(no spoilers or specifics about the new movie!)

When someone says King Arthur, we all think of a high middle ages setting of knights and castles and chivalry. None of this actually existed in 500 AD Britain. Arthur, if he existed, would have been a post-Roman Briton warlord living in the ruins of Rome. Authors simply wrote stories about the world they knew and so our current Arthurian legend is a patchwork of pagan Celtic myths updated with medieval tropes.

Yes, modern authors have attempted to make Arthur "historically accurate", but when you remove the medieval anachronisms and the Celtic mysticism, you are just left with... a tribal warrior king who raids farms. Hardly recognizable as King Arthur.

The same applies to the Iliad and Odyssey. Bronze age Greece (in which the story takes place) would be an alien civilization to Classical Greece, seperated by a 400-year dark age. These three ages, the story was oral history, being transformed and mutated every generation. On top of that, even mythology changed. Poseidon in the Odyssey is stuck between the Mycanean Poseidon and the Classical Poseidon that are very different characters.

All the traits we associate with Ancient Greece (philosophy, theater, rhetoric, the forum and the amphiteater) were not present yet in the Bronze age. The Acropolis, as far as it existed, was just a fortified hill, and not nearly the marble mountain of temples we see today.

A "historically accurate" Trojan War, a real Iliad and Odyssey, would be a bunch of bronze age warlords in bronze armor going around pillaging and looting villages. At that point, yeah, its accurate, but its just not the story we know because a big part of the story are those more Classical narrative and aesthetic elements.

In Homer's Iliad, characters are said to use iron arrows, when it was the Bronze Age. Medieval depictions of the story depict heroes in plate armor. Authors have always added their own technology to the story.

In short: the story has always been anachronistic and adapted to modern (at the time) sensibilities, even in the time of Homer. So much that removing all of that leaves the story unrecognizable. It seems arbitrary to set a cut-off, i.e., Iron Age weapons in the Bronze Age war are fine, but an early-medieval ship? No way!

I know, manga about hunting dragons and I'm talking about whaling, I must be very fun at parties.

But like, it's not really a hard connection to make?

The crew of the Quin Zaza are effectively whalers with ships that flies instead of sailing.

Dragons are basically flying whales.

Their methods of hunting is the same, only in the sky.

The spoils they take from the dragons, down to the whale oil, are the same.

You are basically reading a whaling manga, only with dragons.

And that's fun and all but at the same time, is it really? Japan has a pretty controversial story with whaling, leaving the International Whaling Commission in 2019 so they can resume commercial whaling out of "cultural tradition". They have a ton of issues like how they use research as an excuse to hunt whales. They are like public enemy number 1 of every whale conservation agency.

And then there's this manga, that portrays the act of hunting whales/dragons as this heroic, frontier like endeavor.

It's like reading a western that still glorifies cowboys as bringers of civilization to uncharted, barbarian lands.

The protagonist, Mika, is this autistic dude that basicalyl only cares about two things, hunting dragons and eating dragons.

And it's portrayed as this quirky but still somewhat aspiring way of life, in which that his way of life is one that respects dragons for he is a man that is completely okay with dying and being eaten as well. Almost like dragon hunting is a competition between equals that mutually respect each other.

Mika way of like is pretty much endorsed by the narrative in ways that inspires other characters to be better, including the younger members of the crew.

But like, the dragons never really consented to being hunted, y'know? They don't want to eat Mika, they don't care that he sees them as their equal, they just don't want to die. Mike is just a guy that really likes killing and eating these wild animals and is ascribing these human traits to them.

The story reinforces this connection between Mika and the dragons that just.... isn't there.

And it's not like dragons are these major, societal issues. Sure every now and then the Quin Zaza is commissioned to hunt troublesome dragons, but their bread and butter is basically just hunting them for profit.

Oh but sure there's a conservationist attitude about it. Killing dragons and not eating them is seen as this heinous act, and you shouldn't kill them when they are with children.

But at the same time Quin Zaza has shown to target dragons specifically because they are rare.

The latest arc was about hunting an legendary arctic dragon.

Did they need to hunt it? Was it causing problems?

No, they just wanted the clout. The first arctic hunters, the crew that hunted a legendary dragon (not even their first, but the previous one was in fact causing problems).

And they plan to hunt the remaining legendary dragons. Which again is portrayed as this heroic declaration of bravery.

The problem isn't even portraying these things. It's just how the manga unambiguously endorses it as this cool thing. It's reading reading Spanish comic that tries to convince you that bullfighting is actually cool and based and totally not needless cruelty disguised as cultural tradition.

Dragons are these wild creatures that have been out paced by technology, their meat is mostly sold a luxury item, not a necessity. And by the latest arc they have introduced tranquilizers so that you don't even need to kill every dragon that cause problems anymore.

And guess the one character that seemly had an issue with it? Yep, same Mika.

I just hope that this doesn't turn on an excuse to show how "these new methods are actually more harmful and we need to continue stabbing them with spears to death for their own good."

And that's my rant on Drifting Dragons and why despite how cool hunting dragons is, the manga still leaves me a bitter taste.

I dunno man, I'm going to play something that makes me less morally conflicted, like Monster Hunter.

OK OK OK BEFORE YOU IMMEDIATELY DOWNVOTE ME AND YELL AT ME FOR NOT UNDERSTANDING SHIT... hear me out

First of all, this is not really my own reading of the movie, though I have come to agree with it somewhat. Full disclosure, I am Italian and here we take our classics very seriously. Latin classics obviously, but also the Greek texts that inspired them.

So what basically happened is that I saw the movie, felt it was good in some aspects, but frustratingly intent on changing stuff in others. Why was Polyphemus changed to a mostly dumb mute brute? Why are the originally triumphant moments of Odysseus recontextualized or outright removed? Hell in general, why does the mythological and epic aspect of the movie only apply to the tragic aspects and not the victories? Why are all the gods so faint in their presence that you can make a fair argument that Athena is just a vision and a manifestation of Odysseus' guilt? WHY DID AGAMEMNON WANT TO DISRUPT TRADE ROUTES, what is this, GOT?

With all of these dumb little doubts on my mind, I came away thinking that Nolan is too realism- and tragedy-pilled. He can only indulge in fantasy if that fantasy involves suffering, but can't indulge in the triumphs of greek myth. Which ostensibly devalued his work. But then I read the reviews on the papers (yes, like actual newspapers). One Italian publication basically delegated the review to two classical studies experts who talked about a lot of the weird aspects of the movies. While they ultimately came away praising the movie, they did point out a few things that stuck with me. And that is the American parallel with Odysseus and the Greeks as a whole.

A lot of the Odyssey's themes and scenes have been changed in Nolan's movie and when you consider the option that the movie is commenting on current American international politics and behavior it... weirdly fits. Like to a concerning degree.

The most damning piece of evidence for this, aside from Odysseus himself being basically unrecognizable as a character (and we'll get to that), is how the movie plays with the laws of hospitality (or Zeus' law). Because that law is a central point in the movie, but compared to the original work it is vastly different in how it is used. In the original, the law of hospitality is a recurring theme that gets shown in basically all its possible applications, both positive and negative. Positive aspects include Nausicaa and the Phoenicians, negative aspects include Polyphemus and the suitors. The film arguably makes the law even more important and central to the story than it is in the text and yet... it removes the Phoenicians completely and changes Polyphemus to not include the law of hospitality as a relevant plot point there. Instead a lot fo the movie focuses on the Greeks invoking that law as an excuse to basically force themselves into other people's homes and take what they want. That same law is then not applied uniformly towards beggars or people the house master may not like. It's basically purely subjective

Well, the movie explicitly tells us that the thematic point it's trying to make is one of ethical and moral decay on the part of the Greeks. They're the culture that created that law in the first place, but have now come to apply it only when it suits them and mainly as an excuse for what is essentially just plain old forcing yourself into someone else's home.

Similarly with the people of the sea (basically the "Sea people" which are considered or rumored to be one of the reasons for the IRL Bronze Age collapse). A force of outsiders that moves like ghosts along the coasts, dangerous and unknowable, plundering everything... and then it's revealed that those reports actually refer to the various Greek war parties returning home. The theme of fear of the outsider and the unknown distracting/hiding that the actual danger/moral decay comes from within is pretty obvious.

There's the fall of troy, in its framing closer to the Aeneid IIRC as a grand tragedy and the wiping out of a civilization. The movie frames the fall of troy as the beginning of the end, the absolute lowest point of the Greek civilization. The movie also reframes the conflict a bit. From the romantic and larger than life, but ultimately pointless tragedy of the original Iliad where the goal is getting back a single woman and killing thousands for that goal due to stupid alliances and vows of honor, the movie gives Agamemnon, supreme leader of the Greeks a newer goal that I'm pretty sure was not in the original text: disrupting Troy's control of trade routes. This plot point is extremely minor in the grand scheme of things, but aside from being just topical in and of itself, it reframes the war completely. It's now a conflict started on the basis of a slight, but kept alive due to economic interests.

Odysseus himself is also weird in this movie. I've already pointed out how the movie refuses to give him a single triumphant moment (in the classical "epic" way of just having the absolute upper hand of a situation), while being absolutely not shy about giving him mythologically fitting dramatic or tragic moments. But his characterization is probably one of the biggest changes. He's less cunning and more impulsive and rash, less fighting with the gods and the destiny they impose on him and more outright disrespecting and blaspheming them. His greatest tactical victory is reframed as his greatest moral failure and his final fight is less the work of a tactician and moreso a half-suicide attempt as his plan to beat the suitors is basically to go in alone and kill them all on his own. Granted, myth Odysseus would've done so no problem, but Nolan doesn't want to give this Odysseus that triumph. Instead the fight is a bloody, exhausting, drawn-out brawl that ends with Odysseus barely alive. All of this because the violence Odysseus perpetrates is framed as intrinsically bad (so much so that Odysseus has Telemachus not bloody his hands. There's some cycle of violence stuff going on there obviously), therefore Odysseus perpetrating violence, even against the abusers, can't be positive. In that sense Odysseus is framed more as a modern soldier, the perpetrator of endless and senseless violence, he is the arm of the Greek war machine, the final cog that puts the moral decay of the Greeks into practice by razing Troy to the ground through trickery. The only possible alternative he has then is exile. To atone and to leave behind the world he helped doom, hoping only that the new generations, untouched by the blood of his actions, can steer it better through the coming crisis than he could.

So now that I've written your eyes off with all of this, why did those experts call a parallel to the contemporary American situation?

Well, as I pointed out, there's a few thematic aspects that Nolan introduced in his movie that map very well onto contemporary America.

- The moralism and rules for thee but not for me to justify abuse of power as well as the general decay of previously held sacred moral values

- The presence and importance given to a nebulous outside threat that distracts and hides the danger and moral decay from within

- Odysseus cast as basically a disillusioned soldier with PTSD, horrified at what his actions have caused, but initially still clinging to his old ways. Arrogant, cocksure, disrespectful of other cultures or even his own (IIRC he says at one point "Thank your gods" or something, as if the greek gods weren't his as well)

- The seemingly senseless slaughter of an entire culture actually hiding vested economic and geopolitical interests

- The general sense of "end of an era" that permeates the movie that is explicitly brought about by the regional hegemon and its moral and ethical collapse as well as its war mongering and violence

Hell, I don't think it's a coincidence that the two scorned and abused wives in the movie are played by african-american actresses. Or the fact that the vast majority of the cast is Hollywood A-listers and some of its current biggest names.

There's also a general parallel between the law of hospitality and the US complicated relationship with immigration and present rejection of its once proud identity as a nation of immigrants

There's probably more that I forgot/didn't notice. What I'm saying is mostly that once I saw these parallels hinted at, it made the changes in the movie click for me. The Odyssey is basically reskinned to act as a parallel story about the fall of American hegemony and how the country is eating itself and the world alive as it falls (bit dramatic there, I know, it's late ok)

And look, I'm not even saying I fundamentally disagree with what Nolan might be saying about America here. It's just... why use the Odyssey to say this? Why twist this epic that is one of the foundational texts of western culture as a whole into a very America-centric story? Sure, it's more contemporary now, but imo way less universal. And in that sense imo also less timeless than other adaptations, because so much of it hinges on that American parallel.

If you don't have that frame of reference then the Odyssey is just straight up a bad adaptation, indecisive on whether it wants to commit to the magic of mythological Greece or not, willingly dating the events, but unwilling to commit with costuming, acting or casting, willingly cast the hero in a morally gray light, but refuse to actually have him commit the morally gray acts of the original epic and instead reframing his other actions.

And lastly... I'm just fucking tired of having America's collapse as a global hegemon being a constant recurring thing. Fucking recontextualize your own legends for that, let me have the Odyssey as a proper epic. You wanna recontextualize and modernize it? Commit to it, coward, don't limit it to just the American experience but include all of the West, make it truly international and universal

Thanks for reading (if you did, wouldn't blame if you skipped tbh). You may now hurl insults and slurs at me

It’s genuinely such a fun and interesting game that reignited my love of Superheroes and beyond that it breathed new life into characters with little to no shine like Peni Parker and Luna Snow.

A friend of mine whom did not give a rats ass about marvel posted the other day about wanting more Peni Parker comics purely due to Rivals. I’m still on the edge of my seat waiting for Sentry and Hyperion to be playable. Honestly, it doesn’t even sound real when I say it out loud. It sounds like a fever dream that would be left on the cutting room floor, I damn near wanna kiss whoever pitched the idea. And I think projects like this are why marvel is kicking DC’s ass in the public eye right now.

Powerscalers will often not discuss wall or building level characters and instead go for talking about standard OP guys or lower street tiers, but I think in the middle of both of these classifications is where the real fun begins. Some of the coolest fights have the characters throwing each other through buildings, tearing apart houses as they throw punches that put craters in the walls, and fight at superhuman but still not super OP speedster speeds.

Someone already talked on this sub about how lower level superhuman feats are more impressive because it is easier for us to see how powerful they really are due to scale compared to our real life material sciences and tech. We know concrete is exceptionally durable in real life, you need specialized equipment just to meaningfully damage it. So when you see a guy punch concrete hard enough to put a fist sized hole in it, or enough to create giant spider-web like cracks in it, you realize "Whoa, this guy is really strong." Knocking down a building with one blow? That is almost unstoppable. You'd need the military to get involved if a guy like that existed in real life and his durability scaled to his strength, because police weaponry would be completely ineffective. And with wall level characters, they can still use the environment to fight in believable ways with each other. A big steel rebar can still easily be used as a club by one wall level character against another and do damage in a believable way. Building level is a bit harder to do in that regard, but it can still be done. What I mean by this is that it is much harder to believe that higher tier characters would be affected by things like a relative equal hitting them with something like a car, or a tree when held up to scrutiny. You can see a city level character get hurt by a car and think, "Okay, how does that work? This guy can tank a nuke or a railgun round, but a car hurts him?" Now, other powers can make this explainable, maybe the villain can make things more durable so they survive being used offensively, maybe the hero's durability is better at no selling stronger attacks, but it is much more plausible for a building to wall level character to be able to use these techniques on an equal and not feel like they are just being nerfed for stakes. The coolest thing to me is punching someone through multiple walls or even buildings, because we can picture how powerful that is. Walls are incredibly strong in real life, especially concrete or brick, or metal, or really any industrial material. So seeing these characters smash each other through them, use things like cars and trees as weapons, and fight hand to hand makes for great opportunities in choreography.

I believe this kind of falls in the "show, don't tell" in terms of writing. His writing is often very average. The movies will state that this character is X, Y and Z in some way, and then Nolan will use absolutely brilliant cinematography to make you feel it.

Oh, the character is sad? Every single thing from the lighting to the makeup to the effects to camera angle will blend harmonically to make you feel it. However, the writing to convince you why and how he is sad is often ... average at best. I feel like the writing aspect is overlooked because his cinematography makes up for it/distracts you.

In a weird way, his film often feels like I'm watching a really good instagram edit of a movie, great editing and all, but at the end of the day its just an edit, without a deeper writing to it. Or listening to a song which has a great melody to match the mood, but not the best lyrics (except writing is more relevant in films, than lyrics is to a song imo)

Granted, I didn't see "every" film of his, (yes i watched odyssey), but if you have exceptions then i'd love to see to it.

Not gonna make this long but I find it so weird how there's such a lack of team battles in One Piece where the entire crew battles the main opponent instead of it just being "Usopp/Chopper fight weak member" or "Nami and Robin fight..girl" of the villain group while Luffy,Zoro and Sanji fight the big bad and the 2 strongest henchmen.

The reason the weaker members look less useful is cause their overall powers and skillsets are reserved for more support roles and situations but we would never know cause Oda never writes a fight in which he actually has to utilize them in said roles and no wonder the weaker members end up looking less useful in fights cause Oda constantly writes them in 1V1 fights in which their support role powers are less useful in direct combat and the only time we see the Straw hats battle one opponent was back in goddamn Thriller Bark.

I also feel like Robin and Jinbei are characters that should be way stronger then they actually are but Oda refuses to let them be strong cause you know, it's the Monster trio shows in battles and for a series that's meant to be majorly a battle Shonen,the fights should not be lackluster or this sloppy and a good amount of the times,the fights are very slow and lacking in choreography and just offscreened and I dunno if it's cause Oda is getting Old or what but Jeez.

This is something I would arguably say Fairy Tail does better cause they do a lot more team battles with Team Natsu and people like Wendy and Lucy contribute hugely to said fights and battles and more often it's Team Natsu vs one powerful opponent and its not always saved for Natsu 24/7.

(Like Natsu and Gray vs Mard Gear,Natsu Gajeel and Wendy vs Faust, Team Natsu vs Hades,etc).

And I feel like for a battle Shonen,the fights shouldn't be this lackluster and sloppy.

He didn’t attack until the end of Ragnarok. He needed at least Ego and Odin to die. They could have stopped him.

First, he gets the Power Stone by decimating the Nova Corps, the galaxy’s main law enforcement organization. He gets a potential obstacle out of the way AND becomes top dog in raw power, so he could bulldoze his way to the others.

Then he gets the Space Stone, giving himself quick access to the other stones AND eliminating Odin’s sons.

Then the Reality Stone at Knowhere, which could tip the scales against the tricky Time and Mind Stones, which his minions were going after anyway. No amount of raw power can protect you from THOSE things if they're used properly!

With his minions after those, he might as well get the Soul Stone now.

Very good execution.

Doom Eternal is excellent at what it's trying to do. This hardcore retro style movement shooter that makes full use of arsenal.Managing cool downs with fast pace action. It sold extremely well at the time it came out and is considered pretty easily a masterpiece by many.

But it gave the devs cart blanche to ignore Eternal's main issues that would negatively impact The Dark ages. The idea of restricting players to specific play style is something that did begin with Eternal. It was something people complained about. The devs gave their reasoning as to why as they viewed 2016 options led to "Players playing the game wrong".While you could argue if this is a good approach. It did work in Eternal . However It would lead them to essentially making The Dark Ages entire game play loop revolve around the parry shield. Which people found reppative and boring.

A elephant in the room I would like briefly discuss is they did buy into that Doom Slayer LORE HYPE and over focused on the story. The final DLCs have you fight the Dark Lord imbued with ultra energy or some shit. People online love this lore shit. As it makes for great YouTube videos to watch. So Doom The Dark ages become extremely bloated by a massive expansive story that spends itself over indulging. And this would affect gameplay by adding in Mech fights and Dragon segments. To farm aura that honestly shouldn't have been planted.

In the twilight of the DLC releasing and Id having their massive studio lay offs. There were obviously a ton of other factors that negatively affected the Dark Ages.Pc requirements/ price points exct. The game underperformend is the absolute fact. But id like to suggest one final reason. I think Doom Eternal fulfilled a lot of peoples interest in a Doom 2016 sequel and they didn't have much a reason to be invested again. But it also had smaller issues that also made them again not to keen to have another go around. Even if the game did well when it came out.

So hey, Dragon Striker. It's a fairly new cartoon and I'd say it's pretty good! If you haven't seen it I'd recommend it. To simplify things let's just say it's a fantasy story about super powered soccer playing, in other words every player has some kind of magic power they use to play their position.

Fun animation, fun characters, and all that... Just uh, I got a problem with the season finale.

You know how stories sometimes need the hero to do something dramatic and so they have them get provoked or pushed to their limits repeatedly? And then they when they finally break and go wild everyone just ignores the thing that pushed them to the edge in the first place and blame the hero for everything? Like they simply decided to be a jerk that day? Well, that's what happened here.

First off, why doesn't anyone react to the attempt on the hero's life?

Long story short, the hero (Key) is playing against the Bards, a team that's menaced his through the entire season and is coached by a guy who absolutely hates Key because his mother and him were enemies back in the day. Key's team starts to win so the coach gets so pissed off that he runs to the sidelines and shouts, "Take him off the field, permanently!"

Note that while you're allowed to block, disrupt, etc with your powers in-game it's against the rules to directly attack another player. Let alone attempt to inflict a terrible injury or death on them.

Regardless, one of the Bards decide to take him up on it and uses magnetism to lift Key into the air and then slam him into the ground hard enough to make a crater while shouting, "You want to be like your mother, well she's dead! Why don't you join her!!!!!"

Okay so the Bards have now just attempted to murder their competition in front of a crowd while screaming their intentions the whole time. How does everyone react?

-The other coaches say nothing.

-The rest of the Bards don't react.

-Heck, you don't even see a reaction from Key's own teammates and friends. They don't respond in the slightest to an assault on their friend.

Why? Well, because that'd get in the way of what happens next!

Why is everyone so much more horrified by the hero accidentally injuring the guy who just attempted to kill him?

Fortunately for Key, his powers activate on instinct, mitigating the damage and also amping him up. And so he... takes a shot at the goal instead of retaliating on his assailant and scores. However it turns out he put so much juice into it that he ends up injuring the guy by accident.

Now THAT suddenly provokes a reaction from everyone. The coaches look on in horror. His teammates stare at him like he's a menace to society. The guy who tried to kill him looks at him like he just can't believe the hero would do that to him. Key himself runs off in tears and no one attempts to console or at least calm him down.

The only person who follows him is the coach who ordered his death in the first place and Key's father who himself was horrified by what he saw (but didn't react to the attempt on his sons life).

Okay, here's the thing...

-Does it make sense for Key, a character who has a good heart and struggled to control his powers the whole season to be horrified upon learning he accidentally injured someone? Yeah, it does.

-Does it make sense for the villainous coach to ignore logic and condemn him, and for the distraught hero to wonder if he's right? Yeah, makes sense to me.

-Is it weird that the attempt on his life was used to instigate this conflict only for everyone to not react to it, as though it never happened? Yes, very much so. It's pretty important context.

-Is it weird that everyone has the same reaction? Yes, why did neither his teammates nor his father react with horror when Key was attacked but suddenly gasp in horror at him. Why are none of them more concerned for HIS health given they might not know he didn't take much damage from the attack?

What I'm trying to say is, this conflict COULD work, if people reacted to events with some level of consistency. If an accidental injury is considered horrifying than an attempted murder should be even more horrifying to them. It should also cause some to decide the injured party had it coming or that Key did the right thing. The hero can still have the same conflict without everyone else acting dumb.

Look..not everyone is going to vibe with that one character or like that one media and that is completely fine.

Sometimes the media doesn't vibe with you or sometimes you just don't really like it or cause it's flaws are too big to ignore and that's all fine and good cause different opinions exist and things are all good.

But I dunno,sometimes it just feels like people are just making up non-existent issues to dislike a show or character and I mean full on fabrication and lies and borderline bullshit cause instead of just being like "hey,I don't really vibe with this character or media and it's not my thing" the reason they dislike them or it has always gotta be some straight up Bullshit and I get that's "Slander" but it's still extremely stupid and I don't mean it lightly I just mean really brutally honest.

Cause it's not enough for someone to just dislike a character or media,they have to make up reasons to try and "justify" their dislike for it and that includes trying to make the creator of said media or the character they dislike into some bad and awful human.

First example is the rampant amount of Yuta slander and some of it ranges from kinda chuckle-worthy to "what manga/anime did you even watch to come to that conclusion"(such as calling him "boring" or a "Gary Stu" or whatever)all of it is just really dumb but what really makes me wanna rip my hair out is when people started calling Yuta a Pedophile or Groomer and comparing him to real life groomers and child predators and even slave owners and call me "woke" if you want but I think comparing a fictional character to real life awful people genuinely is horrible and makes you come off as a asshole.

Another example is Batman and again, it's not just the fact that they don't like him,they gotta find the dumbest reasons to hate on him,like "oh he's just a rich person beating up the mentally ill" or "he would sacrifice his kids to save the Joker" and a bunch of bad takes and I dunno if it's just cause he's been overexposed or what but I feel like if you don't like him,you just don't like him.

That's valid but you don't have to full on make up arbitrary reasons to dislike a character.

My final example is Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss and those 2 shows are controversial for some weird reason cause not only are you vilified for liking them and people call it "quality-slop" or "Yaoi-slop" or just "slop" in General(like dude,it's 2026,you can say you just don't like it)but it also feels like people just wanna make up shit about the show and Vivziepop in general to justify their dislike for it such as calling her a racist or a misogynist or transphobic or a rape apologist/fetishist(which is..really fucking awful considering she was a abusive relationship survivor and do was Sam Haft,the guy who wrote the Songs)or Hitler or a feitshiszer and just a bunch of dumb things.

You..you guys are aware you can not like a show without making up stuff about it and shows do have flaws and issues that tend to get in a way of enjoying said media and that's fine.

People aren't gonna like a show or character or any other media for different reasons and that's fine but at the same time,making up arbitrary and even non-existent issues to dislike something or someone is really stupid cause again,you can just..dislike said media.

That's fine,it's 2026.

So the more someone knows about a series the better they are able to discuss the material. In fact they are able to infer other things that may be true in the series.

For example in Naruto people can mix elemental releases to form new elemental releases. We also know while rare you can mix three elemental releases somehow. Knowing this a mixture of fire, earth, and water should be possible however its unlikely anyone in universe has it since only someone ridiculously strong has shown to use more than a combination of two releases.

This is supported by information in the text.

Frieren doesn't tell the audience enough to make inferences it just tells you what it needs to get you to go along with its premise.

For example demons "what do demons eat if they do not have humans to eat?" Literally no answer to this question. We do not know because its not related to the plot. Problem is is that would be important to understanding how demons work. Because if there are OTHER prey animals that demons eat do demon feel the intense urge to wipe them out as well?

Another thing is Frieren's magic system which has some explanation but not really delving into what actually allows people to cast a spell. One problem is that some magic users can see a spell and immediately know how to replicate it which means at least some mechanisms of magic is visible yet it took decades for mages to copy one spell from a demon and that same demon copied defensive magic in a few seconds(although didn't master it fast enough to use it). Its odd that in order to copy spells you have to either do decades of research, read a book, or just copy it from looking.

The reason why discussion about the analogies and themes of stories is hard is because theres no real depth to the world.

Edit: if you do not understand how what demons eat relates to their point in the story then you probably don't think very hard about things.

If demons treat all creatures they eat the same way they treat humans then that means to a demon a human is no more than a pig. If a demon treats humans worse than other prey that means demons have a natural hatred of humans. If demons are nice to everything but humans that means they don't view humans as prey but rivals.

This may sound really weird but my overall point is this.

I don't mind flawed characters,they could be likable or unlikable or whatever but flawed characters are almost always a interesting aspect of every media.

And here's the thing, you can have a flawed character and still have them be interesting or at least have their flaws be addressed/the main point but what gets annoying and I mean Really annoying is when a character is flawed and instead of those issues and flaws being called out or addressed in any sort of meaningful way, the story either ignores them or glazes them.

You can have a character change for the better or for the worst or not change at all or whatever but what you can't do is not have a character's flaws be called out or addressed like...at all or instead their flaws are just brushed to the side.

I'm not asking for a Family Guy style cutaway Gag where the characters spend hours calling out other characters flaws and whatnot but acting like they're these comedic little quirks or like they're just not there is sloppy writing.

It's even worse when said character gets glazed constantly in spite of how much of a fuck up they are and how many mistakes they make and the story never actually calls them out or holds them accountable at all for their flaws and any time the story tries to push back, it just..doesn't and makes you feel like the asshole.

The first example of this one is Oden from One Piece and genuinely..that guy is such a fucking Selfish Cunt and it's not even the fact that he's just incredibly selfish and naive but it's the fact that the story goes out of its way to MEAT MUNCH him every chance he gets,including having him go to the brothels before his double digits and even basically having him kidnap fully grown Adult Woman at 15 to add to his Harem(the line "oh but they were free to leave" feels like weak damage control from Oda)and basically starting a Harem war and doing all this shit that felt like overly Glaze.

Even more annoying is when you think about it,pretty much all of Wano going wrong was his fault cause he had the allies and tools needed to stop Kaido(Whitebeard even said he wouldn't forgive anyone who makes the family Go Hungry AND he considered Oden his brother + Roger would also gladly help)and it's like Luffy said to Vivi,wantint to go into a war and expect nobody to die is extremely Naive and people are gonna person but this utter dumbass decides instead of asking for help on his really powerful allies and friends who would gladly drop what they're doing to help..he decides to dance naked for hours with a dumbass smile and basically based his entire country's protection and future of a "trust me,bro" from the villains.

And this wouldn't have happened if he hadn't fucked off from his job to go play Pirate and it's annoying that the story basically glazes him as this legendary hero and badass and ultra Giga Chad and not a selfish and naive dumbass who basically died a failure and his own son had to sacrifice so much of his childhood to clean up his Dumbass Dad's mistakes and bad choices.

Another example is..Chloe Price from Life is Strange and the story never really and very seldomly pushes back on her flaws and she's basically a asshole who blames her issues on everyone else and basically doesn't wanna take accountability for her actions and choices and anytime she does make a mistake or awful choice,the story brushes it to the side or never let's her reflect on it and change her as a person or character and she more or less stays the same throughout the story..no overall arc or nothing,just the same blue hair Dick.

The story basically gaslights you into thinking that Max and Chloe's relationship is anything but toxic and there are very little options to push back on Chloe as a person or call her out and it kinda feels like the story is essentially forcing you to like her and that also leads into my final example.

Invisigal from Dispatch.

I dunno who in the writing studio glazes her to a stupid amount but the way that game makes you feel like a asshole for calling her out or pushing back on her flaws is kinda ridiculous.

Hell,you do call out her flaws..one time..in the beginning of the story..and she punches you in the face for it and that's never brought up again nor does she like ever apologize for it nor do any other characters push back on her like "hey,that was kind of a dick move"

Like and this is coming from someone who likes her,the story basically makes you coddle and hold the hand of a almost 30 year old woman cause she has emotional issues and trauma and I would argue calling someone out on their flaws is..you know,showing you care.

Cause if someone's flaws and lashing out to their trauma is hurting you and others and themselves, you are fully within your rights to put your foot down and call them out on it and basically tell them about their self destructive and messy behavior and I'm not gonna blame her for Chase's fate cause that's..dumb but I don't mind flawed characters bur she is just someone who I feel like she should've gotten more push back or flack for her flaws and not constantly but enough to where it doesn't feel like the story is basically shielding her from criticism.

I really,really hate pulling this card but imagine If the genders were reversed and Invisigal was acting like that towards a female Robert, I guarantee you people would be labeling her as a abuser or awful person and I wholeheartedly feel like the only reason she doesn't get more pushback on her flaws is cause she's hot.

This game does this a lot,make you feel like the asshole for calling out people who are assholes to you and you're kinda just supposed to take their BS until they decide to stop being assholes.

I just hate being gaslight.

I made a post about Killmonger, which inspired me to rewatch Black Panther's introductory episode in Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes and how this reminded much better this version was compared to the MCU, not just the character but also how it handles Wakanda.

Here's the thing, I don't expect Wakanda to be an accurate representation of Africa, it was created by two white americans as a fantasy country, and that's how it is portrayed in things like Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Infinity War. The issue in the movie is how it uses a fictional country in Africa to project African American issues onto a different continent with different countries and different issues thus building an incredibly Americanized and, ironically, ignorant view of Africa.

The biggest issue is that Killmonger essentially treats Africa as if it's one unified nation. His worldview assumes that if Wakanda gave its advanced weapons to Africans, they'd all unite behind the same cause. But that's simply not how reality works. Africa isn't a country. It's a continent made up of over 50 independent nations, thousands of ethnic groups, hundreds of languages, and a long history of political, cultural, and territorial conflicts.

And while someone might answer "Yeah, but he's the villain, we're not supposed to agree with him", but the movie doesn't frame it that we should disagree with him because his plan relies on an incredibly ignorant view of the continent in which he projects his own struggles onto a continent that as I said is dealing with a whole set of issues, instead, the movie wants us to disagree with him because his plan is too radical, not because it is based on a fundamental flaw. Before he fights T'challa for the throne he mentions how he killed his "own brothers and sisters in this continent" which is just laughable. Again, he considers them "brothers and sisters" simply on the account of them being Africa, completely ignoring the fact that the only African connection is to Wakanda. Any other country is a completely different culture.

The movie, not just Killmonger treats Africa as if the entire continent was a monolith, and while not expecitly stated, it also treats as if Wakanda had an obligation to fix the issues created by savery and colonialism, in other words fixing the mess created by European and other African nations specifically because they were an African country. A good example of this is with Killmonger's "my ancestors..." which completely ignores that said ancestors had nothing to do with Wakanda

I'm gonna go on a small tangent and acknowledge that I was wrong to say that Killmonger's motivation makes him a bad villain. He's actually pretty entertaining when he's onscreen and his motivation could've been good if the characters bothered to acknowledge that his motivation is wrong because it projects his own upbringing into an entire continent that has different issues and different cultures. The problem is, it doesn't do that in any meaningful way, the movie ends with T'challa realizing because of Killmonger that he needs to open up Wakanda, even though Killmonger should make him double down on Wakanda's isolation, because look how much trouble 2 foreigners who knew about Wakanda caused. Not only that, he opens up Wakanda's first embassy in Killmonger's neighborhood and all the other kids seeing his super cool spaceship.

There are also a few smaller things that drive this home like T'challa having a very stereotypical accent even though he traveled the world like Batman, meaning he shouldn't have that accent and Shuri calling Ross colonizer even though Wakanda never faced any sort of colonialism

Charles Soule is widely considered by many to be the best comics writer of the new Star Wars canon, and his Vader run is usually considered to be his magnum opus. This means that I usually get laughed out of the room when I say that I generally don't like Soule’s writing and find his Vader to be “fine” at best. But one element I don't like about the run, is how Vader is written.

Unlike heroes like Luke or villains like Palpatine, Darth Vader isn't a completely clean cut character. He's a ruthless, iconic villain who has done many horrible things, but he's also someone capable of eventually choosing redemption. He's a tricky character to write because he's by far the most three-dimensional character in the saga. And what he would and wouldn't do can be up to interpretation.

To me, an integral component of Vader is his underlying sense of humanity. He's “more machine than man”, but there's still a bit of man inside him. He's supposed to be someone who buries his humanity and empathy deep down because he can't afford to succumb to them. He's ruthless, but more in a robotic, methodical way. Most of the time, he uses the amount of violence necessary to further his own ends. The EU highlights this by having him tell Dengar that, unlike The Emperor, he only kills when he needs to, never for pleasure. In my opinion, he should be ruthless, but he shouldn't be unnecessarily sadistic or cruel for the sake of cruelty. Because deep down, he's just a broken, miserable, pathetic man who wants redemption but doesn't have the strength or courage to seek it because he thinks he's too far gone. He's alive purely because of stubbornness, pride, and -after Luke shows up- hope.

In my mind, an early Vader would be at his most conflicted, and he would find burying Anakin's empathy and humanity more difficult than ever in his early days. In Randy Stradly’s Dark Times, Vader is still portrayed as largely villainous, but you also get the moment where he's disturbed by The Empire's use of slaves and Palpatine’s justification for it. It shows that he struggles to let go of Anakin's goodness, especially his empathy towards people whose plight he could identify with.

Soule’s Vader run largely does the opposite of that. It edgelords Vader into an utterly irredeemable monster who isn't much more than a sadistic, brutal killing machine, and one who murders villagers and Clonetroopers for no reason, kidnaps babies, and more. It's a run that contributes to the mischaracterization of Vader as an uber powerful and “badass" killing machine and not much else. Soule's Vader is more wild and angry. More reckless. More arrogant.

This…isn't an invalid take. You could make a case that Vader throwing himself into murder and cruelty is how he copes with his situation and how he distances himself as much as possible from Anakin. This is a Vader whose pain and rage is raw and new. A wild flame that hasn't yet been honed with discipline into the precise weapon that we see in the original trilogy. And Soule’s Vader does get a moment that hints at his deeply suited desire for redemption when he corrupts/bleeds his kyber crystal, which I actually quite appreciated.

However, it still isn't a take I like, and I hate how so many people worship that run because Vader gets “cool" and “badass" moments. In my opinion, It is far from the most nuanced or interesting take on Vader, and I much prefer the idea that early Vader started out more conflicted, only to grow more ruthless with time. That is, until Luke's arrival brought back the conflict and confusion inside him. Ultimately, it's subjective, but I always much preferred Kieron Gillen's take on Vader because I felt it captured every aspect of his character well, and contributed more to his story.

And to clarify, I am not trying to pretend that Vader wasn't a monster who had murdered, oppressed, and tortured many people to further his and the Empire's goals, all while being complacent in crimes like Alderaan. But ultimately, I don't think the original trilogy portrays Vader as a one-dimentional form of evil. Star Wars operates under the idea that evil is pathetic and self-destructive, which is why RotJ peels back the curtain and reveals Vader to ultimately be a man chained to his master and the dark side by his own cowardice. He is not a man who enjoys evil, rather he hates himself for being a monster. It is that guilt, self-loathing, and remorse that makes Vader capable of repentance. It is what remains of his former humanity. If he's someone who tortures babies and kills refugees for shits and giggles, then he's not really the man we see in RotJ.

Vader is evil. But he's not the Emperor. And he can be a

evil while being slightly morally nuanced, instead of a one-dimentional thug. I have generally come to dislike Vader's portrayal as a "hype moments and aura" villain who shows up to aura farm and looks badass, because that's not what he was in the original trilogy.

Me and my friends were laughing our asses off at work overthinking the Willy Wonka verse and one thing that has always bothered me is the way they portrayed Augustus Gloop.

The movie makes it seem like all the kids and parents are awful except for Charlie representing sins like greed, pride, envy, wrath and Augustus being Gluttony. While Mike, Violet and Veruca are genuine brats, Augustus biggest crime is…being fat. First off, Augustus ain’t even fat, actually look at scenes with him next to Wonka and he is tall as shit for his age. The actor grew up to be like 6 ft 8. and everyone in this movie goes out of their way to frame his as some gross glutton.

Imagine after you win a sweepstake, reporters are annoying your family during a breakfast day out. Get your cameras out of my face, no wonder Mr Gloop ate their microphone. Augustus seems like a nice kid in the original, so in the remake they had to make him rude as well. Of course the irony is that Augustus falls into the chocolate river, his gluttonous nature being his undoing.
Actually think about the scenario they set up to make Augustus look like a glutton. Wonka has a whole room made of candy and then tells the kids to dig in. No kid is gonna “save room for later”, it’s a candy factory you’re expected to pig out. All the other kids are doing the same thing, tasting everything in sight, but just because Augustus is big they had Godzilla music when he was eating. Then he falls into the river but in the og we can all see Wonka give him a push. I don’t think we ever see the kids at the end, they’re probably all fucking dead.

So from Augustus perspective, he’s told to dig into a room made entirely of candy but Wonka conveniently forgets to tell him not to drink the chocolate river and he falls in. Then a group of short orange men have a whole diss track ready on how fat he is. The hypocrisy of this is insane. Not only are the Oompa Loompas in the original movie all fatter than Augustus but they literally formed a culture around chocolate. They’re the biggest candy makers in the world, it’s their fault kids are fat. This is like a drug dealer judging me for smoking weed.

I know the movie is technically not out yet but Idk. Here we go.

What I really loved about the movie was that there was no stupid unnecessary drama between the MCs. At this point in time we are basically used to the formula that if when in a medium the if the MC gets together with the FMC there will be some kind of unnecersarry drama or misunderstanding going on. Even older Movies Like Mask of zorro has this problem. I could probably name like every cartoon show and most mangas.

But this movie did none of that. The first time Aang Meets Katara they hug and kiss. They support each other and there was not a single instance of toxicity between them. Which would be really stupid after all they've been through. But It still happens so many times in other mangas/books/shows, which often feels out of character and is often only used by the author to create "filler drama" or have a reason for characters to split.

They also didn't try to reinforce unnecersarry drama in the gang itself. If it would be another franchise then Aang would have go on a search for the Staff solo because he "wouldn't want to burden his friends" or some bullshit. And then would have to be rescued and scolded in the "you know you can trust on us" manner. But here Aang straight up goes "this might be to hard for me, better call all my TRUSTED friends immediately. They know they all have each others back and never question it. There is not a single "remember we are family" moment. They simply live it.

After the three books they are matured characters who have their shit sorted out, and it is really refreshing to actually see that in the movie. Everyone feels like an actual Adult with high emotional Intelligence. They don't always have to agree on everything but if shit goes rough there is no hesitation.

Also all in all just a banger movie. Plot wasn't too crazy but it looked gorgeous, music was fire and the animation/fights were top notch.

Grievous is a very polarizing character. In his introduction in the 2003 Clone Wars series, he was a largely silent Jedi killer who fought a 5v1 without breaking a sweat. Then in the 2008 Clone Wars series, he turned into more of a conniving Saturday morning cartoon villain.

To be honest, I feel the later iterations improved Grievous with his personality. Making him considerably more psychopathic and unhinged.

In the original Battlefront II, one of his voice lines is "your screams are like music to my audio receptors!" which is such an amazing line. Funny enough, I feel it fits what 2003 Count Dooku said, to constantly pressure and make the Jedi afraid so they can't call on the force. If I heard a 3 meter cyborg scream that, I'd be on edge.

One of my favorite appearances of Grievous is in Tales of the Empire, where he appears to attack a group of Nightsisters. After a brief fight with one, he finishes her off in front of her daughter. He then begins laughing hysterically, mockingly screaming her last words at her daughter as she runs. That's some horror movie stuff, and it's great.

Like, that's a personality Grievous needs. The same man who takes weapons, robes, and even the hair off his victims. The man who has multiple rooms in his home as a shrine to himself. Grievous is deranged, and he's at his best when it's fully leaned into.

the boruto community is wrong about everything

and nothing they say is true

--

manga said naruto surpasses delta

and naruto held back

boruto community says nah bro their equal

manga says mamushi clones are equal in power

fans go nah, their weaker

boruto fans are just like opposite day everything they think is opposite to the truth

most factually accurate take is always the opposite of what they think

i think flat earthers get more things right then boruto fans

There’s genuinely little to no universe where Thor should ever lose to Hulk if I’m being honest. Thor has better speed, more abilities, is an INFINITELY better fighter in terms of skill, and just has more overall advantages. The only area that Hulk beats him out on ever is physical strength and even then it’s not some night and day difference. Thor can at least keep up even if weaker.

It’s straight up IN Thor’s narrative to beat than Hulk, it’s part of the reason why Stan Lee created him. I like how in the MCU they made it pretty clear that Thor is just way stronger and in the comics during banner of war, there’s this whole monologue about how the ONLY reason why it’s ever been close is because Thor is humble and merciful.

If we part from the premise that the Steve that left with the stones at the end of "Endgame", the old Steve, and the Steve from "Doomsday" is the same person and not some variant shenanigans, I'd argue that his appearance in Doomsday, forever ruins his choice to pass the Captain America mantle to Falcon.

Because, unless he never interacts with Sam or Bucky during the entirety of Doomsday (which I doubt) him seeing Sam succeeding him, means that he knew, decades before he made the choice, that Sam would be his successor, forever ruining the implication that he himself made the choice based on Sam's "worthiness", if you will.

For now implies that he didn't give the shield to Sam because he wanted to, rather because he had to, given that in a way, he saw his own future? So unless they are to address it (which I doubt they will) they have pre-determined Steve to make a choice, completely removing his agency.

Last week I started reading The Alchemist. To be honest, Santiago's journey was one of the most boring stories I've read. But as I kept reading, I couldn't stop thinking about Griffith from Berserk.

By the time I finished the book, I came away with a strange conclusion: Griffith embodies the principles of The Alchemist better than Santiago does. The only thing missing from Coelho's philosophy is a serious discussion of morality.

I wrote a short essay exploring this idea. I'd love to know if you think I'm completely wrong or if there's actually something to this.

https://rohankumarreddy.substack.com/p/griffith-did-almost-everything-paulo

So I started to watch “My Adventures with Superman” recently because of the new episodes coming out and I wanted to check it out.

For reference I am Vietnamese and was adopted as a baby in the U.S. to a white family and I relate to Clark so much.

-I don’t have any memories of my country of birth like Clark because I did not form memories yet.

-Clark fells uncomfortable not being the same as his parents.

-His parents love him and try their best to make him feel normal.

-Culturally and Mentally the same as everyone around him but is viewed differently for being born from another place.

When people ask Superman about Krypton, it reminds me of people asking me about my background and where I am born. I know where I was born but I don’t know anything about it really because I grew up in the U.S.

Superman has such a specific background and mine being similar to it is very strange.

I know the bad track record of the MCU is another major issue but while watching the trailer, I personally felt the real problem was about the plot.

All the trailer and by extension Thor himself does is hyping up this new threat that is Dr. Doom. (Omg a threat bigger than anything the heroes had faced before? ) Thor saying that instead of petty fighting (Heroes not getting along in an Avengers movie? No way) they have to team up (They have to put aside their differences and work together? Never seen before!) In order to defeat Doom.

I know my sarcastic remarks can be implied for most stories but the Avengers movies follow such a repeated formula that it's exhausting to see another one of these with no variety.

We already know Avengers, F4 and X-men are going to fight instead of focusing on Doom. We know they will lose the third act fight to Doom because no shit it's a two parter so the first movie will glaze Doom just like it did Thanos in Infinitly war then the second movie will have Avengers rise from their lowest point and eventually defeat Doom just like Endgame.

I think beyond the bad writing, there is another reason to this fatigue and that's the fact that the novelty is entirely gone. A crossover like Infinitly war or hell even the Avengers 2012 was an unbelievable pop culture milestone at the time. If you told someone from 2009 that there will be a movie with Ironman, a norse god, a wizard and a CGI Racoon fighting against a purple alien warlord and it would be the highest grossing movie of the year too, they wouldn't believe that.

Now the crossovers are done, they don't feel impossible anymore. If someone from the future told me that in 2035 they made a Avengers vs Justice League movie, I would totally believe.

So now that both the writing is bad and the gimmick of the Avengers movies has wore off, there is nothing new this movie has to offer to make audience exited. It's just stuff happening and you already know how it will be end. Doomsday just looks like Infinitly war but bigger and that's not enough anymore in big 2026.