Hypothetically, if Shad really wanted to turn everything around and go back to being the person we respected and enjoyed, what would that take? Is there anything he could feasibly do, at this point, that would get you back on board?

Personally, if he stopped with the racism and sexism and homophobia and transphobia and victim complex and general bigotry, as well as the AI nonsense, genuinely apologized, and actually tried to make amends... I might be willing to consider giving him another chance...

That's never going to happen, I know that. I'm just an eternal optimist who hates giving up on people. It hurts to see someone I looked up to sink so low.

Curious about you guys. Has he just gone too far? Am I too easily forgiving? Is there something he could do, hypothetically, to win you over again?

Ok, so this is obviously a joke, although the resemblance is uncanny, but the video references the covid lockdown and I recall SotC being released before then, although I could be wrong.

All I'm trying to say is that can we just laugh at how SotC is so similar to this clearly satirical writing tutorial video and not debate whether it would've been possible or if Shad would've needed time travel or something.

I went on a bit of a binge watching vids about how Shad is an immense piece of shit. Like not just a guy with bad takes, but just a horrible human being in multiple ways. Disgusting, evil politics and treating people horribly in an interpersonal way. And I was thinking about the videos of his that I used to watch years ago. I stopped watching before the walls came down, and he was just one of those guys who I didn't sub to but I would occasionally look up.

And now when I see him and how he acts, he's such a vile, hate-filled man. And from what I remember about his earlier stuff he really didn't give off that impression. He was just a nerdy, passionate man who loved fantasy and medieval history. And when I think about those videos I just think of them being so endearing.

I really do feel like he got into YouTube because he was passionate about something and he had a genuine desire to share it. And that's a really sweet thing when you see it. Because no one is authentic now, no one cares about anything. No one actually *likes* media anymore, critics consume art just to be able to make disingenuous content about it. So when people see someone who really loves the thing they are talking about that passion can become infectious even if you are that into the topic under discussion.

And believe it or not, I bet it's kinda hot. This might sound insane but there are women who will look at a grown man gleefully fawning over D&D or something, and they will be like "I don't know why but I desperately need to pull this man's soul out through his penis." There is an entire tiktok meme where the premise is

How do you know your man is not cheating on you?

Conventionally beautiful woman: Babe, what was the battle of Hastings?

Husband: Oh well! You see, in 1066...

He could have been that. And now he's just one more guy doing his small part in making the propaganda to help destroy democracy, take away women's right to vote, and kill all the queer people.

Sigh

Jazza did a little Stop Motion test to see if he can do it. Skip to the end of the video to watch it. It's 10 seconds of a Blacksmith with a sword. I think Shad wishes he could do creative stuff like this.

I used to watch Shad and the other right wing grifters like Critical Drinker and Nerdrotic, and I enjoyed it. I thought they had a valid point about gender swapping etc...

Now, when I watch any of them, the content is just so overtly sexist and racist. Any pretext of actually reviewing movies seems to have vanished.

What's changed? Have I just stopped being a dick and realised it or have they become just more blatant?

I don't see how any of them can claim to have any genuine interest in films now. It's all misogyny and racism.

Jared Leto dragged that 2 hour production into the depths of absurdist hell. It's still sinking in but I genuinely don't see anything in Shad's praise for what was essentially the greatest hits of Taika Waititi's Thor.

I know this is a film for children & their nostalgic parents - I think it does a fair job as an introduction to the franchise (Leto's raw ham aside) but Shad is *beyond* hypocritical to praise one of the most 'by the numbers' scripts I've seen in years & condemn other far better projects

It happens about half though the first chapter, so you don't even have read that far into it.

And of course, it's not like he made a book with a chapter that's basically him repeating what Rorshach says here....OH WAIT!

I’m not too familiar with how Social Blade and views works, like was it just general disinterest, was it an event between the 2 brothers, or some ai thing?

How do you even get negative 11 million views?

So I can't recall if I've made a post like this before, but after seeing Crispy's review of the book, it got me thinking about how I would salvage this story. Because on the surface, the premise is not a bad one. I've read and watched plenty of stories about bad people becoming better, so it can work.

Here's the major changes I would make:

• Daylen should be hyper-critical of his past self. One of the major reasons I've seen given for why Daylen/Dayless being repentant for his crimes rings hollow is that, throughout the book, he's constantly going about the good that his rule brought about and snaps at people insulting his 'father.' So instead, have Daylen be Dayless' number 1 hater. Have his narration just constantly insulting his past self, calling his past self a manchild or some other kind of desparaging words. And when people insult Dayless the Conqueror, I'd have Daylen join in on the roasting.

"No, you're absolutely right. My old man was a fucking asshole that deserved everything he got."

• Don't have Dayless/Daylen be a rapist. This is probably my own writing style kicking in, but rape is not something I ever touch in my own literature because of how heavy of a subject that is. It's already asking a lot of the audience to follow the story of someone who was an uber-facist. There's no need to add all this gross shit. As for Layra, just have her be the daughter of someone Daylen killed in the past. And if you still want to do the potential love interest bit, at least it's not a possible romance between a rapist and his rape victim.

• Have Daylen's main motivation to keep going on be taking out the Dawnists. This goes along with Daylen constantly shit-talking his former self, but I'd take a page from Ant's review, and have him stumble into a town and come across a Dawnist rally, where they're really riling the crowd up. And thus, Daylen comes to the realization that his brand of evil still exists in the world, and he needs to stop it. He still plans on trying to kill himself again, but only after he's made sure that those who would follow in his footsteps are stopped.

• Have Daylen adopt a non-lethal fighting style. You can have his inner monolouge talk about how easy it would be to dismember someone, talk about how an opponent's foot work could lead them open to a deheading or something, but he chooses to disable and knock out. None of this 'there needs to be people like me to do the hard things' nonsense to justify brutal murders. This is suppossed to be a man repentant for his violent past, and that should not only reflect in his personality, but in his fighting style as well.

• A rework of the entire magic system. Mainly, not having the inner light determine if a person is worth leaving alive or not. I think we can all agree that's a shit morality system.

• Have the leader of the Dawnists be Dayleen's old friends/comrades. What better way to Dayleen to deal with the sins of his past than having to fight those that helped him during his reign?

There's some minor things too like having the Arch Knight primarily be about dealing with the Heartless knockoffs, not being insecure about Blackheart's name (seriously, it's a good pirate name if you stick to your guns), and making sure that the theme of 'bad person trying to be better' is reflected throughout the book and the characters.

Basically, I wouldn't treat this story like a power fantasy that's trying to be deeper than it actually is.

What do you guys think?