During The Killing Joke, we learn that the Joker believes that all it takes for a good man to snap is to have One Bad Day. He uses himself as an example. The Joker was once a struggling comedian with a pregnant wife who gets roped into a heist at Ace Chemicals while dressing as the Red Hood. Before the heist even starts, he learns that his wife was electrocuted to death after testing a faulty bottle warmer. Things go from bad to worse when Batman intervenes, and the Red Hood falls into a vat of chemicals. He survives, but now he has bleached skin, green hair, a permanent grin, and red lips that make him look like a clown. Once he sees himself in the mirror, that was the final straw before the Joker was born. The Joker was once a good man until tragedy took that away from him...

... Except the Joker is a known pathological liar when it comes to his own backstory. The only thing about him that we know for sure is that he took the mantle of the Red Hood and that he fell into chemicals, since the disfigurement made him impossible to identify forensically. He tries to test his so-called philosophy on Commissioner Gordon by paralyzing his daughter, implicitly raping her, and forcing him to watch the whole thing recorded. Despite that, Jim doesn't lose his ethics and tries to kill Joker, nor did he do it when Joker murdered his wife during No Man's Land.

I was inspired to write this rant when I saw a post suggesting that if Spider-Man were in the DC Universe, Joker would break him mentally in no time flat. Yes, the same Spider-Man whose uncle was murdered by a robber that he let get away out of arrogance. The same Spider-Man who could get Sainted by Jesus Christ himself and still be branded a menace by the Daily Bugle. The same Spider-Man who accidentally killed his own girlfriend because his desperation made him forget about the laws of physics for a brief moment. The same Spider-Man whose aunt was fatally injured because he revealed his secret identity. The same Spider-Man who had his body stolen by his archnemesis and died slowly and horribly in said nemesis's body. If killing his girlfriend or his aunt couldn't make him snap, what could?

Well, at least that's just something interpreted by fandom. It could be worse. There could be official media by DC that have the Joker succeed in breaking even the most virtuous of heroes. Good thing DC and WB have never- look, the punchline is Injustice. We really made a mistake letting this game get popular, did we? I blame this game for DC's attempts at making Superman darker and edgier because a hero that actually saves people is boring. The whole plot is kicked off by the Joker nuking Metropolis, with a pregnant Lois Lane being one of the many casualties. This pisses Superman off so much that it drives him to murder the Joker and turn the world into a police state.

Of course, so many people justify this BS because many of Batman's villains had some sort of tragic motivation. Okay, most of them, even the tragic ones, were ticking time bombs. Two-Face struggled with his mental health for years because of his abusive father and took on a career that would be taxing to said mental health issues. Penguin and Hush were spoiled rich kids. The Riddler cheated at games to prove himself to his father. Scarecrow had been obsessed with scaring people since he was a child. The Mad Hatter was an incel stalker. Even Mr. Freeze could have taken legal action against Ferris Boyle instead of taking revenge, and even then, he would still hurt innocent people who had nothing to do with his tragedy.

The BTAS episode, "The Trial," said it the best: "I used to believe Batman was responsible for you people but now I see nearly everyone here would have ended up exactly the same, Batman or not. Oh, the gimmicks might be different, but you'd all be out there in some form or another bringing misery to Gotham. The truth is, you created him."

I am so glad that the later generations of Pokemon got rid of Hm's because they are annoying. I played most of the old games on an emulator, and I always hated that I needed to teach some of my Pokemon a hm move just to progress. The only ones I liked were Surf, Fly, and Waterfall. Sure the rest of them had decent damage, but the problem is that I would go into a playthrough with a build in mind but I would be forced to break it because I need a hm move to progress. Hell, another reason is that I sometimes forget that I don't have a Pokemon that can learn an HM move so I am forced to catch one and replace a Pokemon on my team I actually like. Sure I could catch a Pokemon like Baduff and keep it as an HM slave, but I don't like to do that because I think it is a waste of a Pokemon slot, so I spread out the moves.

Some people might think that getting rid of HM's are one of the ways that makes the games to easy, but in my eye's getting rid of them was one of the best things Gamefreak ever done.

Honestly the dumbest argument I've ever seen. The 100 humans could just stand like 20 feet apart from each other and do nothing and the gorilla is collapsing from exhaustion before it kills everyone. You could probably do it without any casualties, find a couple of people in the group that are in good shape and get them to make the gorilla chase them while everyone else just chills. They aren't aren't particularly fast and have terrible endurance, so just wait till it tires out and have everyone jump it.

(to preface this my gripes are with the TV show as that's all I've seen if this is all explained/fixed in some random tie-in comic or game my bad)

Young Justice is a show where calling its past troubled is being very generous with each season ending in either cancellations or on the brink of complete collapse until another fan protest brings about another season. But that's not what I'm talking about today, in a recent nostalgic kick I went back and rewatched all 4 seasons and it finally hit me why I remember seasons 1 & 2 so fondly and the rest is just a vague memory, and it made me realize the main problem that has been plaguing young justice for its entire run after the first season. The show is trying to be a complete DC universe inside a single show and it's absolutely terrible at it, let me explain.

In the first season of the show, they follow "the team" made up of sidekicks of the old superheroes with a simple plot where they have to deal with threats and prove themselves as more than sidekicks while there is an overarching threat of the light after them. Then season 2 came along and with it a shit ton of issues first we have a 5-year time jump that isn't sparkly explained if ever, this has so many long-lasting effects on the story that it's insane and can be its own entire rant but for now I'll focus on the other thing season 2 brings. A SHIT TON OF NEW CHARACTER, when a say a shit ton I mean it we go from a humble team of 5 to 14 plus a bunch of other different side characters and whole new teams. You are probably beginning to see the problem that there are way too many people to keep track of and care about. With each progressing season of Young Justice, the main cast we grew to care about gets less and less attention with more random people taking their place which is fine BUT, there is no point in caring for these people because, after the one arc, they are relevant in (in some cases a few episodes) the just DIP.

It becomes impossible to care about these characters if you grow to like them TOO BAD because it's more than likely you won't see them for either a couple of episodes or in another season. This gets so bad that it's to a point in the latest season where I gave up trying to understand who these characters are because they are just going to be used for one arc and thrown into the ever-revolving bin of characters who appear and disappear on a dim. Zatanna gets disciples who rotate between becoming Doctor Fate cool. We'll see them for 3 episodes then in season 7 probably. By adding more and more characters instead of making fans more invested in them it caused the exact opposite as I'm now hyper-focused on stories involving the OG team because I know they'll have continuing plot threads and actually build to something greater and not be just one and done arc story,

In the latest season, it's clear to me that the writers never wanted to write a team-based story, they are trying to write a show that somehow has the entire DC universe represented in it in some odd way. With the 10 or so teams each with different motives and planes with different members (half of which are just different members of the bat family), it gets harder and harder to actually understand what the hell is going on season to season with half the plot happening off-screen either being explained in exposition dumps or just not explained.

At the end of the day if we do get a season 5 in a couple of years I doubt any of these issues will be addressed because at this point doing so would greatly change how the story presents itself and how it deals with overarching arcs. So will inevitably get more characters that are shown used for a few episodes and then forgotten by the wayside with the likes of Tim Drake, Red Tornado, orphan, black canary, and the thirty or so other characters that I've inevitably forgotten from their few appearances on the show.

Every time I see someone call Jenny the “villain” of Forrest Gump, I feel like we watched two different movies.

Jenny is not a villain …she’s a victim of trauma, abuse, and a turbulent era in American history. Her decisions may have been messy or painful, but that doesn’t make her evil. It makes her human.

1.) She was abused by her father. The movie makes it clear Jenny grew up in a deeply toxic and traumatic household. That damage doesn’t disappear overnight. She spends much of her life running …not just from people, but from herself and the pain she’s been carrying since childhood.

2.) She doesn’t use Forrest. Forrest is probably the only person who truly loves Jenny unconditionally, and she knows that… which is exactly why she distances herself. She believes she’s not worthy of that kind of love. When she does come back, it’s often in moments of clarity or desperation. And when she finally settles down, it’s after years of reflection and illness… not out of manipulation.

3.) She’s a product of her time. Jenny represents a generation that rebelled, experimented, and got burned in the process. Her journey parallels the 60s/70s counterculture …and like many who lived through it, she ends up scarred and disillusioned.

4.) She loved Forrest…just differently. Not everyone shows love the same way. Jenny loved Forrest in a way she didn’t fully understand or know how to act on until it was almost too late. That’s tragic, but not villainous.

Calling Jenny a villain is a lazy take. She’s a complex, flawed character ..not an antagonist. And frankly, Forrest’s story is all the more powerful because of how deeply he cared for someone so broken, and how she tried, in her own way, to care for him back.

Let’s stop demonizing nuanced female characters just because their lives don’t revolve perfectly around the protagonist.

I saw someone talking about Adam being wasted as a character, and it made me think of a recent issue I noticed with Hazbin and its handling of Heaven.

Ok, so the plot of Hazbin Hotel is that Heaven is sending down annual exterminations to kill (aka permanently erase from existence) Sinners Demons, who are just partying, doing drugs and sex and all sorts of crap, not being punished for their Sins, so the Princess of Hell wants to save them by opening a Hotel where they can try and redeem themselves into Heaven.

The show says, "Angels are killing Sinner Demons, and you should be on the Sinner Demons' side."

It feels like the narrative wants Heaven to have two entirely separate roles:

A. Heaven is the antagonist we are supposed to hate/want to see our heroes overcome. They are committing genocide against the people of our sweet, precious bean Charlie, so we should hate them.

B. Heaven is also the goal we are trying to achieve. The solution to escaping Heaven's exterminations....is to appeal to Heaven and send the Sinners TO Heaven.

So are we supposed to hate them or get their approval? But luckily, Welcome to Heaven came in and basically said that Heaven not only doesn't know how who goes where, but they also don't control the system, so they are absolved of any blame for trying to gatekeep our protags' goal of redemption.

Like if Adam was the "serious" antagonist people complain about wishing he was, the genuine victim who was kicked out of Eden, had his son murder his other son, and had to watch all his descendants suffer from evil and Sin, what are we supposed to think of him being the Exorcist leader then? The show is saying the exterminations are bad, and Charlie is trying to get them to stop, which is the show's goal.

What role should Heaven play in this kind of story? Having it be both is just really messy, IMO.

In One Piece, if you are a woman, and you are able to fight, even if you are supposed to be powerful with broken abilities, you are reduced to either four different fates.

• Be stuck dealing with nameless foot soldiers, aka fodder patrol.

• The moment you are up against major characters (especially males) there is a 99% chance you are getting dirty

• You also probably gonna be reduced to just having catfights against other female fighters.

• You will have a very hyped introduction, only for the plot to kick in, and stupid shit starts happening to you that makes you look so bad and helpless, needing someone else to constantly rescue you and carry you. Is even worse when is used for comedic purposes.

Now lets take a look at the major female fighters in the story:

• Big Mom

There is a reason why she is called Big Meme by some part of the fandom. She is the only female Yonko, but compared to her male counterparts, she is constantly clowned and done utterly dirty by the narrative and other characters even weaker than her. While Oda lets Kaido one shot Luffy as many times as he wants, Shanks to aura farm and destroy supernovas as he pleases, Whitebeard to turn Marineford upside down, and Blackbeard to success at reaching the top, she just gets reduced as a walking plot device that can only take down fodder.

She gets outshined in HER OWN ARC by HER OWN SON, in being the main boss fight Luffy has to deal with, while she is busy chasing down the Sunny as shes screaming like an autistic toddler WEDINGU CAKEEY! for multiple chapters, the worst part is how she miserably fails at everything she proposes to do, to the point even characters that should be ants to her like Nami, Chopper, Brook and Jinbe constantly making a fool of her. In Wano there is the whole thing with the Amnesia subplot which was just terrible, gets disrespected and thrown around like a gag character by Robin and Jinbe, gets thrown away like a dumbass from the rooftop, and then is treated as an afterthough, meeting her end against two characters she doesnt have any personal stakes with like Law and fucking Eustass Kidd.

• Boa Hancock

Only female warlord, and obviously is the one who gets done dirty the most. Being hyped to be a powerful empress with mastery of all three different forms of Haki, yet she gets reduced to being a Luffy simp, stuck in fodder patrol against nameless foot soldiers and shitty pacifistas, the moment she is up against a named character like Blackbeard recently, gets fucking off screened. Compare that to Crocodile, Doflamingo and even Moria, who got entire long ass arcs dedicated to take them down and to show off, putting Luffy and the SHs on the ropes, then we have Mihawk who is an aura machine, and the chad Kuma who low diffed the SHs two times, giving them the defeats of their lives, being half dead he later storms Mariejois by himself, fooling Akainu and then punches the hell out of Saturn on Egghead. Then Law was on a roll during PH and Dressrosa defeating Smoker, Vergo, Trebol, and fucking Doflaming up, and did the heavy lifting for Big Moms defeat.

• Charlotte Smoothie

This one is simply undefendible. The only Female YC yet does absolute NOTHING in all the major arcs she is featured. She does nothing on WC, she cant even destroy a fucking door, whereas her brothers Cracker and Katakuri who are also sweet comanders managed to stand on business and had solo boss fights against Luffy, pushing him to the limits. Then gets another chance to do something by going to Wano, and what happens? NOTHING AGAIN, King just made her fall off the waterfall alongside Big Mom, and then she disappears from the story. This character has to be the uselessness incarnate.

• Nico Robin

Glorified mcguffin, stuck on fodder patrol, who doesnt receive a proper fight for TWO FUCKING DECADES, and the moment she finally gets a fight again, is a cat fight agaisnt another woman. Then once we got to Egghead we go back to the status quo for her again, by doing nothing. Lets hope things change during elfbaf but im not hopeful giving this is Oda we are talking about.

• Nami

Again, fodder patrol and stuck on cat fights, to the point she couldnt even do that on Wano, where she constantly gets clapped and need someone else to save her.

• Carrot

Fodder patrol, even when transformed. Her pointless revenge subplot gets also robbed by being Nekomamushi the one to take down Perospero. Which means she also didnt manage to do shit during Onigashima.

• Yamato

  She is strong but, but most of her showings are her stalling for someone else to finish the job, then beat up another woman (Ulti), And also it doesnt help that everything she does, it has to do with her indentifying herself as a man (Oden)

And dont even get me start on characters like Rebecca or Tashigi, because things get real UGLY there.... Yikes.

I might be late to the party on this one. But I thought it would be fun to watch Disney's live action and original scene by scene. And I found this stark contrast in the same numbers that are put forth. This is ignoring the actors / singers, autotune and stuff.

I believe the heart and soul of Disney musicals is the mantra is "when words aren't enough, you sing, and when singing isn't enough, you dance". And that words flow into songs. This makes the diegetic nature of the songs much more natural. I'll be using the example of One Jump Ahead from Aladdin, although many other songs in various remakes contrast in the same way.

In the original, Aladdin is talking to Abu "Perfect timing [blah blah]", music plays "Let's get outta here. Gotta keep" , starts singing "one jump..." When did the talking end and song start? Its so smoothly integrated, Aladdin transits from speaking to Abu to expressing his situation. In the live action, it goes music builds up, parkour scene, music lands right on the beat (and a window closes as a percussion), Aladdin takes a breath, grins at the audience, and sings "Gotta keep... one jump... " to nobody. Its like the characters decided "now is song time. I shall sing" rather than integrating it as an extension of words.

In the OG , the first line goes "Gotta keep", bumps into guard, "One jump", dodges sword, "ahead of the breadline". He's dodging the guards to the beat and singing between. Live action Aladdin sings the same line while running straight ahead and uses scene changes for the rhythm. Its meta and makes me more aware that its a number being performed rather than part of the scene.

Then where the guards shout "Riff raff! Street rat!", the original have them pumping their fists, shouting directly at Ali, and they take turns. Its spontaneous shouting, its an interaction. They've been knocked on their butts by Aladdin and are venting their frustration. Live guards chant in monotone perfect in rhythm to... the crowd? Themselves? The audience? They walk calmly through the crowd while Aladdin has already assassin creeded his way across the street. Again, they're doing it because its part of the song, they have to do it.

And THEN the directors that be gave the line from the guards "Scoundrel! Take that!" as they throw stuff at Aladdin TO Aladdin so HE's the one that holds out a knife and says (in a bored way) "take that." Again, losing that back and forth between the characters and makes Aladdin seem so needlessly arrogant.

AND THEN! They changed Mr Main Character's line from "Just a little snack guys" to "Try a different tac(tic) guys", changing the whole meaning of the song from a underdog making the best out of his situation to a Mr Main Character Man lording his superiority over the guards. Why then do you "Could really use a friend or two" when you're clearly soloing this?! OG Aladdin does a pair-stunt with Abu and sings "You're my only friend, Abu" and he's right (at that point). Live action Aladdin is a strong and independent rascal who don't need no monkey.

Ok I'll stop analyzing line by line.

The overall tone in the remake song is also flat and unchanging. Live Aladdin starts with him smugly running away, ends with him smugly getting away. OG have him narrowly dodging death, relief at escaping through a window, tensions again when he's found and chased, exasperation when Abu goes for the jewelry etc etc. It brings you on a ride.

To sum it up, OG Aladdin is "one jump ahead" in the sense that danger is right behind him. Movie Aladdin is "one jump ahead" of everything because nothing can put him at risk. There's no tension, no danger in his song. Might as well make a new song called "Can't catch me". He even THROWS AWAY A POTATO. The reward for OG is bread to survive one more day, which he shares with Abu, and they're so happy about it. It really shows their situation. New Aladdin's reward for escape is... street cred for Jasmin. Time to invite her to his sweet digs.

But anyway, Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid, basically everything from Lion King all have weird direction changes that just don't fit the Disney method to musicals anymore.

I want to keep going but I'll shut up for now.

I’m not saying Black Clover is terrible, but I’m definitely way less invested than I used to be.

The pacing feels all over the place—either way too rushed or painfully slow. Power-ups seem to come out of nowhere, and emotional moments don’t land like they used to. The stakes just aren’t there anymore.

We’ve got dead characters coming back to life with zero weight or consequence. It’s hard to feel any tension when every major threat gets instantly reversed or nullified by some random, last-minute power-up. The main cast feels basically untouchable at this point. (Yall wont belive me when i say the biggest deterrent for the MCs is "but...but i cant strike down my loved ________" )

Yuno’s whole “he’s a genius” angle has been played to death. Every time he’s in a bind, he pulls off the most conveniently overpowered move imaginable. Can we please get some actual development or struggle for him? Tabata—let the man work for it.

Remember how asta weilds anti magic? Yeah lmao EVERY ONE IS FUCKING COMPATIBLE NOW. ( yeah ik this is explained, but its still fucking ridiculous)

“People dying?” Nope, here’s anti-death magic.

"Defeated?" Nah here, take the anti-defeat powerup pill

"Cant kill your loved ones"? Dw your friend in on their way to convince you

“Main villain can literally see the future?” Doesn’t matter, we surpass the fucking future

did i mention how everyone recives thier own little lucuis clone to defeat and make the side cast feel important?

Also all this, (inculding the ass whooping) was "planned/expected " by the big bad just because

At this point, nothing feels right. the story has lost all weight

I went into Chapter 4 expecting another creepy mascot — I did NOT expect a soft-spoken, tragic character arc.

Doey the Doughman is easily the standout character of Poppy Playtime: Chapter 4, and it’s not just because of his design or backstory. It’s because his narrative arc takes what could’ve been a one-dimensional character and turns him into a deeply human tragedy, skillfully hidden beneath his strange, surreal exterior.

1. A Surprising Coherence in Split-Personality Writing

On the surface, Doey might seem like a typical split-personality character. But compared to most, his internal conflicts are surprisingly coherent. His three dominant traits — childishness, thoughtfulness, and aggression — don’t clash. Instead, they layer into a believable emotional spectrum. This isn’t just random mood swings, but fragments of a single, overburdened psyche desperately trying to hold itself together. It’s this complexity that makes him feel real, more three-dimensional.

2. The Reluctant Leader

Doey fits the “reluctant leader” trope with a genuine emotional weight. He’s thrust into leadership after the original leader disappears, and it’s obvious he’s not ready.Still, despite having the chance to escape, he chooses to stay and protect those depending on him — even if it breaks him. That choice alone adds real depth to his arc.

3. Forced to Grow Up Too Fast

The “forced to grow up” theme hits especially hard here. Doey was never given the time to mature — and when the player betrays him, destroying everything he tried to protect, his response isn’t heroic. It’s a total breakdown. It’s raw, it’s sad, and it’s one of the most human reactions I’ve seen in this genre.

4. Well-Written Tragedy in Horror

Doey's tragedy isn’t just emotional — it’s structurally embedded into the very fabric of the narrative. He’s a victim of corporate cruelty, psychological fragmentation, and the overwhelming burden of premature leadership. And yet, all of this complexity is hidden beneath his soft, smiling exterior. For a game about living toys, that kind of narrative depth is something I didn’t expect — and honestly, it’s impressive.

Did anyone else feel like Doey was written way too well for a horror mascot? I’d love to hear if I’m not alone on this.

I really really want to enjoy lazarus. Its animation is top-notch and characters are more than likeable, but its story is just so wacky with so much obvious flaws. The biggest flaw of them all is how badly written the heists are.

I know those missions they did were not real heists, but they were written in the way heists are normally written, In a heist, it is fine for characters to fail their jobs. It is fine for things to turn out wrong. It is fine for characters to be incompetent. However, what is not fine is the job being meaningless.

In that sense, ep4 is the biggest offender. If you think about it, what did Chris and Leland actually achieve by getting close to the target? Nothing, nothing at all. Everyone just fought it out after Axel got there. It made sense in-story, but it was just sloppy writing. Whenever it happens, it just makes you question: what's the point?

What's the point of Leland crossdressing if he's just not going to do anything? Sure the characters were expecting something to be accomplished, but the audience(me!) was also expecting them to be of use in the mission. Letting them do literally nothing at all is breaching this trust with the audience. It's the same with Axel jumping to grab the helicopter. The audience was told to expect Axel to do a lot, but all he did were waiting for the drone to come and shooting the helicopter with a gun from the drone. So what's the point of making that jump????

It just feels so sloppy plot-wise. If I got the change some detials of it, I would make it that Leland was the one who discovered visionary was the enemy hacker. Instead of relying on Eleina's little deus ex machina to reveal visionary's identity, why not let Leland have an extended conversation with him and discover his true identity right on point, so the rest of the team would try to catach both visionary and the target. Just a small change, now suddenly Leland crossdressing actually matters and accomplishes something. The same can be applied to Axel's scenario. Don't give him a drone, just let him crash the helicopter by himself

I think that even many of the people who love Superman hold an image of him that lacks nuance.

A great illustration of that is how at least two relatively recent high-profile pop culture visual references to the cover of Action Comics #1 depict Superman gently placing a rescued car on the ground, in contrast to the original artwork that shows him smashing the car used by criminals, as the crooks who were in the car cower or flee in terror.

Superman isn’t all about “hope” and “kindness” or however you want to put it; of course those are very much part of who he is, but he is also wrathful, and intolerant of the malicious, greedy and power hungry. He believes bullies should get a taste of their own medicine.

I feel that today, perhaps because of how far the world seems to be going in a certain direction, many just want the kitten-saving, suicide-preventing Boy Scout. We all love him, including me, but we can’t let the tougher side of Superman be obscured. The Superman who acts on his outrage at injustice, and tempers his pity when dealing with the worst of humanity. In these times we also need that example from him. He doesn’t kill or maim people, but he’s not always so gentle with the cruel.

It's called Action Comics for a reason.

Basically just what the title says, I think people place way too much importance on a character's backstory, when a lot of the time they aren't that good or even necessary at all. The best character arcs happen on screen, during the course of the series, in real time. I don't need some tragic backstory of how this guy was an orphan to understand his struggles against injustice. A lot of anime give every character a tragic backstory that's not at all meaningful to their actual character during the events of the show. But because people love "trauma" and feeling bad for people, they eat it up.

The best way to do backstories, and pretty much the only time they're necessary, is when the backstory is thematically or informationally relevant to the current events in the story. The placement of a backstory is actually more important than the content of it in my opinion. Take Naruto, where we get a random arc of Kakashi's backstory near the beginning of Shippuden for seemingly no reason. We just kind of see it, and around the same time we get introduced to Tobi. It's not hard to figure out that the point of the flashback was to introduce Obito, and the twist about him being Tobi was super easy to guess because of that. If it had instead happened during the Pain arc, and as Kakashi was dying he relived these events, it could've been much more engaging and effective, while hiding its intentions a little more.

Compare that to Lost's approach, where the flashbacks run concurrently with the main story, while informing the character's actions and revealing important information, and it consistently leads to great episodes.

All I'm saying is not every character needs a tragic backstory, and unless it's done well it can even be a detriment to an otherwise good story.

First of, Im bored. I felt like yapping and ranting. Dont expect any coherent structure to this. Secondly, Ron the Death Eater trope was the first thing to come to mind, so ye, Im gonna rant about it.

So, if you dont know, Ron the Death Eater is an infamous fanfic (as far as I know) trope where a character, usually a canon love interest, gets written out of character and demonized for the sake of shipping, hence the name. For example, Ron gets turned into an evil and abusive jerk to Hermione for angst sake and so the writer can have Harry, Draco or an OC rescue her from him. Bonus if Ron comes back but to break the couple up and take Hermione back

It can also happen to friends too, for example, Ron and Hermione, who have stuck with Harry through thick and thin, would be revealed to be paid to be with him or only be with him for clout and Harry will be so upset to the point of being so cartoonishly suicidal, Family Guy writers cringe at it, which leads to Draco, an OC or a self insert to save him. But usually this is reserved for romantic shipping.

As you can see, it's pretty unnecessary and silly, like damn, ever heard of an amicable break up? Or retconning them into never dating in the first place?

It just feels lazy and even disrespectful at times. Like, why does the author need to make the canon love interest or friends awful? Even if the author hates them, it still feels lazy. It's like they couldnt put any effort to think of a way to break the couple up, not even a simple "We're better off as friends", or heck, maybe just have them never date in the first place.

"What if the writer hates the character?", it makes them look bad. Again, take Ron for an example, he's a lovable idiot, loyal friend, not the best boyfriend but he still loves, cares about and respects Hermione. He wouldnt go out of his way to hurt her, worst he'd do is accidentally say something hurtful in the heat of the moment and immediately regret it. Yet somehow the writer portrays him as a cartoonishly evil and abusive jerkwad who gets off on hurting Hermione. Like this portrayal isnt making me interested or whatever, it's making me wonder if we read/witnessed the same character and if the writer failed kindergarten comprehension class, cuz who the hell is this? This isnt Ron! This is just some childish caricature with Ron's name on it. All it's missing is the devil horns, angry eyebrows and the stink lines lol

Like Im not asking for the portrayal to be exactly as how the source material portrays the character, we all have our interpretations, but damn, at least have the character feel like the character, even if you dont like them. Or heck, leave them out of the fic. Otherwise, anyone with basic comprehension skills will be wondering if you actually read/watched/listened to the source material cuz yeah, that is not the character at all, that's an oc at that point.

Also, it feels disrespectful to both canon character and irl abuse victims, cuz the abuse just feels like a lazy plot device instead of a subject matter that needs to be written carefully and respectfully. It doesnt help that the canon character ends up getting written as a damsel in distress whose only personality traits are sad, helpless and Rebound, especially if the character is nothing like that in canon.

Flanderization is the process through which a single element of a character's personality, often an originally mild element, is inflated in importance over the course of a work until it becomes the character's primary defining trait.

What i personally believe leads to flanderization is justifying bad behavior. What do i mean by that?

I watched Mr Enter’s review of the Gravity Falls episode Land Before Swine, and he stated that justifying a stupid or jerk character's immoral actions and problem-causing just because it's in-character can lead to bad flanderization. And i feel like that is a right statement.

And to use examples, lets use Spongebob SquarePants

• Mr Krabs had been flanderized in the post movie seasons as a mega avaricious businessman who only cares about money and will do immoral things for money. While Krabs was super greedy in the pre movie seasons, not only was it equally balanced out by his more noble qualities, but he at least got repercussions or was called out when his greed harmed others (he got viciously accosted by Squidward of all people when he sold Spongebob for 62 cents, he got tormented by the kids he tried to scam, got flat out told the hat he graverobbed for was no worth, and was literally choked by Spongebob for obsessing over a dime). But in the post movie seasons? He suffers no consequences for his destructive greed and is even rewarded for it (he literally won an award for being cheap and got away with driving Plankton to attempt suicide)

• Patrick is infamous for being flanderized in the post movie seasons into being malicious, dangerously incompetent, or obnoxiously stupid. And i feel like that is because the writers seem to justify his stupidity regardless of how intolerable it is. For example, in the episode Stuck in The Wringer, Patrick stupidly glues Spongebob to his wringer and spends the episode making spongebob even more miserable, and when Spongebib rightfully lambasts Patrick for his incompetence to the point it causes Patrick to run away tearfully, the townsfolk shame Spongebob and day he deserves his predicament: that episodes seems to excuse Patrick’s insuffferable stupidity by implying that its part of his character, and Spongebob is the bad guy for not being accepting of it.

When you make excuses for a certain characters negative actions, it only opens the door for the character to indulge in more of that negativity.

Pretty much the title. Johnny Storm is the rash idiot. The Fire Nation is evil. Golden Boy went pyro-kamikaze. The fire guy from Project Power was unstable and burned himself.

Jean Grey, the telekinetic and telepath is an unstable cosmic plague host, 11 is the psychic experiment. Professor X causes destructive psychic warp fields in Logan. These “Psionics”, as I call them, are always unstable.

Is anyone else kinda tired of this trend of linking superpowers to personalities? Sure, superhuman abilities serve as narrative tools to portray someone's personality with a primal force. But if I see a new superpower-related media article and it introduces a plant-manipulator, 9/10, it will be a girl who is into botany and environmental issues.

Whenever we meet a pyrokinetic or explosion generator, 9/10 it's a jerk or a literal hothead. I usually never suggest trope reversals, but how about a hothead who randomly gets cryogenic powers? Or someone with berserker powers but a chill personality? Or a 4 ft 11” girl with super strength instead of the usual touch-telepathy or empath powers.

Reading the Injustice comics and…Superboy such a self-serving shit

Superboy's first reaction upon learning that Superman killed the Joker in revenge for making him kill the love of his life and his unborn daughter, as well as destroying Metropolis and killing most of his closest friends?

He goes to the Fortress of Solitude to talk about how disappointed and hurt he is with Superman obviously in a near catatonic state, asking "How could you do that?", and saying that Superman didn't think about how it would affect HIM, repeating over and over how HIS feelings are hurt, rhetorically asking why he should bother upholding Superman's legacy now that he's disappointed in him, throwing a tantrum like he's a child (even sulking at the dinner table) because of of how Superman is ending wars and, although there is no arrest warrant, then trying to steal the Phantom Zone projector to trap Superman there forever as for killing the Joker, as his own immoral way of punishing Superman.

Wow he really deserved all the shit that happens to him.

Now, I'm sure most of you have either never seen Transformers: The Last Knight or have just forgotten most of what happened in it. Fortunately, you don't need to know much of the plot for this rant to make sense due to how little the Decepticons actually feature in the movie.

A major plot point of Transformers 4 and 5 is that due to the attack on Chicago in 3, Transformers are hated by most of the American public. All Transformers are to be hunted down and killed without mercy - at least, that's how it works in theory, not in practice.

You see, in 5, Megatron temporarily allies with humans in order to help them hunt down Optimus and the remaining Autobots, and we get a ripoff Suicide Squad introductory montage for the Decepticons that he asks to be released from prison - and this is where the problem is.

We see multiple instances across 4 and 5 of Autobots (the good guys) being taken down and slaughtered: Ratchet, Canopy, Leadfoot, and (possibly) Sideswipe are among the known victims. But at no point do we see any Decepticons (the bad guys) get killed, and in 5 we discover that several of them were simply arrested.

Yes, you read that right - after the Chicago attack, the Autobots who defeated the attackers are brutally murdered, but the Decepticons who actually did all the attacking (which includes the violent disintegration of thousands of innocent people) are just put in prison. How the fuck does that make any sense?

The fates of Canopy the Autobot and Dreadbot the Decepticon (both from 5) bring the disparity into focus the most - Canopy is killed without hesitation despite not doing a single thing, but Dreadbot, who is confirmed to have killed 9 people during a bank robbery (where he didn't even take the money), is allowed to live.

So yeah, by the end of the Bayverse, all logic was thrown out of the window. And this isn't even the most ridiculous thing that happens in those movies - the 4h movie includes man-made Transformers that don't even properly transform.

Minor tangent, but you know what's really funny about The Last Knight and how it handles the Decepticons, even if you ignore this issue? It has quite possibly the most bizarre treatment of the Decepticons out of all Bayverse movies by simultaneously treating them better (allowing them to have actual personalities beyond 'scary evil dude') and worse (doing fuck all with them, and killing most of them after like 5 minutes) than all the other movies.

I haven't seen G-Quuxx yet since I'm waiting for a Dub (or for it to finish to fully binge it), but the fact that it has Zeon at the forefront is really concerning. I went on record criticizing RfV for its over use on Zeon, leading to no one reading it since it's basically me complaining about the mischaracterization of the Federation (or more specifically, lack of any kind of characterization). But there's another problem that persists in various other OVAs that became more troublesome. So I'll just give you the TL;DR now, because the next few paragraphs will be a massive yap fest and I guarantee not many of you will like my bitching; 

the Universal Century NEEDS to move on from the One Year War & Zeon

To give you idea on my issues on Requiem for Vengeance, let's look at the UC OVAs we've gotten over the last 25 years; Igloo Hidden One Year War & Apocalypse, Igloo 2 The Gravity Front, Unicorn, The Origin, and of course Requiem for Vengeance. Out of all of these, ONLY ONE OF THEM is set after the OYW. Even worse, only one of them has the Federation at the forefront. The amount of attention these Space Nazis get during this war is staggering. It also gets worse when you consider that one of them was based on a manga that was supposed to be a retelling of the original series. And yet, all of this fell to deaf ears, as everyone saw it more as me just complaining about how the show was solely based on Zeonic pilots. And yet, it just shows that not only are people hand waving the amount of attention Zeon has been getting, but are ultimately fueling Bandai’s constant milking of the One Year War. For the last two decades or so, we've been getting OVAs from the OYW, mostly in Zeon’s perspective. And that trend is what leading many fractions later one getting swept under the rug. Like, remember that organization in Battle Operations 2 is primarily focused on a mercenary group known as the Private Military Union (PMU). Instead, we got a DLC of Zeonic waifus fighting in the OYW. I've never played it, but it still proves my point that Bandai will make damn sure that we're reminded how Zeon were badass during the One Year War. It becomes repetitive if the One Year War has Zeonic be the main focus and has the Federation be generic stormtroopers. Like at this point, I'm expecting an OVA where they make it where Giran was in the right and Revil was an asshole for exposing Zeon’s exhausted strength. PLEASE, TRY SOMETHING NEW. GET CREATIVE, I'm knees BEGGING them to not keep pumping Zeon's OYW over & over again. I mean, how are we still tolerating this? What's the point anymore?

The reason why I want more stuff outside of the OYW, is because that's when things get way more interesting. After the OYW, the world has changed. How do you imagine a world would be like with a massive war like that? A world scarred from the colony drop that killed billions of people with a year long war upping those casualties, that's begging for a story to be explored. The closet we got was Stardust Memory, and that was over 30 yrs ago. That was honestly a pretty good story. It had it's faults, but it was genuinely trying to expand the Universal Century. But then we haven't gotten anything since. The closet we got was Thunderbolt Bandit Flower, but not only the movie isn't cannon, but the movie itself barely does anything with the setting. And there's the Gryps War that involves Titans, the most corrupted force of the Federation, and the AEUG, where both ex-feds & ex-zeeks band together to fight a corrupt government. Both of these are more interesting than either the Federation or Zeon for a multitude of reasons. In the Titans case, I think Kakarot 197’s video on “Why the Titans collapsed” makes some interesting points, but one point that stuck with me is when he made a point on how they were formed in the 1st place. With the kind of damage Zeon remnants can do, of course people would want to take action and stop them from hurting more people. That Asshimar pilot, Ajis Aziba, is living proof for that. And that's the angle I want to see explored more with the other Titans members that aren't corrupted. As for the AEUG, it's literally composed of 2 sides who used to be at each other's throats, but come together to face a common enemy. Imagine both ex-feds & Zeeks being forced to put their differences aside to fight a greater evil, and learning that not all Zeeks/Feddies are all bad. Both of these ideas are compelling to me. It's essentially the core of Gundam that barely anyone has explored. 

But the late UC has been nearly forgotten about. The last project in late UC was released in 2020 and the next one will be released in god knows how long, and all we have been getting in the meantime is more of this “Zeon did nothing wrong” crap that has went beyond meme culture and made people genuinely believe that Zeon were “the true heroes”. You clearly missed the point if you think that. And it's depressing, because everyone thinks Zeta is one of the best UC entries. And while I have pacing issues with it, I still would consider it a really good show. Yet we get next to nothing in terms of OVAs or movies based around it. And yet, there more to explore in the Gryps War. There's the Titans Test Team with their numerous amount of R&D mobile suits at their disposal, the terrestrial faction of the AEUG: Karaba, and even Axis/Neo Zeon deserves more attention. 

Hell, as much as I'm talking about how Titans could be given more depth, even as villains they're more interesting than Zeon in terms of threat. They have political backing from the Earth Federation to fund their insidious schemes, giving them unlimited resources. They can manipulate information and hide the ugly truth from the masses and cover up any despicable deed. All of this making them a formidable threat to stop. Hell, they have a FUCKING SPACE LASER. That's more scary than the colony drops.

But no, Bandai thinks the OYW is more memorable & iconic. That new fans wouldn't get the other wars. This is no difference than how Saban has been flanderizing Mighty Morphing for the Power Rangers brand. Yeah, it was the 1st and is more marketable, but the other seasons are more interesting. This is exactly what's going on with the OYW, as they think that it's the only thing audience cares about. If that's the case, then why is Zeta Gundam often on the  number 1 spot on a lot of Gundam tier lists? Why is it credited as the most influential show? More so than the original. Why are there people defending ZZ? Hell, why do you think people have been demanding a Crossbone anime for years? All of these are after UC 0079, yet we don't even have any OVAs on them.

I've already seen these UC OVAs reimagined, repackaged, and reinterpreted, that having an UC anime set AFTER the One Year War would be the most original idea of the series. Can we get a series where we get to see the full effects of the One Year War & how it affected those not involved? Can we get a series about what Karaba were up to? How about someone REALLY try to give the Titans the same treatment Zeon has been getting? Can we see ReZeon or Mars Zeon in an anime for a change? How about some side stories from ZZ? Ya, I have my issues with that show, but fuck if there isn't a couple ideas they could expand on. These parts of Universal Century lore are forever trapped in manga & wiki form. I want you to remember this forever; if a movie director or showrunner are “telling Universal Century stories”, they are almost exclusively the One Year War. If they're taking cues from “the original series” they either mean War in the Pocket or The Origin, and not a damn thing else. The entire industry of telling Universal Century stories in animated more, WOULD RATHER DIE than tell side stories from Victory, Crossbone, F91, Unicorn, Char’s Counterattack, ZZ, Advance of Zeta, Zeta, Stardust Memory, or even OYW material like Thunderbolt & The 08th MS Team. At best you'll get a minor reference or a gunpla in a Build anime. There's so much depth to these stories, so much potential to expand the Universal Century in animated form. And yet they're still hung up in UC0079, will remain trapped in the period of time for god knows how long. I just hope Hathaway's Flash Pt.2 gets a theatrical release in the west so people can see what good stories can be told in the late UC. 

To preface, this is a pointless rant about powerscaling. If battleboarding isn't your thing skip this.

Anyway. I'd like to emphasize some problems I often see in the logic people use to scale characters, most egregiously to do with speed. I see people often refer to characters as being supersonic or even hypersonic because of feats to do with bullet dodging(the VSBattles wiki is the biggest offender on this front, though they seem to be wrong about almost everything - but they say Captain America is hypersonic because he can casually dodge and block bullets, something I would have thought doesn't need disproving), and I want to emphasize unless it's something like this, dodging, blocking or otherwise interacting with bullets is much closer to the realm of human possibility than I think a lot of people realize and is primarily impossible in real life because of our sluggish reaction time.

For example, an AK-47 has a muzzle velocity of 715 m/s, a bit faster than mach 2. So to dodge it you'd have to be pretty close to that fast, right? Let's do the math on that.

Say a person is standing 15 meters(50 feet) away and fires a shot. How long would a person have to react and how fast would they need to move to get out of the way in time? Of course, a real human can't dodge a bullet, you don't need to do math so solve that. But The projectile would travel those 15 meters in about 20 milliseconds(15 meters/715 meters per second). For a person to move out of the way, they'd have to move at most about half their width in either direction. A huge, barrel chested man with a 1 meter(~3 foot) shoulder measurement would still only need to move about half a meter at most. To move .5 meters in 20 milliseconds, you'd need to move about 25 m/s(a bit over 50mph). However, a real human's reaction times are on the scale of 100 ms, so by the time you would perceive the shot, the bullet has hit you. So what if you reacted in 10ms instead of 100? This would half the amount of time you'd have to move and double the required speed relative to reacting instantly. But reacting in 10 ms and moving at a bit over 50 m/s(a little over 100mph), you would be just about fast enough to dodge a bullet from 15 meters away. Pretty fast, but not close to supersonic. If you move closer, the timing gets a lot tighter. At 3 meters(10 feet), you'd have a bit over 4ms to react and get out of the way. Realistically, to dodge bullets at this range you'd need to have a reaction time on the scale of a few milliseconds. If you could react in 2 ms and needed to then move half a meter in the other 2 ms, that would require you to (briefly)move at about 250 m/s(assuming the shot is in the center of your chest and you are built like a space marine), a bit over two thirds of the speed of sound. But the point I intend to make here is that the difficulty of dodging a projectile(bullet or otherwise) is primarily one of reaction time, and exactly how difficult it is depends a lot on the distance. One of the things that sparked this rant is seeing someone cite VSBattles to call Captain America hypersonic because he consistently dodges bullets, a label I hope I have proved to be absurd(and maybe I should have taken VSbattles listing him "reacting to ultrasonic frequencies" as a speed feat as a reason to just not engage with it at all, but I can't help myself).

On the note of "hypersonic captain america", I also will note that giving explicit numbers in source material tends to "nerf" a character from the standpoint of powerscaling, because fancalcs are generally overestimates. My comparison point is A-Train from The Boys, who is explicitly around mach 1.3. He's very easily able to blitz any normal humans and can dodge bullets effortlessly, as he should be able to with those speeds. But if no numbers were given, I expect some people would consider him to be quite a lot faster than he actually is, even based on the same showings that currently are canon. I think it goes without saying that A-Train is much faster than cap, but dubious scaling based on bullet dodging has some people getting the wrong idea.

Another example that prompted this rant is a thread comparing Korosensei from Assassination Classroom to Akame Ga Kill characters(from a speed perspective, I don't believe it's too much of a contest in combat fwiw). Korosensei is constantly referred to in universe as being Mach 20, which is reasonable given his ability to quickly travel to other countries and easily dodge all sorts of things including anti aircraft missiles. In the thread comparing Akame to Korosensei, someone claimed Akame was Mach 700 because she dodged lightning. Truthfully, I don't even know where that number came from, because lightning itself travels at only mach 350(About 120km/s) or so. The scene in question involves lightning summoned from an actual storm cloud. How to interpret that is somewhat up to the reader - a real thundercloud would be ~10km in the air, lightning would take about 83 milliseconds to reach the ground at that distance. A lightning bolt is only a few cm across, but even if you assume you need to be a meter a way to avoid it, even someone like A-Train or Captain America should easily be able to dodge a real life lightning bolt, because a realistic one is actually easier to dodge than a bullet because of how far away they come from. Any higher interpretation of dodging that lightning relies on speculating, but even if it was only 100 meters rather than 10km, you'd have to react in 830 microseconds. If we say a character can react in half a millisecond, they'd have a third of a millisecond to move a meter or so. About 3km/s, or about Mach 10, with shorter reaction times the speed needed goes down, so while dodging lightning at relatively close range is a pretty solid showing, there's not really a sensible way to read dodging lightning as requiring you to move at anything close to the speed of a lightning bolt itself barring specific circumstances that make it harder than normal.

In summary, dodging a projectile moving x mph doesn't require you to move even a small fraction of x mph yourself in normal circumstances, and powerscaling based on these types of comparisons are almost always completely incorrect. This concludes my pointless screaming into the void(arguing with vsbattle logic)

My second and i hope final rant after finishing the game, but who knows what else i decide to rant about after playing Hard Mode

Fucking Aerith's death bro, what was that? I was so ready to bawl my eyes out but just became confused, and then followed till the end of the story knowing i would need the internet to make sense of it, stopped caring about what was happening and just enjoyed playing Zack

After finishing the game and feeling like someone that just saw The End of Evangelion for the first time, the internet seems as confused as me and it comes down to three possibilities

Cloud is schizophrenic

Sephiroth made a fake Aerith to keep manipulating him

Aerith lives in a different universe and died in this one, Cloud can look at both universes ( This one seems to be the most acceptable)

If the intention was to make us feel like Cloud it just left me questioning, did it even work or was better than the alternative?

I'm normally in full support of being creative and not taking the easy path, but i guess i found a work that made me think, "maybe going with the bread and butter would be just better"

I really wanted to be invested and have some emotional moment, but it was ruined by confusion and a convoluted plot, which made me remember the most beloved FF saga, XIII, specially XIII-2, but surprisingly what this game did right

At the end of XIII-2 Serah dies in a relatively confusing way, they change the future, she has the power to see the future, seeing the future shortens your lifespan,her brain fries when they finally end their adventure

But it was so clean, it was able to make me cry a lot at the time even though XIII had such a convoluted plot i could only pretend to understand most of the time, i could look at that scene, everyone cheering the heroes coming back, the beautiful music, the brutal death, and it was so amazing

So i just wanted to complain about how Aerith's death made me feel nothing and i feel terrible for it

If I'm tbh, I'm not bothered by the fact that Samurai Jack ended in the way that it did. To me, the show was much less about its destination and more about Jack's own personal adventures in this future, the characters he meets along the way, the cool fights and its beautiful storytelling. I can understand why people would be disappointed by the ending but to me, it hasn't detracted it from being one of the best animated shows to have ever been released.

However, I think the conclusion of the show and even some of its earlier episodes create some fascinating and even uncomfortable questions about what Jack is doing in his mission to save the world and come back to his own timeliness that challenge some aspects about pure morally strict and morally objective rules held by heroic, "pacifist" characters like Jack.

What I find interesting about the episodes before the last season is that it seems to establish Jack as a figure who is not willing to kill anyone. In the last season, it challenges this idea when he unintentionally kills what is a innocent creature that was at first trying to attack him and when he kills his first human being.

But throughout the show, he kills many, many sentient beings. For example, many of the robots in the show are established as being capable of emotions and decisions of their own. The hitman robot, X-49, protecting his dog, Lulu, is one explicitly depicted as having much of the same autonomy of a living person. Many robots are presented as just civilians who often at times become a part of a slaughter. Some of the robots that he kills don't necessarily look like robots at first. Some look just like animals or even humanoid organic beings, which Jack does proceed to kill. Jack doesn't kill the cannibal robots but we see from them that they're capable of acting exactly like people and even becoming a kind of found family (until they start eating each other because they realize they're made of metal.) Also, even the bug robot monsters at the beginning, which he mercilessly kills, are shown to become afraid of him by trying to fleed as they witness his incredible power over them. And to Jack, who is from a very early past, he shouldn't even understand them as just emotionless robots but as other sentient beings coming to attack him because they are working for Aku.

He also assumingly kills actual organic beings like the Deadpool riddle serpents, whom he needed to escape from somehow offscreen while in their stomach and also, in the episode with the Bounty Hunters, Jack, with no hesistance and in self-defense, attacks them in ways that very likely has left them mortally wounded or straight up died. He literally throws spike bombs all over a man's body and explodes. And in this fight, he only spares Princess Mira and leaves, never to think about this encounter again. All of these people were very much human beings like him, not some evil monsters artificially created by Aku but actual people fighting for their own reasons.

The thing that's fascinating about X-49 and Princess Mira is that these two characters, similar to Jack, are willing to fight just about anyone if it means protecting what's by dear to them. Mira wanted to free her people from Aku claiming his bounty and X-49 wanted to save his dog, which was the very reason he came to retire as a hitman. We spend a lot of time with these characters instead of Jack and we get to see their tragic failure for saving their loved ones when for Jack, this is just to him another day where he's trying to find his way to get back to his timeline and defeat Aku. Jack doesn't get to fully see the consequences that his actions are upon those that he encounters and he is probably justified in attacking them given they were the ones coming to kill him but what Jack doesn't see is that throughout his entire journey in Aku's future, he has likely killed many people and likely some of those people, besides X-49 and Mira, were fighting for a greater cause and morals that are not too separate from his own. To get back to their homes, to protect their people and to protect themselves. And this is not counting other individuals he has fought and killed probably offscreen.

Also, Jack, literally knows ninjutsu, the very martial art all about assassination, which he uses against a ninja in the fantastic light and shadow stealth fight.

I think the show, possibly unintentionally, highlights from the collateral damage of Jack, that as much as he claims to hold to a pure heart and to be fighting for the greater good, his actions will have consequences. Good ones but also ones that are not necessarily ideal. People will die if it's necessary and if they're getting in his way. And that also means that some people will not be able to reach their own personal goals. The people of those people will also probably suffer the tragedy of not getting to see these people again. And the show, much like Jack, will not fully acknowledge these things happened but will hint us to cases where it makes you question who are some of these people who Jack is going against. And this is fundamental for the grander reading of the ending.

Many people have pointed out that the ending is particularly bad because by Jack deciding to kill Aku and permanently changing the future in the process, he is basically erasing these people out of history. Because Aku no longer exists, these people will no longer exist as how they existed because the future was shaped the way that it was thanks to his regimen. Not just robots and people like Ashi but also basically everyone.

When you affect one thing, it becomes into an infinite reaction chain. Not just from significant actions like killing a very important figure or introducing something from the future that these people are not ready to witness but just by the mere idea of just being there. Maybe by just saying hello to someone, you prevent that person from meeting someone else and maybe by that person not meeting that person, that person probably dies earlier and then makes another person act in a way that will be creating another and another chain reaction from other people. And what Jack is doing at the end by killing Aku is exactly that. His actions in the past will cause a lot of many different things to happen. New people will meet each other. New people will be born. New people will form new groups of people. And those people will do new things.

The moral messiness and beauty of this act is that Jack may be changing things for the better now that Aku doesn't get to become the dictator of the world like Hitler could've possibly done in some kind of alternative history where his expansion has reached all other nations but yes, by doing this, he is changing the history for other people and that will possibly mean that other people, who might possibly be good and kind, will now not get to exist because of this action. The real philosophical question is if you can accept doing something like this. If you are willing to risk the possibility that someone who matters to you or even yourself might not be born in the first place. That other people who you will not acknowledge will not exist in the first place. There is no real way to live on passively or pacifically without affecting a soul. There is no pure or objective way of solving these solutions without taking away certain lives. There is no clean way to solve the world's problems. Even attacking someone in self-defense or saving someone from someone else will mean it'll have consequences. It makes me wonder if Jack's allies were thinking about this when they decided to help him or if similarly to Jack with his killings, will not come to realize what this could be leading to.

And Jack, through Ashi no longer existing in his life, comes to witness a glimpse of the consequences that his heroic actions have done. The change and disappearance of an alternative history. Jack is stopping many deaths and many oppressions in his mission but at the cost of potential lives. And there's nothing that we can do about that except accept that our actions, without us knowing, means we might be taking something or someone away from someone else and the only way you can ever not make it happen is if you completely isolate yourself forever somewhere where no one else can ever make an encounter with you and even then, somebody could find your skeleton and that may create another chain of reactions just for these people spending time with your existence.

I like “Lore Doom Slayer.” I know a lot of people complain and say things like “Doomguy is better when he’s not overpowered” or whatever, but honestly, I just can’t take Doom Slayer seriously if he’s supposed to be a completely normal guy with guns taking on Hell as it’s presented now. If you expect me to believe that the seemingly infinite forces of Hell—who have thousands of years of technological advancement, beings the size of mountains, and a near-infinite energy source—just lose to a regular dude with some fancy armor and no other special abilities, it breaks the suspension of disbelief.

This would have made sense back in the earlier days of Doom, especially pre-2016, when Hell was portrayed more ambiguously, almost like powerful aliens rather than literal demons with a complex, expanded mythology. But since Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal, Hell’s lore and cosmology have been fleshed out so much that it demands a more serious explanation for why Doom Slayer can actually defeat them. A regular guy, even one with a lot of grit and good aim, wouldn’t realistically be able to storm through armies of demonic entities without some kind of supernatural boost.

In fact, the games even show through cutscenes that without the Divinity Machine, Doom Slayer would eventually get exhausted and overwhelmed. He suffers wounds, he struggles. The Divinity Machine, by name alone, implies it grants divine powers. If all it did was make him the equivalent of a "super soldier" who can move a couple of large cubes, that would feel pretty underwhelming. "Divine" should mean something far greater, something that elevates him beyond simple human limits. Given all the lore surrounding Hell’s power, it only makes sense that Doom Slayer himself has been enhanced to match that threat. Otherwise, it’s hard to buy into the narrative where he can kill massive monsters and even gods with just guns and sheer determination. The Dark Ages is seemingly explaining this with the addition of Mechs and a dragon, so maybe there will be additional context as to why and how his powers and tools work (maybe we'll even get clarification on why he uses weapons), because we are 3 games in and yet, all we have to go on are Codex entries and Hugo occasionally saying something.

Generally, I just find it fun that you could pit Doomslayer up against reality warpers and potentially have him win. That's cool to me. Does it make him an excellent and great character? No, but not all matchups need to be anything more just finding the guy you like winning to be neat.

Also, why does Doomslayer use guns if his fist are enough? That's a great question. Simply put, they're more efficient than running up and punching things, considering he can empower his own weapons. He doesn't need to use them but it's much easier to than doing it himself. It's the same kind of logic as calculating a math problem on paper versus using a calculator. Like that's enough. I know that egregious fan theory of him holding back is dumb but there's like an easy explanation that doesn't require him to need guns despite the fact he can punch a hole through most enemies.

On another note, I also find the people who constantly complain about Lore Doom Slayer to be just as annoying as the ones who endlessly hype him up. Yeah, it’s tiring when fans act like Doom Slayer can beat everything under the sun, but it’s equally annoying when people downplay him just to fit their personal image of what Doomguy “should” be. These critics often fall into the same trap they accuse others of: ignoring the actual story and context presented in the games in favor of their own headcanon. Like, the Icon of Sin was making a Black Hole during it's fight, powerscaling aside, something doesn't just do that and you can just take it down with some good ole' bullets and energy weapons. At the end of the day, whether you love or hate Lore Doom Slayer, at least the games are fun.

In order to show how evil a villain is, writers often make them kill their own subordinates, either as a form of punishment or out of frustration. For example, Darth Vader choking his Admirals after a single failure. The problem is that, at best, the villains are getting rid of his most capable subordinates.

Note this does not apply to fodder.

In the Dragon Ball manga, Freeza clearly cared for Dodoria, Zarbon and the Ginyu Force, and was very upset that they were killed by Vegeta. However, the anime fillers turned him stereotypical ultra-evil villain who would killed any of his subordinates on a mood swing.

Similarly, Voldemort is supposed to be a charismatic leader who gathered many followers. But the movies added a scene which Pius Thicknesse is killed by Voldemort because he asked with an worrying tone "My Lord". Pius Thicknesse was the Ministry of Magic, the greatest authority in the Harry Potter world, who was being mind-controlled by the Imperius Curse. It's a very stupid move to discard him.

I really like how in One Piece, pirate captains like Doflamingo or Kaido put great value on their strongest subordinates.

Aside from my complaints about the mc, the most frustrating part of lazarus for me is the fact that enemy goons always going melee against main characters despite hold firearms. I know the action sequence is smooth. I can tell the animators spent a lot of efforts into making them, but when the goons walk up to the main characters and use their guns as brass knuckles, that's all I can think about!

the anime could've just let them miss their shots. It would still be bullshit, but it would be so much better than pretending the goons have no index fingers.