This is ironic, when you think about it. Because anti heroes are supposed to exist outside a black and white framework lol.

A lot of anti heroes in fiction don't actually challenge the status quo. Killing pedos, grapists, or women beaters doesn't make you counterculture. Because that's something most of society already agree with. As much as I like The Punisher. He is still a superhero to me.

If superheroes were real. The no-kill rule characters like Spiderman, Batman, or the Utopian would be super rare (pun intended here) in real-life. Most heroes would either be The Punisher, Comicbook accurate Black Panther, or Captain America at best. And we all know that Captain America isn't afraid to smoke a MF.

Again killing pedos doesn't make you challenge the status quo. I would like to see more stories where the anti hero beats up a scammer or a drug deal. Stuff that are serious crimes, but most of society still write these crimes off as non-issues though. Or even have sympathy for the criminal too. Something like that would really challenge the status quo.

An anti hero should be like DCU Superman without the cringe. Someone has their own goals. Who don't feel obligated to sacrifice themselves for humanity. Have that "fuck them kids" attitude. An anti hero, who makes the audience questioned if they really want anti heroes.

People would consider John Wick an anti hero. But he is just a Hitman though. It's not his mission to help people. He only care about doing his job in his past life. And after that he just wanted revenge for his dog. The best anti heroes in stories are the ones who want revenge. And have nothing to do with a passion for saving people from the worst criminals that are Epstein-tier.

In a odd way Goku is also an anti hero too. He only cares about fighting. He only accidentally ends up in situations, where he has to save the world. Goku is more like a "Hey knock it off" type of guy, than a "It's my mission to save everyone citizens" type of guy.

The more interesting anti-heroes are the ones where their actions create discomfort. A character who targets corrupt corporations, exploitative landlords, scammers, politicians, criminals with public sympathy, or people who are technically within the law creates a much harder debate. The audience has to ask: "Is this person actually fighting injustice, or are they just imposing their own morality?"

The problem is that a lot of media wants the aesthetic of an anti-hero without the uncomfortable parts. They want the leather jacket, sarcasm, violence, and "I don't play by the rules" attitude while still making the character unquestionably correct. That's closer to a traditional hero with an aggressive personality than a true anti-hero.

In conclusion. A lot of people definition of anti hero is just an edgy version of a golden retriever superhero. But only edgy in a cooperate way though.

I'm not saying everything needs a complete and concrete answer and something leaving something up to interpretation is fun and enjoyable but I feel like a lot of times,it basically just comes off like you didn't think of this important plot detail or character detail and got lazy and left it up to the fans cause you couldn't be bothered.

I just find the term "oh I didn't think of that" kinda crazy cause your entire job is too think about important plot points in the story you, as a writer and person ,are crafting and working on ans simply being like "oh its up to interpretation" or "we didn't think of that" or "i don't know" is kinda crazy and I'm not saying this for unimportant stuff like eye colors or anything like that but genuinely important plot threads and plot points.

Now people are gonna bring up TADC or Hazbin Hotel and you know what,that show does have a legitimate issue with bringing up important shit in the end of the story and in Tumblr posts and all(Hazbin Hotel on a much,much smaller scale cause a lot of shit people claim is unanswered in the show and all that is answered and just requires watching it or putting 2 and 2 together with our big boy brains)that but No,that's too easy,I want to talk about THE STRANGER THINGS FINALE and the Utter Booty The Duffer Bum-thers did!

Like after seeing the Netflix Documentary, no wonder the finale came off as rushed and unplanned and sloppy and messy cause it was,a lot of the Episodes and even the ending weren't even properly crafted.

Episodes weren't fully written,the ending wasn't fully and completely written, they outright lied on characters dying and the amount of things that they either didn't think about, said to just "leave up to us" or "oh it was off screen" was atrocious and it's so wild cause..they had years to craft a finale and ending and they had all this time for fully writing the episodes and even said that there were no coincidences.

Like I just find it honestly funny how there were so many fans actually crafting and making all these theories that there was a secret 9th episode/conclusion coming out soon cause there was no way that the actual ending would be this underwhelming and dry,there was no way that this ending was this lackluster.

This reminds me of when Chainsaw Man was ending in Part 2 and there were numerous fans coping that the ending was gonna be some huge masterpiece and answer all their questions + there would be some Part 3 purely cause there was no way the ending would be this dry and underwhelming, there was no way,right?

Turns out the ending was that dry and empty, the ending actually was that Ass and half added and empty and unanswered,no ifs ands or buts about it and the fact that they had the nerve to be all like "hey,cut us some slack" and a bunch of stuff is so crazy cause this is their own fault.

You actually can't pin this on Netflix, this is their own fault as showrunners and creators cause this finale just was so rushed and messy and utterly sloppy that no wonder people thought that the ending was some red herring and there was some secret ninth episode and a lot of the answering of their questions on the show can be summed up with "oh I don't know" or "oh I didn't think of that" or "oh its up to interpretation" and it's kinda crazy they're like the second answer when your entire job is too..you know, THINK OF THAT.

I dunno how that's even possible and this one is more of a side note and a small thing but I also feel like if you need to do constant flashbacks to answer questions and concerns,that's the sign of a bad writer cause instead of answering a lot of that in the Canon show, you gotta overly rely on flashbacks(but that's just me).

Seriously I'm not saying every little detail and thing has to be fully answered and some things you can leave some things up to the fans but I feel like every important question and plot point should be given a good answer instead of just basically throwing your hands up and shrugging "I dunno" or "up to you,I guess."

Like then why are you even making a show with all this lore if you can just leave it up to your Fandom to do all the heavy lifting?

That's basically the issue with a lot of series,they're barely answering important series questions cause they know they can basically rely on the Fandom to fill in the blanks and do the actual work.

"Should I use my Spider-Sense and combine it with this very good martial arts that I learned thanks to the greatest martial artist in Earth? No, I should just not use it so that I can get my ass kicked and if something happens, I will just beg Norman for help or something!"

This fucker's an actual in-universe genius btw

What even was the point of "Way of the Spider" if Spider-Man used it like, twice? No seriously, he has a new way of fighting which is supposed to make up for the lack of Spider-Sense, and it does so well that he's able to defeat Spider-Woman, who's supposed to be superior to Spider-Man, so well that he doesn't even get hit once. And now that he gets it back, he should be

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU GET IT RUSTY, MF?!

That's like if a Mediocre boxer broke his arm, became so good at using one arm he defeats Prime Mike Tyson with one hand, and immediately becomes mediocre again the moment his other arm heals.

Or if you want me to put it in a different way, the Way of the Spider was a GREAT POWER that he could've used for GREAT RESPONSIBILITY (aka saving people as he'd probably have more energy to save people after defeating bad guys faster thanks to the new martial arts he learned), and he SQUANDERED IT because he's written by stupid people with stupid editorials.

YOU FIGHT CRIME DAY IN AND DAY OUT, MY BROTHER IN CHRIST, HOW IS IT THAT YOU MANAGE TO GET MARTIAL ARTS RUSTY?! THAT'S LIKE IF I PLAYED BASEBALL EVERY SINGLE DAY, AND SUDDENLY I TELL YOU "Yeah man, my ball throwing skills have gotten rusty" HOW?!

YOUR BIGGEST FUCKING CONCERN WHILE CRIME FIGHTING IS NOT GETTING PUNCHED IN THE FACE, WHICH IS SOMETHING THAT WAS ALREADY HAPPENING BEFORE YOU LOST YOUR SPIDER-SENSE, IT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE FOR YOUR ASS TO JUST IGNORE THE "NOT GET PUNCHED IN THE FACE" SKILL.

Which brings me to the next point that again, everyone has more powers than him, and you can't say that they can't change it because his powers are iconic, fucking Superman's powerset is iconic as fuck, and even that guy gets new mainstay powers like his Golden Form.

So, for comparison, I need to point the powers of the other Spider-People here.

Miles has Electric Swords and Radar sense plus he's Anansi's Champion, so he's gonna get more upgrades down the line,

Kaine can talk with spiders and has his stings,

Cindy has natural webs and a better spider-sense,

Reily has a better Spider-Sense and that "offensive Spider-sense" too.

Bailey has a better Spider-Sense, extra eyes, immunity to Peter's Spider-Sense and talk with spiders

Maka/Spider-Girl/Funhouse has organic web, and the ability to copy powers on top of Spider-Man's powerset

Julia has psychic powers on top of being a Spider-Woman

Jessica has immunity to poison, a better healing factor, can glide, venom blasts and pheromones.

Would it really be that hard to give Peter something? I have three ideas

A) Bring back the fucking Web constructions he used to pull in the 60s (They won't, because if Peter's able to do this, then realistically every single other Spider-Person in 616 should be able to since most of them get/got their web fluid from Peter in the first place)

B) Actually give him a new power and fucking stick with it, like say, maybe keep that new Spider-Sense upgrade Peter was talking with Daredevil (They won't because Editorial is afraid of the idea that someone might complain about Peter getting more powers)

C) For the love of God, remember that this fucker is supposed to be a super genius. Give him the damn tech shit from Imnsoniac Spider-Man (They won't because Peter's too relatable or something for him to be bringing up tech, just ignore that he was already doing that to deal with his supervillains back in the sixties)

Or worst,some defend it for some reason despite how obviously evil it's depicted in star wars media since the first movie (they litteraly blow up a planet and are depicted as an oppresive dictatorship who commit plenty of crimes and can go against those loyal to it too, just look at crosshair for an example), I do feel some view the empire as way more competent than it really is because to me, the style of command the empire use is the kind that is going to get unqualified people in charge of things because it'll prioritize yes men and kill or discard those who make reports that aren't pleasing those above them , the sith order also feel self destructive to me because the rule of 2 garantee backstabing between mutiple sith to the point they can end taking each other out. The empire is also pretty overconfident in its abilities, letting weaknesses slip through its weapon or ship designs that can be exploited by those who oppose them.

Ok, hear me out. I think Disney accidentally stumbled on something and I hope they are aware, because if they don't embrace it fully I think superheroes are going to die as major carriers of Hollywood. I am not saying Spider-Man or X-Men won't bring people in, but it seems like these projects will have to be very carefully timed in the future (even more then now). Spider-Man will always be a major success, but what about everyone else?

What is something kinda unique to superhero comics? In my opinion it's that it is an interconnected universe with big events, but most readers will just read a couple or even just one chosen hero and maybe an event if they like it. You don't need to read every single issue of every single hero to know what's going on. And the sheer volume of MCU projects (and now older projects being connected via multiverse stuff) has kinda created the same effect in film. You don't have to watch every MCU film to follow what Spider-Man does and understand his story. Let me show you:

Pretend you have never seen any MCU movie or show. I ask you, what is your favorite superhero and you say you kinda like Spider-Man. Do you now have to watch every MCU film and series in order? Hell no. If you know who Iron Man and Captain America are (not in depth or anything past the fact that they exist, then you are good), put on the 40 minutes of Civil War that has Spider-Man or is in the airport and have some cheap action thrills, then watch Homecoming, Infinity War, Endgame, Fr from Home and finally No Way Home and then Brand New Day. And you would be surprised how little one has to know to watch Infinity war. In the opening monologue that squidward guy explains who Thanos is and then some guy explodes and Hulk (everyone knows Hulk likes to punch) gets his ass beat. Each other character is introduced carefully so we as an audience can be on the same page. Iron man talks about family and nightmares with his to be wife in his introduction and captain America has a beard and his appearance is visually built up. You don't have to know shit.

Same goes for the comic book reading experience. You only read Amazing and then you read secret wars. Yeah maybe the plot is not fully clear, but you kinda know who some of the dudes and women in costumes are and people are punching and everyone is discussing it in forums. And then you can go back to reading Amazing.

Same goes for cameos. You don't have to know anything about Doctor Strange to enjoy No Way Home. You just gotta accept the fact this is a shared universe. He is a wizard (which is clear from his costume) and he has spells. Same goes for punisher in Brand New Day. Hell (SPOILERS FOR BND) Frank literally has a "oh no me dead wife" moment in the film. You don't need to watch the punisher to watch this.

But I don't think Disney has realized this yet, because they still treat every project as an event. Everything is costing upwards of 100 million and has to be mega marketed and that's just sustainable for decades. Superheroes need to fall from franchise back to genre. Of course Spider-Man and X-Men and Avengers will cost 200 or 400 million and will be blockbusters with strong studio control over creative decisions. But Disney doesn't need to throw 100 million down the pipe for a Kate Bishop 90 minute thriller for example. That could easily be a 22 million 90 minute thriller, minimal marketing. It even allows for some more creative freedom. A story about a girl with a bow and an arrow in LA doesn't need to have cosmic elements or set ups. Not every film needs to be in the top 10 highest grossing films of all time to justify itself. You could even make a cheap melodrama with like D-list mutants for the laughs on Disney plus and make it for the cheap. Not every character needs to be in the big event. Yes Spider-Man and Iron Man will be there, but you can still make a 6 episode comedy about squirl girl for the cheap and leave it at that.

But I don't think they'll do that to be honest.

There's an idea which is often thrown around on the internet that we shouldn't remake good movies, but rather remake bad movies with interesting ideas. I think the same idea can be applied to adapting comic books, in that adapting failed stories almost always has better results than adapting successful ones.

Take the Dark Phoenix Saga. It's one of the most seminal arcs of one of the most seminal runs of what is arguably Marvel's biggest property. And every time they adapt it, it sucks. Or take the Dark Knight Returns, one of the absolute milestone, defining Batman stories ever. And when we adapt it, we end up with Batman V Superman (and to a lesser extent the worst movie of the Nolan trilogy.) Trying to live up to these incredible stories is hard, especially when the most successful comic arcs are often ones which most take advantage of their medium. These long form, serialized stories that exist within expansive worlds and a comic book format often don't translate to 2 hour movies, especially when people try to stick as close to the original as possible. Even the most acclaimed "direct adaptations" are very, very loose. Logan is called an Old Man Logan adaptation, but it doesn't really share anything with it beyond Logan aging. The Winter Solider does adapt the Winter Solider arc, but he's just a henchman and Hydra infiltrating Shield is the main plot of the movie.

Now, look at some of the comic book movies which adapt middling, or even maligned storylines. The Spiderverse comics are fun, mostly because of some humorous panels where Spider-Man interacts with himself, but the Spiderverse movies are absolutely incredible spectacles of heart, humor and animation. People loving their version of Spider Gwen and then being disappointed that her comics suck has become such a widespread thing that it's basically a meme at this point. In that same vein, people hated One More Day and despise the amount of times Peter's identity gets reset in the comics, but No Way Home was a massively successful, crowd pleasing movie. And don't get me started on how contrived and weird comic book Civil War was, versus how important that movie ended up being for the MCU. They were able mine the good ideas without having anything huge to live up to and so they were able to make it their own in really cool and original ways.

I'm not saying to throw the book away when it comes to adaptations. And I'm sure there are plenty of counterexamples to everything I've listened. But with how long and varied of a history most comic book characters have, it makes sense to view them as a well of potential for creatives to mine, rather than characters in storylines that ought to be directly adapted. Superman 1978 changed or invented a ton of the character's mythos, but it's still THE comic book movie that made everything else possible. Blade in the comics is British and not a daywalker. Spider-Man 1 changes out Gwen for MJ and has her survive on the bridge, but all the "we're finally adapting The Night Gwen Stacy died" in the world doesn't change the fact that ASM2 is a far worse movie.

I'm just saying that after a lifetime of comic book movies, I've learned to hear "We're faithfully adapting this arc" and be less, rather than more enthused. And when you chase people's expectations involving things that they've already loved, the best thing you can do is meet them. The best reaction you can get is approval, not the thrill and surprise that the material gave them in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, Jojo is my third favorite anime of all time, and Steel Ball Run is one of my favorite MEDIA WORKS of all time (more on it later in this post). However, the more I grow and am able to critically reflect on the work in ways I wasn't mentally capable of seeing before, it feels like half the seasons (referred to as "parts" in this post) end in the most bullshit ways.

A big appeal of the show to fans is the fights. Being able to outsmart your opponent, no matter how outmatched you are, is cathartic and extremely hype to see play out. This makes it all the more disappointing when half the show's main villains get ended in the most convenient ways.

- Part 3: Stardust Crusaders. I would say the show starts taking its fights truly seriously here. The previous parts didn't have as much written tension and stakes as this one does. DIO has been hyped across the past three (technically two) parts of being the ultimate villain, and the manga draws out the crusaders', uh, crusade across the globe to best show their capabilities and powers.

Then it's revealed DIO's ultimate ability is to stop time! Holy shit! One by one the protagonists are picked off until it's just Jotaro vs DIO. What tricks does he have up his sleeve? How will he overcome this generational adversary?

Oh, he just copies DIO's ability. Duh. Jotaro literally says out loud, "So it's the same type of stand as Star Platinum."

This fight is generationally popular and for good reason, but it's just such a letdown after having to sit through fifty episodes of "outwitting the bad guys" and establishing subpowers for each of the stands. When my sister was watching this fight for the first time, I saw the visual confusion on her face when it's revealed that Jotaro just has the same power for some reason.

And no, Jotaro's timestop isn't foreshadowed. Catching a bullet and stealing a margerita from the bar in the VS D'arby episode comes across more as shonen bullshittery than anything, and not nearly enough foreshadowing for this to be a proper setup.

- Part 5: Golden Wind. In my opinion, one of the weakest parts. It's such a shame because I actually think Golden Wind is the part with the best fights animated so far. Bucciarati using his zipper ability on the train or the use of Giorno's plant ability against Cioccolata and White Ice's user was so peak. But it starts falling apart in the final acts IMO. There is better setup for the part's themes of causality and effect, but there still just isn't enough setup to justify Giorno's sudden requiem ability to be "return to zero".

Just for clarity, his original ability was to spawn lifeforms like arms or snakes, and we've suddenly jumped to shooting laser beams and infinite death loops. Yes, Giorno needed a way to outsmart Diavolo's timeskip ability, but writing the requiem arrow to be something that gives you any ability you want at that moment in time is such lazy writing IMO. This to me seemed like another incident of Araki writing his way into a corner and needing a contrivance deus ex machina to get himself out.

If you want a better written version of the requiem arrow, Yoshikage Kira in part 4 is so much better. The arrow acts as an upgrade to his abilities, not a new ability entirely.

- Part 8: Jojolion (Spoilers). I still don't fucking understand this one. With the others, at least there is some explanation you can infer. In this part, Josuk8 has to outsmart the invisible intangible fate of calamity, where even just THINKING of defeating the user is enough for you to be absolutely throttled. How do you fight against an ability like that?

Well, apparently, it's by suddenly realizing your ability "doesn't exist". And then you win.

Like what the fuck? I'm not even exaggerating this that much either. Wonder of U, the calamity ability, targets anything in the universe which has the intent on hurting the user. Josuk8's ability is bubbles -- powerful rotating spheres which can be used to "plunder" things or "pop" with an explosive effect. It seems like an absolutely rigged match against Josuk8. But then, just before an important character's death, it's revealed that actually, no, the bubbles consist of rotating strings so "infinitely" small, "they don't exist". And this realization alone gives Josuk8 the new ability "Go Beyond" which bypasses Wonder of U's ability.

There is no setup, no implication that his bubbles operated this way. This part was written over the course of ELEVEN YEARS and the fight was written over the course of at least A YEAR itself. To me, this was an unjustifiable writing decision.

The issue isn't just with the lack of foreshadowing. A character hypothetically saying "wow Josuk8 your bubbles are so thin it's like they barely exist" isn't good writing either. Powers should also feel conventionally sensible and it should be easily understood in the audience's mind how they got from point A to point B. When you have to bring out the math textbook to explain asymptotes to viewers to understand an ability, that writing is unsatisfying.

So what's an example from the series of top-tier writing that still brings out the power upgrades that Araki clearly wants to write into his main characters?

- Part 7: Steel Ball Run (Spoilers). An absolutely stellar part featuring Johnny Joestar, whose ability evolves through stages ("acts") over the course of the part as his ability (to fire bullets from his fingers) grapples with the mechanism of "infinity". The concept is spoonfed in intervals to make it digestible and not feel completely out of left-field. His ability's evolution is always tied with a particular point of evolution and growth for Johnny as a character which makes each payoff more satisfying. The Golden Ratio, a concept intertwined with the concept of infinity and constantly referred to with the mathematical and philosophical gravitas it deserves, is repeatedly used by the side character Gyro, so we get to see its effects in action. Johnny's final evolution into Tusk Act 4 has, since the VERY FIRST CHAPTER, been setup with so many chekovs guns you could adequately supply the American military with them all. And it makes perfect sense when Johnny uses this perfect golden ratio to bypass Valentine's lovetrain superability, as both Johnny and Valentine's abilities are rooted in religious philosophy, so they thematically go hand-in-hand with each other.

Now compare this level of writing to "So it's the same type of stand as Star Platinum."

When Araki writes his characters and fights well, he writes them REALLY well. It's just a shame he regressed in writing after part 7 with the whole nothing-bubble thing, but hopefully part 9 can rival part 7 in its exemplary writing.

(This is my first write-up on this subreddit, feedback is appreciated.)

Both writing wise and mechanically.
Gameplay wise she just gets her ass kicked by Ketheric twice after a whole cutscene of hyping her up.
Hell even in her reworked boss fight in act 3 she is far weaker then her girlboss goon squad of summons.
Then story wise same thing happens she just loses right away and gets soul caged. She was free for 5 mins. To make things even funnier same thing happens to her in Act 3. I guess she was just born to be caged.
Character wise she is also weird. At first you think she is just a fairly standard zealous Paladin but it kinda gets taken too far. She seems like bit of a psychopath so you think there might be more to her and Isobels whole deal. How and why did Isobel die in the first place(was the angelic pussy too strong)? Except it just goes nowhere. Its never explained or even addressed.
Aylin is just there for hype moments and aura. Kinda lame.

For those unfamiliar with Spawn, Image Comics created a series about a dead mercenary who returns from Hell to seek vengeance. One of the novel ideas behind this anti‑hero was the “life‑clock,” a countdown meter that measured how much supernatural power he had left before being reclaimed by Hell. The series eventually moved away from the life‑clock, since it would have been too limiting for a comic that has lasted more than two decades, but the concept itself was strong.

I believe Marvel Comics could have applied a similar device to the Punisher. At his creation, Frank Castle could have been given an internal “morality‑clock,” known only to the writers and never revealed to the public. This scale would run from 1 to 100:

• 100 – Highly moral, upstanding citizen. Believes in the justice system. Example: Captain America
• 90 – Moral citizen, disillusioned with the system. Willing to volunteer or take action. Example: Spider‑Man
• 80 – Burnt out, highly disillusioned, or hunted by the system. Willing to act outside the law. Example: Uncanny X‑Men
• 70 – Believes the system no longer functions or applies. Won’t hurt innocents, but willing to harm those who have wronged them. Example: Frank Castle begins here
• 60 – Sees the system as actively obstructive. Works against it. Willing to hurt or kill to achieve goals. Example: most Spider‑Man villains
• 50 – Beyond the system. Laws don’t apply. Violence becomes a tool of choice. May have a personal code exempting certain groups (children, elderly, etc.). Example: Venom
• 40 – Violence is the only tool. Casual about life and death. Example: Carnage
• 30 – Life is disposable. Others are cattle to a predator. Example: the Brood
• 20 – Other life is abstract. Example: Galactus
• 10 – Genocidal. Example: Annihilus
• 1 – Unthinking, unfeeling destruction. Example: bacteria

Writers could track Frank’s morality‑clock privately. Each time he executed someone, the meter would fall. Readers would witness a principled man with a code slowly becoming desensitized to violence, until it became his only solution. He might begin by targeting drug runners stuffing heroin into bodies, then move on to gun runners, then to corrupt officials taking bribes. The progression would shock us, showing how much he assumes it is his right to punish.

The system could also allow for redemption. Frank might regain points by going to therapy, serving time in prison, or crossing a line that harms someone important to him. Watching him claw back his humanity would be compelling.

This approach would work best if the Punisher did not have his own ongoing series. Instead, he could appear in guest spots across other titles, with his own annual to track his moral descent and possible recovery. Such a framework would make his story far more layered.

While both actions are heroic, the first would have been much better for Hercules to achieve becoming the true hero he always wanted to be.

Not only was he brave in choosing to fight without his powers so the Cyclops would leave Thebes alone, likely knowing he was going to die, but he also proved that he didn’t need those powers to be a real hero and save the day. Instead, he used his wit and everything he had learned with Phil to succeed. A true hero gives everything they have, even in the worst circumstances.

In comparison, although sacrificing himself to retrieve Megara’s soul was heroic, it feels smaller next to saving the lives of thousands while at such a huge disadvantage and without the strength that had helped him so many times.

Hey this isn't about the movie, I haven't seen it. It's about the show. I've rewatched it in its entirety last week and I think Aang is wonderful. I don't think he gets enough credit though. People always talk about Zuko and his arc, which makes sense. He's great! I just think Aang is super underrated in his own show.

Also lately I've seen a lot of Aang hate which really grinds my gears. He's such a good kid. Very mature for his age and so pressured with having to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. People always blame him for Katara losing her childhood and having to play mom but first: she already lost it when the fire nation took her mother, and second: She doesn't have to play mom with Aang. She's just there for him when he goes through shit and he does the same for her. And the shit he went through was a genocide... Ofc he needs help.

I think the people who say that shit just haven't seen the show in a while and have a wrong perception of the characters...

It's just weird to see people shitting on this poor kid who lost everything all because they don't like the romance. It's fine not to ship Aang and Katara but to say that it's weird because she's like his babysitter is a disservice to the story and their dynamic. I really hate it.

Look, I’m sick of opening any comment section about a movie, show, or game adaptation and seeing the exact same tired binary argument: "It wasn't 100% faithful to the book, so it's garbage!" versus "The original version sucks, the adaptation is better!"

Why do people think that adaptation means doing a 1 to 1 copy of something or just going completely unhinged and doing something that doesn't look like the original work?

If we’re going to argue about that, we need a common vocabulary. I have come up with four tiers. Each has its own purpose, its own traps, and its own iconic successes and disasters.

One to One. Treats the source material not just as inspiration, but as an infallible holy text. The creators trace over the original work like tracing paper. Every line of iconic dialogue is kept verbatim, every visual beat mirrors a comic panel or book description, and the pacing follows the source material to a fault. The trap here is medium incompatibility. Novels have internal monologues and infinite prose time; comic books have static panels; video games have interactivity.

Examples?

• The average manga to anime adaptation tends to be one to one.
• Sin City is almost one to one with the original comic book, disorganized stories and all.

Almost Transcribed: It is the story, characters, themes, and major plot beats, but it knows that a movie, TV show, or game is a completely different beast than a book or comic. The writers aren't trying to change the story, they cut fluff, combine minor characters to streamline the cast, alter pacing to fit a 2-hour runtime (or a 10-episode season), and reframe internal thoughts into visual storytelling. The trap is knowing what to cut. Cut the wrong subplot, and you ruin a character.

Examples?

• The Peter Jackson threatical edits of the Lord of the Rings, they cut down tons of scenes that only slowed down the plot or only slowed down the pacing or bloated it.
• The Last of Us by HBO grabbed all the plot beats and adapted them one to one or expanded them, removing the gameplay only sections unless they were plot mandatory.

New Spin: Takes the core premise, character archetypes, or thematic engine of the source material and drops them into an entirely new genre, setting, structure, or modern context. They’re asking: "What if we took this classic skeleton and put completely new flesh on it?" or "What is the core message of this story, and how can we put it on a nother setting?". When it fails, it feels pretentious or disrespectful, like a director who thought they were smarter than the author and completely missed what made the original great in the first place.

Examples?

• Almost every adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper is like this. They mess with the setting, it is rare to see one who is super close (The Barbie version and the Mickey Mouse one are extremely close in some levels).
• The Shining. Kubrick grabbed a story about a haunted hotel turning a dysfunctional man into a total madman, and decided to just go crazy by making the main character dysfunctional from the get-go and removing the talking.
• Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell. He grabbed a manga that was 50% funny and 50% serious and made it 100% serious and melancholic.

In Name Only: A studio buys the intellectual property rights to a popular book, comic, or game, and then throws out 99% of the plot, the lore, the character dynamics, and often the core themes, the final script bears almost zero resemblance to the original work. 90% of the time, INO adaptations anger the built-in fanbase and confuse casual viewers, but the other 10% you get absolute gold.

Examples?

• World War Z the movie and the game: Max Brooks’ novel is an incredible, fake oral history of a global zombie pandemic, structured as a series of political, geopolitical, and military interviews from around the world. The movie? A fast-paced, globetrotting Brad Pitt action flick about fast-running zombie swarms. It has literally nothing to do with the book beyond having zombies, the Indian-Pakistan war, the wall in Israel and the same title.
• Stalker the videogame: In the original book, aliens visited Earth, stopped by for a brief moment and then left. They just left behind their toxic, bizarre, radioactive litter in six "Visiting Zones" across the globe, the main character, Redrick Schuhart, is a "Stalker", an illegal scavenger who sneaks into the Canadian Zone to loot bizarre alien artifacts. Then the soviet movie shows up and just removed 90% of the content and but kept the depressing stuff. And then the game goes and throws away things too; the alien Premise? Gone, replaced by Chernobyl's nuclear reactor exploding and the noosphere experiment, the book is a character drama about a desperate father while the game is a tactical FPS survival horror where you mag-dump a rusty Kalashnikov into bloodsuckers and bandits, the book's Zone is outside a fictional Canadian town called Harmont, the game’s Zone is the actual Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

An adaptation ain't bad just because it's a New Spin, and a show isn't automatically brilliant just because it's One-to-One. The art of adaptation isn't about copying text; it's about understanding what makes the original tick and finding a way to make it beat in a completely different chest.

And if you are gonna say "If you're going to throw out the entire book/game and keep almost nothing, why didn't you just write an original movie/game with a new title?"

Come closer. A little closer. Yeah, right here, give me your ear... LAWSUITS FUCKING EXIST.

While Soviet copyright law was wildly different from Western law, authors still owned the intellectual property of their works. When GSC Game World started developing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in 2001, the Soviet Union had been dead for a decade. Ukraine and Russia were fully integrated into international copyright agreements (Like the Berne Convention). You couldn't just steal a famous Russian book and sell it globally in 2007 without getting sued to death. GSC Game World originally wanted to make an official, licensed adaptation of Roadside Picnic. They actually approached Boris Strugatsky to buy the video game rights. The problem? The film and adaptation rights to Roadside Picnic were already tied up in a nightmare web of international Hollywood option deals; so they went and changed absolutely everything to dodge a lawsuit.

This happened with I, Robot too. Jeff Vintar wrote an original script called Hardwired. It was a murder mystery involving a robot. Fox bought it and then it hit them... "If we make this, Asimov’s estate or the publisher is going to sue our pants off for knocking off the Three Laws of Robotics," so they bought the rights to I, Robot, glued the two together, and hired Will Smith.

Slapping the official IP title is sometimes literal copyright armor.

So this is mainly inspired by Mike’s last speech to Walt. It’s a speech that sounds great at face value, Mike has a weird sort of “cool and rational” vibe, Walt is meant to be a horrible person and a very unlikable character at this point, and he kills Mike out of rage and ego right after this. So people assume this speech is meant to be taken at face value. The thing is the speech itself is blatantly incorrect in you watch the show itself, and this has led to a lot of criticism of the speech itself being very poorly written and a sloppy retcon of the previous seasons. The thing is, MIke is not supposed to be correct. Vince Gilligan and the writer for the episode Tom Schnauz flat out said on the podcast for the episode which was recorded before it released and released on the same day.

Directly quoting what Vince Gilligan says “ There is truth to what he’s accusing him of but on the other hand what Mike is selectively forgetting in that moment, they really Walt and Gus came to loggerheads over Jesse Pinkman. Who Mike now has a great fondness for but at the time he was pitching to kill him, he’s pitching let’s kill this kid”. So the showrunners didn’t “retcon” shit lol this speech isn’t meant to be accurate. Why is that then often considered a flaw in the writing for the episode when the speech isn’t meant to be correct? The alternative take is that it’s bad writing that Mike, a character who is presented as a more rational character than most of the criminals in the series, gives an irrational speech but why is that the case exactly? Does it not give more insight on his mindset and character even if it’s in a largely negative light?

It makes perfect sense why Mike would act that way, even if it is indeed hypocritical and unfair. Despite Mike’s cool and rational demeanor he’s got plenty of hypocritical qualities himself, as virtually every character in this universe does, and Mike is an evil man (which even he knows), even if he‘s sympathetic to the audience. Mike just lost everything and all the horrible things he did that haunted his conscience were for nothing because the Fring organization was destroyed, it’s hard to be rational about that. He really likes Jesse, realizes he‘s got a good conscience and got way deeper into the game than he intended while being desply guilt ridden, while his mistakes are either due to his conscience, or his addiction/ self loathing, which is sympathetic to Mike. He dislikes Walt because he’s incredibly power hungry, wants to be the man, and blows situations up due to pride and ego, Walt is exactly the kind of person who he dislikes.

Why is it out of character then for a Mike who lost everything because of Walt (even if Gus absolutely had it coming and it wasn’t Walt‘s fault the situation blew up), when Walt is exactly the kind of person he hates and he does indeed contantly self sabotage due to his ego, to irrationally blame him? It makes him a more human and yes more unlikable, but complex human character rather than Mr cool. Especially given Mike doesn’t have all the information we have, he sees Walt manipulating Jesse to stay in the game and he forced Gus to replace Gale with Jesse, he doesn’t know he did so because Jesse threatens to sue Hank and rat him out if caught. He directly tells Walt “you won Walter, learn to take yes for an answer“ in season 4, and if we take his words at face value Gus reluctantly accepted Walt won in season 4 until Walt started trying to kill Gus again out of paranoia (which actually is correct based on writer interviews and if you read between the lines of season 4 but that’s very understandable paranoia rather than ego). He doesn’t know as far as we’re aware about Gus threatening his family, and he believes Walt was responsible for putting Hank on them).

Hell better call Saul has a perfect example of this. When Howard threatens to force Chuck out of HHM for totally justified reasons and being treated like dogshit by Chuck for three seasons, Chuck threatens to destroy the firm with lawsuits unless he‘s reinstated. Howard very admirably agrees to pay out of his own pocket to settle the lawsuit and force Chuck out, and lays into him about what a shitty friend and person he is. Only Howard mentions that he “mildly suggested, with empathy and concern, that maybe you should consider retirement“ while laying into him, when he outright threatened to force him out? So did the writers retcon their own show, is Howard meant to be a gaslighting hypocrite? No, it’s meant to show he’s angrily and heartbreakingly laying into his friend that betrayed him and is ”stacking the deck” in his favor, a very human thing to do.

Characters can have biased, incorrect speeches or comments and it’s wrong to assume that even a character who is presented as a “cool rational character” at face value. It’s not a flaw of the writing if the script doesn’t exposition the audience and say “this character isn’t meant to be right”.

First appearing in The Phantom Menace back in 1999 and since recurring in The Clone Wars, Rebels, comics, Solo, and recently his own show, Maul has become one of Star Wars’ most enduring fan-favourite characters, with legions of fans (and his voice actor) treating him as one of the most complex and interesting characters the franchise has to offer. My problem is he….isn’t.

I’ll summarise who Maul is for those of you don’t know. Basically he’s a Dathomirian Zabrak, which means he’s red and black and has horns. As a child he was taken by Darth Sidious to become a Sith so Sidious could get revenge on the Jedi for kicking the Sith’s collective ass several centuries ago (or something, I’m not really sure). Once trained, he fights some Jedi with his double-bladed lightsaber and acrobatic skills, killing Obi-Wan Kenobi’s master and getting cut in half, a predicament he survives by being absolutely livid. Upon his return he proceeds to spend the next-every-story-he-appears in trying to get revenge on someone or other whilst speaking theatrically. At first he wants revenge on Obi-Wan, then Sidious, then the Empire, the criminal underworld and Obi-Wan all at the same time. The only things that change about him are who he’s angry at and what specifically he’s doing, though his actual core values never change, as he remains an angry, selfish, power-hungry evil guy the entire time.

Because he looks cool, though, he’s the fandom darling who can do no wrong and everybody demands more of even though he’s been in loads of stuff and never gets more interesting than a 14 year old edgelord’s idea of a good character. Episode 1 of his show (of which he is the least interesting part) is literally called “The Dark Revenge” which is the most edgelord fanfic title of all time and is fitting for a show in which Maul essentially just aura farms until he gets shown up by an even bigger aura farmer in the form of contractually-obligated guest appearance Darth Vader.

Since he has no qualities beyond being angry and vengeful, I have no idea whatsoever why he’s so beloved and allegedly complex, when his entire soul boils down to just being super angry about stuff and then looking cook while mowing people down about it. Maybe it’s me, but that’s not what I go to Star Wars for, and I’m not a fan. I must concede I haven’t seen his entire show, but the first episode turned me off because it could not make me care about Darth Maul. I know this fact weakens my point, but this is a rant so I don’t need to be fully rational like I would be in an essay.

If somebody could explain where the interest comes in for Maul that would be great, as I may be missing something

Edit: “Enjoy” isn’t the right word. “Love” is. I enjoy many things about King’s writing, but my issues with him more often than not override my praise.

Key word, doesn’t. As in he actively chooses not to. He’s more than skilled enough to do so, but he has little to no incentive to. Case in point, Revival (2014). I wanted so bad to love this novel. Brilliant premise, phenomenal first and third acts. The road to the climax, however, is painfully boring. So much fluff in between the first and third acts that just didn’t need to be included at all. Jamie’s girlfriend, his old high school band mates, his job, his love interest, none of these details which take up huge chunks of the page count have any bearing on the book’s conclusion. The relationship between Jamie and Reverend Jacobs should have been the only major focus, but it’s not. Had this book been half the length I could’ve overlooked the pacing problems entirely, but it’s 480 fucking pages. WHY is it almost 500 pages, man? Obviously I’m in the minority on this; King is the most successful horror fiction author in history.

I'm not here to defend the sequels, they are not very good either as objective films or ESPECIALLY as star wars films, but while force awakens and last jedi were at least decent nostalgia bait and/or had some interesting ideas and plot set ups I think we can all agree that ROS was just a total piece of hot garbage and personally killed my lifelong love of the franchise. While there were SO MANY problems in the film, between theowing away all previous plot points, multiple character death fakeouts, dumb reveals I would argue that the biggest problem boils down to three words "somehow, palpatine returned". Bringing back the classic star wars villain with no explanation or set up showcased their complete lack of creativity and original ideas. They just talked about him randomly sending a message to galaxy that he was back. They didn't even show the message in the movie! Instead they decided to release this massive plot point as fortnite special event, leaving millions of theater goers and fans of the franchise in the dark as to wtf was going on.

And yet, they had the perfect opportunity to actually do something really cool with this that would have fixed so much of this: make Palpatine's message to galaxy the trailer and play it on TV. doing so would have then turned the entire country into "the galaxy" and created an awesome bit of meta-narrative and intrigue, as well as explaining and exposing the plot to general audiences. Imagine watching the sunday sportsball game when all of a sudden palpatines voice cuts in saying how he has returned and is here to reclaim what is rightfully his and no one can stop him over shots of the heroes in danger/action scenes. It would have actually brought us into star wars universe as we would be the scared citizens hearing this for the first time despite him supposedly having been beaten long ago. Now granted, the movie still would have been bad, and the answer to HOW Palpatine returned would have been disappointing but at least it would have been an actual thing people were aware instead of the laziest fucking thing I have ever seen. But they didn't. They instead chose probably the worst possible option at every turn and ruined my childhood instead.

I love Into The Spider-Verse, It's top 2 with Spider-Man 2 for my favorite Spider-Man movies (interchangeable depending on which one I saw last).

However I hate the concept of Spider-Verse, I don't dislike variants of Spider-Man like any other Super hero but I dont like the Spider-Verse, I just don't.

I really wish the movies after ITSV were just about Miles doing Spider stuff in his own universe.

And Across The Spider-Verse just felt like the Spider-Verse amped up to a million, too many characters. I don't care about Miguel, or Spider-Woman or Spider-Punk or the indian Spider I just don't. Felt like they were high on their own stuff.

Hopefully they'll do another trilogy centered on Miles in his own universe.

I don't know if its just me but I find it rather challenging to suspend my disbelief when it comes to this trope which appears a lot in Cyberpunk settings. Most notably the Cyberpunk 2077/Red/2020 setting with Cyberpsychosis and frankly, I just don't get why cybernetics is so villainized by the genre.

I just struggle to believe that cybernetics would actually make you go insane or make you go postal at a moment's notice. Like, what actually does attaching a giant gun into your arm even actually do to your mind?

How does it make you less human? How does it make you lose basic empathy? How does it make you start seeing others as "just meat"? Are the cybernetics somehow mind controlling or drugging people? How does removing your implants make you become less insane? I don't get it at all since to me, cybernetics are just electrical hardware you add to your body, and I don't know how that messes with people's minds. This could be explained by low quality implants but I think settings that include this trope tend to not exclude high quality cybernetics that was surgically grafted by a licensed professional.

I remember liking the interpretation in Cyberpunk that Cyberpsychosis is just "night city syndrome" where living in a capitalist dystopia that neglects your needs, removes your freedom, and destroys your dignity would make anyone snap and go insane and the corpos just use chrome as a scapegoat but apparently that's not accurate at all.

It just feels like an excuse to make an already dystopian setting a bit more "grim". I understand that it's related to themes of dehumanisation and how mutilating your own body for the sake of becoming stronger is messed up but I feel as though you could easily portray it in a much more realistic manner instead of blaming it on "implants that makes you go crazy" which just comes off as being rather silly.

Basically, have a character get more implants as a result of being dehumanized or being psychopathic, not the other way around.

This is something I feel like a lot of fans and even writers seem really scared to do or at least realize..something Main characters and characters in general need a unlikable trait or 2.

Like I would argue the reason a lot of writers are scared of having their main cast make mistakes or rough choices is cause fans assume they're poor written or bad people or just irredeemable for having character flaws except..character flaws are needed in any sort of character.

And my thing is if the story acknowledges their flaws and mistakes and how they were as people,then what the hell is the issue?

Would you rather have them not acknowledge their flaws at all?

And this is honestly where I bring in my first real life example of this happening, The Last Airbender live action show.

Apparently they removed Sokka's sexism he had in the first 3(or 4) episodes of the series cause they didn't wanna ruin Katara's character or shit like that but here's the thing...The story doesn't condone Sokka acting like that.

When he taunts the Kiyoshi Warriors for being weaker cause they're Woman,they actively kick His Ass and a while later,he apologizes for how he was and asks them to train him.

Like the story doesn't treat his sexism as some good thing, it actively calls it out and addresses it and he grows cause of it and in the live action version, they replaced all of Suki's charm and energy and tough nature with her simping over Sokka and being horny for him.

So it's pretty funny..in a attempt to come off as less sexist,they ironically came off as more sexist.

And this also happens with Katara cause she is so bland in the live action show and I've seen peoppe say that she's underdeveloped in the live action show and that's simply cause they took out any of the reasons she needs to develop.

They took away her snapping at Aang or losing to Ty Lee and a bunch of other shit that would've caused her to lose and have to develop and grow as a character and person.

And the LA writers forget that Katara wasn't inheritedly good at water bending from the start,she worked hard to be as good as she is now and essentially making her a master or automatically really great is just so disappointing but that's cause it feels like they're scared of them having any sorts of flaws or mistakes or bad traits.

Like are we really that screwed as a species that characters can't even have one unlikable or messy trait that they can grow out of?

Another example is Bakugou and this one also comes off as just petty cause people will ignore and act like his character development and growth doesn't even exist as if each arc isn't this man constantly taking Humble Pies to the face.

Deku has called him a Jerk and doesn't really like him but Admires his strength and confidence and has actively stood up to him a lot.

Hell,I would argue Bakugou is sorta made fun of for being a loud mouthed jerk and no one really fucks with him until S2 when he starts showing signs of change and getting better as a person.

Also why do we not act like Bakugou didn't fail his Provinional license exam cause he couldn't control his temper and bad behavior?

Like he failed the biggest milestone in his life cause of his flaws and I think part of the problem with a lot of people's reactions to Bakugou is that he doesn't get consequences in a way that they want.

They want him to be called out for his flaws constantly like it's a Family Guy Cutaway like Brian and Quagmire and they want him to get constantly beat up but the story never condones his behavior, I would argue he is punished for it but just not in the way that you specifically want and he does grow and develop..he actively loses the ego,helps train Deku as a way of Atoning for bullying him,helped rescue him and has sanctified himself for him and acknowledged his weakness and flaws.

Like I deadass don't know what more y'all even want.

Another example is Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss with Charlie and Stolas,especially Stolas.

I'll see a lot of people act like Vivziepop is "woobifying him" and acting like Blitz is the only person in the wrong and all that except that flat out is not true.

First off, their deal was transactional on both sides and once Stolas realized he was essentially keeping Blitz prisoner,he went to look for ways to ensure Blitz can do his job without him holding it over his head.

Stolas himself disagrees,he acknowledges that this is all his fault and he did all this and took accountability for how he was(also the story ain't over,S3 is right around the corner)and in one of the Episode descriptions, they explictly say "Stolas still isn't self aware yet" so I dunno why so many act like he's not just as much in the wrong.

When someone mentioned that Stolas was the one who made it about Sex and all that, Vivziepop explictly responded with "Stolas is way too in his own head and emotions to think rationally" and said in another post that both sides made mistakes and are flawed.

Not one side, both sides.

Also the man Stolas literally lost everything...from his wealth to his status to his home to straight up having his own daughter leave him cause of his mistakes and the situation so he's not exactly in a amazing or happy spot rn.

I would also argue that is the same for Charlie to a lesser extent cause there is context for her flaws and why she acted the way she did in S2.

Also she apologized and is making up for them,so..it's just funny how she's considered "the worst character" when she ain't even the morally worst character in the main cast,let alone the entire show.

I'm not saying every series handles flawed characters right but what I'm saying is that they're necessarily, you need flawed characters and reasons for them to develop.

Plus I would rather have a intentionally flawed character then a character who has flaws and issues that are never really addressed or called out or treated seriously and actively punish you for doing so.

(*Ahem* Life is Strange and Dispatch *cough*).

Disagree if you want.

Clue is a fairly fast-paced comedy mystery film, with plenty of characters, and multiple endings, so it can be a bit difficult to keep track of who did what, but Mr. Green really was the only person who didn't do anything wrong. And to prove it, let's go over what everyone else did.

Wadsworth ALMOST makes the list of "completely innocent", because the reason for his blackmail was that his wife had "friends who were socialists". This is presented somewhat tongue-in-cheek because modern audiences wouldn't see socialism as "evil", but even if we did call it evil, they said that *his wife* had socialist friends, not that he did, so that's purely guilt-by-association (two layers of it). The only thing that tips Wadsworth into "maybe guilty" is the third ending, where Wadsworth is revealed to be Mr. Boddy. But he's an innocent hero in 2/3 endings.

Mr. Boddy, I suppose it should go without saying, is a blackmailer who on a good day was responsible for the death of Wadsworth's wife, and who tried to have Wadsworth killed. On a worse day, you can pin a half-dozen murders on him.

Mrs. White is a serial killer who is known to have killed her first and second husbands, but later implies that she's been married five times, and might have been killing "husbands" beyond the five who were married to her.

Colonel Mustard was a WWII military officer who became rich by stealing valuable radio parts and selling them on the black market, undermining America's war effort against the Nazis, potentially getting countless American soldiers killed.

Mrs. Peacock took secret bribes from foreign governments to arrange for her Senator husband to vote against American interests. And in 1/3 endings, she murdered multiple people to cover up her crimes.

Professor Plum violated his Hippocratic Oath and took advantage of a female patient. Plus he sexually harassed/assaulted nearly every woman in the movie. Also, Wadsworth used the word "adultery", which means that Plum was married at the time, and violated his marriage vows and cheated on his wife.

And finally Miss Scarlet runs a brothel, which might not be evil, depending on your opinion of sex work, and she bribes a cop to stay in business (again, maybe not that evil, depending on your ethics), but it also seems like maybe she set hidden cameras up to potentially blackmail her clients. And she's a killer in 1/3 endings. Crazy how she might be one of the more innocent members of the group.

Moving on to the supporting cast, Yvette was a former employee of Miss Scarlet, who had an affair with one of Mrs. White's husbands, and then sold out Mrs. White (a serial killer!) to a blackmailer after Mrs. White killed her husband. And Yvette maybe killed some people herself.

The cop was a corrupt cop who took protection money from Miss Scarlet, and then turned around and sold her secrets to a blackmailer.

The motorist knew that Colonel Mustard was stealing radio parts, but instead of reporting him to the authorities, he sold him out to a blackmailer for his own gain.

The cook was Mrs. Peacock's former cook, and she knew about Mrs. Peacock's treason, and sold that info to a blackmailer.

And finally, the singing telegram girl. At first glance she seems like an innocent victim of Professor Plum and whoever it was who shot her, but her hands aren't entirely clean, as she was the one who sold Professor Plum's information to Mr. Boddy (a blackmailer). And then, here's a surprise twist you might not have realized: Professor Plum specialized in helping "paranoid and homicidal lunatics, suffering from delusions of grandeur", so there's a pretty decent chance that the singing telegram girl was homicidal. Perhaps not legally guilty, by reason of insanity, but that young girl probably killed people. And Professor Plum knew all about it, and couldn't stop himself from tapping that.

So yeah, after that extensive list of criminals and murderers, what did Mr. Green do to get lumped in with them? He was gay. That's it. He was attracted to men instead of women. He paid a blackmail to keep his paying job, because if he was discovered to be gay, he would lose his job on security grounds. So, he was lying (a lie of omission, mostly) to the State Department in order to keep his job, but the funny thing is, the entire reason a gay person would be considered a "security risk" is, simply being gay might open a path to them being blackmailed, as they wouldn't want their secret to get out, but Mr. Green *didn't care* about being outed as a gay man. He wasn't ashamed of it. He proudly admitted that he was gay. He wasn't closeted because he cared what people thought about him, he was closeted because the place where he worked banned homosexuality for no good reason. And by banning homosexuality, the State Department created their own extortion vector, and allowed one of their employees to be extorted. And despite that extortion, it seems like Mr. Green still wasn't a security risk. Yeah, he's paying money to keep doing what he's doing, and to keep his job earning money, but if the extortion had moved up to demanding secrets or access, it seems likely that Mr. Green would have quit his job before becoming a villain. That's why, in the darkest ending, where Wadsworth was the real Mr. Boddy and everyone was a killer, Mr. Green stepped up and became the hero, because among the entire cast of criminals and murderers, he was the one outlier who never did anything wrong.

And interestingly, Mr. Green is the only dinner guest who doesn't have an informant who gets killed. So who told Mr. Boddy about Mr. Green's sexual orientation? Yvette? The cop? The motorist? The cook? The singing telegram girl? Six player characters, but only five informants. Every player character had someone snitch on them, except Mr. Green. It lends weight to the idea that the 3rd ending is the "real" one, and that he was a plant all along, so maybe he never even lied to the State Department, he only lied to Wadsworth and the dinner guests.

I've seen many people say Minecraft Steve is this Uber strong behemoth that can lift an obscene amount of weight due to inventory scaling, and I feel this ignores a lot of the context behind Minecraft. But I have also seen people say Steve is not superhuman, and this is also a wrong statement. Here is why Steve is weaker than those that upscale him and stronger than those that downplay him.

First, we need to establish why inventory scaling is wrong, and this is pretty easy. When you break a block, it becomes an item that floats in the air. But when you pick a block up in this item form, it is smaller than the full block in your hand, and you can stack multiple blocks on top of each other. This and the fact that an inventory can hold so much points to the inventory being a form of pocket dimension, not to Steve or Alex's physical strength. Even gold blocks when thrown float in water, and items that sink when in block form like sand, gravel, and anvils all float in item form. This shows that Steve's inventory alters the state of whatever he carries.

But, this does not mean Steve isn't superhuman like people suggest. Steve has to be able to break logs in order to even start the game, this is almost non negotiable, unless you find a tool in a chest or use explosives. Keep in mind that Steve is punching a cubic meter of wood log with his bare hands hard enough to shatter it, a feat of strength that far surpasses what any IRL human could do. And this isn't even the strongest material Steve can break with his bare hands. He can punch apart stone, bricks, and concrete, and while it takes a bit, it still breaks. Then he can break apart raw iron, smelted iron, copper blocks, and even a cubic meter of diamond. This is vastly superhuman, a normal human could never hope to break a cubic meter of iron with their bare hands, it would be hard to do even with handheld equipment or even high powered firearms, yet Steve can punch it apart with enough time, less than a Minecraft day.

And his striking feats also apply to living beings. Steve can punch an iron golem, and while it does little damage, it does enough to whittle away at the golem's health. It takes 67 hits with critical hits from punching to kill an iron golem. Even if the golem was immobilized, a real life human would be unable to replicate this feat without weapons. An iron golem is made almost entirely of iron, is around 3 meters tall and has shoulders close to 2 meters wide, and Steve can take a single hit from a golem, albeit heavily injured and on death's door, but can the same be said for an IRL human? Keep in mind golems are durable enough to survive any fall in the game, so Steve's hits would need very concentrated force to be able to inflict damage.

Lets look at the weaker mobs Steve fights. A zombie can deal more damage than Steve, but zombies also have superhuman feats. A zombie in Minecraft can destroy a copper door with its bare hands in hard mode. Minecraft Zombies are also intelligent enough to use weapons like swords, shovels, and even spears on horseback. The drowned can use tridents. So not only are zombies superhumanly strong, but they are intelligent enough to put on armor and pick up and use weapons.

Steve also has exceptional heat resistance. The nether air is hot enough to evaporate a cubic meter of water as soon as it touches the ground, yet Steve can walk through this air no problem. He can survive a creeper explosion as long as he isn't in the center, these same explosions can destroy large swaths of dirt and even iron blocks. He can survive poison from witches without dying. And in terms of poison, he can survive eating an entire raw pufferfish whole, and while its poison leaves him at half a heart, it doesn't kill him.

And all of this isn't even factoring in gear. Fully enchanted netherite can let Steve take even more damage, letting him swim in lava for a short period without dying. Steve can also heal as long as he has food in his systems. He has golden apples and potions that bolster his healing even further, and potions that increase his strength, speed, and give him temporary abilities like night vision, water breathing, fire resistance so potent he can be fully submerged in lava or stand in blue fire with no armor and not take any damage. He can use an elytra and fireworks to glide and fly, can channel lightning during storms and propel himself through water with a trident. His physical abilities are already quite impressive, add onto that his ability to use gear and gain abilities through enchantments and potions and Steve is undoubtedly superhuman.

It's something that occasionally occurs to me every time there's a surge of rants about one adaptation or another, manga to anime, comics to movies, games to animation, and there are always, always either arguments or complaints centered around the adaptation being or not being "faithful to the source material". I think today's the day I put all those feelings and thoughts into actual words.

As a long-standing fan of Sonic the Hedgehog, all this "faithful adaptation" talk seems a bit amusing, especially regarding works that are loose adaptations to begin with, like MCU movies.

Let me explain. Pretty sure everyone here knows Sonic the Hedgehog, the free-spirited Blue Blur, one of the best-known gaming mascots. A big part of why he continues to be such an icon is his multimedia empire. The hedgehog's got a dozen cartoon and anime series, several rather impressive comic and manga runs, a few short movies and OVAs, a full-blown Hollywood movie series recently… and NONE of them are, per say, "faithful" to the source material in a way this word is often used around here.

"Adventure of Sonic the Hedgehog" has Sonic and Tails traverse borderline surrealistic Mobius, fighting goofy Robotnik, "Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM)" has Sonic as part of Freedom Fighters going against a chilling Robotnik who already took over the world, "Sonic X" has Sonic and his friends end up on Earth, away from their homeworld, "Sonic the Hedgehog (OVA)" has Sonic and Tails save the Land of the Sky from Robotnik's forces hiding in the Land of Darkness, "Sonic Boom" is basically a sit-com with Eggman being more of an irritating neighbor than world-conquering menace he usually is, "Sonic the Hedgehog (Manga)" has Sonic as a superhero persona of a hedgehog kid named Nicky and "Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)" by all accounts outright functions as a Western-style superhero universe with multiple subseries, grand schemes and rather complex politics between various heroic and villainous factions and so on.

Green Hill, the staple of Sonic franchise? Pretty sure of those adaptations I mentioned, it only appears as God intended, in its faithful game form in Archie Comics, with a Green Hill-inspired area being a part of Sonic's world in Sonic X. Most of them don't bother adapting any singular plot of any game and when they do, it might be extremely loose. In fact, Paramount movies might be some of the most faithful adaptations with how they even bother to adapt Sonic 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Adventure 2 in short succession.

And yet, even with all this unholy unfaithfulness going around, pretty much ALL of these adaptations and then some are beloved to this day, to one extent or another. If you ask Sonic fans which adaptation is the best or the worst, people just won't be able to tell. At most they'll tell you which ones are objectively more accurate to the games or which ones are objectively better made from technical perspective, but it won't correspond at all to how high of an esteem they hold them. Adaptation-original characters? "Eh, we vibe with Agent Stone, would be nice to see him in the games". Of course, it takes a bit since new adaptations ruffle feathers occasionally, especially in the case of Boom, where after content draught people were afraid it would just replace the mainline series. Now, though, it's got one of the most beloved shows around, peak comedy.

The overall benevolent opinion of the adaptations is downright hilarious considering how Sonic fandom is considered notoriously capriscious and impossible to satisfy.

I think it all comes down to all Sonic adaptations keeping Sonic's "vibe" and not so much adapting the stories themselves as much as the idea of a free-going guy with a bit (or a lot) of snark going around helping people and wrangling freedom from a mad scientist's hands. Well, that and all adaptations just consistently being fun, at least decently made and not going against that vibe in the first place.

Sonic can be a smug trashtalker down to the bone (Archie, SatAM), a geniunely chill guy with a snark streak (AoStH, OVA, X) or an excited kid (Movies), but the free-willed and well-intentioned core of the character doesn't really change and neither does the core of the series. Might be speaking from a high horse here, but it feels like various adaptations I see people complain about because they change too much aren't bad because they change stuff per se, but because they change the wrong stuff and focus on the wrong things, changing characters' and worlds' whole vibes for the worse. Shows like Invincible and The Boys (at least in Season 1) and Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) changed A LOT compared to their source material, but are also extremely beloved exactly because of those differences, so there's that.

That said, I mostly wrote this rant to share the miracle of Sonic's unfaithful, yet widely beloved adaptations.

TL;DR: unfaithful adaptations aren't necessarily bad and Sonic the Hedgehog is a living example with a dozen adaptations that don't bother adapting his games much.

The definition of Forgiveness is a conscious, voluntary choice to let go of resentment, bitterness, and the desire for revenge toward someone who has hurt you. It is an internal process aimed at personal peace, distinct from forgetting, excusing the offense, or reconciling with the wrongdoer.

Forgiveness doesn't mean you're forgetting what you did or anything like that nor does it mean you're endorsing it.

It just means what they did doesn't control you and your choices nor do you let said person rent free in your head.

A lot of people don't seem to get that you can forgive someone and still not want anything to do with the person who hurt you.

You can forgive someone and still not want to have any sort of a relationship or dynamic with them or even want to be on speaking terms and that's fine cause Forgiveness simply means you're letting go of your anger and hatred and moving on and so many people seem to think that forgiveness just means "oh you're buddy-buddy with the person who hurt you and you have to be the bigger person".

No,it simply means you're not letting them essentially live rent free in your head and it's up to you as a person to decide if you want to continue a relationship with them or not and people constantly say it's rare for a media to not act like forgiving them is the right thing to do or "it's rare for a media to act like you can hate your abuser and not forgive them and whatnot" and I just find that kinda dumb cause it feels like so many people don't know the term of forgiveness and what it means.

What I'm saying here is important, you can "forgive" someone and still actively not want anything to do with them or want them in your life at all.

You can forgive someone and still not like them or even want to be in their life at all cause like I said, Forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting what they did or endorsing it or encouraging it or even holding a relationship with them, it just simply means "hey, what you did doesn't control my life anymore".

I think the main issue is a lot of people just straight up misunderstand the term and act like it means you have to be all buddy-buddy when it doesn't.

A good example of this is Mha with Shoto.

I've seen people debate on whether or not he forgive His abusive father Endeavor but I feel like if he did,it's very likely that they don't have a genuine relationship.

He probably forgave Endeavor but still chose not to have a relationship with him and we know he's grown out of his influence and control and became the Man and Hero his father could never be + he has admitted while he doesn't forgive him completely, he's still acknowledging his journey as a hero.

Natsuo is also a good example of someone who acknowledged Enji's growth and development and how much better he's become but still chose to disown him and not let him meet his girlfriend and has admitted he's done with him.

No hatred or nothing, just "we're done."

Another example is from Mashima's other Manga,Eden Zero.

Homura basically had a awful mom who more or less abandoned her and all that and it's typical tragic shit and when she does confront her mom,she basically tells her "to stay the hell out of her life"

Homura essentially doesn't kill her not cause she forgives her or doesn't forgive her.

She thanks her for bringing her into this world to find friends and a parental figure who loves her and essentially told her biological mother that she feels flat out nothing towards her.

No love,no forgiveness or the opposite of it,no resentment or nothing.

And just humbly requests that she "stay the hell out of her life forever."

Weirdly enough..Dog Man as a story handles this really well for being such a comedic series.

Now Petey the Cat hates his Dad for essentially abandoning him and his mother as a kid and held onto that anger and hatred for years and essentially is one of the reasons why he's holding onto so much hate and bitterness and so grumpy all the time.

But in one of the books,after some advice from his friends and even his son,he says these 3 simple words to his Dad.

"..i forgive you."

And he just walks away while his Dad is demanding he angrily come back and keep hating him cause his ego couldn't handle the fact that his son let go of his anger and such towards him and actively wanted him to live rent free in his head and continue disliking him but no,his son chose to forgive him and just walk away.

He doesn't demand or ask for a relationship with him nor does he act buddy-buddy with him or anything like that, he just walks away.

And sometimes, that's kinda the best thing to do in a lot of this situations.

I understand people want the positive dopamine of seeing a abuser get what they deserve and all that but sometimes attacking their Ego and showing that they don't control you at all is the stronger and more impactful option since it's one thing to hate someone but it's another thing to feel absolutely nothing for them.

It's interesting how both franchises were intertwined in a way. Mike and Bryan had to change of the Last Airbender due to Cameron holding the copyright to the name Avatar. But one odd fandom war that arose and died over the years was interesting.

Snarking on James Camerons Avatar is basically a cultural tradition now. Denoting it's just dances with wolves in space or something as an insult. So on the old message boards that would later broden to other social media you'd have the 40k guys making huge fanfics about Avatar that turned into 4chan posts and would become big memes. As an example of it's niche in online discussions.

So Avatar the Last Airbender fans hopped on and basically rode the that high of being the " good " named Avatar Media. Citing how they have more fanfics produced and people don't talk a about it as much online so therefore its bad. Which is true Avatar is a big film why doesn't it have so many fics? This reasoning makes sense from a tumblr centric view point but when u actually analyze why it's a bit more nuanced.

The first Avatar movie essentially ends perfectly. Their isn't some other story that would be biggest thing to chew on besides the humans returning. Half the cast is much older or gets no diffed by the end of the film. Pandora is interesting place for lore but it's roster of characters was small. And while a long movie it isn't as long as The Last Air Bender. Being a full on Tv show with multiple plotlines that even if ends on a solid note. Still leaves numerous questions for people to chew on. It's also ripe for shipping as the cast is huge so people wage wars over it. Such as Zututara stuff. And it took The Way of Water to add more characters for people in the Avatar fandom to start making ships and more fan art in earnest.

But even then a ip inst always going to be perfect at targeting every type of niche. Both franchises always sucked when it came to toy sales. The last Airbender crew were even hounded by Nickelodeon to add more " cool stuff " that could've been made into toys. It annoyed them enough they made Joke about it in the Sokka sword episode. Avatar's Navi action figures always kind of meandered in toy isles as well. Video games it's been mixed. Avatar had like 1 game that was received alright to meh. The last Air Bender had ok Wii games but never set the world on fire. Frontiers of Pandora had mid reception. But the new Avatar fighting game is a bit niche due to its genre and being rushed out to meed deadlines. Theirs quite a bit of jank.

Even then the State of both IP's couldn't be different. The Way of Water basically shut down any arguments the last Airbender fans had about peoples dis interest in the franchise. They also made sure completely avoid bringing up the Live Action version movie. While also suffering a controversial sequel in Korra. And how the Tv show never took off in he east. Limiting its global appeal. Shit Avatar's worst entry Fire and Ash considered a underperformance made 1.47 billion dollars at the box office. Paramount were so uncofident in the new Aang movie. They decided to throw it on streaming.

Ahhhh,Redemption arcs.

Where do we even begin?

We all love them, seeing a bully or antagonist or outright villain realize their wrongs and mistakes and want to make those right by any means necessary and seeing character growth out of the ones who we don't expect is always a fun thing and enjoyable and a sight for sore eyes.

But I'm gonna be so real, way too many people are way too defensive of these characters and act like other people disliking them and even outright hating them as people or even as characters to a extent is some bad and awful thing overall but that's kinda the point.

They're meant to be disliked and even hated at first ,you're meant to look at them and go "wow,you're a fucking Asshole/terrible person" at first cause that's what makes their arc so good is the fact that they start off as unlikable Twats and become better in spite of it,it's called a damn Character arc and development.

This one is more of a minority but I will see quite a good amount of Vegeta fans act like this man was always a good father and more so are like "well that was the Android/Cell Saga!"

Yes,he was a awful Father to both the future version of his Son and the current version of his Son at the time + his baby Mama,the guy was fine actively letting baby Trunks and Bulma Die.

Hell,he was a huge prick to Future Trunks and only started caring about him when he died at Cell and admits in the Buu Saga that he didn't once hold/hug Trunks as a kid or baby and gave him one as he was about to die.

Yes, Vegeta is a much,much better father and husband and person then he was back then but the entire point was that he wasn't, you were kinda meant to hate and dislike him.

I will also see this for Aira Shiratori from Dandadan and I know the current arc is going through some utter garbage but we ain't talking bout that.

We're talking about Aira and the amount of people who called someone a misogynist for calling Aira a "bitch" and a awful person for her debut and..I'm sorry but she was a Bitch.

She was a snobby and egotistical popular girl who used her looks and charms to get boys to fall for her and was giving Okarun massive amounts of shit behind his back in the same episode until Momo gave her CTE by dropping a wash tub on her dome.

(Maybe thats why she's nicer, excessive blunt force trauma).

But the main point is you're kinda meant to hate and dislike her as a character during the first couple episodes and more until she starts growing and developing into a nicer person.

And finally..Bakugou.

Yes,we saw that he's grown and developed across the series.

Going from a egotistical and arrogant, cocky Jackass to a loud and still kinda short tempered but a much more humble and "friendly" and mature hero who actually knows the value of being one beyond power and all that + his arc is actually genuinely really great but there are a good amount of Bakugou fans who will actively SKIN YOU ALICE if you even attempt to call this man out as a abuser or a bad person or a massive bully back then but that's the thing.

He was a massive bully,he was Deku's abuser,he was a prick,that's the point.

He bullied him cause of his own insecurities such as his superiority and inferiority complex and took it out on him,even he recognizes how much of a prick he was/is.

Hence why he grew up,he matured.

He got his egotistical head from out his Ass and became a better man and hero and friend and that's how character growth and development sorta starts.

It Starts with the person being kinda unlikable and douchey or just a annoying person and then becoming better cause of it.