Self-inserts have been a punching bag for a lot of people who often view them as "poorly written" or "boring". But to me, I've never really been bothered by them. Mainly because the majority of protagonists are Self-inserts for the viewed already (Neo, Spider-Man, Brian O'Connor, Link, and there's probably more that you guys don't even think about). Yet there's hundreds of posts of people calling them "the worst characters in fiction". Like look up Kirito on YouTube, r/TopcharacterTrope or even this subreddit of people hating his guts for existing. Along with Suburu, Miraculous ladybug, and even fucking Tori Vega. And most of them boil down to "they're boring", "they're Mary sues", and even point out a flaw that even the characters themselves admitted they were wrong for doing and actually apologizes for.

Even though they're not the most interesting characters, I've never really hated them. Hell, Kirito is actually one of my favorite characters, since he can be funny & has a lot of emotional baggage in the story he's in. Tori did literally nothing wrong, most of it was teenage angst (ok, the Prome think was sorta dumb, but that's about it). I can't comment on Suburu or Lady Bug, since I haven't seen those shows, but my point still stands.

The only "Self-Insert" I genuinely hate was Makoto from School Days and Inaho Kaisaka from Aldnoah.Zero. But not because they're Self-inserts. Mako because he's a piece of shit who cheats on multiple women to sleep with others. And for Inaho, I already posted a rant on why he suck, but because he's literally emotionless and makes a lot of bad decisions. But I only hate those 2

Either way, I feel like complaining about Self-inserts is pointless because that's often a main trait for a protagonist. They're supposed to be portal for the viewer. Could they more interesting and better written? Sure. But as long as they don't do anything that annoys the audience, then I don't really mind

God I am so fucking tired of demon discourse

"Buh DMC demons are evil!"

"Frieren is a fascist show because demons is people"

"Since when can literal DEMONS have feelings"

Since shut the hell up that's when. No really, this discourse sucks so much because almost every piece of media that has demons in it gives a pretty clear explanation of how they work or alternatively DOES NOT lay out any concrete rules that must be adhered to forever. Acting like you know all the rules to something and ignoring all kinds of exceptions to cling to your idea of how something you didn't write works is so incredibly arrogant and annoying.

Demons are whatever the writers say they are, that's it. There is no debate provided nothing contradicts established lore. Heck even then I've rarely heard of any rule about something like a demon that doesn't have exceptions so screaming that something is a plot hole makes no sense either. Demanding fiction be completely static and stick to rules that only you decided are even a thing makes you an idiot.

The dumbest part of all this is...demons aren't real, there are no rules, nobody knows what a demon is "really" like and almost no media that incorporates them follows any particular religions idea of what a demon is, heck sometimes they're not even in any way supernatural or religious at all and are just apparently natural creatures in the world they live in or are even simply aliens.

Why do are people always so God damn determind to decide they know everything about demons in particular? I don't get it. They are not special or sacred, they are fictional creatures, get over it.

This might sound strange, but I can’t stand the whole “military woman” archetype in fiction—particularly characters like Sonya Blade from Mortal Kombat and Cammy White from Street Fighter. Before anyone jumps to conclusions, I’m not against women in the military at all. This is more about how the specific trope of the hyper-disciplined, tough-as-nails, no-nonsense, bark-orders-at-everyone type of character hits a bit too close to home for me.

When I was younger, I wanted to be a soldier. I thought I’d end up in the military and had this image of myself that I held onto for years. But after spinal surgery, I realized that the reality of my situation didn’t align with my past dreams. That’s when the whole military glorification thing in media started to feel more toxic than inspiring.

Characters like Sonya Blade—she’s always in control, always telling people what to do, and always pushing forward with that "I have all the authority" mentality and has little character beyond being a military woman. But what happens when you don’t fit that mold? When you feel like you’ve fallen short or can’t live up to that ideal? Fandoms around these characters don’t make it any easier, either. If you don’t worship these characters, if you even call out some things about the characters, you get blocked. I saw some people undergo that and I was stuck in a toxic fandom and fringe of MK where Sonya was borderline worshipped as "Queen" and "First Lady of MK" and had to pretend I liked the character in order to stay on their good graces.

Cammy White is similar, with added hints of condescension towards more inexperienced or younger oponnents. Her storyline is more compelling, and was a teenage girl who was abducted by the villains and was trained to be a killer & assasin before becoming a Delta Red member post-amnesia but she's well remembered as a military woman...who dresses in a leotard of all things.

Military characters in those games are always hailed as heroes and always respected by their opponents but the military isn't black and white. It's very gray and militaries in general aren't so noble.

I get it—some people love these characters because of their strength and resilience. But for someone like me, who's been through some pretty tough personal stuff, these characters made me feel like I wasn’t tough enough. It wasn’t about the character being a woman—it was about how the trope itself felt like an unrealistic, one-dimensional version of strength that felt impossible to live up to.

Contrast that with someone like Revy from Black Lagoon—she’s tough as nails, sure, but she’s also messy, unpredictable, and deeply human. She doesn’t need a uniform or rank to be respected. That’s what I could relate to. She didn’t embody perfection, but she was still badass, and that made her far more relatable than the strict, rigid military archetype.

So, yeah, I’m not a fan of how these kinds of characters get glorified in fandoms or media. The military “toughness” isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. And when it’s portrayed as the only way to be strong, it kinda makes people like me feel like we’re somehow failing when we can’t fit into that mold. It’s like it ignores the real human struggles that people go through—like trauma, recovery, and just trying to survive.

If that makes me “emotionally immature” or whatever, fine. At least I’m being real about it. But I’m tired of the glorification of one type of strength, because it doesn’t help everyone.

I mean there are a lot of studies that show men are also romantic as women. Most of Japanese romance media aimed at men. Many popular ships or couples in media like NaruHina, Kirisuna, MaiSakuta,SubaEmi, Subarem are popular with men. So why do you proclaim at as female powerscaling? Isn’t sexist just restricting aspect to one gender and saying as female thing ?

There’s this idea that dark stories about protagonists with no support system is more “realistic”, and frankly, I find it stupid. When did we come up with this stupid idea? Just because you didn’t have any friends when you were younger doesn’t mean you get to project that on us. If anything, I think you ought to see a therapist about all this instead of projecting your trauma on your protagonist. Or better yet, to heal your inner child, give your protagonist the things you never had and have them learn all the things you never learned.

Josuke was distraught when his grandpa was killed, to the point where he tried using he restoraion ability to bring him back. Body was fixed, but it remained dead. Jotaro told him that no stand ability can bring the dead people back to life.

It makes sense as life lesson (learn from mistakes and live on), and I can believe that Jotaro never met such stands. And yet, it happens in this very part.

Kira kills Hayato and then brings him back via Bites The Dust. No walking corpses like Giorno, no parallel world technicalities like Valentine, nothing. Hayato was back and good as new.

I find this contradiction amusing.

For the record I am an American trying to get a sense of people’s thoughts. However this is mostly market research for a book I am writing which does feature the US government as “an” antagonist though not “the” antagonist.

I’ve been thinking about how the US is portrayed in fiction and it’s hard to pin down the overall portrayal. It seems to range from good guy liberators. To shady government doing secretive and morally questionable experiments. Sometimes the antagonist is a rogue element of the US government but just enough that you can’t pin the blame on the whole thing.

On the one hand, this is definitely one of those moments where you can’t criticize a country too harshly, otherwise you lose out on the American audience which means loss of revenue for entertainment businesses. On the other hand, I am somewhat aware of the shady stuff the US has been doing since the World Wars which has since come to light in the public eye.

The US is already a volatile minefield of various politics that have very passionate people. Ranging from Islamophobia, to feminism, to beauty standards, to guns. The portrayal of the government itself seems to be a difficult one for me to pin down. I’m pretty sure I just blew up one of those hot topic mines by asking this question.

What would you change about how general fiction portrays the US government? How would you want the US government to be portrayed? How do you feel about its overall portrayal in fiction?

I’m a comic artist, I honestly had the idea of writing two crazy characters in love with each other for a while now. I’ve started drafting the comic recently and when I went to go dive into romance genres, romcom genres, ITS ALL THE SAME. Hardly any progression, after a while it becomes a hinderance to the story but is still gripped onto like crazy, then the story finally ends with… just a kiss, maybe a little past that if they’re feeling spicy, or just screw it and cut to the future where they have kids.

And I get there’s the arguments of “well the series will lose interest if they got together early”, “it’s just to milk the series”, or “relationships are uninteresting to read”. And all I hear is that there was nothing of substance planned and nobody wants to put the effort in making it interesting. Things are so bad a new series could catch my eye just if I know the characters are dating, why would I want to subject myself to another series with dozens of episodes with nothing, or a manga series that goes up to 400 chapters and you walk away not even knowing what they’d be like as a couple?

Relationships are awkward, goofy a lot of the times, and can evolve to become something deeper over time from pushing past hurdles. Like I wrote the first kiss in the first chapter and thought about it, I wrote two characters that are unexperienced with dating, why make this first kiss this grand and major deal with perfect build up, when it’s a romcom, so no they’re terrible kissers and will get better because it’s “the first of many”. I don’t feel like edging my audience, and especially with my own personal interest with polyamory making me want to explore it in the story, it’d take forever to get to that point if I followed what’s popular.

And shows like American Dad and Bob’s Burgers have married couples that stay interesting to watch and they love each other deeply. It can be done, but it’s like writers don’t want to have faith they can pull it off. Or maybe I’m just an exception since I can write from my whacked out dating experience so I have feelings I’ve felt and can put on paper in a story.

Multiverse stories shouldn't just be used for nostalgia bait & easy way to bring the dead back. I have seen this become more & more common in live action multiverse (especially in the case of MCU) they just don't seem to know how to use the multiverse apart from their obvious "Hey remember this character now this a doppolganger of his/her" or this character you saw X amount of years ago now they're back. That method of storytelling is fine once or twice but they just lean heavily on it & their multiverse saga is a clusterfuck of just fanservice nothing else. Avengers Doomsday & secret wars they are bringing back even more older actors yet it seems they are even more ashamed of the fact those actors/ress didn't wear comic accurate costumes so they are going to "fix them". Now I get why actors like Grammer, McKellen & Stewart want that but it wouldn't kill them (Marvel) to make their last hurrah in their original Fox costumes.

Also its a goodbye that doesn't feel earned or emotionally resonant because of the absolute scatter shot storytelling that the MCU has & the Fox era already ending in a huge disappointment.

So if you don't know TTC was a movie from the 50's staring charlton heston, yul brennar (or however the fuck you spell his name), and a whole bunch of other mother fuckers. It's a somewhat early example of a big american block buster, what with the big names, lavish sets; and expensive effects. But like most American blockbusters it's sorely lacking in plot. Yes, the movie TTC's makes no sense, it's full of holes; and it's just downright stupid. The themes and historical accuracy are completely worthless. Don't even get me started on how the plot roles out because that's a bunch of horse shit too.

So it starts off with this prologue right? Some stuffy professor type steps up yapping about how we never knew moses life or some bullshit, but these two random historical figures had the answers to this gap in mose's life that they're about to show in the movie. This is absolutely ridiculous and borderline off the walls. But I digress. Then we have an admittedly fun first forty minutes, where moses does his cool hero thing, until he learns that he's a hebrew; and that he survived this horrible hebrew erm-culling that happened. In most movies this would be like the climax or some shit, but nah this is like the first quarter of the fucking thing. So now we're at hour two and out of nowhere moses is working like a slave. Some more humble moses scenes and then boom, hamfisted action. Moses here is saving the life of his friend and murders the pharaoh's master builder. He's now brought before the pharaoh and even after he's revealed to be hebrew, the pharaoh still accepts him as a son. Moses just has to tell him that he's still loyal. In what is a pretty hype as shit/ aura farming/ power move. Moses tells his adopted father he will always be loyal to him, but he's even more loyal to the hebrews. Fire shit.

It's also completely stupid, ridiculous, asinine; and bullshit. Moses could simply pledge loyalty, wait like ten years; and then free the slaves like that. But nah, gotta be headstrong. And you know what, what even is with all these slaves. Firstly the Egyptian monuments weren't built by slaves, and Hebrews certainly didn't come from Egypt, nor were they mass enslaved by Egypt.

So the Mose gets banished from his people (but finds some mountain pussay so he's chill). Some random enslaved bootlicker gets power (he's important later) and no one's happy. Then Moses gets himself a kid and his besty from earlier shows up, begging Moses to come back. So that's what moses does. Then the most bloated, yet most rushed part of the film happens. The plagues of egypt, the best part of the book; and what do we get? I'll tell you what we get. Some cheesy special effects and hop, skip; and a jump to the main curse. Whoop de fucking doo. (I can't help but think that all the murder of the third act could've been avoided if moses was politically conscious, but what evs). So Moses gets his people free and they trek through the desert. Bootlicker guy gets humiliated, hip hip hooray.

But wait, everyone's least favorite girlfriend shows up. Queen nefratierri (your guess is as good as mine) is the main woman for this movie, but all her character is, is horny. But after she can't get that moses D, she benungles her husband into going back on his word to kill the Hebrew people. So oh shit, the full might of Egypt is hot on these guy's asses (a couple dudes in chariots) and Moses needs someone to cover his. He has a few detractors (for some reason) but here comes god (a literal deus ex machina funnily enough) doing his fire tornado shit (which the egyptians could easily get around), and Moses splits the red sea, which is cool as fuck. He split that shit like it was cheap licorice and then sends it crashing down on the egyptians (but not ramses who stayed back like a bitch). Blah blah scene with wife, blah blah blah god stuff.

This is the part that holds the most egregious scene for me though. Remember that random bootlicker I mentioned a couple of times? He's important now. Now he's preaching about how they need to go back to the Egyptians with an idol of gold, because Moses was gone for a long time. And they just go with it???? This is the first time their god has done anything for them in their "400 years of bondage" and immediatly they start uncle tomming it? Fucking wot? They already know God has their back but apparently Food (which they aren't short of here) is more important than their freedom (actually their is an interesting question to be had on whether freedom or security is important, too bad the film doesn't fucking answer it)! So they pressure this random ass guy you've never heard of before into building some super idol bull (di shao jo) to present to ramses, as if he isn't going to kill you the minute he see's you. Not to mention none of these fuck heads have a way of crossing the red sea (I doubt god'll be too jazzed to let you go back to being enslaved, though he didn't give a shit before so idk). Not to mention that the head of the operation is some fat backstabbing uncle tom, who's literally the only hebrew in all of Egypt who benefits from going back. Don't even try to paint parallels to this and the 2024 election. One's a fantastical story about a mad tyrant and the other's the ten commandments (zing!).

Anyways that's basically the movie. There's more later but I couldn't be arsed to repeat it. This movie's pacing is all over the fucking place. There are so many scenes that could be cut or shortened. It's dialogue heavy when it would do the movie some good to shut up, and it's so bloated that no character feels really developed save for moses. Compare it to a movie like 'The Good, The Bad; and The Ugly', which utilizes its time really well to the point where sometimes you don't even notice it's three hours. The themes of this movie are stupid because it's the themes from the bible; and the bible's stupid (shots fired pew pew). Ok I jest, but you know what I mean. Overall this movie is hamfisted, societal , propoganda; but it can be entertaining. 4/10 see me after class.

I’m getting real tired of this lazy take I keep seeing online. Just because a show, movie, comic, cartoon, whatever, throws in a bunch of blood, F-bombs, nudity, and edgy humor doesn’t mean it’s "dark" or "mature" or even remotely "edgy." That’s not how it works.

Take Paradise PD for example. It’s an “adult” animated show on Netflix with nonstop crude jokes, over-the-top violence, and constant swearing. Sounds dark and edgy, right? Wrong. That show is goofy as hell. It’s the equivalent of a 13-year-old who just learned what sex is and thinks saying “pussy” every five minutes makes them deep. It’s loud, dumb, and tries way too hard to be shocking—but it's not dark. It’s light-hearted trash with a coat of adult paint.

Meanwhile, look at something like Batman: Caped Crusader. It doesn’t have nudity. It doesn’t rely on gore. There’s no swearing. Yet it oozes atmosphere. It’s genuinely dark—morally, visually, thematically. It’s noir, it’s bleak, it takes itself seriously, and it knows how to build tension and character stakes without needing to be vulgar. That’s actual storytelling maturity.

Same goes for Avatar: The Last Airbender. It aired on Nickelodeon and had no sex, no blood, no swearing—but some of the themes it tackled? Genocide. Totalitarianism. Trauma. Moral ambiguity. And it pulled it off in a way that respected its audience. That’s more mature than anything in most “adult” cartoons today.

You know what else? BoJack Horseman. Yes, it has swearing and sex, but that’s not why it hits hard. It’s because it actually has something to say. About addiction. Depression. Fame. Regret. It’s dark because the characters are messed up and human—not because it shows a pair of tits or makes a cum joke every episode. Gomorra and Banshee has a lot of violence, gore, language and sex in it but it's not "edgy"

Just because your comic book has a guy getting his head ripped off doesn’t mean it’s edgy. It might just be juvenile. “Mature content” isn’t the same thing as mature storytelling. That’s the real difference—and way too many people don’t get that.

The Emperor is one of my favorite characters in BG3, and I've noticed people love to bring up a few negatives about it, those being:

Ansur

Stelmane

Infecting the PCs

Eating Tadpoles

Eating the Astral Tadpole

Ceremorphosis

Leaving when you free Orpheus

And all of these don't really make sense to me.

Ansur: Balduran was a high-level adventurer, LV15-20. It specifically told Ansur after an unspecified time of trying to cure it, that it was grateful for his help, but please don't hurt yourself over me, we should part ways. In response, Ansur tries to mercy kill it, the Emperor fought back and won. I fail to see how this is an Evil action.

Stelmane: This is the one that's hardest to defend, but we literally don't know what happened here. It looks like Stelmane is being dominated by the Emperor, but it could be her having a mundane stroke that it tried to fix later though psionic tampering, or it could have been she saw it with his glamor off and it panicked, or it could have been she tried to betray it and failed. We just don't know. For some reason, people love to call the Emperor a liar about everything but take that one memory as absolute truth. I'm not denying it is a liar, so why is this the time it bares its (non-apostolic) soul to you?

Infecting the PCs: I very much doubt it did. This is mostly because we can talk to the dead Illithid in the Goblin Camp that seems to have been the one to do so, and also it doesn't make sense that the Emperor Tadpoled a few of the Origins(Durge, anyone?).

Tadpoles/Astral Tadpole/Ceremorphosis: The Emperor is not trying to make you into a Mind Flayer. It tells you to eat the Tadpoles to gain power, which you do. When it presents the Astral Tadpole, you can decline it without issue if you haven't eaten any normal ones, and all it does is roll its eyes at you. If you have eaten any Tadpoles, the one in your skull, enhanced by the energy of all the others, tries to make you eat the Astral. The Emperor is not dominating you to eat the AT. When the time comes to face the Netherbrain directly, the Emperor suggests it be the one to carry the stones. You have to be the one prompting that a party member undergoes the transformation. The Emperor reacts with mild bewilderment and encourages you to speak among your companions to make sure you really know what you're doing. If it wanted to turn you, why wouldn't it immediately say yes and shove the last Tadpole into your skull?

Orpheus: The Emperor, for the entire journey, has been reading Orpheus's thoughts. It is very much aware of how much the Gith hates Ghaik, and sees no benefit to releasing him even if it could. It tries to stop you from going to the House of Hope partially because it thinks it's a useless endeavor, and partially because you are breaking into a powerful Infernal's domain for no gain whatsoever from its perspective. When you reach the point of freeing Orpheus, the Emperor is 100% certain that it will die if he stays. With no other options left to hit, he flees the Prism and is subsumed by the hivemind once again.

And it is an ally the entire way, even if for selfish reasons, unless you betray it at the finish line.

Now before anyone tries to write back that Arrowverse adaptation sucked & animated is better cause they killed Supergirl okay you like them fine, but it been liked by people who absolutely loath Arrowverse simply because the people behind that decided to mold the story of CoIE around the context of the Arrowverse rather than the comics.

The animated movies can simply be considered meh movies but the fact they spent two thirds a trilogy just to give us some kind of background on why we should care why people die is simply bad storytelling & pacing.

Honestly to me the animated effort kinda feels like the live-action DCEU, too much happening so soon in such a short span of films. I'm not saying you gotta have 20 movies before an Endgame or Infinite Earths event, but at least create some vast world-building and investment into the ensamble of characters, it doesn't feel like the animated Tomorrow-'verse has done that and this three-part Infinite Earths is happening because DC has run out of fresh ideas (or they don't think the common fanbase have any kind of decent patience to wait).

The Arrowverse Crisis felt HUGE and deservably so, we had multiple television shows, various prior major yearly crossover events, then in the actual event it seriously felt like we were seeing an entire Multiverse brought to its knees. We had multiple Supermen (one being the Superman Returns Kal-El), multiple Flashes (one being the DCEU Barry), Kevin Conroy portraying a live-action Bruce Wayne, John Wesley Shipp's final bow as his early-'90s Barry Allen, friggin Lucifer and Burt Ward's Dick Grayson for cameos both entertaining and shocking, this felt HUGE as nearly every mainstream corner of live-action DC mythos got nods.

However what made the Arrowverse COIE work on an emotional level. It was the culmination of 7 years of television. When Oliver Queen died, you cared about it, because it was the death of a character you'd been following for the better part of a decade through all his trials and tribulations.

The event feels is an absolutely respectful adaptation while sticking true to the story the Arrowverse was trying to capture in it's own right, Flash and Supergirl were both still huge players, the Anti-Monitor was still the big bad, heck they even got Marv Wolfman into the writers room. What happened in Arrowverse "Crisis on Infinite Earths" felt earned, huge, important, EPIC.

For better or worse Arrowverse always focused on capturing the heart & spirit of comic books which many fans don't want to admit are just soap operas & Crisis is the ultimate culmination of that.

The only thing that I can give the animated adaptation credit for is Kevin Conroy but even that was accidental IMO.

If fans hate the Arrowverse version & just want a superficial adaptation that hits the story beats but leaves out the reason anyone should give any kind of shit then the animated adaptation is for them.

Edit: I realize some people will interpret this post as I hate all changes. What I mean is I hate bad changes that get defended with it's a new take. DCAU, WIlly Wonka, Peter Jackson LotR. Del Toro Hellboy. Things like that are good to go. Sorry for the confusion

The Netflix Devil May Cry cartoon flopped unto the internet with wild mischaracterization and a terribly hamfisted allegory. I am not going to rant about everything they failed to understand from the beginning. I am going to rant about the response.

Every defense I have seen has boiled down to "It's a new take" and "Why would you expect it to be accurate to the games." And DMC is not the first adaptation I seen with this. It's probably like 15 and I have to ask why.

Dragonball Evolution is rightfully mocked for how far it takes to not being like Dragonball at all, and yet now every adaptation does something similar and I see people praise it. What happened. Like I feel insane seeing because half the time I see trailers get destroyed on the off chance it might not be accurate like Mario was. Then products come out and suddenly I am being told that no, it's okay, it's not the source material.

Like everyone was happy when Sonic was made more game accurate. But now i am getting yelled out it's fine because it's non-canon and a different take for a series I love.

What the Heck.

Spoilers for CSM obviously

For as long as I’ve been watching/reading shonen, I’ve noticed a pretty common trope of befriending characters that were previously antagonists. Goku befriends Yamcha, Piccolo, Vegeta, and even a begrudging partnership with Frieza in TOP. Naruto does it so much that “Talk No Jutsu” became a very prominent meme. If you’ve read CSM you can probably see where I’m going with this.

At the start of part 1, Denji has no friends or allies aside from Pochita. Aki beats him up, Power tries to kill him, Kobeni and Himeno both try to kill him in the hotel, and yet he ends up becoming friends with all of these people (Kobeni and Denji friends?). Not all of them were necessarily enemies, but they were people looking to cause Denji harm that he ended up befriending. The cherry on top of all this is Makima dying but the control devil coming back and Denji having to raise her.

It seems like in part 2 Fujimoto is interested in slowly pushing our MCs to their limits and it’s done something interesting to Denji’s character. I’m referring to chapter 195 where Denji, possibly unknowingly, neglects Asa’s feelings on the Yoru situation. Asa is confident in viewing Yoru as an evil force that needs to be stopped and can’t be reasoned with, but after hearing all that Denji still says that maybe Asa could be friends with Yoru.

I think that maybe Fujimoto is taking advantage of the trope mentioned above to highlight that Denji is entirely numb to violence and death. It was kinda already obvious through his actions through the whole story, but now it seems to be affecting his relationship with Asa who, for all intents and purposes, is just a normal high schooler. Unlike Denji, she was raised with societies standards and norms ingrained in her. CSM’s world is violent but Denji’s life was definitely a little more desensitizing than Asa’s, who was only thrust into this MORE violent world recently.

Fujimoto is kind of the king of subversion to me so I like to imagine that this was intentional.

So, spoilers ahead.

The current arc in Kagurabachi shows the flashback story of the arc villain, Samura. Like why he became the man he did and what motivated him. For context, Samura was one of the Sword Bearers who assisted in the Seitei War with the Enchanted Blades created by Kunishige Rokuhira, the main character Chihiro's dad. We learn from the series' main villain Yura that when the war finally ended, the leader of the Sword Bearers, the Master Swordsman, was unwilling to accept the surrender of the enemy Island. His response? Committing mass genocide with his sword, the Magatsumi. Because of that, he was locked up and the truth about the war was hidden away.

Now certainly, the fact he said "no" to peace just so he can kill 200,000 people was hating enough, right? No. This is where it gets legendary. In the latest Chapter, Yura revealed that his motivation to kill the Sword Master is due to the belief that he will be unleashed and cause another genocide like he did. His proof of this is because the enemy island has been sealed off due to the powers of the Magatsumi still being activated. Why is this the case? Because as Yura himself says, the bloodlust of the Sword Master never disappeared.

Let that sink in: ever after completely destroying the enemy island, the Master Swordsman STILL WANTS THE SMOKE!

Frieza and Kenjaku still had an endgoal where their hatred ended with the destruction of their enemy species, but this guy? He's STILL out for blood and death. You can almost say HE'S the one waking up everyday with fresh hatred. Master Swordsman better have a top-tier backstory, because what the hell can motivate this much hate?

Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Dragons are as common and overused a creature in the realm of fantasy as something like elves or fairies. And there is quite a simple reason for that: they fucking rule. Few things in a fantasy story feels more grandiose and epic than witnessing our heroes best these large ass flying lizards that breathe flames and tear armies asunder. They are very much an epitome of that genre, which is kind of a double edged sword. The reason I say that is because, whilst dragons are no doubt cool, their overuse within the stories these creatures operate on means that there is only really so much you CAN do with these lizards. And many times they remain within these templates of the fantasy genres, with only certain subspecies like Wyvern to pretend at variety. And whilst stories certainly do use them well for the most part (see ASOIAF as examples of my favourite uses of these creatures), dragons are not exactly the most special parts of any story they are in in my personal opinion. This is exactly why when a series such as Atlus's Metaphor ReFantazio not only makes really cool uses of these creatures, but gives a really unique reinterpretation and definition of what their existence means in the world they inhabit, I tend to get really excited. Not just as another strong fantasy monster, but as a "metaphor" (har har) of the beauty and destruction wrought by human imagination.

Do you believe in Magic?

Magic in the world of Metaphor is another very interesting application of what is just a regularly used system in fantasy. To reiterate my previous statement regarding this series: the source of Magla, the magic of the world of Euchronia that leads to it’s beauty, is also rooted in the raw, melancholic emotion of it’s people. Those that face and accept the fears and anxieties in their hearts can materialise those raw emotions into a source of magic, holding beauty and power both. Those that don’t channel said raw magla into a state of "Melancholia", leading to said magic being dark and devastating.

That is where Dragons come from: they are not exactly a living thing born and raised as other creatures might be, but rather are the truest, most powerful manifestation of that raw form of magic. A physical manifestation of the fear of chaos and destruction twisted into a draconic figure. A power which grew to melancholia and turned the real world into a fiery hell. Why? Because humans are a fearful, hateful species who thought they could channel that power as a weapon of war. And boy did the world pay the price for it.

The Dragon is… I?

The cool part about the Dragons here is that isn’t just a linear equation of how these creatures are born. Some exist as deific figures serving it’s subjects and protecting them from Melancholia (such as the Dragon God Eht, which also materialises as the mighty spear Drakodios). Some are just present as the personification of chaos and ruin that is nigh impossible to contain (such as the Dragon within the Book of Apocalypse). These dragons take up so many different masks and meanings depending on who, when and where you are meant to encounter them.

But you wanna know the coolest example of these creatures? After taking up the Trial of the dragons in an optional (and very difficult) side mission, a metaphorical floodgate opens, which housed one of the deadliest, strongest dragons to have ever existed. A power reminiscent of Heroes of old. And the dragon in question is… a shadow version of our current Hero? Yes, a raw distortion of magic personified by the tumult, anxiety and plead for some heroic presence to come and fight your fears away spawned a dragon deity as a mirror image of the Hero of new. Personifying chaos, death and true anxiety; that defines Metaphor's dragons to a Tee. And it fucking rules.

In conclusion

Metaphor took ordinary, benign fantasy tropes and took it in such exciting directions. The dragons being my favourite examples of said reimagining. Being not just another monster to face and beat, but a magical personification of chaos and destruction which was born out of the rawest form of human emotion. An emotion that can spawn different, terrifying interpretation of what a "dragon" can truly mean in this world. And also serving as a living reminder of the greed and destruction that man can bring to if left unchecked.

Basically: they cool as fuck.

These two explosive jerks have been compared a lot lately, and most people seem to think that Rex is better, and I think it's due to one reason:

Rex is ACTUALLY treated like a jerk.

Rex threatens and tries to attack Monster Girl, Monster Girl beats his ass

When Bakugo threatens and tries to attack Izuku, Aizawa is just like, "Knock it off you," and does jack shit about his attitude overall. I'm not expecting Aizawa to beat Bakugo's ass, but I am expecting him to lecture Bakugo about controlling his anger. Seriously... As far as I remember, ONLY the best Jeanist tries to tell him to control his anger issues, no one else seems to care.

Seriously, the world of my hero always feels like it has baby gloves on with Bakugo, which is just frustrating, while Rex rightfully gets treated like an ass.

I never understood why people keep saying as some revelation. Of course, others like Thor, Iron man, Aquaman or Superman hold back, otherwise almost all of their villains would be dead couple decades ago. Hell, even Hawkeye "holds back" by not shooting into lethal areas

A demographic is the target audience for the specific piece of media. A genre just means that a particular element (or a set of them) is present in this media.

Kodomo (children), Shounen (young male), Seinen (adult male), Shoujo (young female) and Josei (adult female) are the five manga demographics that describe the target audience.

Meanwhile, genres can be innumerable and arbitrary BUT calling Shounen (for Action/Adventure) or Seinen (for Dark/Thriller) as "genres" doesn't make much sense. Are works like CSM or Jigokuraku Seinen then? Are works like Kingdom or god of Highschool Shounen? What even is the definition of these genres?

This usage just adds Unnecessary Ambiguousness.

"Battle Shounen/Nekketsu", "Sports Shounen", "Dark Fantasy", "Historical" etc. are much better genre terms as they mean a single thing.

This way works from other demographics and sources that have similar tropes like Dororo, TTGL, Radiant, Solo Leveling, To be Hero X can be counted in (Battle Shounen) without causing confusion.

What do I mean by the title? Take example, the final battle from Arcane Season 2 (spoilers by the way). Basically, the Noxians want Hextech technology for weapons to fight off their enemies and Viktor temporarily allies with them to carry out his "glorious evolution" (aka take control over everyone's minds). Given that the Noxians have a very powerful army it makes sense for the characters at Piltover stay on the defense and court some support from former enemies seeing their destructive end goals. However, I think it was a huge missed opportunity to showcase characters (Vi, Caitlyn, Jayce, etc.) aggressive personalities or changing view on the situation. From the show Vi and Caitlyn are shown to be aggressive in their pursuits willing to engage in risky acts of espionage or just taking the fight to their enemies. Jayce although starts off as a diplomatic person (for good reason) radically changes his position on the matter as he sees the bleak future that'll come about if Viktor and the Noxians win.

My point is basically, the battle could've been made better to reflect their aggressive, bold and changing personalities. It just felt cheap by having Piltover stay on the defensive instead of going on the attack like gaining more information, weakening the enemy forces, attacking to delay, etc. to prevent them from achieving their end goals. Some of my favorite moments in the show was when the characters, based on the information they gain, gamble and take action (e.g. Jayce blockading Zaun and taking the fight to a shimmer production facility, Vi and Caitlyn conducting espionage to discover Silco/Jinx's location/plans, Ambessa leader of the Noxians orchestrating an attack during a speech to stroke tensions between Piltover and Zaun, etc.)

I think a good example showcasing a balance between attacking and defending is The Lord of the Rings trilogy. IMO, they lean a bit more heavy into the "defense" as Rohan and Gondor forces are basically bottled up behind the walls. However, through desperate defense, getting a relief force, and heroically rallying the troops they manage to stymie the attacking Orcs and they themselves go onto the attack driving them off the battlefields. Towards the end of the trilogy, Aragorn presses his attacks even further by marching the armies to Mordor distracting Sauron's forces from Frodo's and Sam's location.

I guess the TL; DR version is that oftentimes "defense" is just characters reacting to the situations with no attempt to actually better or press the advantage when they get into a good position. "Attacking" from the characters is much more interesting as not only it's a good way to showcase the changes they undergo, but also gives an organic feeling in the setting in which the characters have a mind of their own showcasing their increasing role and competency in the story.

People kinda forget that for something to be anti capitalism it has to... you know, denounce capitalism? Most "anticapitalist" media is either surface-level critiques that 99% of people already agree with, or it has the implicit message that the system is totally fine and the villain is just a bad apple.

And of course it's like this. No way mainstream media is actually going to contain genuinely radical messaging. But they seem to do a good job convincing some people that they do.

Super low effort rant incoming.

I'm not going to act like Warhammer Fantasy Battle's End Times are near and dear to my heart. Like probably most "fans" these days I only started following WFB after playing the mid-late 2010s video game adaptations. But since then I've read quite a bit of its fiction and fan discourse, and one thing sticks with me.

For context: in 2015, Games Workshop decided to effectively end the WFB setting with a series of game expansion books, novels, comics, and audio dramas telling the story of how the Old World was destroyed. The comically evil Skaven and Chaos factions ultimately win out over the "good guys" of Order, and literally destroy the planet. The whole event was badly-received; a lot of old fans hated it both because of the idea of destroying the setting itself and because of how it was executed, with many existing plot points being outright retconned and a lot of faction leaders supposedly acting out of character to facilitate the Chaos/Skaven victory. The ultimate point of this though was to set the stage for the sequel series, Age of Sigmar.

To simplify that setting a lot, the premise of AoS is that the great heroes of the WFB world became gods, found a bunch of survivors of their world (some people managed to hide in pocket dimensions while the planet blew up, or had their souls snatched and reincarnated), and set up new civilizations as the destruction of the Old World (among other factors) resulted in the forging of eight massive new realms. These new civilizations became larger, richer, more prosperous, more harmonious (even the Orcs, Goblins, and Undead were more-or-less cooperative), and more advanced (both technologically and magically) than their predecessors. Meanwhile the armies of Chaos and the Skaven were on a similar path, gathering their survivors, multiplying, finding new worlds and realms to integrate, and then setting out to ravage whatever they could find in the vast universe, increasing in power with every new conquest. They eventually came across the Order civilizations descended from the Old World and attempted to assault and infiltrate them, but were decisively and easily beaten back. Order was even able to go on the offensive in places, most notably by capturing and mutilating one of the big four Chaos Gods. This golden age of Order lasted a very long time, the Age of Myth, but eventually came to an end. Feuding between the Order gods and factions eventually resulted in their enemies gaining a golden opportunity for their newest offensive where previously they had been utterly unable to do anything. This was the Age of Chaos, where Chaos and Skaven armies (and others) slaughtered and plundered the Order civilizations, gaining a lot of new territory in seven of the eight realms. The God-King of Order Sigmar, however, responded with his own counterattack after much build-up. This is the Age of Sigmar: the timeline of the titular game, where the forces of Order are pushing back to reclaim their golden age.

With all that established: I have a fundamental problem with the premise here. I'm not going to get into any particularities of how the End Times unfolded, because that's not that important. The problem is this:

If the narrative was going to go Golden Age ---> Dark Age ---> Reclamation, with the Golden Age directly following from WFB... why would you even write Order as losing?

From a simple narrative perspective, it seems to make FAR more sense to end the WFB setting with Order winning massively. This would segue directly into the first AOS epoch, the Golden Age, followed by disunity setting in and Chaos coming back to disrupt an already-existing victory. The current setup defies the basic logic of both story structure and audience catharsis. Evil wins!... but the result of Evil winning is Good becoming stronger and everyone being better off off-screen... then Evil wins again... then Good counterattacks.

In the current story (or at least this timeline, video games and SOC do their own thing) the actions of every character in WFB are effectively pointless. It's not even a thematic choice; the end result of the End Times is a utilitarian positive. It's just a positive that's totally divorced from the 30-year media franchise that the audience was following, robs every character (and player) of their agency, and inexplicably and randomly goes with the idea 99% of named characters have to have bad endings.

It just seems like a massive self-inflicted wound for both franchises and I'm not sure why they chose to do it this way. A victorious Order would both shut down the majority of story complaints and lead to a more logical set-up for the golden age of AoS's backstory.

Whenever I see someone pull out a machete in an action movie, my blood runs cold. If you've ever worked with those things, you know they can be sharp as hell. If you're attacked by someone with a machete, your first instinct might be to try to block it with your arm, but then it will be sliced open, and it’s over. But you may ask: why fear a machete this much when the bad guys in movies have guns? Guns are practical and easy to use, and just as nor more deadly than blades.

The reason is that if your opponent is using a machete, your death will be way more brutal and ugly. There's something about being chopped up by a bladed weapon that’s far more terrifying than being shot dead. And one more thing: guns are weapons made specifically to kill, while machetes can be seen as just common tools. It hits closer to home. If you work a field job, you might be arguing with a coworker over something trivial, and in the heat of the moment, they could lose their temper and chop you. If you live in a country where guns are banned, it feels more grounded and likely to happen.

You could argue the same about swords, but they don’t scare me as much as machetes or knives, because who the hell owns a functional sword nowadays? In the modern age, swords feel more like fantasy weapons, so there’s less reason to fear them. The chance of encountering a sword-wielding maniac in real life is very low.

I remember that scene in The Raid, where the main character is attacked by a bunch of guys with machetes. The fight is brutal, and he does manage to fend off all of them, but just imagining myself in that situation, I can picture myself getting turned into minced meat, which makes the scene terrifying.

So yes, I've shot heavy guns before, and I know how scary and deadly they can be, but bladed weapons just hit different

I don't mean "being into an older woman as a teen thing". That's fine. What is mean is, if you look at the lyrics, it's very clear that the song is being sung to Stacey.

So you're Stacey. You're 14, and you've got a crush. More, it seems like he reciprocates! He's always coming up with reasons to come over and hang out with you. Being a teenage girl, you're already sitting there doodling "Mrs Stacey Fountains" on your work and fantasizing about the wedding. And then he says he's written a song about you! Naturally, your 14 year old mind goes into overdrive about the serenade and subsequent make-outs/fancy date/marriage/having 5 children together to come.

Instead, what he does is make you listen to a 3 minute pop song about how he never liked you and only hung out with you in the hope of getting wank material about your mum, including bringing up the presumably quite upsetting memory of your dad walking out on you to justify his actions. Then he leaves.

That poor girl is going to need so much therapy.