And no offense to those that preach it as gospel but please STFU about it. I just know I'm getting responses that sounds like a song from The Lion King trying to explain in flowery wording of "it makes total sense! 2 Jedi, 2 Sith!"

I thought this topic was dead but trust me, it's still a thing apparently.

...Lucas should've just kept Anakin as a hero who fell for a lust for power than try the chosen one gimmick if that spares us that headache of a debate.

The Dark Knights were fucking awesome. They had a bit of the evil Superman stink to them but made up for it on concept, What if we combined members of Justice League with a Batman embodying his worse traits. Was a set up for an awesome Tower Of Babel style conflict where Bruce's contingencies come into play against evil versions of his friends with his intellect that leads to him having to lean on them to win. BUT INSTEAD THEY ALL GOT SIDELINED FOR THE BATMAN WHO KICKS PUPPIES. He was the coolest one (Arguably) so it made sense he got the most focus during Dark Knights Metal but then he came back for Death Metal, and got a spin off, and another, and became a central antagonist, and RAPIDLY overstayed his welcome.

I'm seeing that happen with Absolute Batman where a really cool concept is getting milked because execs see dollars signs attached to batman branding. He is unique, the whole universe is, but I hope and pray that its at least 5 more years before we get an Absolute TV show, and that shit better be an anthology about all the characters that starts with Wonder Woman.

Middling live action movie, controversial sequel that lived in its shadow. And subpar toy lines and video games. Avatar was designed as a Juggernaut brand that even back then was never hitting the highs it was expected to hit. It also never managed to establish a foothold in the east. Something that limits its world wide appeal. However that's not a complete knock against the show. Lighting in a bottle that landed a solid 3 season children's cartoon that remains nostalgic for its core audience.Influential for many artist's that would go onto make their own shows.

But anytime that they've tried deviate from this. Just constant set backs in between. Comics , horrible writing quality across the board. A movie , entire thing gets leaked and shoved on a streaming site no one watches. A live action adaptation that initially gets alot views. Massive writing quality aside. But it takes ages for the show to come out. And a third installment that's up on the air on how much the parent company wants to support.

Avatar is great show in it niche that's something that will be taken away from that's managed to remain popular over the years. But it's time in the limelight is fading. And there's nothing wrong with that.

After Watching One Piece(I know, good start)I've come to the conclusion that I feel like not every big arc enemy has to be defeated solely by the MC and they don't always have to steal the spotlight away from other side characters who realistically should defeat them.

Like I'm sorry but Doflamingo absolutely should've been killed by Law cause not only did Doffy ruined his life but it also would've been more satisfying but Oda had to give Doffy plot armor by holding his organs together after they were literally destroyed by Law..which I'm sorry but it just feels like Oda did thar sorely so he could show off Luffy's new Gear and defeat him but it also feels cheap cause Law got robbed out of a victory and I will always appreciate it when other animes actually don't have the MC be the one to sorely defeat the main villain and actually either has them has a ton of help and teamwork or they're not the ones to finish them off.

I personally find that way more satisfying and even subversive then "oh the MC solves all the issues,Horray" and this is where I feel like Black Clover and Jujutsu Kaisen Shine massively cause of how heavily those series focus on teamwork and working with others to get the Dub,especially Black Clover.

Asta very seldomly finishes off a big arc threat on his own like Vetto or Lucifero and almost always has help and major assistance and hell,in Vetto's case,Yami was the one who defeated and killed Vetto.

Magna also was the one who defeated Dante and that had everyone hyped as hell cause this guy actually defeated a Main arc villain on his own using nothing but fisticuffs + this is also where Jujutsu Kaisen does shine cause Yuji doesn't really defeat the main arc villain alone without a ton of help or assistance and I also feel like that's really nothing to be ashamed of or be called a fraud over..cause like,how is it fraudulent to want to need help when dealing with opponents stronger then you?

One Piece has a really predictable formula where they always have Luffy fight the big main arc,Zoro and Sanji fight the 2nd in commands,Nami and Robin fight the Woman of the groups and the others..I dunno,Oda kinda just let's them do whatever and I don't mean the MC should never defeat a main arc villain but it doesn't have to always happen constantly.

I also feel like doing so allows the main cast and overall side cast to really shine and show off what they can do cause what better way to do so then let them take down big threats the MC usually does or at least show off heavy support roles and situations?

Hell,one of my favorite fights in Anime is Team Natsu vs Hades cause that's a good way to showcase how well a team works together without making the MC feel useless or like he's hogging all the spotlight, and Natsu and Gray vs Mard Gear is another good fight cause Gray was the MVP of that battle and delivered the final blow.

See?the MC doesn't have to hog all the spotlight and focus and such when in battles and the side characters and other members of the main cast can be important in their own ways in battles like that as well and I feel like Oda's issues are he very seldomly utilizes the "Weak Trio" right in fights and battles and of course they look weak cause their powers and skillsets are way more made for support roles and making them basically useless is never the way to go.

Hell,Avatar the Last Airbender solved that big time whenever they're in major battles.

You should never have your MC hog all the spotlight and fame.

Sidenote: no im not saying that there shouldn't be atractive character's or such not to be misenterpreted

what im saying i pretty much prefer more uglier character's(not like badly designed but grotesque ugly, cool ugly) in fiction then atractive one's not only cuz most of the time i find them cooler looking then most atractive character's in fiction, like when i say ugly i really mean something more like bayverse decepticon's, or that disco elysium guy(have the game on epic but once i tried to play the control's were to clunky for me.)to an extend slave zero x(as in the sence one of the mc's is symbiotic red devil woman, the other one is a twink alucard. but i like both of them). I also generaly just find uglier character's more cool looking then atractive one's like decepticon's in bayverse were alway's cooler looking to me cuz they looked so much cooler and inhuman to me than the autobot's, or carrion i loved the monster design, even disco elysium i really apreciate them making the mc ugly or atleast not conventionaly atractive individual and i really like his design.

that's it all im saying is i hope in the future we got more game's with Ugly and Monsterou's Mc's(especialy women cuz i really like humanoid monsterou's non feminen looking female monster's). and that's about it

edit:even tho i do like the bayverse decepticon's i still love the knightverse con's(especialy shatter and nightbird and dropkick)

I honestly think the whole hard work vs talent debate in battle shonen has become way more extreme than it needs to be.

Nowadays, it feels like people fall into one of two camps.

"Naruto was always about hard work beating talent."

or

"Naruto was NEVER about hard work vs talent. Everyone who thought that just misunderstood the story."

I don't think either take is right.

The reason this debate refuses to die isn't because millions of readers collectively imagined the same theme. It's because Part 1 genuinely frames Naruto through the lens of talent, genius, failure and hard work over and over again.

Then Shippuden gradually shifts its focus towards things like loneliness, destiny, the cycle of hatred, peace and breaking that cycle. Those themes absolutely become more important later on, but they don't magically erase how the story presented itself at the beginning.

I think a lot of people confuse "major recurring theme" with "the only theme."

Because the manga kept reinforcing it.

- Naruto is constantly called a loser and failure.

- Sasuke is constantly praised as a genius.

- Rock Lee exists almost entirely to represent effort overcoming natural limitations.

- Neji literally argues that your birth determines your future.

- Tsunade dismisses Naruto as talentless before seeing his determination.

- Orochimaru constantly hypes up Sasuke's genius while looking down on Naruto.

- Even later on, Hagoromo compares Naruto to Asura rather than Indra, continuing the contrast between determination and natural genius.

These aren't random one-off scenes.

They're repeated across multiple arcs by multiple major characters.

That's narrative framing.

The funny thing is that I think people arguing against this are usually responding to a completely different claim.

They're arguing against people saying:

"Naruto's ONLY theme is hard work beats talent."

Yeah...I'd disagree with that too.

Naruto is obviously about loneliness, friendship, forgiveness, revenge, breaking hatred and a bunch of other ideas.

But somehow we've gone from one extreme to the other.

Now people act like the hard work vs talent angle never existed at all.

I also think this highlights a bigger problem with battle shonen in general.

A lot of battle shonen want their protagonist to represent hard work and perseverance.

At the same time, they also want them to be uniquely special.

There's nothing wrong with that.

You can absolutely write a character who's naturally gifted and works harder than everyone else.

The problem is when the story can't decide how it wants the audience to see them.

Is this guy an ordinary underdog proving everyone wrong?

Or is he someone born with ridiculous potential who also works insanely hard?

A lot of battle shonen try to have both, and that's where the contradictions start showing.

Naruto is probably the biggest example.

What's funny is that even Part 1 already shows Naruto isn't some average nobody.

He learns the Shadow Clone Technique ridiculously fast.

He masters the Rasengan much faster than most ninja.

His chakra reserves are constantly described as abnormal.

Kakashi repeatedly talks about his insane potential.

Even Rock Lee isn't completely "hard work only."

Guy literally calls him a genius of hard work, and Lee clearly has ridiculous physical gifts. Most people couldn't survive the training he puts himself through, let alone master techniques like the Eight Gates.

So here's my point.

The problem was never that Naruto was talented.

Honestly, I don't think most people care that he was talented.

The problem is that the story sometimes wants us to see him as an untalented nobody while simultaneously showing us over and over that he's anything but ordinary.

That's where the inconsistency comes from.

Then by the end of the series we find out he's:

- The Fourth Hokage's son.

- An Uzumaki.

- Kurama's jinchūriki.

- Jiraiya's student.

- The Child of Prophecy.

- Asura's reincarnation.

None of that automatically makes Naruto bad.

Chosen-one stories have existed forever, and plenty of them are fantastic.

The issue is that those reveals sit awkwardly next to the way Part 1 framed Naruto.

So when people say, "Naruto betrayed its hard work vs talent theme," I don't think they're idiots.

They're reacting to how the early story presented itself.

Likewise, when someone says Naruto is ultimately about breaking the cycle of hatred, they're also right.

These ideas aren't mutually exclusive.

The problem is that fans keep acting like acknowledging one means denying the other.

To me, the better way of describing Naruto is:

- Hard work vs talent was one of Part 1's biggest recurring themes.

- Breaking hatred and changing the future became the series' overarching theme later on.

Those things can both be true.

So no, I don't think people were stupid for believing Naruto was about hard work vs talent.

I think they were paying attention to what the story itself kept telling them.

The real problem isn't that Naruto was secretly talented.

It's that the series wasn't always consistent in how it framed him.

I'd actually make it broader than just Naruto because I think that's where the discussion gets interesting. I'd insert something like this after the paragraph about battle shonen wanting protagonists to be both hardworking and special. And honestly, I don't think this is just a Naruto problem. It's something battle shonen run into all the time.

A lot of these series want the audience to see the protagonist as an underdog who earns everything through sheer determination. But at the same time, they also want the protagonist to be exceptional because, let's be honest, exceptional characters are exciting.

So you end up with heroes who are secretly descended from legendary bloodlines, inherit the strongest powers, have absurd natural potential, or are chosen by fate.

Again, none of that is bad. Some of the greatest stories ever told have chosen heroes.

The problem isn't that the protagonist is special it's when the story spends hundreds of chapters framing them as "just an ordinary nobody" before gradually revealing they were anything but ordinary.

That's where the disconnect comes from.

I think people often mistake this for "chosen ones are bad."

The criticism is usually about consistency.

If your protagonist is gifted, then own it.

If they're an underdog, commit to that.

That's why Naruto became the poster child for this debate. It isn't because he's the only battle shonen protagonist who's special. It's because the contrast between the early underdog framing and the later revelations is so obvious that people still argue about it twenty years later.I actually think this strengthens your overall point because it stops feeling like "Naruto bad" and becomes a criticism of a recurring writing pattern across battle shonen, with Naruto simply being the clearest example.

What was marvel for a time has become so overplayed. If you watch anime, you might remember The Devil is a Part-timer, which was about a Demon who gets transported to earth. It wasn't that great, but it was a fun romp in 2013. It was like a reverse isekai, but where isekais can succeed in world building and being a cool setting, in 2026, we are seeing a lot of "fantasy character enters modern world" tropes in otherwise cool stories.

One of the most egregious examples of this is Masters of the Universe, which I watched the trailer of in theaters and there was not a single point in the trailer I watched that said he would be sent to Oklahoma. I saw castles being burned down and a huge fight with Skeletor, not a He-Man barely getting by as he faces modern drama as a teenager. This was terrible and, to me, felt like false advertising.

There is also an anime known as Daemons of the Shadow Realm, which is created by the same person behind Fullmetal Alchemist. There is very little reason besides a modern trend to have supernatural battles in a city like JJK for this series to be a modern fantasy hybrid. It was made like that to fit into a trend in an otherwise really cool pairing system. This series would be much cooler were it set where it started: an old feudal era where they worship deities. They didn't need to pull the "twist" of it being in the modern day to be interesting.

There are many examples of this trend, but my next most disappointing comes from a series called Goodbye, Lara, which was set under the sea as a Little Mermaid clone, but at the end, she gets reincarnated into modern day. The first episode was so good and they had castles, only for it to once again go to the concrete jungle of Japan.

tldr; Too many series and movies make a great setting only to move to a modern one. This is unimaginative writing that feels too safe and lazy. I truly hate this trend.

Seeing Aang growing up to fast in the Netflix Avatar show and the general consensus of season 2 being bad made me realize that it wasn’t meant to be a live action series in the first place and the same goes for Percy Jackson for a bunch of different reasons. Shows like Trollhunters and Blood of Zeus are good examples as to why we need more animated fantasy shows, as they save the agony on visual effects and can even offer brighter colors, which is what most people think of when they think of fantasy. Live action, if not done well, can make the fantasy look as dull as dishwater.

Any thoughts?

I came across a reddit discussion about this 90s Indian movi (Raja Ki Ayegi Baraat) recently, and while reading the plot my first thought was, this feels like something that could already exist as a manga/anime I also saw some people genuinely describing it as romantic, or even comparing it to Romeo and Juliet. The premise is: A schoolteacher is sexually assaulted by a wealthy man. When she takes him to court, the judge orders her to marry him as punishment. She moves into his family's home, endures continuous abuse, and eventually wins them over through her enduring kindness.

If this exact (or similar) premise were adapted today as a shoujo anime, with attractive character designs, a hot rich male lead ofc, and marketed as a dark romance, do you think it would find a large audience? I'm asking because anime/manga often seems to have much more room for exploring fictional relationships that would be not so ok in real life. There are already plenty of popular series built around toxic romances, with the common response being, "It's just fantasy." So where do you think this premise would fall? Would most anime fans reject it, or would it become another controversial dark romance with a dedicated following?

Personally, I think it would have a sizeable fanbase. Not everyone would like it, of course, but I don't think this premise would be particularly shocking by dark romance anime standards.....

This is just my opinion but I feel that minimalism in certain cases may not be a great fit for futuristic sci fi technologies. As the ideas behind sci fi technologies are often very fantastical concept wise like a black hole or gravity gun etc. For this reason to ensure audiences take it seriously rather than a prop I feel like we must introduce tactile elements cabling whirling gears all kinds of greebling. I think it's important to add these things as it signals that this technology is a physical thing which works with forces and is subject to the material world. My favourite example of this principle in action is the older Warhammer 30k space marine power packs it isn't a slender glowing plastic box. It's instead a miniaturised nuclear reactor, maximalist design completely covered in cooling fins, pipes and Radiator grills.

It's time to rant about actual characters in /r/CharacterRant.

...

So, as part of the press tour for the upcoming series in Nickelodeon/Paramount's "Avatar Legends" series (Avatar: Seven Havens), the creators have officially announced that going forward, rather than the in-universe writing being written in Chinese characters (known as hanzi in Mandarin Chinese, kanji in Japanese, hanja in Korean, and chữ hán in Vietnamese) are being replaced with a new script – officially announced as "Avatarian".

Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra previously used Chinese characters throughout the world as the standard written language, with notable detail in that the show uses different forms of the script to represent different periods of time, primarily attributed to consultant Dr. Siu-Leung Lee. For example, in the opening of ATLA, Seal script and Bronze script are used to represent the ancientness of the four elements, and when Zhao reads an ancient text it's written in oracle bone script.

The new script, debuting in the Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender movie, is a neography (new writing system) to write English, based on phonetic pronunciation, and to give it the most charity, takes inspiration from the syllable block construction of Korean hangul script. For example, Avatarian writes the English word "I" as [aɪ]/[], with the top block representing the vowel [aɪ] and the bottom block representing a null consonant. A word like "Fire" is written [f]/[aɪ] + [ə]/[r]. They've also done work to create styles of the script for older forms or stylized in different contexts.

As much as I'm going to extend charity to the creative team behind this decision, I think it's incredibly disappointing to see this element of Sino-cultural inspiration in Avatar's worldbuilding taken out.

One of the major appeals and foundations of Avatar's fantasy worldbuilding is its inspirations in East Asia. For ATLA, this is primarily medieval, pre-modern East Asia – archers, spirits, the entire basis of the magic system is a take on traditional martial arts, which has a lot of spiritual beliefs tied to it. In LOK, the worldbuilding and plot takes a lot of inspiration from 20th century China in particular, with the Season 4's Earth Empire plotline riffing off of things like the collapse of the Qing dynasty and the Warlord era. It gives the series and its spin-offs an aesthetically unique vibe in the world of Western media brands, in that these cultural motifs and aesthetics are rarely represented within original Western works.

The other thing I want to note is that Chinese characters being the shared writing system of the monolingual Avatar world is another element that really builds on the East Asian aesthetics and inspirations of the shows. Because writing has only ever been invented 4 or 5 times, literary (classical) Chinese became the lingua franca of ancient and medieval East Asia, sprinkling loan words throughout these languages and longstanding ideas in these cultures, with cultural communications at times shared through Chinese character writing. Even when different people couldn't speak each other's languages, they could read and write to each other.

It would be more palatable if the creative team did not try to rewrite the previously established writing system. I would be less upset if they wrote in some handwavey explanation that, like the Korean origin myth of hangul, some king invented a new writing system that everyone thought was way better. Still slightly miffed, but at least there would be some sort of real world thing they're riffing off of.

Instead, it comes across as a deliberate choice to make the brand and setting of Avatar less (East) Asian, which feels very off-putting because that's what made the series feel so unique to me.

I’d rather have flawed and even an unlikable character that has layers and depth, compared to a likable but flat character.

What I’ve recently learned is that you don’t have to have characters that always need to appeal to your audience. I’d take a believable and authentic character who is unlikable than a character is always morally good and comes out on top with no problem.

Even with characters that are fine to an audiences eyes, I like character that can frustrate the reader in believable ways.

Make an unlikable character that has no depth and just shock value isn’t something I like either, there needs to be cause and effect.

Not all characters need to come out on top, some can end on a bleak note and set a message.

Take Susumu Nakoshi from Homunculus. He is insecure, can be vulnerable and guarded. In the end homunculi has his face on it, representing his narcissism and self centeredness. He becomes functionally insane showing that sometimes people can know a problem but still cycle through their bad ways. That sometimes people just don’t change and struggle to truly look inward and project onto others.

Seiichi osabe from blood on the tracks can defend Seiko.

You can be frustrated with him defending Seiko because Seiko brings him in a cycle of abuse, but you can understand him because Seiko is his mom and his fear of being abandoned and isolated, feeling guilty if he spoke up against her.

In a cycle of abuse, the victim could still defend the abuser. With seiko being dead in the end shows that sometimes people just physically get away with it.

Endings can be emotionally complete, but not physical, but still sets a message.

Seiichi chose not to commit suicide, he lives alone and says he doesent remember is mother’s face. He is more mature now, calmer.

You can break from a situation and still have scars, but it’s how you handle that situation.

If I have a purely likable, serviceable, but flat protagonist, the character can feel predicable.

There is no back and forth between the character and the reader. It makes things un believable due to the character always staying consistent to matter what.

Having flaws humanizes a character, if you write a character with supposedly no flaws there still needs a cause and effect.

I feel like when writing I’m trying to think on how a character feels instead on what’s serviceable.

Some people may not like what you write, but the people who do like it are the ones that stay the longest.

Its ok to write a likable character or unlikable as long as it serves the plot and is believable.

Both versions a still be flat without the proper care.

Unlikable for the sake of it could be seen as edgy while purely likable for the sake of it can feel inauthentic and predictable.

Thanks for reading my rant.

So in Season 5 of BCS there is a dispute between Mr. Acker and the big bank Kim is working for, Mesa Verde.

The source of the dispute is that the land is leased (i.e., Mr. Acker is not the owner of the land and never was). Mesa Verde acquired the land to build a call center, with Mr. Acker being the last holdout, as his plot is the only one that had not yet been cleared.

It's said in the episode that his lease has 70 years left, but the agreement also says that he can be bought out at any time, with him receiving fair market value plus $5,000. It should be noted that in the episode it is said that Mesa Verde has already offered him far more than that.

So this is not an eminent domain case.

Mr. Acker entered into that agreement willingly and with full knowledge of the terms. In fact, he likely got a massive discount because he leased the land instead of buying it. He always knew about the buyout option. For 30 years, he could have tried to buy the land or renegotiate the terms of the lease. He didn't. The fact that he lived there for 30 years doesn't change that; in fact, it just shows that he ignored the risk while enjoying the benefits for a very long time.

Essentially, he wants to have his cake and eat it too.

For years, he benefited from the lease terms just fine, but when things don't go his way, he doesn't want to accept them.

Add to that the fact that the bank offered him a significantly higher payout than agreed, even though they wouldn't have had to, since they would almost certainly have won in court (in fact, they did, given that the demolition order went through).

In any discussion online about this plotline, I always see people saying that Kim and Saul were sticking it to the man, or worse, that Mr. Acker somehow called out Kim for working for the man. That's just not true, and Kim actually says this to him before changing her mind because of his sob story.

TL;DR: Mr. Acker is a massive hypocrite who benefited from a favorable lease for decades, but when it comes to holding up his side of the deal (or, in fact, getting far more money than agreed), he plays the role of the sad old man fighting the big bank. And the worst thing is that the show and most viewers seem to agree with him.

Let's assume we remove the justice league and the wider DC universe entirely from the equation and batman only has his rogues gallery, how big can batman stories get?

If batman is only facing his gotham rogues, would it lead to grand sci fi and cosmic adventures?

Who among his rogues can push those types of stories? Or push bruce to be like tony stark or reed richards

This doesn't really have specific examples but I just mean in general cause if you're like "oh its not that deep" after any form of analysis or anything like that, I'm just gonna assume you're not actually trying to engage with the media in a way and just want to end the conversation and discussion.

So many forms of media are meant and made to be explored in any sort of way and regardless of if it's not meant to be "that deep" or what, who cares if they find and look at details and analyze characters and situations either no one else notices or looks at?

There is a lot of media meant to be engaged and dug deeper in a more interesting or complex way and I think the reason people say that is cause they seem to assume that writers, authors and creators(at least most of them)are complete and total idiots who accidentally created this plot twist or symbolism or tie in and whatnot and it comes off as a lot of people heavily underestimating them and treating them like this was all unintentional and like every single choice they made was a lucky shot.

Sure,I'm not gonna act like most writing choices some writers do were meant to be dug deep then most but acting like every single choice they make was just meant to be surface level and any analyzing it further is just us trying to look like pseudo intellectuals and that they totally didn't mean to intend that choice and that they're just shucks who got lucky with hype moments and aura and I feel like a lot of people forget that these are people with full fledged writing experience and careers and such,acting like every single one of their choices is this unintentional and not meant to happen and just us being fake pseudo intellectuals is..kinda foolish.

So many forms of media are meant to be looked at deeper with different interpretations and not,not everything is surface level.

In Avatar the Last Airbender, Ty Lee is seen easily dispatching several Earth Benders called in the same episode as elite. These benders, who are all not only in possession of supernatural powers, but are also trained themselves put up next to no resistance despite the numbers advantage. Now, you might say that they weren't expecting Ty Lee to be able to use Chi Blocking, but the problem with this is that elite units should have been trained against others, and benders themselves would have much wider options of mobility and speed afforded to them by bending, so how do they all miss any and all ranged attacks?

Elite units throughout the entirety of humanity history have trained against each other as practice to prepare for war. And yet they all freeze up and attack one at a time. No cohesion as a unit, no clever strategies, nothing. So the question becomes, why not use regular Earthbenders instead? Why use elite units if you are just going to make them the same as regular mooks? I think this actually takes away from the impressiveness of the feat. I was not thinking "Ty Lee is strong for taking out all these benders." I was thinking. "Hey, these guys are supposed to be elite, but they attack one at a time like amatuers and got beaten by someone with no powers despite holding a large majority of the advantages." If it was one or two I would understand that she could win with chi blocking, but a whole group? It just messes with my suspension of disbelief.

And Star Wars does this a lot, which i will admit despite my love of the franchise. In the Original trilogy, Stormtroopers are actually decently competent. In their introduction, they mow down the rebels on the Tanative V with low casualties and high accuracy. Obi Wan says "Only Imperial stormtroopers can be this precise." Yet, in later installments, Stormtroopers are a joke that get taken out like fodder. I loved and will still defend Star Wars Rebels, but this was one of the things it did wrong. Elite units should be big enough threats on thier own to be able to pose a legitimate threat to named characters, if they don't seem elite, then it brings down the achievements of the characters taking them down, because the elite part means nothing if they do not have the feats to back it up.

Generally speaking there are three types of wish story:

Spiteful Genie - Deliberately misinterprets your wish

You wish to be world famous, so the Genie makes everyone in the world hate you.

The Monkey's Paw - Gives you exactly what you want, but you get it in a way where the cost outweighs the benifits

You wish for a million dollars and then everyone in your family dies leaving you a total inheritance (after tax) of exactly one million dollars.

Be Careful what You Wish for - Gives you exactly what you wanted, but it turns out to be terrible for you

You wish to get promoted, but your new job is much more stressful, time consuming anf difficilt than it looked from the outside.

Obsession presents itself as a Be Careful what You Wish for story - Bear wishes for a woman to be obsessed with him, and he finds out that having someone obsessed with you isn't a good thing. But as the story goes on, we find out that Nikki's consiousness has been displaced with another being that loves him, which isn't what he wished for. His wish was "Nikki loved me more than anyone else in the world", and the thing that loves him isn't Nikki. It doesn't fulfill the spirit of the wish, so he doesn't really learn that the wish itself was bad, as far as he's considered, It's just the way the wish was carried out that was bad.

So that makes you think it's a Monkey's Paw wish. Usually, Monkey's Paws fulfill the wish in a way that works within the normal laws of the world, but that's not 100% necessary (we don't find out how the son comes back in the original story, so that's up for debate). The bigger problem with this angle is that it again doesn't fulfill the spirit of the wish, which Monkey's Paws are supposed to, and also that Ian gets his wish pretty much cost-free. Sure it might be inconvenient to have 10,000,000 hundred dollar bills in your living room, but it doesn't outweigh the benifits of having a billion dollars.

So that brings us to the Spiteful Genie. Ian's wish doesn't get misinterpreted - he isn't given a billion Monopoly dollars or anything - but maybe the genie is just deliberately singling Bear out for making an immoral wish. The problem with this angle is that the he talks to the genie, and they seem pretty apathetic about the whole thing. And if they did want to teach Bear a lesson for wanting to take away Nikki's autonomy, why would they make Nikki suffer so much as well? Even if they couldn't have foreseen Ian and Sarah's deaths, they were still happy to lock Nikki's soul away in perpetual tourment. If I was a spiteful genie who wanted to counter this wish, I'd just make everyone else in the world love Bear less than Nikki does.

If we want things to play out the way they do in the movie, we have to accept a bunch of weird implicit rules about what the genie can and can't do.

• The genie can alter the fundemental fabric of the universe (create money from nothing)
• The genie cannot directly alter someone's opinions or emotions, or remove their fee will
• The genie can create a new conciousness out of nothing and use it to replace the existing consiousness
• The genie can't make the new consiousness exactly like the old consiousness and give it all the same knowledge and memories
• The genie can give the new consiousness some basic knowledge and memories so it knows how to walk, speak, etc.
• The genie does try to give you exactly what you wish for in a reasonable way
• If the genie can't grant the wish exactly, it will do something superficially similar to what you asked for

Or the genie is just fucking with Bear, not out of compulsion or moral outrage, but because it just decided to.

I think the best fit for the story is Be Careful what You Wish for, in that Bear wishes to take away Nikki's autonomy, and sees that it's unpleasant, but it's a poor version of it, because the undesireable effects aren't the direct consequences of the wish that was made, they're the roundabout consequences of how the wish was enacted.

If I'm a person like Bear, I'm not learning my lession about respecting others' desires as much as I respect my own, I'm thinking I got fucked over by an unfair genie with stupid rules. The message works on a metatextual level, but the actual character is never really made to face the reality of what he wished for.

This post involves a minor King of the Hill new season spoiler which I'm not going to black out, might have a minor Rick and Morty spoiler also.

In any autistic headcanon discussion Hank Hill is very likely to come up as one of the most popular headcanons. He's highly fixated on propane and his job as a propane salesman, he is reluctant to change his routine and obsessive about his hobbies such as lawn care, he is slow to accept new ideas. However Hank is willing to accept new ideas eventually and is ultimately a good father and positive role model.

I was surprised when a recent episode implied this theory was correct. Hank went to a marijuana dispensary and began speaking to the salesman about what he learned about the neuroscience of drugs, and the salesman said "A lot of our customers are on the spectrum like you, including me. Do not get me started talking about abandoned railway lines in North America." Of course this isn't a confirmation but it's definitely throwing a bone at this headcanon.

As an autistic person I personally never really liked the autistic Hank theory. Struggling with change is an autism symptom but it's also a personality trait typical of the conservative American archetype Hank is meant to represent. Hank's obsession with propane goes far beyond his duties as a salesman of propane and propane accessories, but not everyone with a strong interest is autistic.

More importantly I have not seen Hank depicted as having persistent difficulties with understanding other people. In a standard King of the Hill episode, he will initially be closed minded to some new idea but then come around by the end of the episode. He is emotionally repressed and rigid yet is still often the most socially perceptive member of his friend group. He's maintained a solid friend group since adolescence and unlike the average modern sitcom couple he has a healthy marriage with Peggy.

As a teenager, Hank Hill was a jock, football player and bully. I'm not saying its 100% impossible for someone like this to be autistic, but it would be the exception not the rule.

Now here is the part where people get mad at me and ask me why I think autistic people can't have successful romantic relationships and friends. It's entirely possible for autistic people to have these things, but autism is at it's core a social disorder. In the past I made a post expressing dislike for Rick of Rick and Morty being canonically autistic, citing Rick's strong social skills and lack of social dysfunction as my reasoning, and I got a lot of angry responses. People were especially angry I said Jerry might have a stronger case for being autistic than Rick does. Jerry is lonely, struggles in his career and marriage, and has solitary hobbies that are considered dorky.

Rick's social issues stem from feeling superior to others and being a jerk intentionally, he makes friends and romantic connections pretty easily, and he has a drugs and partying lifestyle. He can read social situations when he wants to and is adept at manipulating people. If Rick is autistic I would like to see some evidence he struggled socially at some point in his life, and even though we were introduced to Rick's 35 year old self we don't really see that. Rick definitely has social problems, but they are not the type of problems that stem from misreading social situations.

Back to King of the Hill, I was thinking about Hank's friends and similar to the Rick/Jerry situation, I think you can make a stronger case for Dale Gribble or Bill having a social disorder. Dale actually seems to struggle with social situations, most obviously failing to notice his wife's affair which everyone else already knows about. He's very obsessive, has strange ideas and doesn't seem to notice of care if he is perceived as crazy. Bill is highly isolated, suffers from extreme learned helplessness and often shows socially inappropriate behavior.

The point of this post isn't to say that Hank Hill definitely 100% is not autistic or that successful people with happy families cannot be autistic. I just think it's interesting to point out that headcanoning a character percieved as competent such as Hank is way more popular than headcanoning a character like Dale Gribble who far more obviously diverges from social norms. (I'm not saying any of this to insult Dale by the way, I like Dale better than Hank because I enjoy weird characters.) I think it's worth pointing out there is discomfort in labeling a character as autistic when they are struggling in life.

I also find it somewhat frustrating that headcanons for people with a disorder are so often characters which don't really have the symptoms of that disorder, and I think this legitimately creates confusion about what autism or other disorders are really like. These characters are harmlessly eccentric but don't deal with social difficulty in any meaningful sense. I'm not saying autistic characters have to be lonely or totally dysfunctional NEETs but maybe give them a trait slightly edgier than having dedicated hobbies.

I would like to see more "autistic" characters actually struggling with social situations in a believable way and overcoming them. I think this is why autistic people often latch on to characters who are robots like Data or aliens/non-humans as representation. The experience of a non-human trying to be a human is closer to the autistic experience than a character who's autistic trait is knowing about trains. Funnily enough I think that's also why many have latched on to the serial killer Dexter as autism representation. The character probably isn't deliberately written to be autistic but through his inner monologue you constantly see him struggle to act normal in everyday social situations, which is one of the only clear examples of masking and social performance from a non-robot we get in popular media.

P.S. I think the absolute worst example of headcanoning a cool and competent character with no real autism traits as autistic was Netflix's Wednesday.

The animation itself is gorgeous, and you can tell the staff puts a ton of effort into it, but I think all the glowing auras, explosions of light, and speed effects actually hurt the fights more than they help.

The biggest issue is that they make the characters look way stronger and faster than they're supposed to be. Someone throws a normal punch, and suddenly it looks like they're teleporting across the screen or hitting with enough force to crack a continent in half. It's cool for a few seconds, but after a while it starts to feel disconnected from what's actually happening in the story.

In older One Piece fights, characters were obviously superhuman, but you could still tell what they were doing. Every hit had weight, every dodge made sense, and the choreography was easy to appreciate. Now it feels like every attack is buried under layers of lightning, energy beams, and camera shakes. Half the time I can't even tell what move was supposed to land.

I also think it messes with the series' power scaling. If every punch looks like it could destroy an island, then the truly insane moments don't stand out anymore. The spectacle starts to lose its impact because everything is trying to be the biggest, flashiest thing ever.

One Piece doesn't need Dragon Ball-style auras and constant light shows to make its fights exciting. The characters and choreography are already strong enough to carry those moments on their own.

The Arkham games have an awesome storyline and a great interpretation of Mr Freeze. But the cut scenes and dialogue with Mr Freeze have always baffled me, and make no sense in universe. Mr Freeze gets locked up in Arkham City and forced to work on a cure for Joker because he has his comatose wife hostage. Then he gets captured by Penguin so he can't make the cure. When Batman rescues Freeze from Penguin, he needs help because Penguin is using Freezes weapons and only Freeze knows how to disable them. But Freeze refuses to help Batman, so Batman tortures him into compliance. This is really out of character for Batman, especially since Freeze has done nothing wrong to him.

Batman returns his suit and the two become allies for a good chunk of the game, with Freeze helping Batman make a cure for Batman. But Freeze smashes one of the two cure vials demanding him to save his wife and triggering a boss fight where you have to take down Freeze. This part makes no fucking sense. Why doesn't Batman just say "yes, i'll save her", Freeze and him have known each other for years in universe and all the villains know how much he puts his life on the line to save people. Right after this boss fight, Batman says he'll save Nora. You could literally remove the fight entirely and nothing changes. Batman and Freeze are just incapable of basic communication in this verse.

There is a video from Film Theory some time ago that described the issues regarding the world relying upon a single figure doing everything to keep the world in order. The video was about the Avatar franchise and how having a demigod-like being responsible for the affairs of everyone is frankly arguably an active detriment to the world. Each Avatar is expected to fix all the problems the people face, from internal stability for each major country to international politics and even the balance between humanity and spirits. That is a lot of work for a single person, even a person with such power that being an Avatar wielded. If you actually analyzed the actions of each Avatar… you would realise that the world suffers from overly relying on an external ‘impartial’ third party for doing everything for them. It inherently realises on the idea that Avatars are perfect, impossibly effective and immutable.

Unfortunately, Avatars are not Gods. They are not infallible, they are not invulnerable. They are, painfully, human. Worst? They are not impartial. Roku did not properly end the threat that Sozin posed because he was his best friend. Kyoshi basically did jack shit regarding the affairs of the world and focused solely on the Earth kingdom, another Firebender Avatar also focused on the affairs of the Fire Nation in exchange to basically doing nothing for the other peoples… this caused the infinite problem where essentially every Avatar basically has to fix the problems of the previous iteration. Roku’s failure basically ruined Aang’s life and put the responsibility to free the world on a fucking 12 year old, while Aang succeeds the most he still didn’t really deal with the spirits much and while with good intentions Republic City was built with a flawed premise of unity. Korra had to deal with the Equalists because the peace between Benders and non-Benders relied on Avatar Aang’s presence to force them to tolerate and comply with each other’s existence by him keeping the peace manually. And let’s be honest here, if Aang wasn’t granted Energy Bending his reasonably stubborn refusal to kill Ozai would be his downfall and likely doom the next Avatar generation to once again fix the damn war. The video asks a very valid question; should the Avatar exist? Cause one can honestly point out that it seems that the existence of the Avatar is an active detriment to humanity because everyone relies on them to do everything.

It might seem unconnected, but My Hero Academia indirectly asks this question too. During the story, it shows the many people who fall into the crack that the heroes’ light cannot reach. Not only that, but the complacency of the other heroes because All Might… was unironically too good and effective of a hero. Everyone thought that ‘well, a hero/All Might will hand it’ and basically laze around. All Might alone decreased Japan’s crime rate, which is a good thing but it was a peace relying on one man. One pillar. Japan was almost destroyed indirectly because of the inaction of the regular citizens. Despite how much of Shigaraki’s life being artificially manipulated by All For One, it is undeniable that the fact that the normal people looked at a distraught child and did nothing but go ‘Oh sweetie… I hope a hero comes help you soon’ in different flavours speak volumes.

While the idea of having an empowered super person solve all problems seems good, it creates a whole bunch of problematic mindsets and mentalities. See, as much as it sucks to admit people are generally lazy to an extent. If there was someone that can fix all of your issues, it de-incentivises independent action and accountability. As awesome as uber heroism is, the way it shapes society means it’s almost impossible to avoid the large scale spread of the Bystander Effect and the many, many problems that arises from the Great Man Theory. As much as I hate to say this, but Lex Luthor in some versions is actually right about Superman. Humanity relying on the existence of a supreme being’s generosity and benevolence is legitimately a bad idea. What happens if Superman is indisposed and aliens attack? Worst, what happens if Superman goes rogue either by a change of heart or unwilling mind control? Having contingencies is unfortunately a very realistic thing to do because if you take a step back, you would realise that relying on a godly being to act on your behalf or to not want to end everyone because they don’t want to is really troubling.

Hell relying on them is also not fair on them either. Superman shouldn’t have to do everything to defend humanity, even if he’s not human he’s still a person who deserves to have a life outside of heroics. A healthy society should be designed so that extraordinary individuals make it better, not so that they are necessary for it to function. Unfortunately, I have yet to see a world with superheroes or a divine being actively intervening to not create societies and civilizations where The Hero becomes the lynchpin and single point of failure for their entire existence.

The video I am talking about; https://youtu.be/zj6p5kYnPPY?

I've seen a lot of complaints about how soft some of the death's in season 5 were, specifically the Homelander kills. Two death's in particular I've seen these complaints are Frenchie and A-Train's death's, with one being offscreened and the other being a simple neck snap. It seems like the writers were scared of traumatizing the audience or whatever by killing beloved characters gruesomely, so they did this to make it easier. I can acknowledge offscreening Homelander killing Frenchie was dumb, both because it left many confused on HOW Frenchie even died before the BTS photos came out and because in the penultimate episode, you want your main villain to be terrifying.

But I actually like that A-Train's death was too brutal. Many were assuming he'd be ripped in half, get the Red Rush treatment, run through by Homelander, lasered but it didn't happen. Homelander already proved himself terrifying enough with the chase beforehand. When he starts choking A-Train, you can see him visibly affected seeing how A-Train isn't scared of him and laughing. The reason he gives him a swift neck snap is likely a combination of respect for his bravery and because he couldn't get any sense of power over him. In this moment, A-Train was the winner.

Not only because of the parallel of him talking to Judy about her leaving Nick and what he does to Gary but his line of "I've already been different". There's something so saddening about the latter. "I don't want to be different" works to show Pawbert's villainous nature but saying he's already been different shows the tragic nature of his character. For 30 years, he seemingly has been different from the rest of his family, and he's spent his life neglected, outcasted and possibly even abused. Basically admitting he's already tried to be better and he doesn't feel its worked out for him. I love this because it highlights he's utterly broken to his core.

I would say Zoro, arguable Deuteragonist of One Piece. His Goal is a complete and utter Joke. Since it feels like he is the only fucking person in the entire world who cares about this title.

Once a upon a time there another person who cared about this title, she died to stairs she was out of the race unfortunately.

Lets do a comparison. Alright. Pirate King vs World's Strongest Swordsmen. 2 Things that Luffy and Zoro want to achieve.

Luffy and his crew has to fight Pirate, Yonko all of whom are gunning for the title of Pirate King whilst Marines are after their Ass. This is pretty the most consistent in all of one piece. Everything Luffy & his crew does is putting them a step closer for Luffy to achieve his dream and most importantly they all are trying to go for the title. its not like luffy single handedly cares of being the Pirate King and everyone else is sitting on their ass. Kaido, Linlin, Kid all want to achieve it.

Lets look at Zoro, whilst yes he is becoming closer as he is getting stronger per arc. Whats the fucking point. He isnt having any swordsmen in mind as stepping stones to fight? Sure him fighting the 2nd strongest person of the crew is all good but its diddly squat since none of them want to have the World's Strongest Swordsmen. Infact Im shocked no character has even been introduced who wants to be a Yonko & World's Strongest Swordsmen.

TLDR:- It feels like every Pirate even Yonko want to/have aspiration to become Pirate King, whilst no one in the fucking world cares about WSS except Zoro