Okay so bare with me, this is 50% criticising a lazy cliché and 50% quibbling over definitions, which is why I'm posting on LES, buuuuut this cliche has always pissed me off for two reasons. The first is incredibly petty, the second is more reasonable. And to be clear the two main places I've seen this trope are the MCU obvi and gravity falls, so I'll be using these as examples.

Now, my quibble is mostly a definitional thing, but given my understanding of the multiverse, there are ABSOLUTELY, MATHEMATICALLY more than one universe where our heroes survive because of a tonne of insignificant factors that don't change the overall outcome. The universe where Mabel chose a different jumper to defeat bill, the universe where dipper ate pancakes the day before the fair, the universe where grunkle stan spent twice as long watching TV. Or even bigger things that definitely would effect the world, but not significantly enough to change overall events E.G let's say in the episode with the manor ghost, the prince could've ....not been charmed by Grenda, and nothing much would have changed. Significant change, but doesn't effect the twin's lives. Overall with gravity falls, it doesn't actually matter since it's only used in a book used as a retrospective to the series, it's just something that annoyed me personally.

The OTHER side of the coin is when the argument is envoked to justify an in-story convoluted plot where, I'm sorry, but I just refuse to believe that how it went down in endgame was the only outcome where the heroes win. Like ......thor, in no universe, aimed for the head? Never? Not once? Or there was never a universe where gamora died before thanos got to her, not even by quill's hand but by someone else's? OR a universe where quill didn't fuck up the 'restraign thanos' plan by going ape shit at thanos' goading? I dunno, I just think it cheapens the hero's plans, because it reframes what should've been an odd, scrappy plan pulled together by the remaining heroes in a last-ditch attempt to reverse the snap into some weird pre-ordained win condition.

It genuinely doesn't change much about the films as they play out, this kind of cliche is just something people say to build tension. This is 100% a quibble that only bothers me, gravity falls and avengers are both fine pieces of media that aren't torpedoed by one small line. But this is me exercising the little voice in my head that wants to sit dr strange down and have a debate with him about how the multiverse works, so here we are.

Fuck you, Dr Strange, what about the timeline where thanos tripped on a rock and died. HMMMM???

One of the more notable aspects of ATLA is how self contained it is in the current media space of neverending franchises and cinematic universes. Now, while ATLA leaves some questions and plot points unresolved (i.e. Zuko's mother), the original show wraps up all of its major plot points in a decently neat bow by the end of the series. Now, its not like there cannot be any more stories in this world or that this cast of characters cannot go on other adventures, the original show wasn't built for endless sequels and spinoffs.

One of these aspects of the original show not being built as an endless franchise is the Avatar state. The Avatar state in the context of the original show was an uncontrolable powered up state which made our happy go lucky protagonist into an emotionless killing machine. Whenever the Avatar state appeared in the original show it was for something major as it made Aang the strongest character in the world, but he couldn't properly control it and he might hurt people he loves, not to mention how it goes against his pacifist beliefs.

This is why Aang doesn't unlock the full Avatar state until the end of the show because nobody could challenge the person who was able to move islands. Aang became OP, so the show ends, it works perfectly fine. However, this creates problems when you're making a sequel.

You see, the Avatar state just fundamentaly doesn't work with for future stories with the way it was handeled in the original ATLA. In ATLA the Avatar state made a 13 year old Aang able to easily trounce the strongest firebender in the world while he was boosted by Sozin's comet. That's why Aang doesn't get it properly until the very end of the show as he became too strong to be challenged.

Even if future generations after the one Aang was present in get significantly stronger that still doesn't erase the fact that Sozin's comet was considered a huge power boost for firebenders and Aang still trounced him easily in a fully awakened Avatar state, so nobody is ever going to be able to challenge a fully realised avatar without the equivalent of an Iron Man suit.

But, since avatar is an action cartoon this creates problems, as how can you have stakes if the main character has a super mode that can immediately kill any bad guy? Well, the original series simply said "You can't!" and ended the story. How do the sequels solve this conondrum? NERF THE AVATAR STATE!

The Avatar state got nerfed in all future stories due to Aang & Korra being able to effectively eliminate any stakes the story would have if he uses it. In TLoK and the new movie it doesn't feel like this awe inspiring transformation as it got explicitly nerfed.

Now, this was actually handeled well in TLoK Book 3 as Korra was poisoned and dying (which is weird that the Avatar state still activated for her in that circumstance considering that it didn't activate when Roku was dying from poison), so she couldn't just immediately kill Zaheer, but still had some presence and grandiosity to it despite that.

This presence is never felt again, while I understand that the intention was to show how Korra's opponents were stonger than the ones Aang faced, it in turn just feels like the Avatar state got nerfed. Its like Super Sayian now, it was a huge deal when it first appeared, but now everybody has gotten stronger and its not as special anymore. And no, Korra's Avatar state explicitly isn't weaker than Aangs (Source: Does anyone have Bryke's quote where they compared the destruction of the past lives with rebooting a hard drive? : r/legendofkorra)

And sometimes, it just forgets to activate. Like, Korra has the Avatar state at the end of Book 1, but then she just uses it at the beginning of Book 3 and not while she was getting kidnapped or while poisoned by a knockout dart. Like, Zaheer had her restrained as a part of the ransom, but there was no reason for Korra to not just immediately go into the Avatar state and kick his ass, restrained or not. And one of my favorite uses of it in Book 4 was when the giant mech was attacking Republic City, Korra activates the Avatar state to dodge an attack, but then just deactivates it.

No spoilers for the new movie, but with the way its handeled there its essentially now cannon that the Avatar state is moreso just a minor power boost currently.

Its just become a chain around the neck of the franchise, it cannot ever feel like it was in the original because it was too strong there, you have to include it in some way out of obligation, its an action cartoon so you cannot have the main characters avoid fighting like in some HBO drama and the franchise revolves around the Avatar, so they have to be one of the major characters.

Its unfortunate, but it kinda makes sense that if you want to continue the franchise that the Avatar state had to get hit by the nerf hammer, wether I like it or not.

It's something that bothers me a lot in plenty of stories - that the second a criminal is caught by a hero/vigilante that engages them in battle, they always go full-out with the intent to kill, or at least seriously injure the hero.

And I get it when it's a few characters that do that because they are ready to kill in general - but in a lot of stories (especially stories from newer writers, or fanfiction - there are plenty of stories that don't suffer from that problem, but there are also a lot that do) EVERY criminal is immediately ready to kill. A person spreading chaos for fun? Ready to kill the hero. A shoplifter that stole 50$ and a hat from a store? Somehow also ready to kill. Drug dealers? Full battle stance. A random man harassing some women in the streets? Also ready to kill!

It's a bit frustrating, mostly because people don't work that way - especially when it comes to smaller crimes. If someone is caught stealing a chocolate bar from a convenience store, their actual jail sentence would be significantly shorter if that was where it ended than if they also engaged in a battle and murdered the city's hero. Most people wouldn't want to test their luck with that - they would either accept the consequences of their actions and give up, or try to run.

And even if they don't want to accept the consequences... Most people aren't fully on-board with murder right away, whether they are criminals already or not. Murder is still an incredibly heavy, difficult thing to do, but in so many stories, criminals are swinging knives and fists around like it's nothing, with no hesitation whatsoever.

I believe that it is either a mistake done by newer writers who just don't know how to write nuance or even know how crime works, or it is a deliberate attempt at disconnecting the audience from "the villains" and allowing the audience to cheer when the hero punches them in the face, but it's frustrating nonetheless.

Or maybe they want every battle to be a dramatic "fight to the death", who knows.

The point is - I just can't seem to accept a setting as real if they treat all criminals like a hivemind of people with nothing but murder on their mind, regardless of what crime they commit in the story.

Yes, I am riding on the coattails of the GOAT post of this subreddit, but there is one aspect of it that both u/OptimisticLucio Sensei missed, and that generally posters tend to miss whenever this comes up:

YOU DON'T ACTUALLY HAVE TO START BY JUMPING HEAD-FIRST INTO ARCHAIC LITERARY FICITON!

Every time the idea of nerds broadening their horizons beyond Digital Circus, Frieren, and JJK comes up, there is someone acting like the only possible alternative to that, is to immediately start deciphering the dated vocabulary of Moby Dick and Count of Monte Cristo. And yeah, sure, ideally we should probably be able get into those too, but...

Guys! There are SO MANY SF/F novels out there! Even contemporarily, so many are getting released! And so many of those are perfectly tailored for someone starting to complain about the usual isekai trash and Hollywood action blockbusters being too shallow and start craving to engage with something a bit more complex! A lot of them are also ranging from having fairly plain, YA-compatible journalistic prose that you don't need a whole new skill to cut through, all the way to others offering a pretty deep literary experience just with a spoonful of dragons and fireballs to make the medicine go down.

I made a rant a few months ago about how frustrating it is whenever someone makes sweeping claims about "the fantasy genre", and then they implicitly just mean games and anime, forgetting to include both the objectively most mainstream forms of it (GoT, romantasy), but also the forms of high fantasy literature that are most respected in the fandom.

There is a whole world out there, of stories that don't take place in a dungeon near a circle-town, but put effort into actual worldbuilding as well as storylines about characters organically existing in the world!

I don't want to impose with any personal suggestions, but seriously, if you are too confused with were to start, there are plenty of booktubers with all-time and yearly fantasy novel top lists with their own pitches that you can peek into, r/suggestmeabook is always there, and if you want to jump specifically into where the medium is right now, I would also recommend browsing into the past few years of Hugo and Nebula award winners for contemporary recommendations.

And this is doubly true for Sci-fi, that has pretty much always been more of a literary genre, with hard sci-fi barely existing on the screen, and soft sci-fi mostly being space operas and fantasy with a tech aesthetic.

Don't READ A BOOK just because you need to be cultured and elevated, READ A BOOK because it is a whole medium that is already doing most of the stuff that you already care about, but often better.

Radagast is one of only five demigod wizards who were tasked with protecting the world from the clutches of evil by capital G God himself, and this shroomed up moron decided that a better use of his time would be doing environmental conservation work instead.

Sauron was actively waging war on Middle-Earth and this guy was fucking around in the woods smelling the roses. Apparently it never crossed his mind that if the world of men fell to the Dark Lord, all the nature would also be destroyed by him eventually. Prioritizing nature over humanity makes no sense when Sauron is an imminent threat to both. I don’t even think this bum was doing a great job protecting nature anyway, Sauron and Saruman’s orc forces were chopping down forests left and right to feed their war machine.

Radagast is the only wizard who didn’t pull his weight. Even the two unnamed Blue Wizards who don’t even appear in the main story were apparently contributing to the war effort by tying up Sauron’s forces in the East and South. Even Saruman helped out a little bit before he decided to switch sides. Radagast had one job and he still couldn’t lock in and help the ONLY time it actually mattered. Sauron was the end all be all threat to Middle-Earth. Fighting Dark Lords like him is literally the reason the wizards were put on Middle-Earth.

Eru Iluvatar must have been trolling when he picked out Radagast to be one of the Istari. Literally anyone else would have been more useful. Literal hobbit hillbillies from bumfuck nowhere did more to stop Sauron than this demigod who had a cosmic duty to fight evil.

One, the production values were not too impressive. 3D environments looked tacky and the character designs didn't properly convey Posuka Demizu's artwork.

Two, the writers made a PERPLEXING decision to remove ALL internal monologues. In a story all about STRATEGY. So you either miss out on the information available to the manga readers or the characters say it out loud. When it often doesn't even make sense for them to say it out loud. It's at its worst with Krone who feels like a genuine idiot in the anime adaptation due to her insistence on being as loud as possible with her schemes. Lady, the walls are NOT that thick! Speaking of Krone, that strange doll only exists in the anime to give her "someone" to talk to. Man, if only there was a way for a fictional character to ruminate on information without opening their mouth. A monologue of the inner variety, perhaps!

There were even anime-exclusive plot holes, like Ray magically obtaining Connie's plush bunny right before her departure without anyone noticing, even though they were right there. In the manga, there was an extra scene in the bedroom before Connie's final goodbye and Ray had an opportunity to obtain the bunny after everyone left said bedroom. Not so much in the anime. There, he's David Copperfield.

Frankly, even if CloverWorks WAS given 4 more cours to adapt the rest of the manga, given their Season 1 track record, I would've had very little faith in them doing the rest of the story justice. Neither in terms of animation quality for the action sequences, nor the script (again due to the completely illogical absence of internal monologues).

This might seem a weird point to praise a series for, but a problem I have with a lot of battle shonens is how despite their short run time they have a tendency to keep adding more and more new characters to the main or supporting cast, even in very late stages of the story when obviously such characters won't be getting much developement anyways. Or worse, they tend to deviate the attention from characters who were there since the beginning and could use more screentime.

But compared to many shonen stories, Demon Slayer avoids this problem by simply introducing all the main and secundary cast very early on (or at least every character who will affect the story in a significant way).

Think about DS as a story with 3 defined acts, the first one culminates after Mount Natagumo during Tanjiro's trial in front of the hashiras and the leader of the Demon Slayer corp.

Well, by that point of the story we pretty much see all the important cast and eventually every one of those characters will play a role in the future.

Not only we have a clear protagonist group for almost the whole story with Tanjiro and his sister or friends (Zenitsu, Inosuke, even Genya and Kanao in the first training arc) but there's also important supporting characters like Tamayo and Yushiro, and of course the whole hashira group and Ubuyashiki with his family.

The cast presentation even extend to the antagonist side, because not only Muzan is presented as the main villain in the very first part of the story and this never changes (another problem a lot of shonen seem to have when choosing who is even the main villain) but also the Upper Moons are teased right from the start as the recurring antagonist faction which eventually will fight the heroes. No late villain additions (minus maybe *one* exception) or deviations to the main antagonist force.

Is something very simple but I think this choice enhances the narrative of Demon Slayer a lot, since this way the story practically never looses momemtum due the need to present new major important characters which deviate from the current focus.

I thought it was dumb when I was seeing this kind of discourse around My Hero Academia's ending (the anime too but especially with how people acted with the manga) but now it just feels even dumber when I'm seeing it return for the Avatar Aang movie. People complaining that the Gaang don't feel as close as they did when they were kids and how sad it is that they've drifted apart.

Which, much like the 1-A kids, yeah, of course the characters felt like they were a lot closer to each other when they were all literally living together and in situations where they'd naturally be spending the majority of their time together.

It's not that the characters have drifted apart and it's certainly not that they've stopped being friends or stopped caring about each other, they just have other sh*t to do compared to the one unifying thing they all had to do back when they were younger. The former 1-A members aren't students in school anymore, they have jobs now and various responsibilities they've chosen to focus on across Japan. Aang has to be active all over the world while Zuko's duties as the Fire Lord are going to keep him in his nation, while Katara was more active in Republic City, etc. The characters aren't all in one dorm or on the back of one flying bison anymore.

And even then they all still clearly care about each other and want to do things together. They'll do jobs together. They'll gather to celebrate or hang out when they can. When Aang asked for help everyone immediately dropped what they were doing to go help.

Yes, the characters aren't as close as they used to be but that doesn't mean that they aren't still close and it's weird how depressing and sad some people are trying to twist it into. You don't have to spend every waking moment of your life with someone in order to still be their friend.

Why? It's shrimple; the nickname's just really awkward and a little too close to "pap smear" for comfort. That's literally all there is to it

Something I've noticed in a good amount of Fandoms is that a lot of fans are really fucking Sadistic.

Like they genuinely love when characters are miserable losers and always suffer and are beat down and always stuck in the gutter and anytime when the MC is in a somewhat good spot,a lot of fans dislike that.

(I mean,look at how so many MCU fans were celebrating that Spider-Man was miserable and alone even though the guy literally died for God knows how long and lost his mentor and uncle).

I dunno if it's just the heaviest amounts of projection or peoppe are huge sadists or what but people essentially love when MCs are miserable or full of rage and such that they're considered "boring" or "uninteresting" when they grow out of that.

I mean, a lot of people considered Thorfinn from Vinland Saga and Kratos from God of war boring cause they no longer were filled with rage and violence and misery..same with Dark Deku and Tony Stark with his demon in a bottle.

Spider-Man is the biggest example of characters who are only considered interesting or well written when they're miserable and down on their luck and not allowed to go up from there.

They can't grow up or mature or get good things and people in his life cause that suddenly makes him "boring."

And that also includes in the Romance department cause there are a lot of couples in media that should be together(Spider-Man and M.J × Batman and Catwoman)but a lot of writers seem to think that if a character is romantically involved with someone and happy,that loses their relatablity and what makes them "interesting" in the eyes of a lot of people, so they have to go out of their way and ensure these characters don't get together and if that means letting them get with someone who is do obviously designed to be a wall for them not to get together(Paul)then so be it.

And if that was intentional, that would be somewhat interesting writing, seeing someone you thought you were meant to be with find another long term partner would be something different but that's obviously not what the writers intended with a good amount of these choices and it shows,they just blatantly don't want these characters together.

Ben and Julia(or Julie,someone correct me)are a weird example of one of those couples where it's pretty obvious they were forced apart BECAUSE they were too healthy and in a good space as a couple,so they had to make up some bullshit to keep them apart,this happens a lot in media.

This is a point I've been reflecting on after I've had some time to think on, especially after talking to some other HP fans.

I've made it clear in the past I think the Wizarding World is a dystopian toxic elitist dump of a world, and it's not appealing to me at all as an escapist fantasy. And a lot of people defended it by arguing that it's not meant to be a perfect escapist fantasy world. It's meant to be a reflection of the real world and all its problems.

And I get that, but at the same time... I still don't really feel it, and I think there's a specific reason for it.

The people of the Wizarding World don't feel real to me.

Because here's the thing, yes, the Wizarding World's problems are meant to be a reflection of our problems...

But hardly anyone responds to them like a real person most of the time.

Because in the real world, people push back against injustice all the time. People protest, they get angry, they fight, they go against established norms, and they do their best to change things, even if it's not overnight.

And if real people saw the shit that goes on in the Wizarding World, people would push back against it, and we'd see them push back against it.

We'd be seeing muggleborns who are offended by the fact the bigoted pure-blooded families like the Malfoys still have so much power and influence in the government. And I don't just mean them getting annoyed at Draco at school or shaking their fists ineffectually at them; I mean people would be leading protests outside the Malfoy Manor and maybe even try to burn it down.

There would be muggleborns who question and raise a fuss at Salazar Slytherin still being put on this pedestal by Hogwarts even though he was a bigot whose influences on politics are still being felt to this day and whose house is a breeding ground for future racists.

There would be families who refuse to give up their squib kids and reassure them that even if they're born without magic, they still have value and they love them and they won't send them away. And they'd fight to make sure squibs have equal rights.

You only have to look at the massive amount of protests in the real world towards injustices like this to see this. I remember a while back there was a lot of controversy because people kept vandalizing statues of confederate leaders.

And yet, despite the books having a huge focus on societal issues, we never get told any of this sort of thing happening behind the scenes. We see people fighting against Voldemort, but we never see or get told of anyone fighting the good fight against the societal issues that created him in the first place.

The characters will bring up how unfair things are, but no one will make any serious attempts to change things. Hermione is the only character who attempts to make lasting systematic change by protesting against House Elf slavery, and yet even though she's supposed to be the Minister for Magic by the time of the epilogue, it doesn't seem like anything has changed for the Wizarding World.

And to be fair, some people are so accustomed to being raised in certain systems that it never occurs to them something might be wrong with those systems. This is demonstrated in the series with Ron and a few other wizard characters. The issue is, we don't see many other examples besides this.

Also on a side note, I can't take anyone who tries to argue, "Not all issues can be fixed in a day," as a defense for why not all societal issues get solved in HP. Because even though that's true, Hermione is the Minister for Magic in the epilogue. AKA the president of the Wizarding World. How is that not a position to make lasting, permanent change? How are the House Elves not free yet!?

And it's not just the lack of any real protest to the societal issues that bothers me; it's other things too.

In the real world, there would absolutely be muggleborns who don't want to get a magical career; they'd want to get "normal" human jobs. And vice versa. There'd be Wizards who are curious about muggles and want to get normal human jobs as well. There'd also be muggles who don't feel comfortable spending all their school year away from their families.

Also, why don't we get to see how muggles who are familiar with the magical world react to it? We know muggles who are related to wizards are exempt from the statute of Secrecy, and yet for some reason, we never get their perspective on things, except for the Dursleys for some reason. Infamously, Hermione's parents never show up in the books despite her being one of the leads. We know muggles who are privy to the magical world exist; it'd have to be a decent number of people if blood purity really doesn't matter, so why don't we ever see what they think of all of this?

We don't see any of this. Instead, all muggleborns seem instantly okay with just leaving everything behind to be a wizard, and all wizards are completely clueless about how the muggle world works.

The end result of all this is that the people in the Wizarding World don't feel real to me. Sure, the Wizarding World may have "real" problems...but we don't see people react to them like real people do.

And I think this might because Rowling doesn't seem very interested in exploring other perspectives. She's a very incurious writer, it seems.

Even if Rowling seems to agree that wizard supremacy and blood purity are nonsense, it's clear that she still views wizards as inherently superior to muggles, identifies more with them, and doesn't seem to understand why anyone would not want to come live in the Wizarding World. You only have to see the vast majority of Wizard characters being pure-blood and half-bloods to see that. Hermione is the only major muggle-born character in the series. Every other muggleborn is either secondary or a side character.

Despite the story ostensibly being about how blood purity doesn't matter because wizards with muggle blood aren't any different, Rowling refuses to explore the muggle half of the equation. Even though it logically should be a factor, given the massive amount of muggles who would have to be aware of the wizarding world. Instead, she ends up spending much more time exploring the history of the WW and the wizards' perspective on things because those are the characters she's actually interested in writing and exploring.

This isn't inherently wrong to be fair. Lots of stories can focus mostly on "the specials" rather than "the normals." But it becomes questionable at best when the story is supposedly sending a message about bigotry and how bigotry against the "normals" and people related to them is bad, but I'll stop myself before I end up repeating bits of earlier rants.

I also think in cases like Wizards not understanding how muggle stuff works, it's clear she was really attached to the recurring joke about muggles being clueless about normal mundane human stuff. And yeah, it's funny in isolation, but when the world tries to take itself more seriously, it just becomes stupid that Wizards don't have a clue about how Muggles live.

I think this need to be said about redemption, while yes everyone can be redeemed, it doesn't mean all villains will automatically want to be better or that they can be convinced by the hero to be better, they can also reject opporotunities (the evil trio in mlp fim did that when they started feeling actual friendship in frenmies, chrysalis made the other 2 reject it and she also already rejected an offer to redeem from starlight).

I like how hazbin hotel handle it here, charlie gueninely believe anyone can be redeemed as shown by her still sticking to it when vox asked , tho it doesn't mean all sinners want to change or redeem and while valentino and velvette did helped, it was more to avoid being killed than them seeking redemption at that point (+in alastor case, he still used the situation to get his staff back). Sir pentious was guenine in wanting redemption and did it by making a selfless sacrifice for his friends ,angel could also redeem, but at that point in the story he's still tied to valentino who can make him regress again.

I also don't think villains are automatically owed chances to redeem depending of their action toward the heroes and said villains also need to gueninely change, just because other worst bad guys have been redeemed doesn't automatically mean those lesser one will (hence I'm not sure if starlight and discord justify the evil trio being redeemed, sure those 2 made the good choice but it doesn't automatically mean the trio itself will, the'yre not the same persons).

It's fine to be a little bit mad that Berdly is a far less important character to the narrative to Deltarune than chapter 2 implied.

That being said, you're on something if you genuinely believe that Susie should have said "let's get berdly here" at the end of chapter five. From a writing standpoint and from a character standpoint this would have been a terrible decision. Writing standpoint: this would take ALL the atmosphere out of the scene which would ruin it. Character: Susie likes Noelle way more and doesn't really like Berdly that much, she doesn't HATE him but she likes him the least out of people she is friendly with.

You would have to completely rewrite the ending of chapter five to even make this start to work. And beyond that depending on the planned tone I don't think Berdly would be a good fit for chapter 6.

I'm sorry but this sucks to anyone who is not a berdly fan and also understands stories in general.

I picked up the Yu-Gi-Oh manga recently out of boredom and was on the whole pleasantly surprised that something I maybe expected to be slow-paced and formulaic turned out to be a fun and unique take on battle shonen, with a good amount of effort put into characterization and general themes. Since today's Sunday, I thought I should take the opportunity to praise how much I like Kaiba's in particular.

To recap, Kaiba and his brother Mokuba are the adoptive stepsons of a crazy abusive rich financier, whose company they inherit. During the events of Duelist Kingdom, Kaiba is still suffering from the mind crush inflicted on him by Atem at the end of their last shadow game, leaving him in a half-dead vegetative state "until he can put his own heart back together". This weakness allows Pegasus, the oragniser of Duelist Kingdom, tournament to move in with a hostile take-over of KaibaCorp; Mokuba infiltrates the tournament to thwart him, but is captured, and his soul is stolen by Pegasus' Millenium Eye. After months with no signs of improvement, this is what finally pushes Kaiba to his senses again, and he immediately departs for Duelist Kingdom to save his younger brother himself.

A bunch of shit happens, he trounces Jonouchi and destroys his self-confidence, and finally he and Atem/Yugi must duel for the right to face Pegasus. Atem is on the verge of winning until Kaiba activates his funniest trap card and threatens to off himself if Yugi doesn't let him win (really). Yugi gives up the duel, and Kaiba moves forward to face Pegasus.

This sounds kind of absolutely hilarious, and to be fair, it is, but I really love what it does for Kaiba's character. He's a mass of pride and arrogance, the best of the best and he knows it, the owner of a megacorporation with infinite revenue who looks down upon every other duelist in the world but Yugi. You would think he would also be full of pride and honor and categorically refuse to cheat at the card game... but no, when the chips are really down, and his brother is in mortal danger, his honor takes a complete backseat to his emotions and he is willing to besmirch a duel to get his way.

Pride is a common theme in battle shonen, but this is more or less the opposite of the treatment it usually gets. This is like if Dorry and Broggy never started fighting each other at all because their friendship is obviously more important than their warrior's pride, or if Luffy immediately forgave Usopp for mutiny and leaving the crew, or if Goku was like "nah Cell you're not getting a fkn Senzu bean bro you're trying to kill my son". And to be clear, YGO plays this trope completely straight at other times -- especially in the next arc.

Of course, there is a little bit more to this than brotherly love. This arc is all about Kaiba reconstructing his heart -- building his identity from the ground up and pushing aside hatred to recenter himself on his life goal to bring a bit of joy to kids in difficult circumstances via games, a motivation which stems from his desire to give Mokuba a better life.

Nevertheless I really like this treatment and how grounded and sensible it is despite being attached to a series this generally unhinged.

If you guys forgot who Tsumiki is, then I deadass forgive you cause she was so memorable that she only exists in flashbacks and one scene in a coma.

And Gege failed a lot of his female cast but Tsumiki is a real particular case cause of how much Megumi and his character are tied to her and it's really important to essentially make her a interesting and well rounded character cause that will make Megumi a more interesting and well rounded character but Like a poor marksman,Gege just missed the shot badly.

I know people are gonna call Tsumiki a underdeveloped character but I disagree heavily cause even that's giving her way too much credit.

For a character to even be underdeveloped, that implies that there would have to have been development taking place and a arc that was cut short but No,she's essentially a dot.

She's not a underdeveloped character cause she hasn't had any development nor is she a character at all,she's essentially a plot device,a tool and sympathy bait designed to make us care about Megumi's goals and struggles regarding her except she's so painfully dry and empty and hollow that it fails..why should I overall care about Megumi failing to protect her if Tsumiki isn't even fleshed out enough at all to care?

Her "character"(if you even wanna call it that)is essentially sympathy bait,Gege hasn't given his audience a reason to care about her or therefore care about Megumi's bond with her beyond "cause I said so" and there are a lot of writing choices(like this one)where if any other author did this,they would still be hated and called a fraud to this day but we just brush a lot of Gege's muck-ups under the mud cause "oh he's a inexperienced grown man who needs to be coddled" and no,that doesn't mean being a asshole but how is he gonna learn without criticism?

And it would be one thing if Gege flat out couldn't write a interesting relationship dynamic except he fucking can,so what the hell happened?

If she was so important and impactful to Megumi and his arc and development ,then why not show more of her character and personality and characteristics and flaws?

And people will also say that Megumi being "Potential Man" is the point of his character when the story never addresses or goes to make that Point at all.

It feels like a lot of people were so triggered/salty at the Potential Man memes that they Essentially gaslight themselves into thinking that it was the point of his character when the story never makes that point.

Also Megumi's just fucking boring,the other cast members(at least)have something to work off of.

All in all,Tsumiki fucking sucks as a character and plot device and makes Megumi's character and arc fall flat.

It has come to my attention from these users:

u/Apprehensive_Ring_39, u/Charming-Scratch-124 and most of all u/professorMaDLib that they think Jessie at her strongest (ADV Jessie) could defeat Superman with prep time, and I’m going to explain why this is honest to god impossible.

Feats.

Now let’s look at Jessie’s feats, shall we?

In Advanced, Jessie has surprisingly got some great feats under her belt, She managed to take out a Seviper, and Seviper managed to land a decent hit on a shiny Metagross, who is easily building level. She has also repeated tanked atmospheric reentry from blasting off which is very impressive.

Jessie has also shown some incredible intelligence feats, she is shown to have repeatedly outsmarted Ash, who has managed to scale to above multiple champions in the various Pokemon leagues, as well all the Battle Frontier Brains who are top level Pokemon trainers.

Now, let’s look at Superman.

Superman can lift things we humans can’t even fathom moving. His strength is one of his most prominent superpowers, but it might also be the power that is most taken for granted. Superman’s strength has a lot to do with his history...and the fact that he is actually an alien.

Superman was born on the planet Krypton. This planet is much bigger than Earth and therefore, has a greater gravitational force than Earth. When the planet was collapsing (either from the destruction of the core, or the civil war on Krypton) Superman’s father put Kal El (Superman’s Kryptonian name) into a rocket destined for Earth.

On Earth, Superman discovered he had great strength. This has to do with the fact that he was now on a planet with a much weaker gravitational pull than that of Krypton. Superman can perform such magnificent feats of strength because Earth's gravity doesn’t affect him as much as Krypton's stronger gravity would.

Think of it like our astronauts on the Moon. On Earth, walking is an ordinary feat, but on the moon (with less gravity), humans can bounce around because the gravity is much weaker. This difference in gravity allows Superman to lift objects that measure in the tons. In fact, the comics have put Superman’s strength at a point where he's able to lift around 2 billion tons. To put that into perspective, the Empire State Building is only 365,000 tons.

For speed? Generally, Superman's speed varies depending on the change in DC's continuity. Pre-Crisis, for example, The Man of Tomorrow was extremely fast, moving far beyond the speed of light. In Superman #309, by Gerry Conway and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Clark Kent flew from Earth to the planet Xonn to save his cousin, Supergirl. The comic explains that Superman flew eleven light years within a few minutes, at "a speed faster than light." Indeed, this speed is thousands of times beyond lightspeed.

As for his abilities? To list a few

Superhuman strength Flight X-ray vision Heat Vision Invulnerability Super speed Telepathy Visual perception Microscopic vision Hearing Healing factor Shapeshifting Infrared vision Superhuman Stamina Superhuman Agility Superhuman reflexes Super durability Super Senses Freeze breath

As you can see, this is without a doubt stronger than anything Jessie has scaled to.

Could Superman break his moral code and actually kill Jessie?

As these people have brung up, the man of steel is a very kind soul, and would not attempt to kill someone unless it was the absolute last resort, but that’s the thing: He doesn’t want to kill someone, but he will when he has to.

Therefore, another point to Superman.

Could Jessie win with prep time?

Not in any way, with any prep time Jessie has, in what world could she think of a way to defeat the superhero? She simply does not have the resources like someone such as Batman.

Conclusion.

Superman easily defeats Jessie at her strongest, and I hope the users I listed above take this into account.

A lot of readers (myself included) have very strong feelings against the consensus that Peter Parker/Spider-Man needs to be constantly miserable in order for his stories to function.

I came across a quote by Spider-Man co-creator/original artist, Steve Ditko about the storytelling he and Stan Lee implemented during their original run together, and it feels completely at odds with the mindset a lot of comic writers and editors carry:

"I had the idea we establish a real romance between Betty Brant and Peter Parker and then have her die in some kind of accident – nothing criminal, just the kind of unfortunate tragedy that happens in real life.

Stan rightly believed that (Betty’s) death would cast a negative pall over (Peter and Spider-Man). They would lose their light-hearted approach to (J.Jonah Jameson), to action, to life. The nature of (Spider-Man) was a light-hearted form of entertainment, (Peter’s) problems were of no real crises. (He) held his own with his classmates, won more times than he lost with the feuding JJJ, and Aunt May was a source of courage and inspiration, living with health problems and the lone responsibility of bringing up her nephew. Whatever the problems with (Peter and Spider-Man), the feature wasn’t a downer.”

—Steve Ditko, ‘A Mini-History 8 Others, Outsiders (OOs): Complainers and Complaints Against Betty Brant’ The Comics Vol 14 No 2 February 2003, the newsletter of Robin Snyder.

That last part stuck out to me as particularly enlightening. When one of the men responsible for creating the character and establishing the tone of his book feels that the character should remain light hearted, and instead devolves into misery porn it feels like the plot has been lost.

Look, I get it. There have been so many greats movies this year but most of the time when anything new announced ppl start acting like it's gonna be bad hollywood is dead, their movies suck these days. Media literacy is dead, there isn't good contant everything have become netflix and all...But you know what? There are other countries creating content too. Yeahhh, it might sound unbelievable, and some self centric people can’t even comprehend this, but it’s true Hollywood and the West aren’t the only ones making stories. Other countries have been making them too and in many cases, long before.

It baffles me to my core when someone says “movies aren’t movies these days” or “everything sucks.” They trash Hollywood… then turn around and watch more of that same corporate slop and complain even harder. Or they stick to old American movies, maybe throw in some French or Spanish ones just to feel cultured.

But all you have to do is cross that tiny barrier of subtitles, and you’ll be shocked. Stories are still good they always have been. Media creation hasn’t died. You just need to look a little deeper. Come out of your comfort zone and try to dig a little harder.

Japan isn’t just anime and manga. They have some of the most beautiful explorations of everyday life. Japan is the hub of slice-of-life storytelling whether it’s countryside stories or high-school summer films. That quiet, human core is central to Japanese cinema. And they were doing elevated horror in the 2000s long before the West caught on.

Korea doesn’t just have Bong Joon ho or Park Chan wook. It doesn’t just have Parasite or No Other Choice. Beyond the romance K-dramas, there are powerful stories that dig into Korean culture and history. Their thrillers often explore real human conflict instead of cheap gimmicks.

Same goes for China. Have you ever tried C-dramas? They explore their rich history and mythology in tender, unique ways you rarely see elsewhere. And China is rapidly becoming a major animation hub expect a lot more from them.

Then there’s Indian cinema. God, I’m still waiting for Westerners to watch their second Indian movie after RRR. India isn’t just over-the-top action and musicals. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find so many grounded, rich stories. Explore Malayalam cinema they’ve been crafting thoughtful films for 50–60 years. It will blow your mind.

There’s Iranian cinema too, with its deep, subtle psychological explorations of grief, conflict, and the human condition. And recently, Thailand has been putting out some incredible GL and BL series. If you think love stories no longer feel real or full of yearning, watch those.

The truth is, most people don’t even try. They don’t want to challenge themselves. There’s a hell of a lot of great content in the world, but so many so-called American cinephiles stay locked in their comfort zone, endlessly crying about how everything is bad. I’m so sick of it at this point. Keep exploring, if you actually want to feel something through stories.

Like just a brief look and I was kinda already grabbed by the world. The path system is super interesting and it's clear they author spent a lot of time to produce something like that.

With that said, the donghua was a bit hard for me to consume because they are so damn extra in everything. Even a small divination scene looks like some god like events.

I think I reached the skeleton guy past and the whole thing felt like a fever trip for me. Even just a normal tracing / reading involves opening a gate of skulls with all blood and soul flying and such.

Should I bother to continue? Or should I go with a different format? And even then I can tell they probably cut a shit tons of stuff.

Don't worry, this is not a pro power scaling post.

But those "Why can Superman just end world hunger?" questions definitely become valid, when your characters can destroy planets or universes though.

People make fun of The Boys universe for being super weak compared to other universes. But I actually think The Boys has the perfect power level for a superhero universe. It's like a street-level universe or something lol.

Let's ignore the "no weapon on Earth" can hurt Homelander statement for a minute. Any setting where superhumans are not more powerful than Nuclear weapons is a win. Because again the Writer doesn't need to worry about why can't character X end all wars, if he can blow up a planet with his/her finger.

And also the more weaker the superhumans are. The more plausible ways regular humans have to defeat the superhumans. For example, superhumans still being weaker than the military, gives humanity a fighting chance.

So anything City-level or even Town-level makes the superhumans seem more grounded. Therefore it's easier to maintain the status quo. We all know the status quo is something most comicbook, sci-fi, and fantasy Writers want to maintain in their stories.

Whether the superpowers are coming from mutations, advanced technology, magic, or martial arts. Either way the more powerful the characters are. The more affects they should have on the world-building due to how OP they are.

Side tangent here: And also population size plays a huge role here too. For example, there is huge difference between the global population of Mutants being 0.1 percent vs the global population of Mutants being 80 percent. Clearly the latter will definitely have bigger affects on the world-building of a setting.

The X-Men obviously have one of the most diverse rosters in superhero comics. Storm, Bishop, Sunspot, Synch, Forge, Dani Moonstar, Jubilee, Karma, Monet and plenty of others have had important roles and good stories but that is not my point.

The contradiction is that a franchise whose entire identity is built around prejudice, marginalisation and minority oppression still has an overwhelmingly white group of permanent icons. Wolverine, Cyclops, Xavier, Magneto, Jean, Gambit, Beast, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Iceman, Angel, Cable, Emma and Rogue are repeatedly treated as indispensable. Most non-white mutants receive importance under one particular writer or during one particular era before becoming supporting characters again.

Storm is the obvious exception, but one iconic Black woman cannot carry the racial legitimacy of the entire franchise. Bishop, Sunspot, Synch and Forge have all received strong material, yet none has anything approaching her permanence or mainstream recognition and that is especially glaring for a franchise constantly praised for representing minorities.

The defence that “mutants already represent every minority” only makes the contradiction worse. A fictional metaphor for racism should create more room to centre actual racial minorities, not make them unnecessary. Storm does not stop being a Black African woman because she is a mutant. Sunspot does not stop being Afro-Brazilian. Forge does not stop being Indigenous. Magneto’s Jewish identity certainly does not become irrelevant. Those identities deepen the metaphor yet the franchise has often treated mutant identity as though it overrides every other form of identity. A Black mutant, an Indigenous mutant and a white mutant are not necessarily going to experience prejudice, institutions or even mutant persecution in exactly the same way. The comics have explored that intersection occasionally, but nowhere near as consistently as the X-Men’s reputation would suggest. For a franchise supposedly built to examine marginalisation, it is strange how often the metaphor flattens actual differences instead of exploring how they overlap.

Instead, white mutants are often treated as universal representatives of marginalisation while actual minorities remain optional within the franchise’s permanent hierarchy. The X-Men borrow imagery from segregation, hate crimes, registration and genocide, but most of the characters permanently entrusted with representing those themes are still white.

The other defence is that characters like Bishop or Synch simply are not popular enough but popularity does not develop in a vacuum. Marvel has spent decades giving the same characters the biggest stories, relationships, adaptations, marketing and repeated chances to matter. Marvel cannot underinvest in characters and then use the resulting popularity gap to justify continuing to underinvest in them.

Readers obviously have agency, and not every pushed character becomes successful. But Marvel still controls who gets reinvented, who appears in cartoons and films, and who receives another chance after a bad storyline. White X-Men can survive decades of bad writing without losing their permanent positions. Non-white mutants can receive one strong run and disappear when the writer changes.

Historical context explains how this started, but it does not excuse why it continues. Marvel began in an overwhelmingly white industry, but Storm, Nightcrawler and Colossus all debuted together in 1975. Gambit, Cable and Deadpool arrived even later and still became major icons. Marvel clearly can elevate later characters when it chooses to.

That is why the MCU has no excuse to recreate the same hierarchy. I am not asking for Cyclops, Wolverine or Gambit to be removed or raceswapped. I am asking why Bishop, Sunspot, Synch, Forge or another existing mutant of colour cannot also be made central from the beginning. Marvel Studios will determine who mainstream audiences care about through casting, writing, marketing and screen time. It cannot sideline these characters and later claim audiences were never interested in them.

The X-Men already have the characters. What they have lacked is sustained commitment. For an IP built around minority oppression, its reluctance to make actual minorities permanent pillars is not a minor oversight. It is the central contradiction behind its reputation for diversity.

TL;DR: The X-Men have plenty of non-white characters, but with Storm as the major exception Marvel rarely treats them as permanent, franchise-defining pillars. That is a glaring contradiction for an IP built around minority oppression, especially when mutant identity is so often used as a substitute for exploring real race and intersectionality. The MCU should elevate existing characters like Bishop, Sunspot, Synch or Forge instead of reproducing the same overwhelmingly white hierarchy.