes with baggage: it’s contagious (which changes what touch between them means) and it’s a stigmatized disease label even today. Hypertrichosis keeps the story about how people treat difference instead of about illness, and it fits the era’s real history of freak shows and “wild man” exhibitions.

I’m not saying this would have been a perfect film. I’m saying it would have actually followed through on what the first one stated with Quasimodo having a similar arc of loving someone who is considered freakish and weird

TL;DR: Give Madellaine hypertrichosis, make Sarousch the man who exhibited her as a “beast girl,” let Quasimodo be the first person who doesn’t look away, and don’t “fix” her at the end.

What do you think?

The Purge was an interesting series. For 12 hours, all crime is legal, so what happens? In the first 2 movies, we see people trying to survive it. And then in Election Year, we see a politician running on an anti Purge party, trying to survive assassination attempts from her rivals and general Purge assholes. The movie ends with her winning the election, and the Purge finally being put to an end.

Then The First Purge came out. A prequel movie, showing, well… the first Purge. I liked it, and figured it'd be the last film in the series, since you can't make any sequels to Election Year because the Purge is done for.

Then came Forever Purge. Apparently the party behind the Purge, the New Founding Fathers of America, henceforth NFFA, just got voted back in and started it up again. It was 8 years between the two films. We had 2 purgeless administrations, and then got right back into it. This just feels so damn lazy, and makes Election Year seem pointless. Yeah, she got elected and finally stopped the Purge… for less than a decade before everything went back into swing. Could've skipped that movie and lost nothing.

I'm sure someone will make a comparison to the current American administration being voted back in, which like… doesn't make the concept of the movie The Forever Purge any less lazy, silly, or disappointing. When it makes the previous movie entirely useless in hindsight.

Yes, I know it's popular and a lot of people apparently loved it, good for them.

But when people go on about how it is great writing, drama and social commentary, I feel like we watched completely different shows.

Now, I don't have complaints about the lack of constructs and powers - they did say it would be grounded and gritty, focused on a small town mystery. Fine.

But my issue is with the 'grounded' plot, realism and social issues - specifically, how they were tackled, the plot holes and some seriously weird implications.

The mystery itself is lacklustre.

I watch a lot of detective shows, and this one does not work as 'mystery'. The only clues given are obvious, and the characters don't so much investigate as have explanations fall into their laps. There's no real investigation for either mystery.

The core themes as advertised are systemic bigotry, abuse of authority, accountability and illegal immigration

We have the opening stressing systemic bigotry against black people. Fine. Then next we are seeing John who has somehow gotten promoted to 'sergeant major' while not yet thirty, as a marine sniper.

Then, after the Rushville incident, both John and Kerry get away with no consequences at all.

It's 2016, and the political situation is supposed to be the same as it was in real life US. Picture a Black man with a felony conviction (dishonorable discharge is one, and carries almost all the restrictions that come with it) being involved in a mass casualty incident that leveled a town.

He has been seen by several people, is likely on multiple cameras, and is associated with both the person who screwed up the response and the actual murderer. He killed the murderer with a firearm he is not legally allowed to own (dishonorable discharge).

Yeah, Hal took the fall legally, but realistically, is there any way a grounded story can have a discriminated minority figure walk away from that clean?

So clean that ten years later he is running a million dollar business and is completely detached from anything to do with the disaster till called in?

And Kerry.

Seriously, Kerry. Yeah, the town hates Hal for screwing up the response, fine. But Hal isn't the one who actually killed anyone. That was Zoe, whom Kerry was working for.

And Kerry is still sheriff. Despite having done enough to be convicted for a federal offense. Despite the townspeople having good reason to despise her as an accomplice.

Just how Jonah Jameson oriented does the town have to be, to 'realistically' despise only the guy who tried to stop the mass murderer and let her assistant be the sheriff?

And then there is the illegal immigration themes. Great, relevant for the times, including the 'cop' who is pursuing the case with unhealthy methods.

Except.

One illegal immigrant is a genocidal war criminal hiding from justice. She murdered the 'cop' who sympathized and gave her a chance. She destroyed the town that gave her shelter and was willing to fight for her.

(Noah is not an immigrant, in this situation - he just has the 'programming'/genetics, but he is born and raised as native)

The rest of them are literal suicide bombers who are fine with mass murder if it gets them their target.

That is the plotline this 'systemic bigotry', 'social commentary' show decided to go with, when tackling the topic of illegal immigration? About how an entire town is destroyed because some people were sympathetic to illegal (alien) immigrants and helped hide them from the law?

Then the 'lanterns are cops, John is a hero' theme the showrunners went with?

You do a show about abuse of police authority...and your ending is to have the actual police officer get away with murdering an innocent man because she was afraid?

Couldn't they at the very least have her step down as the sheriff, given someone who acts the way she did in the scene is clearly too unstable to be trusted with a gun at all?

There is a lot made about how Hal screwed up by being too reckless with his power...and the ending is to have John declare himself the sole protector of Earth, using a power source he knows next to nothing about - except that it was created by a known war criminal and infused with a weapon that destroyed an entire planet?! He is basing it all on info gained through torture using a psychoactive substance?!

Seriously, what is this 'good writing'?

The actors are great, that I agree, and I think that is what carried the show.

I don't need CGI or explosions - I am fine with a grounded show. But if you are doing a grounded show of a very fantasy oriented property, you need to have good writing to cover the lack of action and CGI.

When it comes to modern Dragon Ball, it's hard to say what even is the "true canon" anymore because with so many continuities, the term has basically lost its meaning. The fact the fandom can't even seem to agree on what is "canon" anymore tells you all you need to know.

The answer? Daima and Super are their own separate continuities. They do not exist within each others continuities. They are separate continuities the same way the original Z-movies from the 90s are separate continuities from the actual DBZ anime. The same way GT and Super are separate continuities and so on and so forth.
Daima is in its own continuity. Super already has 3 continuities of itself, being the movies, the anime, and the manga.

Prior to 2013, it was clear that the true "canon" to Dragon Ball was the 42 original manga volumes. The Z films, the Z-anime filler, GT, etc, were all simply considered "non-canon". One cannot use the same thought process for modern DB because it is far more complex.

Yes, Toriyama wrote the story of Daima. Yes, Toriyama also wrote the story of Super. Yes, Daima and Super absolutely contradict each other and cannot be in the same continuity. Guess what? That is fine. Daima is its own little story that takes place after the events of the Buu arc and that's it. Daima's story ends right there as far as we know.

Marvel/DC comics have characters such as Spider-Man, Batman, etc, with loads and loads of different continuities, stories, retellings of origins, and more. Dragon Ball is a massive IP, and fortunately or unfortunately, however way you want to see it, connective/continuity tissue in Dragon Ball isn't what it once was back in the 90s.

i just finished Lanterns, thought it was fine, Not that bad.

But the problem is the show barely has any constructs or cool action scenes despite being a Green Lantern show

And when people point that out, The Lanterns fans try defending it saying stuff like "oh you want the show to become what its not" like god forbid someone want Green Lantern stuff from a Green Lantern show

Like the show isn't terrible, i think it's okay. But whats wrong if people want Green Lantern stuff from this show?

The fans saying its a grounded detective show forget that its a Green Lantern show as well

DC has ton of grounded characters they could have chosen from if they wanted to make a grounded detective show and they chose Green Lantern? it's an IP that just doesn't fit this category sorry

So stop saying stuff like the show never promised this stuff or the show isn't what you want because its a freaking Green Lantern show not a batman or any grounded character show

Like if you enjoy the show, thats fine, i also think its decent but the crictism regarding it is fair and "the show isn't this" argument is dumb

<SPOILERS FOR LEGEND OF KORRA>

Sorry for sum critiques being repeated, it was an accumulation of narrative frustrations that drove me to this sloppy rant

My main issue with season 2 isn’t exactly that it was just a “bad” season, it had its pros, but a lot of flaws. I’ll start with my pros, Varrick and Zhu Li were great characters in my opinion, Varrick stole the spotlight everytime he came on screen and his eccentric behavior were really endearing to watch. Zhu Li was a fun opposite to him and really grounded his character, the twist villain role he had was actually pretty well done and somewhat caught me by surprise. The twins, Eska and Desna, were really interesting characters despite the whole stereotypical creepy twin. They felt like people and i found Eska’s relationship with Bolin really interesting. I have a few problems with how they went about the relationship but I’ll get into that later. But, atlas, that was the last of my pros and now onto the flaws.

Pacing was really annoying, I disliked how they kept switching storylines the moment tension peaked in another scene. The constant cliffhangers got really repetitive really quick and got annoying. The constant tonal whiplash made every discovery, emotional beat, and punch feel mundane. Like how Raava getting DESTRYEDd and how the writers barely sat with that for even a second before switching to another plot line. It was infuriating to watch and it didn’t increase the tension, it just made me sheath with anger as I watched Tenzin battle his inner demons. If anything, it ruined one of the most character development moments in this season and ended up flattening it.

Another issue I have with the finale, was the constant escalation that kept dampening tension. If everything is at 110% for around 4 episodes, it becomes redundant and borderline boring. This ties in with another problem I had with the finale, they kept nerfing Korra to make Unalaq more threatening but instead made Korra look incapable and furthermore somehow weakened the antagonist. Despite how much Unalaq changed, his character felt stagnant. I’m unsure if I missed something, but his motives felt fuzzy and like he was jus a villain for the sake of villainy. Yet, they showed so much of him that he felt less imposing and more annoying. Compared to Amon he was like a nagging dad. A lot of the finale felt like convenience after convenience. Truly, they made Korra look pathetic with how she needed a child to help her defeat the dark avatar, including with how plot convient Jinora’s connection to the spiritual world felt. Barely any development or exploration was put into how jinora was able to help Korra. Is anyone able to just enter the spiritual world after season 2 and help the avatar defeat sum random boss fight?

But seriously, it was just so infuriating to watch Korra get beaten up for what felt like 4 episodes straight. It didn’t make her later win feel compelling, in all honesty it felt unearned. Speaking of unearned, every time Korra entered the avatar state it felt unearned. Compare it to Aang, him entering the avatar state was a rare occurrence that happened due to emotional stakes or when the situation called for it. Somehow Korra always manages to enter the avatar sate and control herself despite her never going on the journey to control the avatar state on screen. She never had to embark on the journey of facing her fears or challenging herself, it was just always conveniently handed to her. What made the avatar state so threatening was the sheer amount of power and lack of control Aang had in ATLA that made it genuinely intimidating. It made her less compelling and her entering the avatar state felt like her dusting her knees off after tripping instead of a last resort used in desperate situations to demonstrate how serious the moment is.

A few of the characters and plot lines felt unnecessary, a lot of the Jinora plot line felt pointless—or at least underdeveloped, beside Tenzin confronting his doubts. Most of it could be cut and it wouldn’t change much besides the run time. This goes for characters as well, Bumi genuinely served a purpose but Bolin and Molin felt like they were there for the sake of replicating the Gaang from ATLA. They don’t feel like actual people with compelling motives outside other people. Mako’s main motive is protecting his brother while Bolin’s motives aren’t truly clear to me. Asami really only feels like a character somewhat but a Bolin and Mako were kinda just there. It felt like they were trying to replicate the iconic group from ATLA without any compelling characters or and arcs. Biolin and Mako barely did anything in the finale besides crutch Korra and get beat up. It could’ve been more compelling if they actually changed smth in the stories plot. But they don’t even affect anything, the twins continue the same without actually showing any struggle with their father’s transformation but conveniently saw him as less the second he transformed.

The Bolin and Eska’s subplot felt underdeveloped and once again, convenient. Nothing beyond Bolin literally running away from Eska to him confessing that he secretly loves he was established. The entire time between those two scenes was spent of him being afraid of Eska. To be fair, I was willing to let it slide with the development of Eska and Bolin becoming a thing and how that dynamic and unquie character would change and challenge the characters. OH WAITt, it was a spur of the moment realization! Whoopsie daises! As well as creating unnecessary and pointless relationship drama, I understand that they’re teenagers in relationships but I’m 15, and quite a few people my age, who could handle this better than the characters did. I wouldn’t have an issue with it, it could’ve been really god, but they’re not developing the characters with it. They’re just adding relationship drama for the sake of drama.

Honestly, I think Korra’s connection to the past avatars being severed was a really interesting narrative choice that took a humongous risk that could’ve been so much more compelling if developed further. It would’ve been so much more engaging if she spent the later seasons trying to rekindle that connection. It falls into that same ending in season one where she enters her avatar state and suddenly all the consequences from that finale jus disappear instead of actually exploring the lasting effects of losing one’s bending and trying to regain them (since she’s so stubborn, narratively she doesn’t have to rekindle her connection) whilst going against an antagonist. It would’ve been so much more interesting and I feel like it’s another reason this finale fell flat, there’s truly never any lasting consequences.

oh my jolly jus got past season 2 all suddenly all those tiny things I missed as a child are getting to me during this rewatch AURGRHhrhr

Gonna be a power scaling post believe or not

Anyways, one issue I have with Sonic powerscaling is how some fans treat his power progression like Dragon Ball, where every new villain is automatically stronger than the last and Sonic is constantly getting more powerful.

Don't get me wrong, power creep absolutely exists in Sonic. Modern Sonic defeating Perfect Chaos in base form during Generations is a pretty obvious example, and Shadow defeating Metal Overlord in Shadow Generations is another interesting case, although that one is a bit more complicated.

My issue is that Sonic isn't one continuous story written by the same people with a consistent idea of how powerful everyone should be. Different games have different writers, directors and creative goals, so the scale of the threats can change drastically.

For example, Sonic goes from fighting Solaris, a being threatening multiple timelines, to Dark Gaia, whose threat is primarily planetary. That doesn't necessarily mean Dark Gaia is only planet level in AP, but I don't think we should automatically assume he's multiversal just because Super Sonic fought him.

Note: Even if you don't believe Sonic is multiversal, my point still stands as Solaris sounds more impressive and is implied to do greater things.

Honestly, I think Sonic has a similar problem to Marvel and DC comics, although nowhere near as inconsistent. Different writers can have different interpretations of a character's strength, even within the same continuity. That's why I'm hesitant to treat multiversal AP and durability as something Sonic consistently demonstrates in every game, especially when it comes to scaling every boss to him.

That being said, I think consistent statements and narrative portrayals are extremely important here.

Shadow is probably the best example. His equality with Sonic has been reinforced throughout the franchise, so I'm much more comfortable giving him upgrades based on Sonic's feats. It's not just a random fight from one game; their rivalry and comparable strength are established parts of their characters.

The End is another example. Ian Flynn considered it Sonic's second strongest villain behind Solaris, and Frontiers actually supports the idea that it's an exceptionally powerful opponent, especially with Sonic needing to push his Super form even further. So despite The End's more limited destructive feats, I'm comfortable scaling it to some of Sonic's strongest enemies.

Compare that to Infinite. He was advertised as Sonic's strongest enemy, but that was a marketing statement, and he ultimately gets defeated by base Sonic and the Avatar. I'm not convinced that Infinite is stronger than Solaris, or that base Sonic in Forces has somehow surpassed Super Sonic from 06. Sonic getting stronger doesn't automatically mean he's surpassed every previous version of his Super form.

Metal Overlord is another tricky one because of the difference between his portrayal in Heroes and Shadow Generations.

Ultimately, I'm not saying we should ignore Sonic's growth or disregard scaling between games. I'm just saying **power creep doesn't have to be linear**, and a shared continuity doesn't mean every game consistently portrays the characters at the same level of power.

I think there's a reasonable middle ground between ignoring impressive feats and treating every new villain as another step up the power ladder. Context, recurring statements, narrative portrayal and consistency should matter just as much as individual feats.

Curious what others think about this?