I am sick of going on lore boards for whatever franchises, seeing somebody ask a lore question because they're trying to understand the setting they're about to create Their Dudes in, and the top comments all starting with "actually you can do anything you want because they're Your Dudes!" before, maybe, actually answering the question.

Obviously everyone understands that you physically CAN do this. Nobody is going to bust through the wall of your house like the Kool-Aid Man and arrest you for violating canon. The company that owns the IP is not going to copyright claim you because Your Dudes broke the lore (YET. The way things are going with digital ownership this might eventually happen...). Everyone knows that no one can actually STOP you from making Your Dudes however you like. Nobody needs to be told it.

But just because you CAN doesn't mean that you SHOULD.

A creative person can find for themselves an enormous amount of wiggle room within most settings to do Their Dudes mostly their way. But not INFINITE wiggle room.

If I want to make Hello Kitty Space Marines, I can do this, and make them 100% canon compliant.

All the pink and white is because their world got hit with a Warp storm and corrupted by Slaanesh, they fought a 500 year secret war to take it back, became experts on fighting Slaanesh, and those are actually appropriate camo colors for fighting in Slaanesh-corrupted areas.

They have the "giant cat head" silhouette because they make their aspirants fight and skin huge white tigers and wear the pelts as capes and headdresses.

All the cat motifs are justified because their Primarch is Lion.

They wear their purity seals tied into bows for some esoteric theological reason I made up.

An Inquisitor named Maru Badtz is investigating them for heresy because their planet got corrupted, they fought a 500 year secret war to take it back, and then they killed everyone who knew and lied about it. Because they're Dark Angels and institutional gaslighting is second nature.

They live in the Sanrio System.

Everyone who sees My Dudes or reads My Dudes' lore would immediately understand the joke. But nobody in the setting would have any reason to think there's a joke going on at all or that these are anything other than normal Space Marines.

Or, I can just give My Dudes literal giant cat heads and cutesy aesthetics and still have other Imperial characters react to them like nothing is wrong when obviously none of this could happen in Warhammer and nobody would act like that. I CAN. But it's stupid if I actually do.

And if you plan to do that, why write in an existing setting at all? What's the point of using it as window dressing if you're going to completely ignore how it works? And why are people encouraging that? It just makes people lazier and less creative, waters down the uniqueness of gaming/RPing/fanficing/whatever in various universes, and makes everyone's writing worse.

Based on a take I see relatively recently. I think a good chunk (not to say most) of the people in the general audience has only been exposed to wolverine through Hugh Jackman. Sure there's animation but ultimately live action movies, specially how many he's been in, are the way most casual viewers get to know him. And because of that there's a big wave of "only Hugh Jackman can play wolverine" going around. I don't agree for many reasons, one of them being the idea that only one actor can play a character like it's said about RDJ or Chris Evans or whoever as their specific character is kind of stupid, but also because while his performance is very good, he never really felt like the wolverine I read in the books or see in the cartoons to me, doesn't act the same, doesn't really look the same. I like his performance, he never gave a bad performance as wolverine, but I'm ready to see a new one in the MCU

Obviously change will always make people upset (specially when marvel just refuses to remove the bandaid and move on and delays a possible recast with more and more "one final goodbye" from Hugh as the character) but talks about who could be cast does come up and the height is always mentioned

For those not in the know Wolverine is like 5'3" in the comics. I think it's unreasonable to think the next actor MUST be that size because it's a very restrictive pool to chose from, but he SHOULD be shorter than the other male actors ( and most female actors) on screen. Most comic fans have this opinion. Some people in the general audiences too or are indifferent to it. I actually have a friend who didn't know wolverine was supposed to be short and when I told her about it she just kinda went "eh whatever, I like Hugh Jackman in the role better" and based on that and some other responses online I've seen from people who don't read comics and don't really dip their toes into non live action movie adaptations I think that's kind of what most people think

I don't think it's indifferent. I think it's extremely important for Wolverine to be short and am surprised that wasn't considered for the first time he was in the movies

"Oh but he was short in Deadpool and wolverine and looked stupid", what, the scene where they cast an actor EVEN SHORTER than what comic wolverine is, filmed it from a high angle compared to the average sized Ryan Reynolds to make him look even shorter and CGI'd Hugh Jackman's face to make it look uncanny and disproportional and played it for laughs? That single scene convinced you Wolverine being short is stupid?

It's even weirder when people ARE ok with him being recast but suggest people like Henry Cavill or other actos that are the same size or even bigger

I've seen plenty of people say "the height isn't important, it's more important that he looks cool"

And my question is, do people know what the fuck a wolverine is???

Apparently most people think it's just a made up name and not a real animal the character is based on

If you don't know, a wolverine is a small animal not too different from a badger that is known for being a f ball of fur and rage unafraid of throwing itself against much larger animals and even if not always victorious always giving a good fight. Does this description sound familiar? Yeah, it's fucking Logan.

Logan isn't supposed to be someone who is cool on a first glance, he's kind of pathetic in a way, he's a short angry manlet who smells like a wet dog, has anger issues, simps for another man's wife and needs to be on top of a chair to look the dude he's about to fight in the eye. But then the claws pop out and he stabs the Hulk in the head

That's wolverine. Wolverine is made cool by (despite us inside knowing he has a skeleton of the toughest metal on earth, knives in his knuckles and a killer animal instinct) the visual idea of being an underdog, almost all of his fights have a David Vs Goliath something something going around (although him smoking cigars, being a tough guy with a soft spot for animals and children and occasionally wearing tank tops and cowboys hats does almost compensate for the fact that he's at crotch level to his buddy Colossus).

He's not named Edward Scissor Hands or the fucking Wolf or something. He's the wolverine. "Oh but most people don't know what a wolverine is", most people don't know something until they learn it, not doing something in a movie because people don't know a fact is almost always stupid and people also can't learn if they like something or not if they haven't seen it

His most famous combo move, hell the most famous combo move on Marvel is the one where his tall friend colossus picks him up like it's nothing and throws him against someone. That looks infinitely cooler/funnier if the one being thrown is a smaller guy just fucking up the poor bastard whose face he just hit

His nemesis Sabertooth is like 3 times his size, being extremely tall even compared to normal people with a sadisctic and cruel personality. The contrast between the two doesn't work at all if they're the same height or if god forbid Sabertooth, named after the big ass pre historic predator, is shorter than the guy named after the angry furball on cocaine.

You wouldn't make a Spider-Man movie where he neither has a webshooter or organic webs, you wouldn't make a batman movie where he doesn't have his stupid little ears and long black cape

So yes, I think Wolverine's height is important, I hope Hugh Jackman is recast after Secret Wars and eventually we get a short actor playing wolverine (also hopefully we don't get the Scott, Jean, Logan love triangle)

I feel superman being an alien adds more to his motivation of protecting earth because he is the last member of a dead race and he doesn't want the fate of krypton to happen to earth. If you just make it that he protects earth just because he was raised by kind farmers it makes him less interesting.

I dont really know how to structure this and my english isnt very good so i'll just keep it short.

By the way this is all outside of comics

Batman is delusional, batman stories make that no secret, its very front and center that his reasoning for not killing, thinking that every villain can be rehabilitated, is delusional and doesnt work. But this belief would make infinitely more sense for him to have and be less tiring to watch him cling to if he actually rehabilitated atleast one of his villains but in most stories he doesnt, not even someone like 2face who is still in touch with reality and not completely hopeless. Again, we are supposed to see his belief is childish and unrealistic but it would be so much more entertaining and logical if he actually did it atleast once.

Also catwoman and mr freeze dont count because they arent truly evil

​

Even if we forget JK Rowling's politics and lies and general toxicity, the biggest problem with how the wizarding world as a whole treats social issues is that while it may accept some injustice is bad on the individual level, it doesnt examine these things on the greater level because the franchise wants you to see the wizarding world as a magical and cool place.

A recurrent problem with all the issues in Harry potter is that when injustices happen the “good guys” are either okay with it or they don’t express any dislike beyond momentary and specific to this situation or individual.

The problem is not that Harry Potter has problematic institutions, Animal farm is about a totalitarian dictator, the problem is that the criticism of the institutions ends where JK thinks it conflicts with the image of this world as cool and awesome.

A good comparison would be Percy jackson and the olympians, outside of riordan already being much more progressive than rowling ever was, he is also honest that while there is a lot of cool stuff in the mythical world, it also sucks a lot and a great part of the franchise as a whole is making it better.

Harry himself is a good microcosm of this issue, he of all people knows the injustice of the ministry more than anyone, yet he wishes to become an auror, not to change the institution, just to fight dark wizards. Because of that JK can never have Harry acknowledge the ministry as fucked up in any way beyond “this person is a dick and i don’t like them” or “this specific situation is unjust”, doing so would need Harry to either change his priorities or be outed to the reader as the bootlicker he is. (Porpentina goldstein suffers a similar problem (of being a bootlicker), bitch is almost executed with no due process by her coworkers and just clocks in for work the next day)

We see this with the statute of secrecy as well. Most reasons (to not say excuses) for the statute fall apart when examined, and it causes a lot of suffering and abuse of power, but its part of the status quo so anyone who really has a problem with it is at best misguided and will be defeated by (stupid) facts and (faulty) logic.

Comic books (specifically the MCU) have a similar problem, they want to tackle topics such as mass deportation, fascism or war but can’t actually confront the systemic ideas behind those things unless they are incarnated in either an external or individual force (for example you can have a specific villain who wants to use terrorism as an excuse to perpetuate the military industrial complex but the military industrial complex itself can’t be the bad guys) and anyone who wants to do actual change or confrontation to specific systems (like the flagsmashers) needs to be an antagonist who is either defeated or shown the error of their ways.

The way Rowling writes it’s like hearing a fanatical cultist describe how they sadly had to burn 3 “heathens” to death, they may say it in a regretful way but they don’t really get that its fundamentally wrong. The disparity in understanding between the reader and the book can be put as “I understand this is wrong but i don’t think Rowling gets it, at least not for the right reasons”.

TL;DR: the wizarding world has a narrative necessity to be better than the muggle world, a place you should want to go to and be a part of, so the narrative is never allowed to question why Fred and George are allowed to sell date-rape drugs to kids.

Just like how a lot of people can't fathom that talented people can work and train hard or how privileged people can have it rough ,way too many seem to forget that someone can be pure evil and have a tragic backstory cause shockingly enough,having a sad past doesn't justify or excuse your actions and choices,they explain them.

Any character can have a sad backstory from the worst of the worst to a overall awful human but still with some sympathetic and good sides as well and it just feels like people think that just cause a villain is pure evil, that suddenly means that they don't have a sad life or sad past at all and that's incredibly black and white.

Homelander is a good example cause yes,he is pure evil and a objectively horrendous human being but he was simultaneously someone who was raised as a lab rat experiment since he was a child and didn't live as anything else and was dehumanized constantly.

Hell,I would argue giving any evil person any sort of nuance and good traits at all and even giving a awful villain a sad backstory isn't the writers "forcing you" to like them or feel bad for them but is here to explore and show you how they became the way they are and why they're like this.

I'll also see this in Mha as well.

No,Horikoshi is not forcing you to feel bad for the villains but it's pretty obvious their backstories are intended to show you how they became this way and how to prevent it from happening again..same goes for AFO.

Yes his backstory is objectively pretty sad and yes, he also is a bad person who is extremely mentally and emotionally ill and has a creepy obsession with his brother but he simultaneously does genuinely love him.

Just like how you can have a sad backstory and still be a awful human, you can genuinely love someone and still be awful and toxic to them.

Sometimes even the worst people can have it tough and it just feels like a lot of people are way too obsessed and salivate over the idea of just a pure evil big bad with no backstory and nothing and is carried solely by hype moments and Aura.

With Magneto presumably coming to the MCU at some point, I've seen a lot of discussion about what Marvel is going to do with his backstory. The argument is normally that the Holocaust is now simply too far away: if Magneto was old enough to remember Auschwitz, he'd be approaching 100, and therefore at some point you have to "update" him by making him the survivor of a more recent genocide or atrocity. 

I've spent far too much time reading about this and thinking about the various arguments, and I don't really understand why have accepted the premise that his history needs changing in the first place. 

Realistically speaking, TLDR: He's a mutant. Make him age slower.

I know that sounds almost flippant given how much discussion there has been about this, but I genuinely think that's all the explanation you need. We're already dealing with mutations which allow people to control the weather, regenerate from horrific injuries, read minds, teleport and walk through walls. I don't think dramatically slowed ageing is going to be the biological impossibility which finally loses the audience. 

I also much prefer that to freezing him and essentially repeating Captain America's story. Magneto doesn't need to be a man who disappeared in the 1940s and woke up in the modern world. Having him live through those decades gives you much more to work with. However, if he was to be frozen, I like the idea that the Nazis/Hydra ran tests on him, saw how obscenely powerful he was, and put him on ice indefinitely.  

He doesn't need to have been publicly fighting for mutant supremacy throughout that period either. The MCU doesn't appear to have had mutants existing openly as a large, recognised minority for the last 70 years, so there isn't really a continuity problem there. He could have lived relatively quietly, encountered the occasional mutant over the years and watched the world change around him. Perhaps, after what happened to him as a child, he even came to believe that humanity really had learned something from it. 

Then mutants begin appearing in numbers which can't be ignored, and for the first time they become something the wider public understands as a distinct group of people. There is fear, perhaps an incident which accelerates it (I don't want to spoil an example that comes to mind), and eventually political arguments about whether mutants need to be registered, controlled or otherwise treated differently because of what they are. For someone with Magneto's history, it isn't difficult to understand why watching that develop could be the thing which finally radicalises him.  

If anything, I think that's a more interesting use of his Holocaust history than simply transporting him from the 1940s to the present. He would have had decades in which to watch attitudes change, antisemitism persist in different forms, other atrocities happen and societies repeatedly promise that they had learned from the past. Then he reaches the point where another part of his identity suddenly places him within a group which people are frightened of. 

The Captain America comparison is useful because Marvel already understands the basic principle here. Steve Rogers remains tied to the Second World War even as that war becomes more historically distant. Nobody seriously proposes periodically moving his origin forward so that he fought in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan instead. Marvel finds a way around the chronology because being a WWII character means something to Captain America beyond simply having fought in an old war. 

I don't think Magneto should use Steve's exact mechanism, because being displaced from his own time is an important part of Steve in a way that it isn't for Magneto. But if Marvel can preserve Steve's relationship with WWII, it seems strange to me that preserving Magneto's relationship with the Holocaust is treated as some uniquely insurmountable continuity problem. Slowed ageing is completely mundane by the standards of the universe we're talking about. 

The other argument which comes up a lot is that Magneto wasn't created as a Holocaust survivor, which is true. Claremont established that history about 18 years after the character was created. But I don't think that tells us very much about whether it should be retained now. 

Magneto has been a Holocaust survivor for about 45 years, considerably more than twice as long as he existed without that history, and those stories were part of the development which turned him from a comparatively straightforward supervillain into the character people are still writing and arguing about now. Treating the earliest version as inherently more authentic means ignoring most of the writing which made Magneto interesting in the first place. 

There are countless examples of this happening to long-running characters. Mr Freeze had existed for more than 30 years before Batman: The Animated Series gave him Nora and rebuilt his motivation around trying to save his dying wife. That wasn't part of his original conception and wasn't even invented in the comics, but it was so successful that the comics adopted it. If you ask someone familiar with Batman to explain Mr Freeze, there's a very good chance Nora is one of the first things they'll mention. 

The Doctor existed for more than 40 years before the Time War became part of his history. For an enormous number of people who grew up with modern Doctor Who, the destruction of Gallifrey, his belief that he was the last Time Lord and the guilt surrounding the Time War are basic parts of what they know about him, despite generations of the character existing without any of it. 

Storm's childhood history was developed after her introduction as well, including her parents being killed in Cairo, her being trapped beneath the rubble and the claustrophobia which resulted from it. Superman couldn't originally fly. Wolverine didn't appear with every element of his history and powers already established. Long-running characters change so much that arguing from the contents of their first appearance would give us versions of many of them which barely resemble the characters people know. 

Obviously, I'm not suggesting that all those changes carry the same cultural or historical weight as making Magneto a Holocaust survivor. They don't need to. They're examples of why the date at which something was introduced doesn't decide whether it can eventually become fundamental to a character. 

In Magneto's case, I think it's difficult to argue that the Holocaust didn't do exactly that. It gave a much more specific meaning to his fear of what humans might eventually do to mutants. 

Magneto isn't simply somebody who had something unimaginably awful happen to him when he was young. He experienced the Holocaust as a Jewish child and later finds himself belonging to another minority which people increasingly regard as dangerous. 

That connection is important because of what he has already seen. He's lived through a society in which a minority was blamed for social problems, portrayed as alien and corrupting, treated as biologically distinct and gradually stripped of rights and humanity. He doesn't have the luxury of assuming that rhetoric about an unwanted minority will necessarily remain rhetoric, because he knows from his own life that it didn't before. 

It makes his conflict with Xavier far more interesting because Magneto has an extremely good reason to believe Xavier is naive. Xavier can believe that humans and mutants will eventually learn to coexist, while Magneto has personal experience of how badly that faith in the majority can fail. 

At the same time, the fact that we understand Magneto's fear doesn't mean we're required to agree with everything he does because of it. His determination that mutants will never again be powerless can take him into mutant supremacy, collective punishment and violence against people who have done nothing to him. Some of the most interesting versions of Magneto allow both of those things to be true at once: his fear isn't irrational, while some of the conclusions he draws from it very much can be. 

Many people suggest simply 'swapping' one atrocity for another. I've seen Rwanda, Bosnia, Armenia and various other examples suggested, and I'm not remotely arguing that those histories are less worthy of being represented. Humanity has unfortunately produced enough genocides that there is no shortage of real historical trauma writers could draw from. What I don't like is treating them as though they're basically interchangeable settings which perform the same function for a character. 

The Holocaust, the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, Bosnia and the Armenian genocide have their own histories. They happened to different peoples in different circumstances, and the experiences of the people who survived them don't become equivalent simply because we place all of them under the category of genocide. 

If Marvel wants to create a Rwandan mutant whose experience of the genocide against the Tutsi informs the way they respond to mutant persecution, I think that could be fascinating. The same applies to an Armenian mutant, a Bosnian mutant, a Palestinian mutant or characters rooted in any number of histories which Marvel has barely explored. I'd rather see those characters created and developed than take one existing character and swap between historical atrocities according to whichever one currently makes the chronology easiest. 

That approach also gives those histories room to matter on their own terms. A Rwandan character shouldn't just be Magneto with a different genocide inserted into his biography. There are stories you could tell with that character which you couldn't tell with Magneto precisely because their history and cultural background would be different. 

For some personal context, I'm Catholic, but my paternal family is Ashkenazi Jewish, so I obviously have some investment in the question of Jewish representation. And yes, I'm aware of matrilineal descent in traditional Jewish law. I'm talking here about ethnicity, ancestry and family history rather than making a claim about my status under halakha. Historically, people persecuting Jews weren't especially interested in Jewish religious law when deciding who counted as Jewish anyway. 

One reason I care about the Jewish part of Magneto specifically is that Jewish identity doesn't fit very neatly into the categories people often use when discussing representation. Judaism can refer to religion, but Jewish identity can also involve ethnicity, ancestry, culture and peoplehood, and those things overlap in complicated ways. Ashkenazi Jews also aren't representative of all Jewish people; Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews have their own histories and cultures. 

Particularly with Ashkenazi Jews who can be perceived simply as white, I sometimes think Jewish representation becomes quite easy to overlook. Magneto is one of the most famous explicitly Jewish characters in popular fiction, and in his case his Jewishness is directly relevant to the history which shaped him. 

I'm also not arguing that every aspect of Magneto, or any comic character, must remain unchanged forever. I don't have a blanket objection to changing a character's race, gender, nationality or other characteristics in an adaptation, and I'm certainly not somebody who thinks every piece of comic canon is sacred. Some characters are vastly better because later writers changed them. 

What matters to me is how much a particular characteristic is doing for the character you're adapting. Changing something incidental isn't the same creative decision as changing something around which decades of their characterisation has been built, and the fact that the latter might itself once have been a retcon doesn't make it incidental again. 

This is also where the distinction between an alternate Magneto and the MCU's main Magneto matters to me. If someone wants to write an alternate-universe Magneto with a completely different history, I don't have an issue with that. Changing fundamental aspects of familiar characters and seeing what follows is one of the reasons alternate universes are interesting. 

The MCU is different because Marvel has chosen to present it as its central cinematic continuity, right down to the slightly maddening decision to call it 616 despite the comics already having Earth-616. For millions of people who don't read comics, whoever appears in the MCU will be their mainstream version of Magneto. 

I don't think that means the MCU has to reproduce the comics exactly. It obviously hasn't done that with its other characters. But if you're going to remove something which has been central to Magneto for 45 years, and which is responsible for a significant amount of the complexity people associate with him, I think there should be a substantive reason for doing it. His age isn't one when the setting gives you countless easy ways around it. 

Marvel has also already shown that adding representation doesn't require overwriting an existing character's history. Steve Rogers remains Captain America, with his own background and connection to WWII, and Sam Wilson can also be Captain America while bringing a completely different history and perspective to the role. You can add characters and expand what the universe represents without having to turn one minority's history into space for another's. 

There is one part of this discussion I don't want to spend too much time on because I don't want this to turn into an Israel/Palestine thread, but I know from seeing these discussions elsewhere that it will probably come up. 

People sometimes suggest that Magneto should be Palestinian. I'm sure that for many people this comes from a sincere desire to see Palestinian characters represented, and I would have no problem with Marvel creating and investing in a Palestinian mutant whose history informs their response to mutant persecution. 

The version I find concerning is when making Magneto Palestinian is suggested specifically as an ironic reversal of his being Jewish and a Holocaust survivor, with some variation of the idea that the former victims have now become the persecutors. 

My problem with that framing is that the irony only really works if Jewish people are being treated collectively. A Jewish child persecuted during the Holocaust isn't responsible for the actions of the Israeli government decades later because both involve Jewish people. Criticism of Israel can be entirely legitimate, including extremely severe criticism, without turning Jewish people into representatives of a state. 

I'm not suggesting that everybody who proposes a Palestinian Magneto means that, because I'm sure they don't. I've simply seen enough comments where the "irony" is explicitly the point that I think it's worth distinguishing between wanting Palestinian representation and using a Palestinian Magneto to make a point about Jewish people collectively. 

After going through all these arguments, though, the reason I still don't think Magneto needs updating is much less complicated than the amount I've written about it probably makes it appear. 

The age issue only exists if Marvel decides that Magneto must age like an ordinary human. There is no reason for them to decide that. Slower ageing is entirely plausible for a mutant within the rules Marvel has already established, and it actually gives the MCU some interesting things to do with him because he can have experienced the decades between the Holocaust and the emergence of mutants rather than simply skipping them. 

Once you remove the age problem, I struggle to see what is gained by replacing the rest. You'd be taking one of popular fiction's best-known Jewish characters, removing a history which has defined him for 45 years and replacing it with another people's historical trauma, when Marvel could instead preserve Magneto and create characters whose connections to those other histories are actually their own. 

For me, that's a much better solution than deciding Auschwitz has reached its expiration date as part of Magneto's story. 

 

Yes, Jean likely killed a lot of people, and Peter saying she's "not a killer" isn't exactly true. Yes, it may just be a way for him to calm her down during an awful time for both her and half of New York, but I can understand the idea that the narrative agrees with him on this. It's a very strange and awkward line.

But then I thought it over, alongside how I feel on the rest of the movie, and I realised something- that's one weird line in an otherwise solid movie. So much of the movie works for me, it's one of the best movies the MCU's had in a while, so why should I let one bit of dialogue harm the movie for me all that much?

A lot of people have been bringing up the infamous "they'll never know what you sacrificed for them" line from WandaVision, and this all made me realise I feel the same way about that line- it's one weird line from a show I otherwise love, and I don't really need to let it ruin the entire experience for me. It’s still a show I greatly enjoy!

The first problem is they keep choosing to adapt the most boring subplots that just feel like padding. Like a lot of adaptations leave too much on the cutting room floor, and Invincible looked at that and said we'll remove a couple scenes and that's it. Now that's not the biggest issue with the show, but the second problem is far worse imo.

In the comic, Omni Man only kills The Guardians, beats Mark up, feels bad, flies away, does some soul searching, etc and comes back to earth to apologize and make up for his wrongdoings. Tbh his forgiveness was a little too swift in the comics, but the show is far worse.

They over did it. Having him commit a near genocide on an alien world, that psychotic scene where him and Debbie in Paris while that monster attacks. The train scene. The Chicago scene. All added together to establish him as a threat meant to be put down.

And then, they decided to just go back to the comics and try the redemption arc again. With only a few slight changes.

Now I'm not trying to gatekeep how redemption arcs tend to work, but I notice a lot of the times it happens in good stories 1. The villain didn't even want to be a bad person. They were a henchmen at best. 3. They weren't even a good villain. Always screwing up, letting their boss down. And they even felt like failures. 3. They had those human moments where it seems like they do have a good heart.

It is a lil weird some people refuse to think Nolan can be redeemed, but well...they did overdo it, so it's only fair for the audience to think that. I'm not sure if they're watching waiting for Mark vs Nolan round 2. Or if they think once the Vitrum war ends, they'll go back to trying to bring Nolan down. I'm just confused why they think it's going to happen, but they really butchered his character in season 1, it's only right the audience thinks that way.

Like you should've limited how bad he was if you wanted to have him be redeemed.

Also, just to nit-pick. I don't like how fans of Debbie describe her going back to Nolan as if she's "a consolation prize." "She's just now his fuck trophy." "This is so dehumanizing to her." Like...no one else said that about her...but you. I wasn't even thinking of her as just a prize for Nolan's hard work until her fans said that. I just saw her as many of the other important characters in the story going thru her own arc

While I don’t know how well it works as an allegory for any real life issue, I still think there’s value in stories like the X-men because they ask a more fundamental question of whether it’s ever really ok to be bigoted against someone, regardless of any justifications you can come up with.

While racism is in fact illogical, at the end of the day, different races do in fact visibly look different. While most people today would say that’s a stupid reason to discriminate against someone, it is in fact a reason that someone out there might use to justify their hatred. Mutants just take this concept to a more extreme level. Here we have arguably a better reason to be bigoted, after all, they could blow up my house or kill me if they really wanted to, right? But even if we now have a better, more justified reason to be bigoted, should we? I think these allegorical stories essentially say no, we shouldn’t.

And when I say bigoted here, I mean hatred. I think society and mutants do need to work together to ensure they and everyone around them can live a normal and safe life, just like society and disabled people have done in real life (ie ramps for wheelchairs and braille for the blind). Maybe something like a government mandated school to ensure they learn how to safely use their powers, which obviously Professor x already has, or developing an opt-in inhibitor for mutants who no longer want their powers or are a proven danger to them and those around them. But you shouldn’t hate someone who hasn’t done anything, even if they potentially could. I believe everyone deserves that level of decency.

If I put myself in the shoes of a mutant, even if I know some of my fellow mutants are dangerous, and even if I understand and maybe even sympathize with why some people might hate me for existing, I still would not want to experience hatred from people I’ve done no harm to. And like I said, I don’t know how good of an allegory this really is or if the stories in question handle it very well. I think there are some stories where the X-men are against any and all forms of mutant accommodations from the government to help them co-exist in society, which seems shortsighted to me. But fundamentally as a concept I think these allegorical stories that have superpowered minorities do work on some level.

I always see people arguing that Demon Slayer is a superficial work and that it only became successful because of the anime, I agree that the animation made a difference to the anime's success, but it has much more substance in the script than it appears.

One of the manga's central themes is how to deal with death.

Everything in the story revolves around this topic: the protagonist's primary motivation is to prevent his sister from dying as a demon, and along his journey, he meets others with similar motivations. Zenitsu fears death because he considers himself weak; Tomioka isolates himself after his sister and best friend sacrifice themselves for him; Shinobu harbors resentment because Douma killed her sister; Akaza became a demon after losing everything he tried to protect; and Kokushibo turned into a demon out of envy and the fear of dying from the same mark his brother bore.

Then there is Muzan, whose primary motivation is survival; everything he does in the story is aimed at preserving his own life. He seeks the ability to walk in the sunlight because he refuses to live in a world where he could die—a mindset stemming from the fact that he was born sickly and constantly facing death. He creates demons using his blood to expand his influence across Japan and—hopefully—produce a demon capable of withstanding the sun; he hunted down the family of the only swordsman who nearly killed him out of fear; and, above all, he searches for the flower that could grant immunity to sunlight.

One of the moments that best illustrates this theme occurs when Muzan invades the mansion of the Demon Slayer Corps leader. The two debate the meaning of eternity: for Muzan, eternity meant remaining unchanged and invincible—essentially, mere survival—whereas for the leader, it meant building a future of peace, being surrounded by loved ones he trusted, and being remembered by them. This highlights the contrasting philosophies regarding how to face death (it is worth noting that the leader was a dying man who had lived his entire life in ill health due to a family curse inflicted by Muzan, his own ancestor).

*Demon Slayer* concludes by upholding this anti-immortality philosophy: the heroes defeat Muzan, but at the cost of the lives of nearly the entire cast, and the protagonist himself lives only a few more years, dying young due to the sacrifices he made throughout the story.

The narrative ends with a time jump to the present day, showing the characters' descendants living in an era of peace. The work conveys the message that death and grief are overcome by seeking happiness in life, loving those around us, and striving to do our best in the world and be remembered.

It is worth noting that the author suffered a personal loss while the work was being published (some say it was her husband or her parents), which further underscores the story's message.

Okay, i am sick of seeing all these takes that the X men don't work. Because they are actually dangerous unlike real minority groups.

News flash it's a superhero series. What do you expect?

It's the premise of the series. Is people are born with powers they didn't ask for and are hated for it.

The alagory is you are born as something, and people hate you for it. Which you can't change. Because it's a superhero show, they have to have powers.

It's would be like saying

Fantasy Racism doesn't work. Because Elves are literally a different species.

Or

Robot bigotry doesn't work because robots are not alive

That's the premise of the series you expect that going into it.

Also, last order of business.

2 things

1. The x men do work in the main marvel comics. Because there is functionality nothing different between someone born with powers and someone who gets them. It's stupid and it reflects how bigotry is stupid

2. The mutants are too dangerous. Fun fact most mutants can be killed with guns and just look different. It's only the 1% with actual food powers.

Let's say you have a guy, who's attracted to guys. It's known that he has an attraction to guys, and he's often dating guys.

Here's the deal though- he could always be bisexual, or pansexual, or maybe something else. The only way he can be certifiably gay- especially if applying death of the author- is if he's not only attracted to men, but explicitly NOT attracted to women. Same deal with lesbian characters- they gotta be into women, but also NOT into men.

I'd actively say this lack of attraction is more important in regards to defining a character's sexuality, as it clearly & unequivocally sets boundaries. Without it, things remain ambiguous.

I had the particularly unpleasant experience of interacting with TikTok power scalers and some Reddit power scalers talking and apparently Spider-Man can break adamantium, he can solo the X-Men any day of the week, he's immune to telepathy and mind control, and he's this and that.

And they pull a panel here, a panel there, an episode from a TV show, marvel adventures cover, and it's like... Do you actually read Spider-Man?

Which Spider-Man story in the past 30 years even plays out if Spider-God is real?

I've been reading Spider-Man since Brand New Day (the run, not the movie), and I love Spider-Man, I am a fan of Spider-Man. The powerscaling Spider-Man is unrecognisable to me. He doesn't exist.

I also read X-Men, and while Spider-Man is definitely a good and powerful character in his own right, he's not soloing an average X-Man team -- the bloody Juggernaut is on the X-Men.

Like... these stories simply refute them argumentum ad lapidem style. Just an annoying Sunday rant.

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First i want to explain that i hate a way to deal with hax know as “conventional loot”, basically the characters just happen to have what they need with no explícit previous preparation (this is what most “creative” solutions end up being)

Like, oh no, our enemy can only be defeated by, i dont know, mud, thank god mud is conveniently acessible and the enemy took no preparations in case this happens

Second, this causes a worldbuilding problem, If there are fruits so powerful then anyone who knows what they are doing would be prepared 24/7 to a point it stops being fun, like If you have kizaru only being able to be defeated by mirrors then all the top tiers should have mirrors with them at all times

Third, people mention sea stone, the problem is that it doesnt fit with how many characters fight, like, is Luffy supposed to use sea stone blades now? (I know the answer would be gloves but my point still stands), what about characters who use Devil fruit abilities to fight?

Fourth, the “clever solutions” of the past are overrated as fuck, both the cases with crocodile and Enel were just finding a way for Luffy to punch his enemies

Fifth, this is not the type of story one piece is. One piece is closer to the Raw stats end of the evolution spectrum (explanation below), the expectation since the beginning is that a character who is a top tier will not just be one shot by someone who is really weak and simply gained a good enough fruit. It allows for top tiers to not need "meta" fruits and allows for non devil fruit users to be relevant after a certain point

(Basically you have raw stats in one end where characters evolve by getting stronger and application on the other end where characters evolve by gaining/discovery/developing new abilities. It’s a spectrum, dragon ball would be in the far of the raw stats end while JJBA would be in the application end (before anyone mentions star platinum and other occasions of raw sats in jjba, strength in jojo is treated as another tool, you don’t expect a character to get stronger via punching harder and faster) Jujutsu kaisen and hunterxhunter are in the very middle of the spectrum with one piece being in this middle closer to dragon ball)

In short Haki allows:

-characters to keep their fighting styles

-the worldbuilding and narrative to not sink in the specifics of each fruit

-oda to use the power elevation model he wants

Just to be clear i dont like a lot about how haki is used (conqueror’s is too op and clash piece is shit)

I don't know if Deadpool getting limbs chopped off and treating it like a minor inconvenience has permanently broken people's understanding of healing factors, but apparently this needs saying:

Healing quickly and not feeling pain are two completely different abilities.

This is mostly inspired by some of the INCREDIBLY stupid and bad faith discourse around Insomniac's Wolverine, particularly people questioning why Wolverine would bother wearing armour when he can just heal from injuries... maybe because getting shot, stabbed, burned, slashed or having chunks ripped out of you still fucking hurts?

A healing factor means your body repairs the damage. It doesn't automatically give you anaesthesia. Unless the specific version of the character is established to have reduced pain perception, they're still experiencing the injury in the first place. Wolverine being able to survive something doesn't mean he'd particularly enjoy experiencing it. Armour still prevents damage, reduces pain, keeps him functional during a fight and means his healing factor has less work to do.

Regeneration is not invulnerability, and it definitely isn't a permanent morphine drip. I genuinely don't know why this distinction seems so difficult...

I'm tired of the idea that Peter Parker has to remain broke and lonely to stay relatable. I get it, Uncle Ben's death traumatized him, creating this internal compulsion to always be Spider-Man out of fear that if he doesn't suit up, he'll relive that trauma through the people he fails to save. But by letting that fear dictate everything, he ends up sacrificing his personal life (he can't commit to a full-time job and can't maintain his personal relationships).

Ironically, this goes directly against his core mantra, "With great power comes great responsibility," because right now, that rule only seems to apply to Spider-Man and NOT Peter Parker. If anything, it makes Peter LESS relatable because he is actively choosing to be irresponsible in his day-to-day life. He has the power to be financially stable. With his genius-level intellect, he could easily be working as a scientist or engineer for The Future Foundation or Stark Industries, or even make him a journalist if the former options are too unrelatable. Furthermore, he has the power to be a good partner to whoever he chooses to be with, because at his core, he is a genuinely good person. His learning to balance being Spider-Man and Peter Parker only serves to improve his character and not diminish it. Peter Parker should grow up (hot take, I know), and his learning how to handle adult responsibilities would not only make him more relatable but would also make him a better role model for the readers that his story aims to inspire in the first place.

A lot of his problems could be blamed on the "Parker Luck" trope, which I think has become a dumb caricature. Originally, it's a plot device to make him relatable (not having enough money to pay rent, missing out on a date/work because he has to be Spider-Man, etc.), but in the end he overcomes that challenge, learns from it, and becomes a better hero/person because of it. Now it's being used to keep him stuck. Peter Parker encounters the same problems he did 50 years ago, and he never overcomes them; it's just loss after loss after loss, which makes it seem like being Spider-Man is a curse. What's so relatable about that? What are the audiences supposed to learn? That life will keep throwing shit at you, and you will never win, but you might as well keep doing what's right and make a martyr out of yourself? By constantly keeping him broke and suffering, Marvel is downright romanticizing poverty and struggle. Yes, it teaches resilience, but it completely forgets to teach us that we should actually strive for a better life. Overcoming a problem and achieving that better life is fundamentally a better story than being plagued by the same issues forever. To be clear, I don't think Peter should be a billionaire, but letting him be a stable, middle-class working man who is married to MJ is the natural evolution of his story.

Most of these complaints really only apply to the main 616 comics. I'm happy that Spider-Man Brand-New Day, the Spider-Verse movies, the Insomniac games, and alternate runs like Ultimate Spider-Man have actually allowed him to mature. It is way overdue for Peter to tackle adult themes in the mainline continuity, especially because the perfect solution already exists: Miles Morales. I think it's incredibly dumb that Marvel editorial refuses to let Peter grow up when Miles is literally right there to take over the "youthful, struggling Spider-Man" storylines.

Yeah I know this is hot take but let me cook

What I am mean with that is what rudeus have to stand up as protagonist?

Like he doesn't have good writing like eren, guts and Edward,

not have strong personality like ichigo or luffy,

he is not lovable idiot like goku or naruto,

he don't have infinite aura farm like jotaro or sung yo

He doesn't suffer like yuji or Peter parker

He is not even the first protagonist people think of isekai mc

So like what he have?

The infinite glaze of in verse does not count since every isekai protagonist is glaze in verse,

the way people talk about how rudeus is pedo makes someone think he is some kind of epstein/Griffin instead of lucky pervert who get away with being a creep,

and series status as blueprint of modern isekai should not be considered as good point since that like saying batman, punisher and homerlander is modern blueprint of modern rich vigilant, antihero and evil superman despite the fact there were not the first of their genre nor they were the best, just more popular in general.

So please guys let mushoku tensei get forgotten with another craps isekai instead try to make it famous for having pedophile protagonist despite the fact Lolita did that 300 years ago and no one is trying to defend him.

The Immortal Wunderkind is a character who has immortality, and over their immortal lifespan, has become a genius and expert on an absurd range of topics and fields of study. They can speak a 100 languages, they’re an expert in all scientific fields of study, they were present and have firsthand accounts of every major historical event relevant to the plot, they are endlessly charismatic and intelligent and wise.

A classical example of this type of character is Vandal Savage.

Now, I like this trope. It’s fun and there is a lot you can do with it narratively. But I HATE the people who *believe* in it.

Every time the discussion of immortality comes up (especially the topic of immortality as a curse or blessing) a bunch of people show up that assume that, given an immortal lifespan, they would become an Immortal Wunderkind themselves.

These folks often hand waive any potential downsides or risks of immortality by stating that, as a Wunderkind with infinite time, they’d be able to solve or avoid any potential issues! They’d be able to figure out how to make other people immortal so they aren’t lonely and don’t have to deal with loss! They’d figure out how to back up their consciousness or body hop so they can never get trapped in a hole! They’d push humanity forward to solve our existential issues like climate change and so on. They’d even figure out how to dodge the heat death of the universe!

And to that I say… no you won’t.

If virtually anyone on the planet became immortal right now, today, they would simply not be exceptional in this way.

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#1 Your brain isn’t built for it

We don’t have infinite memory, and our memories are extremely imperfect. The human brain cannot even store one lifespan of memories effectively: you are going to run out of room. You're not going to be endlessly accruing knowledge and skills. You're going to be constantly accruing knowledge and skills while bleeding knowledge and skills in equal measure. This goes for soft skills like wisdom, patience, mental stability, stress management, etc. as well.

Maybe at some point we develop technology that allows us to expand the limits of our neurology; increasing memory capacity, creating perfect memory, increasing neuroplasticity or letting you download information directly into your mind. If such a technology is created, your immortal ass isn't going to benefit from it any more than anything else; you won't have a leg up because you have an extra 100 years of outdated knowledge as a starting point.

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#2 You are not going to keep up

If you, average Joe schmoe, became immortal and dedicated your life to learning everything there is to know about medicine, you would be perpetually behind on 99% of fronts. A doctor that graduated med school in 2016 has had half of what they learned become obsolete. Knowledge and expertise is not something you gain and keep, it is something you must actively maintain.

Every field of science and study is constantly evolving and being pushed forward by thousands of brilliant minds: unless they all stopped right now for you, Joe schmoe, you would never catch up even as these minds passed and were replaced by new ones.

Not to mention if your plan is to push any specific field of inquiry forward, that's going to involve decades of research where you'll fall behind on everything else. The only time you'll be at the top is if the rest of humanity goes extinct.

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#3 You still have to be smart to start with

No amount of time can make you smart, it can only make you knowledgeable. Critical thinking is something that can be cultivated but you're not going to develop a generalized super-brilliance that is applicable to all subjects and fields of expertise just because you've been around a thousand years.

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#4 You aren't guaranteed a solution for every problem

Even if you have infinite knowledge, infinite time, and infinite resources there's no guarantee that you'll be able to do anything. Just because the possibility of a solution, based on our current understanding, is above 0% doesn't mean you, Joe schmoe, will be able to find it before our universe dies.

There is so much magical thinking about "intelligence" and how it can be applied to solve problems, but you can't just use 100 billion years to hand waive how you'll solve avoiding the heat death of the universe or whatever.

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The ugly truth is that basically all of us, given an immortal lifespan, would not be any more of a "wunderkind" than the most brilliant minds and exciting people alive today. In order to be exceptional you need to actively pursue the exceptional, every day. And if you aren't doing that now, you probably won't do that with infinite time to procrastinate with.

No caveats. No monkeys paw conditions. Just straight up Immortality and eternal youth. All those who say it would be bad lack passion and imagination.

I am a fan of history. I can say for certain that I would LOVE to witness the rise and fall of countless civilizations. I would love to see us reach the stars and explore the galaxy, if we ever do that at all. I would LOVE to travel the world and go where no man or woman has gone before.

"Oh but you'd get bored."

No, YOUR boring ass would get bored. Some people have passions that they NEVER tire of.

"But your friends and family would die before you."

Yes, that would indeed suck, but I'd get over it and eventually grow use to it adapt the appropriate mindset.

"You'll lose your humanity."

If I do, so what? What does that even mean? I won't care for others? I won't feel things? I doubt I'd just straight up become a sociopath, but even if I did, I wouldn't go crazy. My current interest are history, video games, movies, anime, books, and Manga. I'll ALWAYS have something to look forward to. I'll ALWAYS have something to fall back on to keep my mind preoccupied.

As for people and connections? I'm already a pretty solitary person as is, but I know that we all need people and I would not neglect that. Finding community would be hella easy if I needed it.

"Oh, but after millions and millions of years, you'd go mad."

Even if that is the case, that MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of years from now. I have literally ALL THE TIME IN THE UNIVERSE to come to terms with that. It's like saying "you should kill yourself because you're gonna die eventually".

No??? That's not how things work!

Rant done.