When a character is called out for something that can be seen as cowardly, they often either care too much and go with it out of anger, or DON’T care! I love when they don’t care and do it anyway.

Kyoya calls out Ryuga for always relying on the power he’s stolen from others, and says if Ryuga has any pride, he’d use his own natural ability. Kyoya’s not exactly the shining example of this, but he’s willing to do the same here, because he refuses to be taken down by borrowed power.

“Did you really think I’d fall for such an obvious taunt?”

“Who knows?” (This was Kyoya’s original answer, in dub he said “well, yeah!”)

“I accept!”

From then on, it’s one EPIC clash after another without any special moves……until L-Drago’s dark spirit realizes he may not win like that and takes over Ryuga. Anyway, I love that Ryuga was aware but accepted the challenge anyway. Because let’s be honest, it’s blatantly unfair to have your power, your very essence stolen with every impact. I had more respect for Ryuga for rising to the challenge.

In Batman the Brave and the Bold, Batman called Darkseid out for hiding behind his godly powers even when facing a mere mortal. Darkseid instantly recognizes the taunt, but he realizes it’s been ages since he’s fought physically, and it sounds fun, so he accepts. He then admits that it was exhilarating. Surely throwing punches is more fun than staring in someone’s general direction and blasting them.

Sometimes it’s not stupidity, but a warrior’s pride or for your own enjoyment.

“Oh hahhaa some dude hated the character suuure you did 😉”

No, you dont get it you cannot even slightly fathom the absolute gutteral hatered i have for this repugnant vile inhuman piece of fat lard garbage

To begin, his whiney annoying bad shit babbling voice constantly shredding my ear cannal with his moaning and bitching about his pathetic sad lonely life and how his mommy treats him unfair, despite having a clear full belly and getting a good education with a group of friends, so immediately he is a ungrateful piece of shit

He might honestly be the most evil Disney character to have ever existed, he id a coward, fat, annoying, and he is a sexual deviant who manipulates vulnerable women

Oh yea, lets talk about that, so foxy loxy is a bully no doubt about it but FIRSTLY she is a child who probably feels pressure from not only baseball but the entire town seeing her as there only way of winning, this isn’t defending her this is just a explanation

But after she is kidnapped and driven insane by the aliens she mentally and physically breaks into a dittsy labotamized version of herself

But here comes this fat lard piece of pig fucking garbage FUCKING SHIT, “no shes perfect” taking and making this poor girl his personal fucking toy

I know this movie lets alot of shit slide, but where are this girls parents? Why is no person stopping this lard from taking advantage of a mentally disabled women, genuinely runt might be the most evil character to have been in Disney and worst of all he gets CELEBRATED, HE IS LITTERALLY THE Epstein OF DISNEY

At least with frodo he does not succeed in his assault on Esmeralda, this film too me is essential making frodo win and get celebrated its fucking infuriating

I know foxy was a brat and a jerk, but she did absolutely not deserve to be this PIECE OF SHITS personal toy for the rest of her life, i mean for fucks sake man what is this injustice why does this repugnant villain get his comeuppance, why not let him die a miserable death alone and starved the miserable fuck

I hope everything in the terrifier movies happens to this pig, i hope everything he has done to foxy happens to him, i hope he knows just how fucking utterly pathetic and smal-i mean FAT AND UNNATRACTIVE AND SHIT SMELLING FUCK he is that he needs to kidnapp and ruin a kidnapping victim in order to feel some pathetic joy

He is like Beatrices dad from bojack horsemen, except if he was fucking annoying and fat

I hate this movie, its morally disgusting, and i know buck is the most hated but this FUCKING PIG deserves far worse, at least buck tried to be good at the end, this pig never gets a punishment and gets praised in universe

I hope there is a second chicken little movie but he fucking dies, i hope its a hour long movie where he crashed a car and died and foxy gets the healing she needs, and this fat fuck gets eaten by coyotes

And your probably thinking “damn dude your exactly right this pig sucks” THANK YOU, i know right? He does suck and he deserves a terrible death! Like hanging,decapitation, i would not eat him i would probably throw up since hes so fucking fat

I also wanted to talk about his character design, it sucks and hes ugly, thats it

Twords the beginning of the movie chicken little accidentally pulls the fire alarm, runt did not defend or help his friend in any way shape or form, even though he saw what happened, runt is a fucking coward

He is also a violent freak, when he beat up the soda machine and had his temper tantrum m, it shows he is a emotionally stunted strong man child, sorta like homelander but more evil

Also keep in mind his own mother named him runt, his own mother can see the absolute detestable his bile that she unwittingly helped to bring into the world, she may not legally be allowed to kill him but she can sure make him suffer, kinda like how thanos mom tried to kill him when he was a baby

Like genuinely, does anyone even slightly like this character? He is evil, selfish, cowardly, rapist, abuser, man child, sexist, PIG, ugly, and worst of all hes not even considered a villain

Hey villains wiki, why in the FUCK is this dude (and buck for that matter) not on the wiki? They are absolutely fucking evil enough and deserve a slot there, was very disheartening to see such a repugnant monster on the hero’s wiki

Im so sorry to steve zahn, he doesn’t deserve to be tied with this..creature this monster, this demon

……….man…side note, its so sad how this movie turned out, i would seriously recommend looking at the beta footage for this movie because holy shit it was going to be something good, no idea what happened man but this fucking sucks so bad

Like no joking for a sec, its kinda wild how evil the pig is, like unironically its disgusting Disney did that shit

A sliding timescale (also known as a floating timeline) is a device used in fiction, particularly in long-running comics and animation which has characters age little or not at all while the setting around them remains contemporary to the real world. The best examples of this are Marvel and DC comics along with TV shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy. The problem arises when you have a a real life historical event as part of a character's backstory since the further we get away from that event the more implausible that said character was involved in it barring special circumstances like immortality or time travel.

A minor example is Kate Kane AKA Batwoman, whose backstory involves being forced to leave West Point since she was outed as a lesbian. At the time of her debut the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy was used to discharge openly gay soldiers from the military until it was repealed in 2011. Eventually we will get to the point where the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy would have been repealed long before Kate was born, meaning you would have to change her backstory so that she was either never kicked out of West Point or she was kicked out for a different reason.

Tony Stark's original backstory involved being captured by insurgents during the Vietnam War and building a mechanical suit to escape, thus starting his journey as the superhero Iron Man. However as the decades went on the country that Tony was captured in was changed to a fictional one called Siancong since by the mid 90s, the Vietnam War would been over for about 20 years. The MCU has Tony's origin take place during the Afghanistan War in order to make it contemporary to the debut of the first Iron Man movie.

Abe Simpson from The Simpsons is shown to have fought in World War 2 during his youth. When The Simpsons first aired in the late 80s/early 90s, it was fairly plausible for someone to be old enough to have young grandkids yet old enough to have served during World War 2. As we move further away from those events it starts to become less plausible for Abe to still be alive in the present day.

One of the biggest examples of this issue lies with Magneto whose origins are tied to the Holocaust. In the late 2000s it would have been plausible for someone who was a child during WW2 to still be alive in the present day. Eventually as the decades go on it would become impossible for someone who lived through the Holocaust to still be alive in the present day. Captain America doesn't have this problem since despite his origins being tied to WW2, you can just extend the amount of time he was frozen. One way to deal with this is to give Magneto some sort of mutation that slows down his aging like with Wolverine, who lived through both World Wars and even the US Civil War due to his healing factor giving him a greatly extended lifespan. Another way to deal with it is to have Magneto's backstory be related to a genocide in a fictional country, but at the same time that would lessen the emotional impact since Magneto's origins would no longer be connected to one of humanity's darkest events, which is what made it so iconic in the first place.

There is nothing inherently wrong with sliding timescales but when you include a real historical event into a character's story it eventually becomes an unintentional period piece rather than something timeless. Unless a character has a good reason for being alive for so long it becomes harder to believe they were involved in certain events as time goes on.

Nowadays, as I scroll through lists of recent cartoons, I sometimes just sigh.

Look at Netflix’s Maya and the Three. The show is fun, I’m enjoying the story, but……why does it have to look like that? I was never a fan of the art style it uses.

I love Owl House and Kid Cosmic and stuff, but you know what art style I really love?

ATLA/Korra

Chaotic seasons 2 and 3.

Thundercats 2011 (this specifically. It’s SO good)

That art style is downright AMAZING! It’s beautiful, it’s vibrant, it’s expressive, it just makes me want to keep watching!

I saw that Thundercats 2011 was on D+ and the art style looked appealing. Plus, I remember seeing it in the same commercial as Young Justice a long time ago, so yesterday, I thought I’d give it a shot. Granted, the show got screwed over and it REALLY underutilized the 2 most fun characters, but that style? It’s awesome! Actually, the style just makes me more disappointed that the twins were used so little! They’re so cute and fun to watch!

Meanwhile, look at so many recent Netflix cartoons, like Wizards of Arcadia, He-Man, Daniel Spellbound, My Dad the Bounty Hunter, Samurai Rabbit (on another note, the animation is so stiff it makes the fights slow and boring), etc. Styles like that just seem to dominate a lot more lately except in certain teen and adult stuff.

The Western anime-esque style from around 15 years ago is awesome. In fact, imagine if the Percy Jackson show was styled like that! With a premise as magical and imaginative as PJO, it seems like a real missed opportunity!

Spoilers.

This is probably the most controversial song to come out of the entire musical, and for good reason. Poseidon's threat feels massively diminished, Odysseus physically overpowering him seems almost absurd, and the 3d animation of the official animatic was...a bit rough. All of these are real problems, but I think only the last was really unavoidable.

Odysseus defeating Poseidon is not bad in-concept. Mortals defeating deities is not unheard of in Greek mythology, most notably in The Iliad with Diomedes triumphing over Ares and Aphrodite, but in The Odyssey itself Odysseus is able to overcome Circe's magic with Hermes's help. Diomedes also had help from a god, in his case Athena, and you should already see where I'm going with this. If Odysseus had a similar divine backing - and at this point in the story he definitely had Athena and Hermes by his side, and possibly Apollo, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Ares, and Zeus - then him overcoming Poseidon isn't hard to imagine at all. Someone even had the idea of having Hades be one of the gods that Athena has to convince in "God Games" so that he could be the one to let Odysseus's men briefly return.

All of these are good ideas but unfortunately...we don't get any indication that there is a god at play other than Odysseus having diegetic background vocals. Odysseus just somehow uses the wind bag (the less we talk about that animation the better) to overpower Poseidon. Somehow. Without actual confirmation of the presence of another deity to assist him, this just makes Poseidon look like a huge pussy. It doesn't make Odysseus look that cool either, just inexplicably overpowered.

Also, the song is just too short and has very little to give itself any kind of unique identity. This is Odysseus's most climactic fight, but there's no unique verses or chorus, there's no callback to previous epic fight songs like "Survive" or "Remember Them", there's not even really anything besides a somewhat weak reprise of "Full Speed Ahead" combined with some electric guitar. And the actual fight-part of the song only goes on for less than a minute and a half. I hate to say it, but that's just...disappointing. Poseidon deserves more and Odysseus deserves more. I can't believe that two tracks earlier we had an incredibly powerful, rousing piece about how determined Odysseus is when he's fighting a characterization-less sea monster, yet we get nothing as musically impactful when he's fighting Poseidon himself.

It just needed more. I don't want the climax of such an incredible musical to be so weak. If Jorge Rivera-Herrans needs to take several months or even a year to go back to the drawing board, I'm 100% okay with that. I think the best thing the community can do right now is to give him and his team constructive, thought-out feedback about what worked, and what didn't so that EPIC can be the best that it can be.

Every once in a while I see people saying that King Candy is Disney's best twist villain (or something along those lines) and I just groan for a very simple reason: King Candy is not a twist villain, he is a villain with a twist attached to him. There is a difference.

Twist villains (at least how I understand the term) are characters who are revealed to be a villain later in the story, or are shown to have villainous intentions.

King Candy, from the first scene we see him, I'd immediately shown to be antagonistic toward Vanellope along with all the other kids. Later in the movie he tries to convince Ralph he's actually trying to protect her, only for Ralph to later realize he was lying. Aside from that scene of him talking to Ralph about Vanellope he was always acting villainous (or at least antagonistic) toward the main characters (like when he decided to put Ralph into his fungeon). Him being a villain is made especially apparent when Ralph learns what he did to Vanellope.

Later on, we get the twist that King Candy was actually Turbo the whole time. But the twist isn't that he is a villain, since he was already acting like a villain throughout the whole movie.

TLDR: King Candy is not a twist villain, he's a villain with a twist.

personally i think the whole head popping, that's small thinking. what they don't consider.... is neuman using her powers to increase blood flow to john's cock. giving him deadly priapism. it's perfect. no suspicions either. John would simply think he's a stud, that he's that guy. dead within hours.

to be honest everyone downplays Victoria the writers, herself, powerscalers, even the fans. all the possibilities of blood manipulation,  ability to control the blood of anyone in her sight. levitating blood from her own wound. Endless possibilities. forget homelander, Forget soldier boy, and all those other supes.

Victoria neuman is the supe to end all supes. The boys... not even needed. all the government had to do to get rid of vought was get her on board. you could say the writers wrote themselves into a corner making such a character.

Quick summary: the premise of the the show W.I.T.C.H. is five girls being chosen to defend the Veil, the barrier between various worlds, using a crystal called the Heart of Kandrakar which is the source of their powers. In season 2, the Veil is pulled down and in doing so, the Guardians get a power boost drawn from Kandrakar, the world the Heart originates from. This comes with new abilities that are quite fitting for the girls' personalities and elemental powers.

Will

Will is the Keeper of the Heart and the Guardian of Quintessence, the element of life. While it looks like electricity, it also comes with a number of other powers like speaking to machines and commanding inanimate objects.

While Will isn't great with academics, her power allows her to understand machines in ways no engineer or mechanic ever really will.

Irma

Irma is the Guardian of Water. Her new powers allow to change the color of clothing and influence people's thoughts. These powers complement Irma's water powers as water is the most versatile of the four classical elements. These new powers could also be seen as metaphors for the positive and negative aspects of Irma's personality.

Changing color shows how Irma can be quite adaptable to new situations. She was the most openly friendly of the girls towards Will when the latter moved to town and she was the most excited about being a Guardian. But on the negative side, we see that Irma can be quite bossy as seen in "O is for Obedience" when she goes on a power trip while preparing a concert for her favorite musician.

Taranee

Taranee is the Guardian of Fire and her new power is telepathy. Taranee is the trickiest one as fire and telepathy don't seem to have much in common. Until you remember that fire is a source of light and can even be used for communication (read: smoke signals). Taranee's telepathy is communication through the mind and allows her to see/hear people's thoughts which are invisible to everyone else.

As far as how relevant this is to her personality, Taranee is rather shy and has difficulty communicating her feelings even to her own mother. So a power that lets her read minds and send psychic messages suits her.

Cornelia

Cornelia is the Guardian of Earth and her new power is telekinesis. While telekinesis is control over matter in general, Cornelia (like most telekinetics) uses it primarily to manipulate solid objects. And of course, the most materialistic of the girls has a power that has the most influence on the material world.

Hay Lin

Hay Lin is the Guardian of Air and gains invisibility in the second season. This is the most obvious - air is invisible. There is some irony in how the vibrant and boisterous Hay Lin has the most subtle powers.

Massive spoilers for both, obviously.

So, the final chapters of OnK are coming out and it seems contrary to all expectations there was no copouts or takebacks, Aqua truly did die. End of the line, it's all over.

Akane didn't have a submarine, Papagane didn't have a helicopter, he went out, the Crow girl didn't swoop in to save him. He got his revenge, he drowned, and his death was reported on the news to the shock of all.

I've seen a lot of people reacting to this with disdain and disappointment for his character- he spent a large part of the story and of multiple arcs learning to recognise that he was loved and cared for, that he belonged in this world, that people would be miserable if he died, and that he should live. He starts out obsessed with revenge and committing himself to a murder suicide... learns that's a mistake... and then ends the story by committing a murder-suicide for the sake of his revenge. "What was the point?" I see asked.

And I don't think that's correct.

To illustrate my point, I want to compare it directly to Persona 3. Because, just like in OnK, the protagonist in P3 starts the story without any attachment to life.

This is shown very clearly through the Evoker.

Persona 3 was made in that deliciously edgy early 00's, and while the future games would have the protagonists summon their Persona either through Tarot cards or by ripping off their mask, in Persona 3 you summoned it by shooting yourself in the head. The Evoker is shaped exactly like a gun and to use it you have to point it at your head and pull the trigger.

This isn't just empty symbolism, or rule of cool/edge, this is an intentional act built into the story and it's narrative. The Evoker summons the Persona by forcing the person using it to face and overcome their fear of death. In this they're terrifying and traumatising to use, even those that are used to still find it difficult, to use it effectively you have to constantly look at your own mortality head on and overcome it.

The game starts with a scene of Yukari trying and failing to use it. We see this again in a clutch moment where she and the protagonist are cornered by a powerful shadow... She has an Evoker, she's got the training, if she can summon her Persona she can protect herself... But even in that key moment, pressing a gun to her head, her hands are shaking and she can't pull the trigger. She wants to live, she's too scared to die, she can't face her mortality head on.

And yet, when she drops the gun, the protagonist picks it up and pretty effortlessly uses it, pressing it against his temple and unflinchingly pulling the trigger. With very little fear of death, he can easily summon his Persona and the day is saved.

That's the game's introduction. The protagonist is a disconnected, apathetic young man without any fear of death. At the start of the story he would die for nothing.

From there you go through the story, he builds connections, he fosters relationships, he finds genuine friendship and powerful love and he comes to belong in this world. He isn't aloof, nor is he disconnected, he has friends, he has lover(s), he has a place to belong.

And then it finishes with him sacrificing himself to save everyone. In the final act he burns up his life just as easily as he did at the start. And yet, everything about the context of doing so is different.

At the start he would die for nothing. At the end he dies for something.

That's how I see the point of OnK too.

Aqua at the start felt out of place as a reincarnator and he wanted to set everything right with his revenge, and he was happy to die in the process.

Aqua at the end doesn't kill Kamiki out of revenge, he does so simply to protect Ruby. He isn't committing murder-suicide, he's dying for the sake of someone he loves. He doesn't get himself killed for being out of place, he dies despite wanting to live.

Now, of course, that doesn't necessarily make it a satisfying conclusion.

And it brings back all the other issues of "There must have been better ways to handle that, isn't this guy supposed to be smart?" As well as all the worries about protecting Ruby while leaving her traumatised in the process. Those and any other complaints are absolutely fair and completely reasonable.

I'm only saying that I think the point of OnK isn't to have Aqua regress as a character, but to show how far he's come by putting the same actions in very different context.

(Of course this could instead be more reminiscent of Persona 5 where he simply faked his death, and everyone looking shocked was just acting. We'll see, but for now it seems legit)

Its when someone only knows things relevant to powerscaling. They don't seem to know any element important to the story unless they are directly tied to powerscaling.

Things that are barely present in the source material. Things that a lot of readers/watchers/players would probably forget because they serve little to no purpose in the story. If some randos on the internet knows those things, they're either impressively super nerds or powerscalers.

This can be seen with mainstream media such as Marvel, Doctor Who, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings.

This is also seen with obscure media. And because they are obscure a lot of people don't even know they exist until they pop up in battleboards. But to those who are familiar with those fictional works, it should be kinda obvious when someone hasn't read or watched.

As an example there's this sci-fi series by Stephen Baxter called the Xeelee Sequence. A very pessimistic and bleak space opera filled with interesting ideas and boring characters. Its well known enough in some battleboards that it spawned a battleboarding term, Xeeleestomp.

The overall story of the series is pretty simple. Humans venture into space. They get conquered and ruled by aliens twice. Following this they become xenophobic expansionist exterminating and assimilating everything in their path. Until they run into the Xeelee, godlike cosmic aliens. Humans challenge them, and fight a war spanning hundreds of thousands of years. But they hardly matter to the Xeelee, who are fighting a much greater war against their actual peer opponent, the dark matter aliens called the Photino Birds. The two sides fight for their reality. Humans are eventually stomped back into the solar system. But the Xeelee lose to the Birds and for their kind(and humans and all baryonic organisms) reality is doomed.

So what's important for powerscalers? Obviously they would be most drawn to things indicating the size of the cosmology and the power of the entities involved.

There's a concept called the configuration space. Which only appears briefly in one novel and one short story. Its hardly relevant to the overall story unless you get obnoxiously technical and pedantic. In a sense that technically...everything is happening "in" it. For all intent and purpose its just an exotic place some characters enter to retrieve information. It might as well be random pocket dimension as far as the larger narrative is concerned. But basically its a metaphysical realm where all possible variations of history is symbolically represented. One can warp reality by messing around in there. You can prob see why this would matter to powerscaling. Control this realm, you have multiversal power. Some liberal interpretation of nebulous passage would lead to the conclusion that the Xeelee have some sort of control over this plane. The funny thing is that I'm not sure if the word infinite was ever used to describe this plane. The reason its assumed so is because there are mentions of infinite timelines elsewhere, and this plane is supposed to represent them.

Funnier still, those mentions of infinite timelines come from the teachings of religious group worshipping the Ultimate Observer. Its pretty much the same as verses from in-universe Bible. So are there infinite timelines? Actually it seems like the author did intend that to be the case. If you read Baxter's works, you will notice quickly that some characters are just his mouthpieces for giving expositions. There are things that are just accepted as facts in-universe even though they come from questionable sources. But ofc one would only know this if they actually read. This elaboration is absent whenever powerscalers copy paste quotes from elsewhere.

Meanwhile conversation with powerscalers quickly reveal they don't have understanding of the story. They don't know how this happened, how this led to that. They know bunch of isolated, contextless feats, A did X, B did Y. But not why A did X, or what consequences came from X. Or the order of major events.

Whenever someone says a character is a certain level they never specify that the character can only achieve that level with their strongest attack.

It’s like people saying Palpatine is planet surface level because of force storms without mentioning the fact that he doesn’t scale to that in any other stat.

Most characters aren’t like Goku who can generally take anything he can dish out.

It's been nearly 3 months since BCC dropped its first season on Amazon Prime and whenever I think back to it, I can't help but lament over how unremarkable it was overall.

One of the biggest talking points was its changes to various characters of the mythos, both allies and rogues of Batman. There's too many to list but I'll just say that some were interesting (Two-Face), some were pointless (Penguin), and others were just terrible (Bullock). And I'm just grateful Bruce Timm refrained from shipping Bruce x Barbara... for now at least, though ageing her up to Bruce's age does tell me he may still have plans.

However, the biggest sin of the series in my eyes that I cannot overlook was just how visually bland it is. The series takes the Dark Knight back to his Golden Age roots by setting the story in the 1940s. One of the most popular movements of cinema from that time period was film noir - in particular the detective story. I'm sure you all know the characteristics of the genre: high contrast black and white color grade; dramatic lighting and lots of shadows, fog, and rain; cynical characters in a hopeless world.

It fits the tone of Batman like a glove, and plenty of his comics, shows and movies have taken influence from the genre - Tim Burton's films, Batman: The Animated Series, and, most recently, Matt Reeves' The Batman (2022). However, they are all largely neo-noir - taking partial influence without ever going all in.

BCC would have been the perfect opportunity to do so given its setting... and yet it makes no attempt whatsoever. The grade is in full color, albeit with a pallet more boring than cement; shot composition is largely uninspired; I can't remember it ever fucking raining (though after Arkham Knight and The Batman, I get maybe wanting to dial it down); and at no point does the series make use of shadows - for a Batman story, that latter point has to be a cardinal sin; he IS the shadows! Hell, this would play perfectly into the show placing more focus on the GCPD than Batman as it would present the opportunity of initially presenting him as more of a supernatural force who slowly steps into the light and becomes more human as time goes on and he starts working more closely with the cops, coinciding with Bruce's own arc of learning to become a better hero who can make a difference to the city rather than a vengeful vigilante who preys on criminals.

(edit: and now I'm wishing the first few episodes were entirely from the perspective of the GCPD and criminals, with us seeing Batman and Bruce Wayne as two separate entities to really sell the idea that Batman isn't human, only having them be shown to us as one and the same later on - yeah we all know they're the same guy but give us that feeling of alienation.)

The closest the series comes to going black and white is its opening sequence being unsaturated and then it never touches it for the remainder of its episodes. Now I get not wanting to make a whole series in black and white but would it kill ya to at least take the Sin City route and make it partially so? Just... do SOMETHING cool and creative please!

It all feels so cheap and lazy, made worse that it had to follow the bright and colorful My Adventures with Superman Season 2. I get that Supes is all about that brightness and hope but that doesn't mean Bats should be dull and dreary - you can be dark and exciting at the same time and this just ain't it chief.

And considering both Matt Reeves and Bruce Timm were executive producers, with the latter also being the developer and showrunner, I don't understand how this happened. But it happened and... man what a disappointment.

Lazy profits and failed executions aside, I think remakes are beneficial because we can touch on missed themes or expand on established ones and explore different interpretations. Currently at the Hollywood/AAA level, we retell stories using animation to live-action, the reverse of that, and film to musical etc.

Long story short I want Muppet/Puppet remakes. I want to see flipbook animation remakes. Black & White silent film remakes. Stop motion animation remakes. 2D remakes. Hand drawn remakes. Using primarily practical effects remakes.

Some of these takes are already created in dedicated fandoms using a lower budget. Though recently Adult Swim made this very short Uzumaki claymation. With a brief look I think this style of animation would help capture Junji Ito's horror.

Other than visual retelling, we could create remakes with an entire acoustic OST or focusing only on 1 type of musical instrument like woodwinds and percussion. We could mess around with the tone of the movie similar to what Editing is Everything does with trailers. Where it fits, we could be unserious and swap character abilities just because. We could swap species or gender.

Some examples I think could work but not limited to,

Flipbook Animation: Black Swan, American Psycho,

Muppet/Puppet: Spider-Man, Kill Bill, Cats vs Dogs.

Swap Species: Snow White becomes the Fairest Dwarf and her Seven Humans.

(Sonic and the Black Knight) I do agree with people that Sonic and the Black Knight is one of the best Sonic stories and Merlina is one of my favorite villains but it has one big flaw in my opinion. King Arthur being an illusion makes no sense and hurts the narrative. Before I begin, I have not read the extras that delve into King Arthur’s backstory but I’m not going to because it’s supplementary material so it should not affect my opinion. I’m also not including any differences from the OG Japanese version because the English dub is the default in the United States.

Why King Arthur Being An Illusion Makes No Sense. Webster defines an illusion as; “Something that is believed to be true or real but is false or unreal.” Merlina outright states King Arthur isn't real. King Arthur attacks the player, speaks to the player, summons goons, and has a kid! Are we seriously supposed to believe that an illusion had kids with someone? Is the kid fake too? No matter what the game says, he IS real, and the fact that he disappears when he dies and was created by Merlina’s grandfather doesn't change anything.

Why King Arthur Being An Illusion Wasn’t Needed. Merlina being the villain was already a good plot twist and Sonic becoming the next king instead of “King Arthur.” Would’ve been just, if not more impactful.

Why King Arthur Being An Illusion Hurts The Narrative. Early on in the story, Merlina warns Sonic that if he kills King Arthur he’ll be the worst of knights but he says he can’t be the hero every time. By killing someone who wasn’t real it robs him of the morally dubious action. Granted, he didn’t know he wasn’t real so the story still works, although not as well. It also robs us of the conflict between the knights having to decide between turning against the man who killed their king or siding with him to defeat Merlina and do what’s right. Yes, I know it’s a children’s game but it has the 10+, and darker stuff has been in Sonic before so this doesn't seem like it would be an issue, especially because Gawain nearly kills himself.

Another Issue I Have With The Game That Isn’t Long Enough For a Separate Rant. Another unrelated issue I have that’s too short to make a separate post for is that Caliburn says Lancelot was the closest to King Arthur but we’re never shown anything like that. He’s the first and easiest knight we defeat (well, he has a harder bonus fight but it’s not mentioned in the story so I’m not sure it’s canon) and shows no signs of being more loyal to King Arthur than the others. Hell, Gawain shows more loyalty because he talks about killing himself after losing his fight with Sonic and failing his king. What sucks is that there was missed potential because it would’ve been interesting to see Lancelot be sad over the loss of King Arthur.

I still love the story of the game because of Sonic and Merlina’s characterization, however, these are gripes I've always had with it.

This is gonna hurt... every Gohan fan out there. I may be going down, but I'm bringing this fraud down with me.

Son Gohan, also known by the citizens of Satan City as "The Great Saiyaman", or as I like to call him "Mr. Never Learn Your Lesson." Don't you dare defend Gohan. Everyone who reads this, you are not allowed to defend Gohan on this post, so don't you dare! Gohan watched Cell kill his dad because he was arrogant. He gets strong again to battle Super Buu and what happened? He gets arrogant! And I get it, he was a kid. He got PTSD as a child. Blah blah blah, but......

GROW THE FUCK UP, GOHAN!!!

I'M SORRY TO TELL YOU..... SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE! AND YOU'VE BEEN THE STRONGEST TWICE! AND YOU NEVER HAVE THE DICK AND BALLS TO FINISH THE FUCKING FIGHT!!!

And then they bullshit you by giving you a free extremely powerful form...

YOU! DON'T! DESERVE!!!

"Oh, he's the strongest."

HE CAN SUCK MY DICK!!!

HE DOESN'T DESERVE IT! HE DOESN'T!

"Gohan Beast, oh my God! At this point, it makes him the strongest in the universe."

HE'S BEEN FUCKING TRAINING WITH PICCOLO!!! GOKU AND VEGETA HAVE BEEN TRAINING WITH BEERUS! WHIS! A LITERAL GOD AND ANGEL WITH CENTURIES OF EXPERIENCE!!!

And they give GOHAN the strongest form?! Like, come on! He trained with a Demonic Namekian who's no where near equal in strength to the two strongest beings in the universe. They are the MOST POWERFUL BEINGS in the universe. He trained with PICCOLO. PICCOLO!

Listen... someone drops a car on your foot, okay? You're not gonna be able to pick it up, right? But if you see a car on somebody you love, you might be able to lift it. There is no amount of strength, that'll give you enough power, to lift a motherfucking semi-truck.

Gohan... does not deserve Beast. I don't care how much potential, you think he has... you wan't a news flash? Goten has more potential. Goten is the one character in the show that has more potential than every fucking Saiyan alive. He's the youngest to ever go Super Saiyan 1 and he did it on accident. So why are we still pulling Gohan's dick out and stroking the motherfucker off? He doesn't deserve any of the accolades he's gotten. And JUST to get a new form, fighting a copy and paste android?

Cell Max is Semi-Perfect Cell, just really big, without the cognitive function, and maybe a little bit stronger. Gohan shouldn't have unlocked such a powerful form from an enemy on par with Hirudegarn.

Not only that, Gohan's the main reason Majin Buu got released. Vegeta waited seven years for that rematch with Goku, so their altercation was inevitable. Now, are you all wrong for arguing Vegeta fighting Goku is the reason Buu hatched? You're not wrong at all. But at the same time, I don't give a fuck, because it was absolutely worth it. Vegeta gave us one of the best fights in the series. Vegeta gave us one of the most heartfelt speeches/selfless sacrifices in the history of anime. Vegeta actually had the most character growth out of anyone in the entire Majin Buu Saga. I can't say the same shit about Gohan, though. Gohan got pissy because Spopovich was beating the shit out of Videl (Though, I'm not gonna lie, what he did to her had to be sexist) and he ran up on them and got folded like a calzone.

There are three ways Babidi could've been stopped:

1. If Gohan would've shut up, and not picked a fight with Spopovich and Yamu. Because when he joined the fight, what'd they do? They stabbed him in the stomach.
2. Gohan had many opportunities to vaporize Babidi with a Ki Blast. Many opportnities.
3. And let's not forget what Gohan did when Babidi was summoning Fat Buu.

Bonus: Oh, and we will never forget SUPREME KAI SHIT SHOW!!!

Do you all remember what Gohan said at the end of the Cell Saga? "I'm going to protect the world. So, I'm gonna keep up my strength." He basically said he was gonna protect the world and keep up his strength because his dad was gone. He did no such thing. Gohan was training with Goten. Goten was throwing rocks at him. Hell, when Gohan went Super Saiyan 2 in front of Vegeta, Vegeta was like "You're far weaker than when you were a child." If Gohan kept up with his training properly, he would've killed Dabura in five seconds when he was fighting him. The second Future Trunks beat Dabura in SSJ1 no sweat.

Also, Gohan decided to do the same thing he did with Perfect Cell with Super Buu and played with his food. "I'm not here to fight you. I'm here to kill you." One of the hardest lines in the series and Gohan did not live up to it. When he was pulling up on Super Buu, he was dragging him. People talk about Vegeta being too cocky. Vegeta fucking up. Vegeta being the reason we got Perfect Cell, despite the fact that Krillin was the one who decided to be a simp at the wrong time. The way to stop Perfect Cell was Gohan. And also, they tried to stop Vegeta. Gohan got cocky, when he was the only one who could defeat Cell. Gohan couldn't even catch the Potara Earrings. He is a Saiyan. He moves with all the power in the world. And he has no hand out coordination, all of a sudden?!

In conclusion, Gohan is the biggest fraud in the entire franchise. I don't care what anyone says about Gohan not being a fraud. When it comes to fraud watch in a series, Gohan is the biggest, hands down. People say Goku and Vegeta are frauds. Three times in the entirety of the series, Gohan has become the most powerful mortal in the universe. He's been fighting since he was a kid, so of course he's gonna be as strong as his father. He's fighting people his father as an adult was fighting. Of course he would be strong. But when it comes time to deliver, he never delivers. "Oh, he killed Cell." AFTER Goku died. Let's not forget... Z Broly was whooping Goku's ass and Goku still got back up and fought. He was the only one that kept coming back for more.Vegeta got one-shotted. Now, we have SSJ2, Goku blew up, Vegeta almost got his arm blown off, and the first Future Trunks died, all... because... of Gohan. He didn't lock in. Let's fast forward, a bit. The Majin Buu Saga, everyone on the planet gets murdered. All that shit happened because Gohan didn't lock in. He became the strongest yet again, and he did not lock the fuck in.

People say Beast was deserved, let me explain to you why it fucking wasn't. All he's been doing was training with Piccolo. Piccolo is no where near as powerful as Whis, Beerus, Black Frieza, Mastered Ultra Instinct Goku, Ultra Ego Vegeta, and Full Power Super Saiyan Broly (Super). No where near the strength of the top 6 in Universe 7. It does not matter how much "hidden potential" you have. At some point, your potential is not hidden. But fighting with a warrior who's no where near as strong as the people you should be fighting. It's not gonna unlock it. Because how do Saiyans get stronger? By fighting stronger opponents. He wasn't fighting a stronger opponent. Beast being a mode he unlocked that brought him above Mastered Ultra Instinct and Ultra Ego? That he always had this power in him and if he did always have that power in him, you know what that means? He's even more of a fraud. It makes him even more of a fraud if he always had that power in him. Because why did it require you seeing someone lose?

I love well-done isekais. With fish out of water, you can create SO many fun and interesting opportunities! To me, the most obvious potential of being an isekai is the interactions between the different worlds. I love isekai where they bring where they come from with them. And I don't mean for one-off referential humor.

When I say chemistry between 2 worlds, I mean how the story incorporates both and shows how they compare and contrast.

To start with, you've got a character that's stuck in an unfamiliar place. Everything they've ever known, gone. The potential writes itself.

I've never really clicked with isekais that are "fresh starts" for the MC......except one. Owl House. Luz didn't hate her life, but the chance to learn to be a witch like she imagined was too good to pass up. Plus, she felt like she finally fit in there. But she wasn't gonna abandon her mom or anything! Things got complicated when she destroyed the portal to keep it from Belos.

Luz felt misunderstood on Earth, but she didn't just move on in the Boiling Isles. She kept sparks of Earth WITH her. She introduced her friends to Spanish, she reacted well to some of the deadly differences of the Boiling Isles, some differences in vocabulary were brought up, AND......she was eventually forced to choose. Oh, man. Imagine starting to build a whole other life there and then promising to leave it forever just as it's really picking up. Up until then, she didn't even consider possibly having to choose. The point is, Luz being a stranger had a point in many ways.

Amphibia, Owl House's older sister, is ANOTHER one. The entire conflict, the main goal, is about Anne finding a way home, because of course it is! It's a super dangerous world where all she has is the town of Wartwood, which took a while to embrace her as one of their own. She had it good back home, like Luz, but UNLIKE Luz, she didn't choose this. Why shouldn't she do everything she can to get back? And she introduces her new friends to sides of Earth, like certain foods, television, and even martial arts! This was BEFORE the Plantars went back with her! Quickly, the Plantars are revealed to her parents and soon......also maybe the entire U.S. government. Stuff like this is why I can't stand when the transition is so smooth and it soon doesn't matter where the character came from.

Digimon is the first isekai I was ever exposed to. The kids have a clear goal: GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!

They're surrounded by monsters that often try to murder them, and even without that, it's like being stuck in the wild. There's hardly any civilization, the environments can be harsh, and they just miss what they had on Earth. And they used the group aspect in a great way. For example, Tai and Matt are very commanding, Joe is the supervisor because he's the oldest and believes in being responsible, Izzy tries to learn more about this world, and Mimi does NOT mix with the outdoors at all. Also, there's stuff like the scene where the kids suggest playing soccer against the Digimon. I see that as a cry for some familiarity after all they've been through, like when they discussed egg recipes. And like Amphibia, that was only half the fun! I was so invested during the Myotismon arc, and I got chills when Earth was rooting for the Digidestined in the final battle of the season!

One way or another, some of the best isekai show how the 2 worlds compare and clash with each other for more than quick jokes and winks.

I’m so tired of people bashing a franchise by making it sound ridiculous or trivial, like they're too cool to take it seriously.

Batman, for example. “Lmao, this traumatized orphan dresses up like an edgy humanoid bat to fight crime. Sounds ridiculous, right?”

This is just an example I made up but I've seen this kind of take so many times, and it infuriates me to my core.

Recently, Zenkai Goose put out a YouTube video on World of Warcraft. It criticizes Blizzard Entertainment as a company but still talked about the game itself in a positive way. But he started describing each expansion in this tone and that made me stop watching.

The first two expansions, The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, were fine. No issues there. But here’s how he summed up the rest:

Cataclysm: "Some psycho giant dragon with anger issues wants to take over Azeroth."

Mists of Pandaria: "Oh, so now pandas are a thing in WoW? Guess Warcraft went from epic fantasy to Pokemon.”

Warlords of Draenor: “I don’t get how a medieval fantasy game has time travel and alternate timelines now.”

Well, you are fuckin stupid. That's why you can't get it. For those who don't know, each of them made sense in-universe. Even if the actual plot is written badly, the idea and the concept wasn't too far-fetch like he made it sound. It made sense that those things happen in WoW. It wasn't Riverdale series becoming supernatural.

You could literally say that about any movie, show and game in existence.

“Lmao, this Kratos guy, a demigod son of Zeus, kills the whole Greek pantheon, then moves on to slaughter the Norse gods with his son. I cannot fathom how Greek and Norse pantheons exist in the same universe."

“Apparently, this depressed kid named Shinji can pilot giant mechs.”

“Apparently Naruto can throw his Rasengan now?”

So I already made a post about how I don't like Batman: Caped Crusader and explained something that I think is a huge problem with the show. But I'm still trying to rewatches clips of the show from time to time to analyze anything I missed and to see what problems I didn't realize upon first viewing. So I rewatched the Penguin fight in episode 1 and…. I found a new problem with it. That being the fight should've ended earlier and Penguin shouldn't have been able to fire the cannon at GCPD. Let me provide context.

First, there’s a moment where a thug holds Batman down on top of the cannon Penguin is using to destroy GCPD. Batman pushes the thug off of him and something noticeable is this gives Batman a window to knock out Penguin and destroy the cannon. But for some reason, he just decides to keep fighting the thug and that lets Penguin man the cannon. The fight really could’ve ended here and Batman's just letting stakes happen needlessly.

However that’s not the only problem here. Batman then brawls with Penguin and there’s an instance where he literally throws her over to the cannon, which is pretty reckless. He then jumps in front of her and has the opportunity to knock her out. But he doesn’t do and he just blocks Penguin’s umbrella, which gives her a tight opening to fire the cannon. That’s two instances where Batman should’ve dominated the fight with the cannon even firing.

I'm not saying characters can't make mistakes in fiction and mistakes are necessary for character development. But that has to be written well and not rely on contrivances or something that hurts the story. Even though this is an inexperienced Batman, I’m not sure if these types of mistakes are excusable and he's just wasting time when there's a city to save.

Oh and here's something I just noticed today that's a little off hand, but still important. Batman threw that thug in the ocean, which kinda risks him drowning. My last post on the show explained how inconsistent Batman's morals are and this example is now another one on the list.

That's all I have to say. If you have any thoughts, I'm all ears.

I'll preface this with saying that I loved the game and it was an absolute blast to go through. Even with everything I'll say in this post, I'll still say it's a must play, however I feel like there's a lot of criticism to be had with this game.

What I want to focus on in this post is the game's main antagonist - Louis. Louis has a hell of an opening and is presented as the main threat from the very start of the game. He killed the King, put the prince into a coma and built a massive movement against the Sanctist church. Me and most people probably loved him in the early game. He was menacing, charismatic and passionate. He's the kind of person you wouldn't agree with, but you can understand why he gained such a massive following. A big point to be made is people not only followed him out of fear, they also genuinely resonated with his words, they believed he was what the world needed.

However, it all went downhill after the first Louis assassination attempt... And yes, I say first. After being pierced in the heart area, being heavily beaten up and falling off of the roof of the Opera house, he comes back next day. And this felt... extremely cheap. I mean, him thugging out the first strike of the lance, not calling up any guards and going straight to the party to duel was badass. But after that, it felt like that forward, shameless and passionate Louis died and was replaced with a double. Not mentioning how much we all hate fakeout deaths. I mean, Zorba being able to revive him just because none of his vital organs were damaged... After we specifically tried to stab his heart two times with a giant spear is absolutely mental.

And Louis is the master of fakeouts. Remember when I said that your first attempt failed? Guess how many times you fight Louis. Louis, overall, has 5 BOSS FIGHTS. And every time, even during the final one, he somehow makes it out. I don't think I need to say how obnoxious this is. You stop seeing him as a threat gameplay wise by the end of second fight, that's it, you KNOW you can defeat him, it's no issue. But the game keeps finding excuses to let him live, usually by making protagonist doubt and then the party letting Louis rant about his morals instead of finishing him off. And it's so uncharacteristic, because Louis is built up as a very prideful person, someone who would rather die than to be spared.

And this takes us to my next point, the main one. Louis is a massive hypocrite and a complete lunatic.

As I said, Louis is prideful. He does illogical things for the sake of justice and that's cool! He had multiple opportunities to absolutely win the election or kill the Protagonist. However, he didn't, saying that it would make things more interesting or it would help them decide who is truly worthy. But as the game goes on, this ideology proves to be more and more superficial. What was at first devotion to the cause, with him openly telling Strohl that his village's destruction by a human was a necessary stepping stone, turned into weird edgelord-ism, after he with NO reason to, told Eupha that he would slaughter all of her people if it meant getting the lance. Like, why? Was it a taunt? Was it some ego-flex? You could say he tried to instill fear into her, but it kind of goes against the whole point, they're already loyal to you, why would he be so insecure to resort to same practices done by Sanctist Church? And then by the endgame he does a cheap trick to completely rig all of people's support in his favor, making everyone believe that protag is a monster, oh also he sent Zorba to kill the prince. Why? I dunno, I guess because he's evil. Final punch in the gut was the reveal of him actually being an elda. Now, everything that he stands for, everything he was, all a lie. "I haven't told a single lie", he said, after revealing that everything was a facade. Like, he was such an interesting character, being a clemar and understanding his privilege, wanting to bring equality instead, but no.

If he was an honest, prideful and forward ruler, why resort to faking his death, why do cheap tricks to win, why fake your identity, why manually create humans to ravage villains. Why, for fuck's sake, try to send out Zorba to kill the prince??? He's as much of a victim as you, if not more. On the other hand if he's ready to do whatever it takes, why take huge risks like dueling the protagonist or asking the king to lift the protection? Louis's ideology just feels half assed, he can never commit to one side. Don't get me started on how the world he's trying to create doesn't match what he's talking about a lot, but even the ingame characters called him out on that.

Which makes me wonder. What was the creator's intent with Louise? He started out as a charismatic extremist who can't stand injustice and ended up as a flat personality Mr. Evil pants. Anyway, thanks for reading through this rant, let me know what your thoughts are on this matter and if you disagree.

Batman, in a fight, cannot beat superman. Or spider-man. Or wonder woman, or thor, or flash, or wolverine, or the hundred other characters he’s regularly put up against in fan discussions. People try and argue for him in vain, but that only renforces the point. But sometimes, in the comics, he wins. And that makes people think he has obcene levels of plot armor (he does have some), and that he’s overwanked.

That’s not the point. The point was never that he could beat any of these characters, it’s that he could engineer a situation where they lose. And that’s what makes him Batman.

Against an evil superman, bruce could take adva of his weaknesses, use sttonger allies to restrain him (Diana or Martian Manhunter), and get flash to vibrate a peice of kryptonite into his chest. Sure, in this situation, the league is doing the heavy lifting, but they could never do it without Bruce.

Same thing goes against spider-man, for example. Bats would get his head crushed in a straight fight (without a serious power suit), but he could trap him in a room with tazers on every surface to stop him from climbing, or make his spider sense go crazy with fear toxin.

THAT is what makes Batman compelling. Not that he can beat anyone, but that he's a threat to anyone. He's just a man, buf he EARNS his place next to gods. Batman is a reality check for heroes. Sure, you take the fight 9/10 times, but that 1/10 is still there. When he stares down a godlike being and they flinch, it's not because he's going to beat them, it’s because they know he’s planning something. Always.

I love both bleach & demon slayer. I think bleach is way better than demon slayer but there is one that demon slayer did better than bleach: demon slayer giving every heroes & villains a backstory. Gotouge giving every hashira & 12 kizuki backstory about their life as normal human before they became demon slayer/demon. Meanwhile,kubo never giving any gotei 13 captain & espada backstory about their past live as human before they die. In bleach,a soul of deceased human can became either shinigami or hollow. This mean every gotei 13 captain & espada are once human that live on earth. The only shinigami in bleach that had it past life as human revealed are rukia kuchiki & her sister,hisana kuchiki. I wish kubo make spinoff manga that explore the past life of gotei 13 captain as human. I want to see the backstory of yamamoto,unohana,aizen, kenpachi,komamura,& toshiro as human before they die & became shinigami.

Record of Ragnarok is that manga that I keep coming back to despite knowing that as a fan of history and mythology, I will be disappointed by it just because something cool happens every now and then. Because of this, I have and will continue to make rants about it because I have a lot to say (I might even do a full rewrite eventually, fuck it, why not). I am also not a writer nor do I think I am better than people who do this shit for a living. I'm just a dude very interested in mythology that likes to draw and write comics in his spare time.

But today I am going to talk about what everyone else has already talked about. The gods are fucking boring. I will also say what I expected /how I would handle the characters in the roster of gods the series has. I will also try not to mention the match ups the gods get and what opponents I would use instead, or even if I like the match ups in a thematic way, because this is already long as it is. To prove I'm not an asshole that's just mad they changed the myths, I will also be complementing the series on what I think it does right in its changes in adapting ages old mythology to the medium of a battle shonen (big ass yap session incoming).

Thor is probably one of the most interesting ones. He keeps his belt, gloves and hammer, except Mjolnir is gigantic this time, but still with a ridiculously small handle, that's kinda fun. That's a fun take on the mythology. He also is incredibly bored with what his divine world has to offer and wants a fight that can challenge his limits. This is also a cool take on the battle loving Thor from the Eddas. So I don't think I would change much about it or take him out if I redid the roster, so the limitation i put on myself doesn't bother me too much. I would mostly just change his appearance and character a little bit, a very tall and large (with both muscle and fat, like a professional weight lift champion) man, make Thor an absolute wall of a human, maybe even keep Mjolnir the size it is. I think this works if the first example of a god physically looks like both the unstoppable force and the immovable object. Personality wise, I love GoW Ragnarok, specially his first battle with Kratos and I think it would still work here, even if I also like the stoic disappointed god that only starts to smile once lubu proves himself. I would also include the twist that Thor's famous iron gloves are there to protect Mjolnir from Thor's immense strength, I think this also works very well to establish just how fucked Lu Bu (and all other following humans) are.

I fucking hate Ragnarok Zeus. Words cannot describe my fucking disdain for Ragnarok Zeus. I know what the author is trying to do. I am aware of the trope of the strongest guy in a series being this unassuming old man that is secretly very strong (bonus points if he becomes tall and buff when being serious). But I don't like it and I think it's one of the least interesting things the comic could have done with Zeus in design (this man looks ugly as fuck), character and representation of the myth. I also don't like that he's the chief of the gods. I know he's the most well known god ever probably. But in a world where every religion is real, Zeus' ass wouldn't be able to give orders to Shiva and a lot of other more powerful and older gods. In my ideal Ragnarok, I'm not sure I even want a single chief god. I can handle him as a spokesperson for the chief gods, I understand Zeus being full of power and charisma in the way he acts and talks. I can handle him being the most physically powerful. But I would prefer if Zeus, Odin, Shiva and any other chief god had the same hierarchal position and were all equally powerful in different ways (Zeus in his storms and physical might, Odin in his wisdom and powerful magic and trickery, Shiva in his ability to just destroy everything with minimal effort). So yes, a lot I would personally change about Zeus. His appearance of course, I would prefer if he was as tall but more muscular in a body building way than the Thor I suggested, because i don't like his power to control his muscles and become harder. Zeus is the king of the greek gods, god of of thunder, storms, the whole ass sky, law and hospitality, who dethroned his titan father, defeated rhe most powerful monster of his verse (even more powerful ans destructive than him) that had to fight and prove himself to get his position, My Zeus would see this opportunity to fight the first human who so boldly defied and offended the gods (I'm refering to the Adam in the manga, once again, I'm not changing the humans or ang other aspects that aren't essential to the gods) and will personally embody the divine punishment for humanity's crimes. Imagine, if you will, that Zeus appears in the form of big, dark thunder clouds that englobe the whole arena, as the ears of the people and most gods in the audience pop with the change in atmospheric pression and loud thunder, as these clouds descend and become to form the human shape of Zeus, eyes white with electricity, lightning bolt in hand, towering over Adam. I love the original fight, but if instead of punching hard, imagine Zeus' moveset includes throwing lightning bolts, or event making lighting bolts fall from the sky like multiple spears hitting the ground at the same time, creating a single long thin bolt from his fingertips like a whip to make adam jump and dance for the god's entertainment, exhaling strong winds from his mouth that send adam flying or even freeze him to the ground, summon hurricanes and typhoons, transform into and eagle to fly to the air so he can better throw his lightning, or become a bull that marches into Adam and overcomes anything Adam can throw at him, become pure electricity or clouds to evade punches as zeus appears behind the man and bear grabs him with bone breaking strength, become a giant grey cloud version of himself that sends a thunderbolt with the power of a fucking atom bomb that destroys the arena, only to give up on his tricks and trade the barrage of punches he does in the original manga when he sees adam survives anything the thunder god throws at him. The original fight is very well choreographed and drawn, but fuck, anything would be more interesting for the fight between the ultimate god and human.

Poseidon, very interesting and very different design, I like it a lot, cool trident, arena surrounded by water, described as the Zeus of the seas and one of the most fearful and angry gods in the heavens and- oh. He just uses his trident, and is very fast. Wow. Yeah, no, I would change absolutely everything about this man. Poseidon should obviously be a master of his trident and use it, but fucking hell, let Poseidon control the water outside the arena. There's a lot. This is the only fight where there's water there, what the fuck was it there for? Poseidon should feel like diet Zeus. A tiny bit less powerful, but just as scary, with overwhelming attacks that should be one and done kill blows instead of trying to make a performance and make Sasaki shit himself. My Poseidon would this masses of water, make spears of high pressure water that cuts through flesh, form bubbles around a motherfucker's neck to drown them, use all the water for tsunamis or giant water hurricanes. But Poseidon is not just god of the sea. He is like his brother a god of storms that should be able to create relatively smaller winds and thunder clouds, a god of earthquake (do I even need to give examples of how cool this is?) and a god of horses. This domain over horses has multiple possible uses. Poseidon can become a horse or hypocampus himself, or send a full stampede of them.

Heracles is not that bad. I would prefer if he had his impenetrable Lion Skin coat, the bow and poisonous arrows and we got to see some powers based on his labours. And I wish we got more of this but what we got was cool. It's my favourite fight, and if I can excuse a god for just being ooga booga, it would be the mightiest mortal and later god of strength. I kind of wish he wasn't that low on the powerscaling tier list. I wouldn't want him to be as powerful as chief gods, but I wouldn't mind if he wasn't the most powerful behind them. I wouldn't mind if his physical strength was comparable to Zeus but he doesn't have any other powers to put him in the same tier.

Shiva is tricky. Lore accurate Shiva would make Raiden desintegrate just by opening his third eye. Hell, he would make the entire colosseum and everything around it cease to fucking exists after doing his dance. But I also don't like how he just basically dances and fights capoeira. So idk. I know almost nothing about Hinduism and don't have any big ideas. Just know he should be as powerful as Zeus.

Buddha. Buddha is so fucking different and there's nothing in the original Buddha i think we could even use, so whatever. I have nothing to say about him, Bishamonten, Zerofuku or Hajun. Zerofuku specially, being an OC God. I would have preferred a different god that either loves humanity or really fucking hates the gods would have rebelled. And that either they were forced to face all the 7 lucky gods that were being set up for a good while before not mattering anymore and becoming Zero. Or fight Mara/Hajun from the start or any other demon that justifies Hades being there to explain what's happening and fit into this 3 round arc focused on demonology and the underworld.

Speaking of which

Meet potential man. Hades. Fights too similarly to Poseidon and quickly loses his mysterious and imposing aura (it's not my favourite Hades design but I kind of like how regal and militaristic he looks). I also don't feel like he fits his theme off King Vs King. His human opponent has more supernatural abilities than the king of the dead has. So I have a few suggestions. Hades' entrance should be similar to the taking of Persephone: the ground trembles as a rift in it breaks, black toxic fumes and fire erupting, as Hades arrives in armour, on a golden chariot adorned with precious stones and pulled by ghost or skeleton black horses with fire in their soulless eyes. If we change Poseidon, or even if we don't and he is supposed to resemble him, imagine if he fights always riding on his chariot, charging towards Qin, bident in hand, as the horses try to bite and stomp the human. Or use his helm of invisibility for sneak attacks.. But Hades should have much much more. Hades is god of riches and everything below the ground. God of the dead with his whole realm named after him. Hades could summon ghosts, zombies, skeletons and even some monsters from the ground to fight for him, or even trap his opponent's enemies to the ground with molten gold. His bident I feel like could also look a bit more elaborate and decorated with gold and jewels. Maybe this one is my fanficky one yet but I feel like Hades has almost nothing going on. I lied, he has something. His blood and transform his bident into a big cool spear? And this does nothing to save his life and I don't get why him of all people can do this?

Fuck it, whatever, I have half of the roster still to cover

Beelzebub actually has some cool shit going on. His vibration attacks are a cool concept and reference to him being the lord of the flies. Shame it has like 2 or 3 possible applications but cool concept. Although I can't help but wish a prince of demons talked about in almost the same breath Satan and Lucifer were more demonic and had more interesting hellish shit to do. I don't like how RoR tackles its potential filled world building and I especially don't like how all underworlds are fused into Nifleheim and Tartarus ruled by Hades, where only demons live and the titans are imprisoned. But this is not what the rant is about. Beelzebub has a compelling backstory and I kind of like the idea of Satan being this ancient evil the gods are afraid of that lives inside of Beel and kills anyone he cares about and how it affects him. It's a compelling character. And I know the story isn't over and this will probably come back up again but I was kind of hoping Satan would have made an appearance in the actual fight. Like, Beel starts to gain some respect for Tesla and understand his cheerful and progressive mind and start to take the fight in a less seriously way only for Satan to kill Tesla. It would be a less bullshit way to end their fight. I don't even know what I would want Beel to be like because RoR is really weird and it's world building, demonology and how it handles things from Abrahamic monotheistic religions. And I don't like how it makes Lucifer just a rebellious nice angel and Lilith his hot human looking girl who falls for Beel, even if I ultimately like the role she plays in Beel's curse. I like a lot about Beelzebub but at the same time I think it doesn't fit the character and if the series had a more established mythology, he could have been made into proper demon with a more interesting way of fighting.

Apollo is a god I actually really like even if he has some noticeable differences to his greek mythology counterpart. Him fighting like a boxer is a really cool reference to a domain of Apollo a lot of people don't know about and I would appreciate it more if it didn't make him a brawler lime every other fucking god that hasn't been a spear user in this fucking manga. I like him being the arrow to his bow and the reference to Artemis in his final move. I consider it a twist as fun as Mjolnir needing to be protected from Thor. But fucking hell, APOLLO IS THE GOD OF SO MANY THINGS THAT HIM BEING A BOXER AND PLAYING WITH STRINGS FEELS ESPECIALLY DEPRESSING. Apollo is obviously a god of archery and heavily associated with the sun. But he's also a god of poetry, music and the arts in general (something I think would be really fun and fit his character in this manga as a god who actually kind of likes humanity and believes in people's self worth, who made friends with Python instead of slaying him), a god of both medicine and bringer of plagues, a god of prophecy and bi-icon. Where the fuck is all of this. My first change is something very minimal, but I would appreciate at least one fucking guy in his harem or some male human or god in the audience exclaiming he is beautiful (i know this might not be possible in a Japanese manga and realistically wouldn't be allowed but fuck it). Second, the fun stuff. Imagine if Apollo himself emanated light around him, and if his weapon was a myx of both a lyre and bow like in the Hades II videogame, and his arrows made of light manifested whenever Apollo played a note on his lyre. What if different notes had different effects, like some catching fire, others exploding in a flash of blinding light before Leo's eyes and some actually making him physically sick with some disease? What if Apollo could see the future to some degree to avoid attacks? Apollo could still box at a certain point, in the original manga, the Spartans are kind of pissed at the fight being "unfair" and then they decide to fight in a close range. I can still see this happening and Apollo being like "fuck it, you want a fair fight? I'll fight you in your conditions" and handicapping his immense power by speaking a prophecy of him becoming ill for the duration of the fight, transforming the strings of his lyre into light strings around his knuckles and turning off his future vision and then proceeding to still beat the fuck out of Leonidas'? Like I have probably demonstrated, I actually really like Apollo's character and his fight so much that I want to incorporate even parts of it into this. The ending could be the same although I think I would prefer if instead of a statue of Artemis, he summoned Helios, the whole ass sun to power him up with the full concentrated power of the sun for his final move.

I don't care particularly for round 10, that just ended but I like Susano'o and I adore his design. If any god has the right to just be a sword user I think it's him. In the original manga it's kind of insulting that our 4th and final chance for a fucking storm god to have storm powers just uses his sword (even if he does cool stuff with it) but I think in my rewrite this could work if we had already seen other gods being godlike. If this was the only fight I got to rewrite, i would make it so he has like demon slayer powers in the sense where his sword attacks can summon water, wind and lightning effects, but in the ideal scenario where the storm, thunder and sea gods actually embodied those domains, i think a god associated with swordsmanship just using regular swordsmanship to fight against a Japanese swordsman he admires on equal terms in interesting. I wish his mortal wife was mentioned since the author's seem allergic to XX chromosomes being in their manga, and it helps making him a bit more found of humans but the original manga is already making me start to not believe every single god in the meeting wanted to end humanity without saying "uhm actually god X, Y and Z were doing something else when probably the most important meeting where every god was called was going on"

With this we each the end of the current fights. I can no longer analyse fights in the series, only speculate and wish fulfillment. I know Anubis will fistfight or some shit, Loki will use the chains we already saw and Odin will use his spear. And that probably the tournament will be interrupted by the primordial gods Odin is trying to summon. But the rant is close to ending so I will say that I wish Anubis didn't look this fucking dumb and was actually a serious and respected jackal headed psychopomp with the power to judge the souls of his enemy against his scale in some sort of ultimate attack and that his powers could relate to mummies somehow. Or that Loki wasn't physically strong at all and relied purely on shape shifting into snakes and flies to get out of situations and do unfair sneak attacks and that he relied on his pure wits to avoid attacks to find openings.

Or that please for the love of God, Odin doesn't just use his fucking spear.

I talked a lot about Apollo being the god of many things. But god if Odin doesn't have him beat. The all-father is the god of fucking everything. He is a god of war, a god of magic, a god of death, a god of wisdom, a god of kings. Odin should rely on powerful dark rune magic. Go down on a small amount of hits but feel as dangerous as Zeus our Shiva because it's impossible to even hit him as he sends rocks flying towards his opponent, makes clones of himself, sends his crows to attack, speaks magical words that trap the enemy hanged on a treebranch or make them mad with knowledge of the nine realms beyond their comprehension. Almost none of this shit is based on anything, i made it the fuck up because Norse gods don't really have domains. I just took the idea of him doing extreme sacrifices to be the widest being there is, being a master of rune magic and the potential of a trickster god being the chief of a pantheon. And only for a final hail Mary does the almost defeated old Odin mounts his 6 legged stallion as he charges against his enemy with his giant spear in hand.

I have a lot of problems with this series. So many that I want to do a fucking rewrite of it, change half the roster, imagine the cool world building and possibilities of crossing over mythology. But it comes from a place of almost love for the premise and the cool things the series sometimes does. A writer I am not. Maybe all of these ideas fucking suck and the authors could implement them better than I would because they're actual professional writers and artists. But ita potential is undeniable and the premise is so simple is easy to adapt to other rosters that fan rosters and character profiles are some of the biggest activities in r/shuumatsunovalkyrie. But still feel free to tell me you like my ideas or that they're hot garbage in the comments, I like engagement like that and bouncing ideas back and forth with people.

Yap session over I guess

I am slowly finishing Star Wars Rebels, and wow. Sabine feels like an OC created by 14-year-olds in a TTRPG or a self-insert fanfiction. She basically has too much "epic backstories", but all feels extremely forced and weightless.

At the start, she is just a young Mandalorian who primarily functions as a girl next door for Ezra. She is also lively and has a hippy-artist attitude. That's pretty cool as it is different from the usual stoic Mandalorian warrior trope. But in the later seasons, the writer expands her backstory to a ridiculous degree. She is a former imperial now, okay. Oh, she is also a princess and the rightful ruler of a planet. And she wielded the edgy Darksaber. Oh, she is also a tech genius who invented a weapon capable of genociding all Mandalorians. And she is only 16.

What makes it hard to watch is that she has a dedicated arc in the show that feels like the entire universe functions around her. The empire hacked her super weapon to kill Mandalorian, now she gets an Oppenheimer arc. Not only that, the empire is too stupid to use the weapon and requires Sabine to control it properly. We even have Thrawn saying "YOU NEED SABINE WREN". Now Sabine is in control of the weapon, she presses FIVE BUTTONS to tune it and makes it target non-Mandalorian instead, effectively wiping out all the bad guys in the scene.

It is kinda at this moment I realized that Rebels probably wasn't a show targeted at dudes like me. I could understand the moral lesson of power and accountability behind this arc. But the immersion is ruined when they wank this hard for a character. Which is weird because because Rebels certainly has a lot of moments and features that are clearly targeted at more die-hard Star Wars fans, like Darth Maul and Thrawn. And all Sabine stuff I just mentioned is also heavily tied in with the Mandalorian lore in the Mando show.

And she now uses the force and becomes a Jedi. I am thankful that in the Ahsoka show, they just pretend all the princess stuff didn't happen. And no surprise that she is still wasn't very likable there.

Spoilers for persona 3-5 and Metaphor

I’ve noticed that Atlus treats its male and female antagonists very differently. In all fairness, I’ve only played Persona 3-5 and, though it’s not part of the Persona series, a bit of Metaphor as well.

All the male antagonists seem to be set up with a pretty purposeful bait-and-switch. For example, in Persona 4, Kanji starts as an antagonistic figure, but one of the first things we learn about him is that he beat up biker gangs because they kept his grandmother awake at night—a morally questionable reaction, but ultimately a sympathetic motive.

In Persona 5, the only major female antagonist is Sae, who ends up becoming one of your biggest allies. From start to finish, she’s portrayed as a morally upright character, with her palace stemming from her anger at a corrupt judicial system. Even Futaba’s palace just evokes sympathy, as she’s more a threat to herself than to others. Meanwhile, all the male palace leaders (except Maruki in Royal) are driven by selfish, corrupt motives. Even Akechi, who doesn’t have a palace, has a storyline focused on revenge more than personal trauma.

In Persona 3, we have a female antagonist in Chidori, who essentially gets a redemption arc. She becomes the most humanized member of Strega, while the other two male members are more one-dimensional. I still enjoy their characters, but their depth is more subtle compared to Chidori’s.

Now, in Metaphor, even though it isn’t a Persona game, Joanna seemed like a promising female villain. She went out of her way to feed children to her monster baby when she didn’t have to, which was genuinely chilling. But the game makes the odd choice to focus on her trauma and sad backstory, downplaying her horrific acts. She even becomes an ally to the group for a short time afterward skipping any character development or conflict from the protagonists.

These aren’t massive issues with the games—just something I noticed. I really want to see an actually intimidating, rotten female villain in the series, and a proper redemption arc for a male character who starts off terrible and grows better. But that’s just me yapping.

There are different ways to lampshade, or point out your own absurdity and then roll with it. There's certain lampshading I can go along with, and some I can't.

Who wants to be mocked and feel undermined by the story they go out of their way to experience? I want stories to affect me. I want them to hit me, or maybe I just want something fun and enjoyable. I don't want something that tells me I'm stupid for watching or tries to be clever only to accomplish nothing.

But GOOD lampshading is something I really enjoy. Here are some examples to give an idea of the kind I'm talking about:

In an episode of Amphibia, Sasha's preparing for a dinner party, and Grime tells her to remove the hidden daggers. She then empties like 10 out of her boot and he asks "How did you even walk?"

Why do I consider this good lampshading? Because despite it being completely illogical for her to be able to walk, it's completely harmless. It's quick, small, and doesn't call you stupid for watching. Plus, this is the kind of stuff you can attribute to it being a fun cartoon. This is a moment where you can easily have a quick laugh and move on.

There's also Gravity Falls, where Rumble picks up a sword from the street and Dipper comments about how dangerous the litter is. It's poking fun at how you pick up items in these games. This too is harmless and something you can get a quick laugh out of before moving on.

My favorite type of lampshading has to be when the absurdity clashes with the "straight one," so to speak. Look at Arrow. When this continuity was still starting out, like in season 2, the world was unfamiliar with the concept of metahumans, actual magic, etc. Certain lampshading can work here because this is the showcasing of the real world being suddenly exposed to this new wave of craziness so fast. When Felicity tried to warn Quentin about the League of Assassins, she said herself it was crazy, and he agreed. The craziest he's seen is 2 master archers. But an entire organization of killers? AND they're targeting him of all people? But he really started listening when she said that one of those archers was a member.

This isn't making you feel stupid for consuming stories featuring the League of Assassins. It's just a genuine conversation between 2 people who are new to how complicated their world is. That's it. With this sudden introduction to these new kinds of threats, it becomes a situation where everyone except people like Oliver are kinda fish out of water. It's natural but not disrespectful.

Look at Cobra Kai! The characters take the whole karate war very seriously, and I buy it because of how central it is to the idea that these characters NEED karate when authority is useless and they have very real enemies (even though that home invasion should have been game over for Cobra Kai. I have my limits). And there's a straight one here, too. Amanda LaRusso is a total stranger to this karate world. She's all "let me get this straight. You got someone to double the rent on multiple shop owners because your childhood karate rival is one of them? What the heck?!"

I absolutely LOVE when she hears about Terry Silver and she's all "Oh come on! Seriously?! Another one?!"

Yeah, her husband had not 1, not 2, but 3 old enemies from Cobra Kai that decided to come back?! She just wants to move on with her life already! Plus, she eventually came around after seeing just how......real this problem is. The kids NEED karate to stop the assholes because their authority figures simply don't care! If Cobra Kai's core values go global, bullying rises exponentially. So, eventually, she's behind her husband and his allies 100%.

Meanwhile, BAD lampshading is toxic and a pathetic attempt to be clever without it meaning anything good.

If you clicked on this expecting me to discuss Rick & Morty, sorry. Not a watcher. Can't do it.

But I CAN bring up Fast & Furious. In F9, they finally acknowledged it. They know these characters are invincible. After all they've been through, they can't deny it. But there's still one teensy weensy little problem you know THEY'RE STILL INVINCIBLE! You can’t just assume everything’s ok because you’re aware!

At this point, I just want the MCU characters to SHUT......THE HELL......UP! She-Hulk's entire season finale has got to be one of the most insulting pieces of television ever. It unapologetically says it sucks and it knows it sucks, and it thinks by saying so, it doesn't suck! It brought all these stupid plot lines together in one scene randomly for no reason while doing none of the work to make it make sense, like Bruce and Abomination. It’s trying to be clever with it, but it does absolutely nothing.

You know something, Deadpool 2? It didn't HAVE to be thought of as lazy writing. You could easily say the material you need to time travel is rare and must be used sparingly or something, but NOOOOOO! You just had to call yourself out for no reason! Well guess what, you're still doing the lazy writing, you just don't care! Calling yourself out does NOTHING. This isn’t a harmless, quick laugh. This is about the main conflict.

I'd discuss another "mature" show from 2022 attempting to be clever but ending up spitting on iconic characters, but if I give THAT any more thought, I'll go insane.

Good lampshading can be harmless, a quick laugh, or an interesting and natural reaction. Bad lampshading shatters immersion and pretends to be something it's not.

Your favorite examples of both?

Im so tired of people saying Megumi is wasted when the story has perfectly set up his character, and concluded what was his character nicely.

Let's start with the ten shadows because people really seem to not understand that, from the beginning The Ten Shadows technique was described as a special and rare technique that rivals The Gojo clan's Limitless. As we see from when Gojo told Megumi that his ancestor once killed a member of the Gojo clan who had both limitless and the six eyes. Megumi makes the astute reasoning to realize that the only way his ancestor one was by using Mahoraga. This is forshadowing for when Sukuna eventually takes his body for himself, so that he could defeat Gojo. As we also saw earlier im the story that Sukuna has a special interest in Megumi and his cursed technique. And that all comes to ahead when Sukuna takes over Megumi's body. Sukuna made a binding vow at the beginning of the story to do this in preparation to take over Megumi's body.

From the very beginning, the potential that was constantly talked about for the Ten shadows technique had been set up for Sukuna and not Megumi. Megumi's character was a place holder for the win condition needed for Sukuna to be able to defeat Gojo. As I see many people complain about how Megumi should've used his technique to it's full potential when the story made it very clear that it would be impossible for Megumi to ever attain that level of power to be able to use The Ten Shadows technique effectively. And yet we see that Sukuna was prepped up by the story constantly to be able to use the technique. It would make no sense for Megumi, a person who's only special talent is the Ten Shadows Technique to be able to use it to its full potential.

Anyways, let's move on to the narrative of Megumi. From the beginning of the story we realize that Megumi doesn't value his own life and constantly throws it away in an act to constantly defeat the enemy and for those he loves, basically showing us that he has no self worth to talk about without others. It was when Megumi lost his dear sister Tsumiki that we see him give up on life, and grovel in his own sadness. Our main character Yuji tries to help him to no avail as Megumi just gives up on his own life. It wasn't until Yuji showed Megumi that he's life still had value to others like Yuji to break free and try and escape Sukuna's grasp. This shows us that Megumi had learned how to live for more than just one person, but for the people who had cared for him like Gojo, Yuji, Nobara, Yuta etc. That was was when Megumi gained a new and beneficial value on life to live because that's what the people who cared for him dead or not wanted.

I'm so tired of people calling Megumi wasted, when it only works in the agenda narrative and not the way the story is written. He is a fulfilled character with growth and change who we see as a part of the bigger theme of love the story tells us.

I’ve noticed a lot of hiveminds in fiction tend to lose their mysteriousness and uniqueness over time. Part of it comes from being explored. But I think the biggest problem is some revelation or change that makes them less alien and more human. Especially when given an individual to represent the hivemind.

The zerg in Starcraft originally had the Overmind and the Cerebrates. On a technicality being the only truly individual and free zerg creatures. They worked together sort of like a family though without much in the way of affection. Then Kerrigan comes along and the zerg become her personal army chasing after her whims. Even the broodmothers each have more individualistic goals that serve themselves with the hivemind being tools.

The borg in Star Trek, when they first came out had every drone as part of the collective. Even Locutus who was Picard assimilated and chosen to be the voice still had that sense of collectivism. You couldn’t negotiate with them. Then the Borg Queen happens. She is an individual with individual with emotions and leadership flaws. Kill her and the collective dies.

It seems to me a lot of hiveminds overtime are given a representative who then starts to chase their own goals. Rather than just being the thinking part at most of the hivemind. They kind of lose their charm and menace when this happens.

What do you all think?

Edit: You guys are right about the paragraphs, chill already

I’m not talking about social Darwinist type characters who think only the strong should survive, or chaos agents trying to change society. I’m talking about antagonistic characters who are themed after the biological concept of evolution.

They suck. Every single one of them. I have literally never seen the concept done an ounce of justice, because no matter how big the project, the author can’t be assed to do ten minutes of research on what evolution even fucking is.

Any time a comic, anime, movie, or television show introduces a villain with an evolution thematic, they’re using nonsense technology to turn animals humanoid or bigger or more monstrous, and that is the absolute limit of where the idea is explored. This is never based on the principles of adaptation or natural selection, or even artificial selection, like you’d expect from a character perverting the natural order of things, it’s instead based on… bullshit.

In GotG 3, the high evolutionary is presented as an insane, godlike scientist attempting to create the perfect society of animal people. He does this by surgically modifying animals, turning them into cyborgs, or putting them in sci fi nonsense tubes that transmogrify them into humanoid abominations. That’s right, every time an animal gets put in one of these tubes, if the experiment works, they ultimately develop a bipedal gait, verbal speech, and a humanoid body structure.

Aside from how stupid it is to insinuate that developing a human form is the “goal” of evolution, the machines themselves make no goddamn sense. Evolution is a generational process, if you use mad science to radically mutate a single individual, they are NOT evolved. I understand that the character is meant to be a hypocrite, but his cyborg surgeries make this whole problem even dumber.

How can you claim to evolve perfect beings when you’re giving them cyborg parts? MACHINE PARTS ARE NOT HERITABLE TRAITS. Unless he sticks around to perform surgery on every living being on the planet every few decades, after a single generation, his whole goal goes out the window. But that’s just a movie, right? I’m sure the comic version of the same character makes way more sense.

NO. In Jonathon Hickman’s Fantastic Four run (one of my favorite comics of all time), we learn that the high evolutionary has built a machine that emits “evolutionary radiation” over a given area, turning an entire city of mole people into intelligent neanderthal looking beings. The problem is, when these beings have children, they come out just as intelligent as they are, but they look like regular, non-evolved mole people.

WHAT??? I can understand displaying a dormant gene that doesn’t show up in your parent’s phenotype, but this happens with every single child mole person. To make matters worse, when The Thing charges into the city without a suit to save the children, he is affected by the radiation, growing… a giant head.

That’s it, no giant brain, no improved cognition, no discernible benefit, just a giant head. What sucks is that compared to the depictions of artificial evolution in other media, a trait without an immediately obvious benefit should be something to celebrate. The problem is, when he enters the city again later in the story, he mutates in exactly the same way.

HOW THE FUCK DOES THIS WORK. There is literally no reason that The Thing’s “ideal form” is just him with a bigger head, because no one physical form is ideal for all circumstances an organism could wind up in. So maybe the machine’s radiation keeps placing Ben under the same evolutionary pressures, so he always develops his giant head. Might I remind you, these are the same evolutionary pressures that turned mole people into genius Neanderthals.

But whatever, marvel doesn’t understand evolution, which is evident by their insistence on destroying all themes of natural selection in their stories. Just like those jackass Eternals are responsible for pushing all of humanity’s technological advances, the Ex Nihili are responsible for pushing all evolutionary advances and also all extinctions in the universe. Sure.

X-Men comics proclaim that humans have a built-in death timer, that is going to cause human extinction because of the presence of the evolutionarily superior mutant race. Sure. Humans aren’t just being outcompeted by the far more versatile mutant, their genetic code literally contains a programmed, species-wide apoptosis clause. Sure.

Because why wouldn’t a species evolve the evolutionarily useful feature of just automatically dying as soon as a better species comes into existence? What could be more useful in the fight to survive competition than the ability to AUTOMATICALLY DIE IN THE PRESENCE OF COMPETITION?

Don’t even get me started on the X-Gene, mutants as a separate species, or whatever the fuck Deviants are supposed to be. Maybe Marvel’s biggest competitor will understand middle school level science a bit better, right?

NO. Doomsday might have the single dumbest backstory in all of fiction, which you could tweak with ZERO effort to make sense. Picture this: Long ago, a scientist cloned a baby, settled down on the most dangerous planet he could find, and plopped the kid down onto its surface to die. No worries though, he just scrapes up the remains, clones a new baby, and repeats the process. After thousands of clones, the baby has evolved into Doomsday, a killing machine that can adapt to anything.

This might be the dumbest thing I have ever seen in a comic book. I don’t care when the story was written, this is worse than One More Day, worse than The Hulk building a machine to torture his inner child, worse than the Flash getting his powers from ORDINARY WATER.

Let me try to break this down. If you keep cloning the same baby, no matter what it dies from, it is not going to adapt to the various dangers on this planet. In fact, it is not going to adapt to ANYTHING, EVER. If the same fucking baby gets cloned every fucking time, then it doesn’t matter what it died from. The thing that kills it is literally irrelevant to the existence of the next clone. You haven’t created evolutionary pressures that will make a killing machine, you have REMOVED all evolutionary pressures.

Since natural selection operates by removing individuals with deleterious traits from the gene pool, the worst thing this moron scientist and his moron writer could do would be to keep re-introducing the genes they don’t want into the gene pool. Though it’s not like he has any control over said gene pool, because it’s a gene pool with a sample size of ONE INDIVIDUAL.

If you wanted to make Doomsday’s backstory make sense, it would be so easy. Instead of cloning one baby and hurling it onto a dangerous planet, clone a million babies and drop them all over the planet. Set up surveillance so you can see what’s happening, and only collect the remains of the 100k babies that survived the longest/killed the most, if that’s what you’re looking for. Then clone a fresh 1mill babes from their DNA, and repeat the process. If you specifically want a being that can survive anywhere on the planet, break the project up into pieces and do the process in every major biome on the planet, then combine those genes for the most universally resilient species.

Even that, after all of the nonsense we had to slog through, Doomsday as a character still makes no sense. He can adapt to any threat, so you can never kill him the same way twice. …Okay? So he doesn’t need food, water, or oxygen, has no internal organs, is virtually indestructible but can regenerate anyway, and exists solely to kill.

That is the lamest goddamn thing I have ever heard. Infinite possibilities for the powers of an artificially evolved killing machine, and you go with maxing out his stats like a video game character. Imagine if professional writers were actually creative, and packaged Doomsday with a bunch of interesting and unique defense mechanisms to serve the same purpose.

Doomsday in his current state, if stabbed through the heart, will be perfectly fine. This is because he doesn’t have a heart, and can instantly regenerate the wound. What if instead, he had a special biological failsafe where his heart shuts down to heal, but his lungs temporarily assume the function of running his circulatory system? And if his lungs were destroyed, he can empty his stomach of acid and fill it with air to use it like a giant lung. And if his stomach was destroyed, he can increase the acidity of his spit to digest things inside his mouth. And if his mouth is destroyed, well, you get the picture.

These aren’t even great ideas but they’re at least TRYING to take advantage of the infinite possibilities of alien biology. But no, he has to have super strength and super regeneration and all this bullshit, because if you could evolve to just heal any wound instantly, why would you even need anything else? Don’t even get me started on his reactive adaptation, because I think I’d burst a blood vessel at that point.

This isn’t limited to American comics, either. In One Punch Man, many villains are the product of The House of Evolution, and surprise! It’s humanoid animals! It’s super speed and super strength and super fucking boring! It’s animal people with cyborg parts for no reason! It’s not even worth talking about. After his defeat at the hands of Saitama, the guy who founded the house announced that he’s officially done with evolution, and like, yeah buddy me too.

Weirdly enough, Ben 10 is somehow both the best attempt and the worst execution at this idea. For marketing and toy sales, Ben needs super duper versions of his regular aliens, so he gets the Ultimatrix. Sure.

But I appreciate that the writers at least try to make this make sense. The Ultimatrix works by creating a simulation of the given alien species evolving over long periods of time in a nightmarish warzone, in order to create their most optimal form for combat. In some cases, there are even actual evolutionary trade offs, with some ultimate aliens lacking the powers of their ancestors.

Obviously there are a bunch of problems with the actual execution of the idea, like the simulation only lasting for one million years, and some aliens evolving a different number of limbs or fucking guns, but at least it demonstrates a basic understanding of the concept.

But do recall, this post is about evolution themed villains. And one of the most iconic characters in the Ben 10 franchise is Dr Animo, a crazy scientist who uses sci fi bullshit to evolve individual animals into their perfect forms, which are always just GIANT FUCKING MONSTERS.

For those of you who don't know, My Sister's Keeper is a 2009 film based off the Jodi Picoult novel of the same name. The story follows a girl named Anna who was born to serve as an organ donor for her dying sister Kate. Evnetually, she decides one day she's had enough and hires a lawyer to sue her parents for medical emancipation, not wanting to give up one of her kidney's for Kate. This sets off a conflict between her and her mother, who's too much of an egomaniac to admit she's wrong.

Now, except for some cut plot points, the movie follows fairly straight to the book. The biggest difference comes from the ending. In the original book ending, Anna wins the case, but decides to give up her kidney to Kate out of her own choice, rather than her parents forcing her. However, she's caught up in a random car accident while driving to celebrate with her lawyer. The book ends on an extremely depressing note where, yay Kate survives and gets the kidney, but the family becomes emotionally broken as a result of losing Anna.

I admittedly haven't read the book, but having seen the movie first, the ending of the book, in my humble opinion, was absolutely dogshit. The movie ending, in comparison, is a straight up masterpiece.

Basically, the ending is ALMOST the same, where Anna wins the case, but it turns out that KATE is the one who told Anna to sue her parents because she WANTS to die, rather than living with knowing her little sister is constantly sacrificing her life little by little. The mom is forced to accept the fact that Kate wants to die, and Kate passes away peacefully.

A lot of people would say that the book ending is better since it's realistic, but personally, I don't agree with that at all. The ending makes the entire book pointless and overwhelmingly depressing. The film, on the other hand, managed to be more consistent with the themes and give us a plot twist that actually makes sense and enhances on Kate, Anna, and the mother's character. It sticks with the theme of learning to let things come to an end rather than prolonging it. It felt a lot more satisfying and rounded out giving the characters a compelling arc.

That's just my opinion. What do you think?

White nights is the first work of Fyodor that I have read. And it carries a certain honesty or truth in its portrayal of a person suffering from being a Dreamer.

A dreamer is a man who lives in his world in his dreams which act as his personal domain where he can will things into existence or like how he wants them.

But when he is awake he suffers from finding the real life monotone and lifeless because it is nothing like his dreams

The protagonist of the work is a man who is a dreamer to such an extent that he has isolated himself from the society almost entirely. He has no friends and the only person he meets in town at the same time everyday is an old man who greets him on which he thinks that there is some deeper meaning to that greeting or that the old man is like him.

He realises his life is mundane but he is still satisfied in his dreams

This leads to him being trapped in a vicious cycle of looking for a human connection but not accepting that he might get rejected by some.

He also idealises his love with nastenska based on his idea of love rather than nastenska as a person. Thus when faced with the fact that his love with her will remain unrequited the Dreamer once again return to his life of solitude and fantasy unable to confront the reality. But he is a pure hearted individual as even after his heartbreak he still wished the best for nastenska

Nastenska on the other hand is a lady who is quite naive and idealistic about everything.

She is only 17 so she is immature and thus does not realise that her idea of love with her lover is idealised as she barely knows anything about him

She parallels the Dreamer in a good way as both of them are alienated due to their circumstance which lead to them being people who live idealised lives or dreams

Nastenska due to her Grandma and The dreamer due to his isolation.

That's all for now if I get anything else to add to this i might add it to the rant later or make a new rant based on thoughts of each individual night.

My thoughts - i forgot to add this

I think the work overall is great and very dramatic in its presentation of the Dreamer

I loved the way Fyodor wrote his prose as it felt so frantic so rushed that he cannot stop speaking he is so happy or love in with the fact that he found a person who is vulnerable and alone as he is so he is unable to stop sharing what he is feeling.

Every word out of the mouth of the protagonist feel like he is hopelessly in love with nastenska.

The love feels juvenile or like a first love which is further increased by the loneliness of the Dreamer

He is almost love bombing the girl.

The whole second night felt like a ton of revelations about the protagonist as he tells his story and was my overall favourite chapter

The protagonist also enters the real life in the end and is able to stop dreaming due to meeting nastenska as he describes the world becoming dull and grey and his house as full of cobwebs which means he has finally stopped dreaming due to the heartbreak he experienced from nastenska .

The humour in book was great imo it had these little moments which are so absurd if imagined that it almost feels like a fever dream

Nastenska was imo a little underdeveloped as the main love interest even though we got a few pages with i would definitely like more dialogues with here

Overall 8.5/10

Onwards to notes from underground and then crimes and punishment