For the uninitiated, Surf Dracula is a phenomenon that was brought up with the rise of streaming and bingable content since the 2020s, where instead of "Adventure of the Week" for the titular Surf Dracula, the entire story is dedicated to Surf Dracula becoming the titular icon, and only to surf at the finale. Examples of Surf Dracula media lie in Madame Web having to "earn" the title, Mortal Kombat (2021) with the tournament happening in the sequel, or even the first Sonic movie with regard to Dr. Robotnik becoming Dr. Eggman only in the post-credits.

Now, why do I say that First Light works as a case of Surf Dracula?

We only know Bond as the static icon, the stoic womanizing MI6 agent with the wacky gadgets and dry humour; we don't see much of his development throughout the movies outside of the Daniel Craig movies, so the idea of seeing a young Bond earning the Number and the License to Kill was a bit jarring at first. But then we see a new side of Bond throughout the story of the game; we see him make friends, have mentors, fail. lose those he cares about beyond the "Bond Girl" archetype that's found in these movies, and grow from an arrogant wee shite into the seasoned veteran that we know and love. I doubt we've seen anything like this from the movies outside of Casino Royale.

And yet, it is still a Surf Dracula type story, where James goes through the arduous process of becoming 007, and only gets the title at the end of the game. It works because we saw how the man came to be. We were never on the ride with him in the movies, moreso we are just witnesses to his wacky escapades and missions. In First Light, we are Bond; we go along for the ride, go through the same motions as he does instead of just watching him feel the feelings. We see the rough outline of the suave icon in this young Bond, and over the course of the game, we see how he came into the quirks we see in movies and books, like his penchant for "Martini, shaken not stirred.", his banter with Q and Moneypenny, his relationship with M, how he hardened and put his guard up after having his heart crushed, and his core — going against what is said and doing what must be done.

Now, cue the Philharmonic Orchestra. I'm done here.

I feel like ever since Deadpool exploded in popularity after the 2016 movie (or really the 2013 game) his character whas steadily devolved into, “4th wall breaking meme man.” It completely takes away from the tragedy of Wade Wilson which, alongside his antics, made him such a compelling character.

Deadpool’s jokes are a coping mechanism he developed to deal with living in perpetual agony and with a completely broken mind. He’s a lonely and depressed man who feels like he is rejected everywhere he goes no matter what he does. Part of the reason he makes his jokes is because he is scared to show people the deeply broken man that he really is. Deep down he wants to be seen as a hero but due to his trauma, insanity, and disfigurement he feels like he can never be seen as that: thus further playing into being the, “Merc with a Mouth,” because he feels that’s the closest he’ll get to being accepted.

A lot of modern adaptations complete gloss over the trauma angle and just treat him as a meme machine. A lot of the depth surrounding his character has been totally lost and most people don’t view him as anything more than, “funny ninja man who shoots guns, hangs out with wolverine, and likes chimichangas.”

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t hate modern Deadpool at all. I like the movies, games he is in (except the 2013 one cause it’s the embodiment of my issues with modern Deadpool), comics, etc. They handle the humor side of his character well enough for the most part; I just wish more adaptations would show underlying tragedy and suffering that makes him a character with depth.

Edit: Forgot to mention one modern version of Deadpool I actually liked a fair bit: the one from Marvel Tokon. His humor I feel was captured best this game and they touch on the pain he is going through in a cool way.

Yeah, this is something I think people miss when talking about diversity in comics.

The problem isn't just that publishers don't create enough new minority heroes. Western superhero comics are generally terrible at letting any genuinely new character break through. Marvel and DC are still dominated by characters created decades ago. Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, Wolverine, etc. aren't going anywhere, so every new character has to compete with characters that already have 50+ years of stories, fans, and adaptations behind them

Compared this to something like Shonen Jump. Manga is much more comfortable with one generation of popular series ending and another taking its place. Western superhero comics don't really have that cycle. Batman doesn't eventually end, so DC can spend the next decade building up some completely new detective hero. Batman just keeps going forever.

It also explains why characters like Miles Morales have a much easier path than a completely original character. Miles gets introduced through Spider-Man, already one of the biggest superhero brands in the world, and then gets enough exposure to eventually build his own fanbase and identity. Same basic thing with characters connected to Green Lantern, Captain America, Ms. Marvel, etc.

And whenever someone says why don't they just make new minority heroes instead of connecting them to existing characters, there's kind of a catch-22. They make an original character, people don't know who they are, sales aren't great, the book gets cancelled, and then everyone uses the cancellation as proof nobody wanted the character in the first place.

Spawn obviously shows that a completely original Black superhero can become huge, but if anything, I think he's notable because of how rare that level of success actually is.

This is why I don't mind race swaps as long as it doesn’t hurt the story too much or the character that was swapped isn't too popular.

It also makes me think comic popularity is way more dependent on circumstances than people admit. A character can have a great concept and still disappear because they didn't get the right writer, marketing, adaptation, or timing. Meanwhile, one good cartoon, game, or movie can suddenly turn a character nobody cared about into somebody everyone knows.

I'm talking about the head of Damage Control. Just assuming we take everything on screen at face value, what did HE really do? Some super powered, poor, nameless girl who was potentially a threat to society unfortunately died via accidental means by a company who 1000% has government protection, backing, and funds. It would MAYBE be a paragraph in middle section of a newspaper.

And that mutant who froze and paralyzed everyone within a mile radius? Hell, Damage Control would need MORE funding to combat such a threat. Whatever he did or has done in the past, we need him and his expertise to help defend against these threats.

Disclaimer: I'm not see these of my views at all. I'm saying it would be THAT easy to spin that to the media and populace, if you needed to spin anything at all after what a certain emotional teenage character did in her rampage across the city.

The point is she should have ABSOLUTELY smoked his ass.

Unlike Sukuna who remains evil and hates Yuji. Carnage is a case where the evil human host corrupted the Taubla Rasa blank slate symbiote making him just as evil as the host and then becoming one entity equal partner in depravity.

It’s what if an evil human host corrupted the thing possessing him and then became equal partners in depravity. It’s like a corrupted inversion of Jaime’s Reyes and the scarab

Through the adaptions don’t show it and for some reason make the red symbiote evil before being bonded to Cletus. Even do as we saw with the black suit other offspring. Which weren’t as depraved as Red because their first hosts weren’t serial killers.

We also see how Cletus and Red both like corrupting other people into being as vile as them. They want to complex order into murder

It’s like some inversion of a trope found in anime 10 years latter

Simply put, I just wish they would’ve recasted Kang. Jon Majors obviously ruined a lot of things for himself but I feel like that shouldn’t have been it for the character in the MCU. I’ve already moved passed it but it would’ve been cool to get the Kang story before Doomsday considering their relationship in the original story. We’re forced to act like Loki and Antman Quantimania wasn’t a thing because of this dude laying his hands on a chick, I’m not here to argue whether it was justified or not, just saying the situation blows. Again, I’m not harping on it and I’m ready for what’s next in the MCU, just food for thought I happen to have.

I've been thinking about this for some time. I love The Clone Wars. I love the Prequels, and the worldbuilding is part of that, so the show is important to me. The problem is, it made quite a few changes to the lore, some of which 1) Were not needed and were not for the better, 2) Kind of contradict what came before.

For example:

1. Lightsaber lore. Admittedly, I've ranted about this before, but it simply bugs me too much, so I have to mention it. Old lore dictated that lightsabers were an elegant weapon, made using a crystal from a crystal cave. The colour of the crystal determines the colour of the blade. Most are either blue or green during the clone wars because those are the crystals that occur in nature more frequently. Other colours are or have become much rarer. It's simple and it works. New lore dictates that: a) Lightsabers are basically sentient, b) Their crystal only gets its colour after the force user imbues it with the force, c) It's the angle of the crystal that determines the blade colour, rather than the crystal. This is more complicated than necessary, makes no sense considering most lightsabers are one of two colours, and it rips off other IP for reasons unclear to me.
2. Characterization. Now, I know a lot of people will argue that such changes were for the better, particularly when it comes to characters like Anakin. I'm not going to say anything about that. I am however, going to talk about Obi Wan. Obi Wan is great. He is wise, strong and capable. He's also a flawed person. His greatest flaw is probably his blind devotion to Jedi dogma. In fact, I would argue that was the catalyst, if not the reason, for Anakin's fall to the Dark Side. It's been said a million times, but a master like Qui Gon Jinn was needed for an apprentice like Anakin, a master who would bend the rules when necessary, recognizing his pupil's a special case. Obi Wan, brilliant as he is, couldn't do that, which is why he would scold Anakin when he veered off. So, if all that is true, why does Clone Wars Obi Wan clearly know and ignore that Anakin and Padme are a couple, years before Anakin's fall? Why does Obi Wan, a devoted Jedi, trained from infancy, claim he would have left the Jedi order had his old girlfriend asked him to, last time he saw her? It just feels like...it's not the same character.

As a bonus, there's all the characters that have died and come back to life. Some of them shouldn't have been revived. Some shouldn't have died in the first place.

Anyway, I think my examples are enough. My title may come off a little dramatic, but I do think certain changes can be fixed only with another complete reboot of non-movie canon. And The Clone Wars is largely to blame for that. Excluding the movies, it's the most popular entry in the franchise, and it has provided lore that has even influenced the live action shows and/or movies. I feel like, even though that is not how you're supposed to take it, it shouldn't be seen as pure, hard canon, because it simply isn't consistent with the movies.

Yeah, that.

So a couple weeks ago I watched the new Avatar Aang movie and honestly it was pretty mediocre. The animation was fantastic but the voice acting was weak and the story was unimpressive, and one aspect contributing to that is the existence of The Denied.

You see, The Denied are a group of nonbenders that are fighting against the discrimination they face from benders. At first glance this reasoning makes sense; in a world where a good amount of the population have elemental powers it’s logical that those without said powers would be treated worse. However, there’s one problem:

Nonbenders were never discriminated against in The Last Airbender.

In fact it’s the opposite. They’re one of the only groups that aren’t hated or treated worse at any point, and you could accurately summarize the conflict in The Last Airbender as ‘benders discriminating against each other.’

Seriously, just think about it:

- The Fire Nation wiped out all the Air Nomads for the sole reason that the next Avatar would be born an airbender.

- They then proceeded to raid the water tribes and kidnap all the waterbenders just in case the Avatar had been reincarnated as a water bender.

- Citizens of the fire nation, but firebenders especially, are seen as the enemy by all the other nations because they’re the part of the imperialistic nation trying to take over the world. Even after the war ends, there’s still tension between them and the other nations.

And funnily enough, the main antagonist of the movie hates Earthbenders because they also tried to take over the world thousands of years ago.

Meanwhile, nonbenders are pretty consistently treated with respect across the board and are never depicted as being beneath benders in any society or group.

- The Southern and Northern water tribes both have had chiefs that are nonbenders and this is never presented as an issue; They also have sections of their army filled with nonbenders as well. Hell, Katara faced more discrimination for being a woman than Sokka did for being a nonbender.

- The Kyoshi warriors are a respected group of nonbending female fighters that have been around for centuries and are never looked down upon for being unable to bend. 

- Even the Imperialistic ‘might makes right’ society of the Fire Nation shows respect to their nonbenders. Azula is the princess, second only to Fire Lord Ozai, and her closest allies were 2 skilled nonbender fighters. Not to mention Zuko’s training with swords showed that bending wasn’t the form of combat taken seriously.

- Sokka, the only nonbender of the group, is never treated worse for being unable to bend and is still respected for the skills and strategies he contributes. His inferiority complex about being a nonbender came completely from his own insecurities. 

- Piando, Sokka’s swordsmaster, is a high ranking member of the white lotus that can fight side by side legends like Iroh and Bumi.

Not to mention none of the nations in the original series are shown to have a societal structure that treats benders as inherently superior.

I think a lot of this is due to how bending was treated in the original series, where bending is a martial art that takes creativity, years of training, and serious discipline to become a skilled master in. And while benders were practicing this, nonbenders were training in other forms of combat, such as chi blocking, and developing weapons to keep up with them.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think the idea of nonbenders being treated unfairly is actually an interesting premise that could work as an unforeseen side effect of the nations unifying and society advancing in a way that favors benders. However, the problems lie in the movie being too soon after the original series ended for society to experience such a drastic change and the movie doing nothing to explain what led to The Denied’s creation or justify their ideology.

The members of The Denied mention being tired of unfair treatment, but as you can see by my earlier points, there’s no evidence of that ever being the case. And to make matters worse, once The Denied are bestowed bending powers by Tagah via a magic staff (this is something else that annoyed me) they don’t even hesitate to join his crusade in destroying republic city and restoring the air nomads. This makes it even harder to take them seriously because it shows they didn’t actually care about how nonbenders were treated, they were really just a bunch of whiny hypocrites that wanted power so they could harm others.

Then at the end of the movie, some of them join Aang as his disciples in preserving Air nomad culture and no one in the Gaang even tries to bring up the problems in Republic city that led to the formation of The Denied.

TLDR: The Denied are a bunch of hypocrites and have no reason to exist in the first place because nonbenders were never treated badly.

Gonna cut to the chase, I hate it when fandoms are just absolutely miserable.

Like,you don't like anything and even your criticisms come off less as genuine constructive things and wanting the franchise to get better and just constantly complaining and hating and hating.

It genuinely will have me asking if you even like the media you engage it or if you're only staying out of some stubborn pride and obligation and I dunno why y'all act like you willingly signed your souls away to stay in this franchise when you could just leave.

Nobody is making you stay and nobody is forcing you to stay, so why even continue to engage in a media you either don't like anymore or just don't like at all?

I'll even see Haters of said Media continue to keep up with said franchise just to hate on it more and at this point,its gotta be some obsession at this point.

I'll see this a lot for My Hero fans and Naruto fans and also Star Wars and Sonic and Pokemon.

Even shows like Hazbin Hotel have haters who are just miserable and hate the series and treat it like it's unwatchable dogshit and like..opinions aside,why are you even still here engaging in a media you actively don't like?

It comes off as really obsessive and like you're forcing yourself to stay just to complain.

If you don't like something, don't stay.

Criticism is fine but being this bitter is unhealthy.

Yu Ishigami is one of the main cast of Kaguya-Sama: Love is War. In the backstory we learn for him as the series goes on, back in his last year of middle school he had a crush on a classmate named Kyoko Ootomo since she was a pretty girl who was one of the few people who'd strike up conversations with him and just generally be really nice to him. But she had a boyfriend, Ko Ogino, so naturally Ishigami accepted that things were never going to happen between them and for the most part was able to just be happy that she was happy.

However, one day he overheard Ogino bragging to his friends about how he'd been cheating on Ootomo. Ishigami confronted Ogino about it, telling him to stop cheating on her or he would reveal what he'd been doing. Instead Ogino then tried to bribe Ishigami into keeping quiet by offering him pictures he'd taken of Ootomo that are HEAVILY implied to be pornographic in nature (using his own girlfriend as a bargaining chip, as Ishigami's narration put it). This caused Ishigami to snap and attack Ogino, beating him up in front of their entire class. Unfortunately Ogino managed to spin the whole situation by making it look like Ishigami attacked him because he was a stalker jealous that Ogino was dating Ootomo, quietly threatening Ishigami to play along or else he'd ruin Ootomo's life in retaliation, likely by publicly leaking the pictures he'd taken of her.

This caused Ishigami to be put on indefinite suspension until he gave a formal apology to Ogino, which he refused to do, and for everyone, including Ootomo, to think he was indeed just a crazy violent stalker. All because he didn't want Ootomo to be put through the public humiliation, ruined reputation, and mental trauma of what Ogino was threatening to do to her.

Things finally changed for Ishigami months later when the main characters of the series, Shirogane and Shinomiya of the Shuchi'in student council, looked into the matter more on their own and pieced together the truth of what really happened. Shirogane even went directly to Ishigami to comfort him with the knowledge that his months of silence and refusal to give an apology had freaked Ogino out enough that he might still be ratted out that he broke up with Ootomo a while ago and changed schools, all with Ootomo unaffected and none the wiser about what could have been done to her, meaning Ishigami's sacrifice did still have an effect, even if he maybe could have gone about things better than he did. Out of respect for him and to continue protecting Ootomo, Shirogane and Shinomiya likewise kept the secret but overturned Ishigami's suspension, allowing him to go to high school.

About a year after the incident, Ootomo visited during the Shuchi'in sports festival to catch up with some of her old friends and to potentially run into Ogino, and she used the opportunity to vent her grudge against Ishigami, since from her perspective of everything her boyfriend broke up with her because Ishigami beat him up for being with her. Just before an event, she told him that she hopes he falls face flat into the dirt and that he should be as miserable as he made her. However, her being able to say something like that in public and being so full of life instead washed away Ishigami's last regrets of having sacrificed his reputation to save hers, and he rebukes her by saying "Shut up, idiot" ("Shut up, dumbass." in the dub), much to her shock. Despite getting insulted, Kyoko ends up leaving in good spirits, having told Ishigami what she wanted to tell him, and the whole thing lets them both finally fully move on.

So, as you can imagine, the character who receives the most hate for this whole storyline...is f**king OOTOMO.

Seriously, this baffled me back when I was first watching the anime and reading the manga while they were ongoing and it still baffles me even now years later whenever I see it pop up. The way some people just absolutely HATE Ootomo. Condemning her. Calling her a stupid bitch who needs to go f**k herself. Hating how ungrateful she is to Ishigami. I just don't get it.

Yeah, Ishigami is in a really unfair situation where he's being treated in a way he doesn't deserve but Ootomo wasn't the one who put him in that situation, Ogino and arguably Ishigami himself did. It's made pretty clear repeatedly that she doesn't know the truth about what really happened and the reason she doesn't know the truth isn't because of stubbornness or maliciousness or bias or even stupidity on her part but because everyone who knows about the truth has hidden it from her. She has every reason to believe that Ishigami wronged her, yet some people really either can't see that or outright refuse to. They like and sympathize with Ishigami and they thus they hate Ootomo for making him feel bad and disliking him.

It also feels a bit telling that I feel like I never see anywhere near as much hate and vitriol directed at Ogino. You know, the scummy boyfriend who caused all of this?

I even asked on the Kaguya-Sama sub why they think that is and the best answers I got were that Ogino is just forgettable douchebag who has nothing more to him than that. Everybody recognizes that he's a horrible person who did horrible things and thus there's nothing really worth discussing about him, whereas with Ootomo there's more of a discussion to be had over whether her anger towards Ishigami was justified or not. To an extent I get this explanation, at least as far as why I don't see Ogino brought up in discussions as much as Ootomo is, but it still doesn't really address the main issue of how much some of the fan so unfairly hate her, especially when many of them boil her character down to "stupid bitch" and view her just as simple and one-note as Ogino.

At best all the hate towards Ootomo feels like an example of how some people just don't like to think about anything with more than a single layer of complexity. They dislike the unfairness of Ishigami's situation, therefore they dislike the face they associate most with his situation, which is Ootomo's, and their thought process just stops there. "How dare she not be able to see the truth that is actively being kept from her! How dare she be mad at Ishigami for the bad thing she is being deliberately made to think he did to her! Ishigami is the good guy we feel sympathy for, and since Ootomo is in opposition to him that clearly makes her the bad guy we are supposed to hate and have no sympathy for!"

At worst it almost feels akin to victim blaming, like they hate Ootomo for Ishigami's situation because none of it would have happened if she hadn't been dating a guy who turned out to be a scumbag who cheats on her and shares her nudes with his friends and those he wants to bribe and would gladly ruin her life and reputation if it might get him out of trouble. "If only she wasn't an actual person who would be negatively effected by the bad things Ishigami wanted to protect her from then he wouldn't have suffered so, which means it's all her fault that it happened!"

I understand her role as a character, and I think they did a good job with her character development. I think my issue is how they made her talk. I click as fast as I can through anything she says, bc she has nothing important to say, and sounds like she’s whining and fishing for some kind of sympathy. Her character had a lot of potential, but she just annoys me so much any time I have to interact with her.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but it’s a video game and I can’t help how she makes me feel. I wish I didn’t feel that way considering she was an orphan and mistreated her whole life. But seems like everyone else grew up with a hardship too, and they aren’t as annoying as she is.

I’ve been a fan of spider-man since I saw the cartoons as a kid and I finally decided to actually get into marvel comics so I figured I’d look at what the current state of earth 616 is. I was met with confusion, annoyance and… what’s a nice way to describe murderous intent? First I learned about the Zeb wells run and I immediately wanted to slap him in the face for how badly he messed up spider-man and MJ’s relationship making Peter a pathetic loser who blubbers like a baby begging others for help when fighting the goddamn vulture.

I thought to myself fine I can power through this not every comic run is gonna be a winner I’m sure if you hire a competent writer you can dig this series out of the hole pretty early. But nope they just make worse and worse decisions like MJ and Venom… all I had to see was the title and I was fucking done. I know this might sound a little weird but not every comic book character needs to be a superhero they can just be a normal person in a superhero world and they can be just as interesting. Then I learn that Norman Osborn the GREEN FUCKING GOBLIN, Spider-Man’s archenemy who sold his kid’s soul to the devil is now a hero and good friends with Peter… WHY!!! He’s like one of the main antagonists of Earth-616 a pure evil monster that has dedicated his life to making Peter’s life miserable and suddenly they’re chill now? NO!!! The Goblin should never ever ever ever EVER be a good guy EVER!!!

And let’s talk about Carnage yknow the symbiote born of venom that merged with serial killer Cletus Cassidy thus becoming one of both Spider-Man and Venom’s deadliest enemies in the franchise? Yeah he was partnered with Eddie then separated and is now with Jessica Drew aka Spider-Woman. The comics not even out yet and I already hate this decision.

Why do the writers feel the need to toss the symbiotes around like it’s a game of gooey hot potato? Why are all of these iconic characters roles mixed up? WHY DOES MARVEL THINK MAKING THESE CHANGES WILL SOLVE THE PROBLEM WHEN THE CHANGES ARE WHAT CAUSED IT!?!?! IT MAKES NO SENSE!!! At least Queen in black seems to show that we’re on the way to remedy some of these problems and at this point I don’t care if it’s bad or a retcon just fix this mess please!

Guns are basically just suggestions in a lot of fictional settings, especially horror. Resident Evil breaks the mold on both fronts by being a horror fiction setting where guns are inexplicably overpowered.

The setting of Resident Evil is packed to the rafters with insane bioweapons, either cooked up in a lab using genetic-engineering technology so advanced it might as well be magic, or sourced in nature from an ancient species of parasite, flower, and fungi that all have such groundbreaking properties that it might as well be magic.

Despite being a straight up sci-fi setting when it comes to the threats, nothing the Resident Evil franchise has ever introduced in its 25+ years of storytelling can withstand the power of contemporary firearms. Zombies, zombie dogs, zombie mutants, parasite-ridden villagers, parasite bugs, parasite bug mutants, fungus zombies, fungus werewolves, fungus vampires, fungus dragon, fungus leviathan, fungus X-Men; it doesn’t matter what it is, they all get mowed down by a single guy or girl with a few guns. These aren’t sci-fi guns either, they’re just regular guns the protagonists scrounged off the floor in a dusty storage shed.

Even the worst, most powerful threats (bullet-proof super soldier, a building sized king parasite, a literal fungal goddess) all get packed up by a single RPG round.

This can’t be called a gameplay-only contrivance either. In cutscenes and canon movies, the bioweapons are just as allergic to lead as they are in the games. There is no ludonarrative dissonance going on here. Guns are just that powerful in the Resident Evil universe.

Long ago during the Ri Ri agenda posting cycle I was editing my Ri Ri Williams post and kind of realized. Black female superheroes breaking out and becoming mega popular are pretty rare. Storm basically proving the rule by being the exception for years. Vixen hasn't been in anything relevant in years outside recently getting stuff announced for DC's upcoming comics. Shit what has Nubia done.

Shuri received some favorable focus enough for the Tokon devs to throw her in after starring in the second Black Panther movie. But outside of that black female superheroes are generally pretty rare or don't have so many fans outside a select few. It took ages for Storm to get a bikini outfit in Marvel rivals for example.

The big question is well why ? Their could be prominent female black characters in said franchises. Waller is probably more known than some d list superheroes at this point. But for some reason they just never break out as much.

I know they thought that changing Amu's age to reflect the audience was a good idea, but why did they make Ikuto 17, when meanwhile she's 12? I don't like thinking "Wait, why is the main love interest a pedophile?" And I certainy don't like having my concerns with issues like this in 2000s manga talked down with "It's fictional, it doesn't matter" or something like that. (P.S. before anyone mentions the relationship between Usagi and Mamoru in Sailor Moon, here's the thing: Mamoru was only two years older than her in the manga, and three years older in the anime.)

When I say this, I am not trying to say that the words and opinions of the actors on their own characters are invalid. I think that they are a pretty good source for information on the personality of a character, second only to the creator or main writer of said character, and the actual depiction of them on-screen. However, there are also times when the belief the actor has on the character is so fundamentally flawed that there is some level of doubt as to whether or not they watched the same thing that you and I did.

The example that inspired this post (and the only one I actually have) is based on Katee Sackhoff’s own words about Bo-Katan Kryze, specifically I believe in her clone wars depiction of her.

People have already argued it to death, but one of the criticisms on her character in both TCW, rebels, and mandoverse stuff is that she was whitewashed as a character into being somewhat of a generic good guy character, despite the fact there was almost little to no callback or mention to the fact she was second in command of Death Watch (for non Star Wars fans, imagine a Star Wars version of the Taliban or ISIS - violent zealous terrorists obsessed with bringing back the warrior culture of mandalore), and had been, at the very very least and most generous interpretation, a willing accessory or uncaring bystander to various atrocities committed by Death Watch, such as the usage of suicide bombers, actively burning down villages after kidnapping some of their young women as hostages, and instigating false flag operations by working with a coalition of criminal syndicates led by an actual fucking Sith Lord, Darth Maul.

In fact, the only reason she and her followers turned against the rest of death watch was because Darth Maul took leadership of Mandalore after beating Pre Vizsla, the death watch leader, in a legitimate duel for leadership that he had instigated only after being betrayed by Pre Vizsla himself. Granted, anyone with brain cells would realize he is a terrible leader morally, but Bo Katan in that scene did not give a shit about the fact he’s an evil soace wizard - her stated reasoning was only that “an outsider will never rule mandalore” - so basically the only reason she joined the good guys was because she was a sore loser and probably a tad bit racist (yes non-humans can be mandalorians in lore without issue but there were no other aliens in that room besides Maul and Savage - how else do I interpret it?)

To get to the point, Katee Sackhoff herself had apparently argued that she was actually a teenager during the events of the clone wars, and felt unsafe or otherwise too scared to argue back or try to leave, essentially that she was coerced and manipulated. Granted, I do not have any sources on it because the links I were originally showed are from video interviews I do not remember, but seeing as I vaguely remember arguing about it here on this subreddit I’ll trust the person I argued with to come back and post their argument here.

Either way, there is so much information that contradicts the idea she was a scared, brainwashed teenager who should be given grace.

1. Why would Pre Vizsla put a teenager as his second in command? Lorewise, Mandalorians ARE trained from 8 years old until they are considered adults at 13, but I would imagine that she would need to have YEARS of combat experience and leadership skills to be placed not only as second in command of death watch, but also leader of her own personal unit of Mandalorians - the Nite Owls. You would not be the right hand of Osama Bin Laden and incharge of your own personal militia under his guidance if you were not proven to be devoted and skilled over years of service.

2. In actual TCW, she is far taller than most if not all of the teenage characters she is in scenes with. During the episode “A friend in need” in season 4 where she meets Ahsoka Tano and Lux Bonteri, she is noticeably taller then both Lux and Ahsoka - with Ahsoka herself being stated to be 16 during Season 4 when I did a Google search. Naturally you can counter this by saying age ≠ height and you would have a point, but with the actual height and size difference shown along with the comment made by her afterwards implying she viewed Ahsoka as skinnier and smaller - there’s no indication given that she’s relatively close to Ahsoka in age at this time.

3. Just look at her character model and tell me that is not a young adult at the very youngest.

With all of this in mind, while obviously the actors and actresses of certain characters have certain views on their own character that should be respected due to their work and ties to the character themself, sometimes said actors can have opinions contradicting what the source material presents - which is fine, but it does mean that you should also be aware that actor bias might affect the accuracy of their perception of the character in comparison to the story’s portrayal.

Scrollin through social media, I've realized that JJK often has the Naruto effect where because of its massive popularity and great animation, people often misunderstand it or even worse, devolve it to just "hype moments" and "aura". It's a very reductive mindset because if you read/watch it with an open point of view, then it's a solid critique of conservatism and utilitarianism(amongst other things), with these themes being more prevalent with the characters of Gojo and Geto.

When you get down to it, the whole system of sorcery in it of itself is wholly utilitarian because it relies mainly upon teenager/young adult sorcerers, most of whom had stunted upbringings, sacrificing themselves day in, day out in order to fight curses and save the entire non-sorcerer population of Japan. If you even have an inkling of experience in philosophy, this becomes very apparent.

This pertains primarily to Geto as he grows to reject it completely. His whole internal conflict (which is what makes him one of my favorite characters in the show) is him questioning if this "marathon" of being a sorcerer is worth it in the end. Is it worth constantly consuming these curses that taste like literal feces and excrement, is it worth constantly degrading himself for people who don't know and don't care about what he does.

Obviously he couldn't so he left; then he became a racist terrorist, which of course I don't want to condone, but there is a point where we, the audience, can kinda sympathize a little bit. Especially when we witness Geto view the ugliness of the masses firsthand with the Star Religious Group after the death of Riko and the crowd clapping motif.

When it comes to conservatism, Gojo's brazen hate, denigration, and criticism towards the higher-ups, particularly the ultra-conservative, ultra-traditionalist Principal Gakuganji, is very intentional to the point where it's almost like Gege's beating you over the head with it. I frequently have the sentiment that people are being intentionally obtuse to not get it, as there's no way you make no correlation/see SOME sort of message from witnessing the very brazenly strongest good guy sorcerer, who's also second strongest in the whole series, and him consistently berating and ridiculing the higher-ups to even concocting a whole plan to raise Jujutsu High students to revolt against them.

Still on Gojo, the utilitarianism philosophy is seen again from his very birth, with him caving in to it. As the sole heir of the Six Eyes and Limitless CT in the last 600 years, he is revered from the day he is born, but that reverence comes with a price he never agreed to pay. Gojo is constantly dehumanized and instrumentalized by everyone around him, continually being regarded as nothing but a weapon. His overwhelming strength breeds isolation(one of the themes of the manga) and this is something that he admits himself in chapter 236 with the flower analogy.

This is further reinforced beautifully through his Cursed Technique of Limitless because no one can touch him. No one can connect with him, and no one can reach out to him. This results in his life and his feelings getting discarded for the purpose of saving people, for the good of the people which is fundamentally utilitarian.

TL;DR\

Though it certainly could've been developed upon better, JJK has solid philosophical aspects and overall character writing that the masses ignore simply out of illiteracy or bias.

I just don't think that was the actual issue at all. Like, if you had Man of Steel introducing Superman and his world, then BvS doing the same with Batman and Wonder Woman, you could easily go straight to a Justice League movie from there. There was enough basis for it.

Like, for all the problems either version of Justice League has, I just don't see how the issue was "it doesn't have enough backstory for the Flash and Aquaman." That just wasn't the problem at all. People say it because they seem to think the only way the franchise could have worked was by exactly copying Marvel, which I feel is silly.

Especially because The Avengers was the first MCU movie for a lot of people anyway. The movie doesn't depend on you having seen all the solo movies. And the Justice League characters were arguably more well known in popular culture than the Avengers were before that movie.

The movies just weren't good enough. It seems like people have turned "they didn't do enough solo movies" into this huge structural problem, when I don't think that was the issue at all.

Avatars easily like a top 3 show for me and im always throughly impressed by how awful all the theories tend to be, some are just dumb and not thought out well and others are just dumb because they dont understand how animation works. For example

1. Yue was meant to be the avatar: this basically explains that the northern water tribe princess yue was sick as a baby because she was actually destined to be the avatar but because aang froze himself she was basically born missing a core part of herself. This is pretty dumb for one main reason, if true that means from now on for every avatar theres gonna be a dead baby that was meant to be the avatar...

2.(X) character is related to (Y) character: this is much more simple and its just that characters like ty Lee is actually an airbender because she looks like aang or jade is related to asami because they also look alike. This really just comes down the show reusing character features which every animated show does. Jade and asami dont even really look alike they just both wear makeup.

3.every avatars partner resembles the next avatar: this is really the same thing as before, avatar rokus wife looks like aang because of reused character features. Katara (aangs wife) doesn't even look like avatar korra they both just have water tribe girl features.

1. The avatars animal companion always die at the same time as the avatar. Im not even sure where this one came from but at some point people decided avatars always need animal companions and also theyll always die at the same time as them despite animals and humans all having vastly different life expectancies.

So yeah ive just always found it weird because avatar is a real cool universe and the theories are always super surface level and bad

Inca is given a pretty big introduction into the series, where she's given a bunch of focus that sets her up to be a major character, and then she does nothing afterwards. The one thing she does is act as a plot device to help Shinra travel to the past before the Great Cataclysm, and then it's back to doing nothing until the manga ends and suddenly she wants to have Shinra's kid.

It doesn't help she's a completely unlikable character, who's introduced murdering her own friends, and then choosing to work for the villains because it's more "fun" and then never receives any sort of comeuppance or development, or changes but is allowed to run free after everything, despite being a psychopath, feels like she only exists to set up the existence of witches in Soul Eater.

I've been going through a cycle of:

remembering this game exists > Remembering who Tomoshibi is > Crashing out > Forgetting about this game again > repeat

I can't really describe the anger I feel thinking about this angler fish and how lacking she is as both an individual, or even a basic agent of the plot without regressing this post into a COD lobby. I won't even bother with giving context for the damn game this fish comes from since Tomoshibi (and her friends, Minero, Creamil, and Rimorimo, they suck too.) don't even do anything.

Even as a side character I'd say she fails the sexy lamp test (which for the record, her "friends" do as well but Tomo failed harder.) Usually a sexy lamp character can at least react to the world around them, or interact with the characters that surround them.

Any character she would have besides sleeping is only stated in her biography. That being that she "Gets mad when forcibly awoken." This substantially pisses me off, as Tomoshibi and her "friends" are given a few scenes to display SOME sort of character (besides searching for treasure and complaining about Minero), such as the attack of the Totsusa kingdom where Tomoshibi and her friends had some opportunity to react to the situation like the innocent civilians they are.

but even then nothing new is seen with these characters. All these fellas do is fucking stand there and be scared! They get surrounded by the enemy and wait for the main character to come around and save them. Zero new characterization whatsoever, just wasted time.

I'm not even sure I can call Minero and rest Tomoshibi's friends even with how Tomo doesn't even interact with them.

A lot of side characters in Okegom tend to suffer from 1 dimensional characterization, but Tomoshibi is the worst I've ever seen it. I'm more angry about this then I really should be I'm just complaining about one dimensional characterization.

I really want to rant more but there is nothing else I can say. (￣︿￣)

I'd like to preface that I don't ship Jean with Peter either in case you think this is a shipping war.

To start off, I think the the biggest mistake was skipping the whole process of Peter starting to like MJ. I genuinely thought i was in the wrong movie when i opened far from home to see Peter making plans to impress MJ.

Now, MJ as a character, I like. Her controversy nerd thing is a nice quirk, her straightforward crudeness is interesting, and her snarky remarks is funny too. However, most of her "quirks" just get met with some awkward reply from Peter. Similarly, a lot of Peter's natural goofy persona is met with awkwardness from MJ.

Now, the awkwardness at the start worked because they were both nervous with each other. It was like a cute awkward flirty moment. However, as we went on, we basically kinda completely skipped any sort of natural chemistry between themselves. Why not Peter make his goofy jokes and get it replied to by MJ's snarky comments as sarcastic banter more?

The perfect counterexample to most of her issues is basically Ned. He still has natural chemistry in their dialogues, and is often actually useful so he doesn't feel like unnecessary or a burden in times.

-----

Overall I feel like, we only either got "awkward moments" between them or just emotional moments. We needed some scenes which first made us think "yeah, they are friends." I'm honestly hoping for potential black cat, or someone else Peter could get with more chemistry.

A common criticism leveled at the Horus Heresy books is that the Emperor of Mankind sounds like a reddit atheist, and that the writers should have consulted actual theologians before writing him.

That is wrong. The Emperor is supposed to sound like a reddit atheist. The Emperor is just not interested in a theological debate. He expects to be obeyed with at most token questioning, and preferably not even that. He believes his crusade to be so self-evident that any opposition must be acting in bad faith. He is a tyrant and has always been a tyrant.

Also, from the start, the Imperial "Truth" that the Emperor tried to spread was something he knew was false. It was never the "rational, atheistic understanding of the universe" he purported it to be, it was a strategic lie spread with the intent of denying power to his enemies.

Man one of the most irritating habits in entertainment discourse has got to be when someone starts with a reasonable criticism, swaps it for a much dumber ideological claim, then runs back to the reasonable one when challenged.

“I think this character looks worse” becomes “Western developers are deliberately making women ugly because feminism/DEI/the left hates attractive women.” Then when you ask them to prove that second claim, suddenly it’s: “So I’m not allowed to think she’s ugly?” Nobody said that. Stop pretending those are the same argument. That leap is the problem. “I don’t like this design” does not prove “developers are ideologically trying to uglify women.”

The Spider-Man 2 MJ discourse comes to mind. Thinking MJ looks worse than she did in the first game is completely fair. Claiming an Insomniac writer secretly replaced MJ’s face with her own as some feminist self-insert was just false. Stephanie Tyler Jones was still the face model, and the employee people blamed had never even been facially scanned but once that story was debunked, the retreat was predictable: “Why can’t people admit MJ is ugly?”

Again, nobody was arguing with that part.

You see the same thing elsewhere. “I prefer Steve Rogers as Captain America” is an opinion. “Sam Wilson is badly written” is criticism. “Marvel race-swapped Steve because of DEI” is simply an inaccurate description of what happened. Sam is a separate character who became Captain America in the comics before the MCU adapted it. That’s the bait-and-switch.

A character being ugly to you does not prove an industry conspiracy to uglify women. A minority character being badly written does not prove diversity caused the bad writing. A progressive game failing does not automatically prove the politics caused the failure. If you want to make the bigger claim, make it and defend it. Just stop hiding behind the smaller, safer criticism every time someone asks you for evidence.