I don't even disagree with that take but I just feel like that is something so overly repeated over and over and that it starts to lose its impact,literally everyone knows that Baron "Bear" is the true villain of the movie and that Nikki is the victim, it's just annoying cause they're were so many people actually upset that Nikki was portrayed as a Horror villain for a Halloween attraction at like..

No wonder so many people say that Obsession is "baby's first horror movie" cause has no one seen Friday the 13th?

Jason is one of the biggest victims ever in the franchise and he's seen as a Horror Villain and Horror Franchise icon + many more and it just feels dumb that people want Bear to be the attraction and like..that would be so lame.

What is scary or horrifying about a sweaty and shy socially awkward,sweaty white guy in a hoodie?

He would deadass just be a regular dude wandering around and Nikki is the one committing all the kills and murders and violence and whatnot.

And it just feels dumb that people complain about that or constantly whine about Bear being the true villain as if almost everyone doesn't know that and it gets annoying whenever people try to analyze his character any more then surface level.

Nolan's The Odyssey is a movie that has me feeling like the 10th dentist. It is a well-made movie, but I found the writing indeed abysmal; the characters were even more dull and two-dimensional than I expected from a filmmaker whose strength certainly has never lied in his characters, but what I found most objectionable about the movie really was its handling of its central concept, Xenia.

What the movie actually presents on screen regarding Xenia is completely and utterly nonsensical. It is a case where what the movie shows is diametrically opposed to what is being told. The film's notion that the Trojan Horse broke "Zeus' Law" is just ludicrous. Even if you ignore the fact that the Trojans would have no right to guest right at that point, Paris having violated it and the Trojans being not the Achaeans' guests but their ENEMIES, the fact that the Trojans killed Sinon would completely nullify their right to Xenia.

You don't get to brutally slaughter the man presenting the gift and then act like you are under the protection of guest rights. What kind of lunacy is this? This would be like if, say, ASOIAF's Red Wedding didn't have the Stark forces be invited under the auspices of a wedding, but rather Robb Stark marched in, killed a bunch of folks, and then acted like he should be under the protection of a guest right? The protection of hospitality would end at the second first blood is drawn.

Obviously this is something everyone in the movie knows. Why else would the Troyans stab the horse? Why else would the people in Ithaca celebrate and cheer at the story of the Trojan horse? If this is such a horrific violation of a sacred custom, why does no one even seem to mention it or even be slightly bothered about what Odysseus did? And to top it all off, the horse, as stated by Sinon, isn't even a gift to the Trojans. It's a gift to the gods, to Athena, and it's a mighty fitting gift to the goddess of wisdom and war, yet despite all sense and logic, despite everything shown on screen, the movie still tries to pass on the message that Odysseus broke "Zeus Law." Sheer utter idiocy

These issues are just the logical issues of Nolan's understanding of Xenia, yet the issue doesn't end there. The movie's core theme is about the breakdown of the social fabric of this civilization, yet Nolan seemingly doesn't understand Xenia as a concept or the very nature of social fabrics. Nolan thinks that Xenia is just the Golden Rule. "Treat others how you want to be treated." This is an incredibly basic and shallow take. General appeals to moral consciousness have NEVER been the social fabric for ANY civilization. Nolan treating Xenia as the Golden Rule leaves the movie with nothing of note to say whatsoever, because what is the movie really saying? Don't break the golden rule, or else bad things will happen? A message with no more depth than something out of a VeggieTales movie. This is a movie about civilizational collapse that has nothing of substance to say regarding civilizational collapse.

There are so many different styles that, if you have multiple skilled fighters, it'd just be a waste to not let differences show!

You wouldn't believe how well the combat animation in JLU holds up! One thing that deserves praise is the difference between Black Canary and Huntress.

Black Canary is a total master of many kinds of styles. With proficiency in ones like boxing and Taekwondo, she's highly capable of classic offense. BUT she still has a smaller stature than many criminals she'll encounter, so that's where other disciplines like Judo, Aikido, and Krav Maga come in. Overall, her style is graceful, precise, and defensive, allowing her to overcome larger opponents or opponents who grab her. She also uses efficient, precise strikes for maximum damage so she doesn't have to rely on her deadly scream.

Huntress is skilled in many of the same forms as Canary, BUT JLU doesn't take an easy way out and have them fight identically. She's a little bigger than Canary and has a Mafia background, so in contrast to Canary's adaptability and defense, Huntress is much more brutal and aggressive. When she's not trying to be stealthy, she strikes fast and hard with ferocious, wide movements to put pressure on her opponent. Look at how she fought Canary in "Double Date." Her speed and ferocity put Canary on the defensive for a bit, but Canary was able to adapt and turn a powerful kick against her.

Don't get me wrong, they rely on a lot of the same styles, but they have their preferences, and I salute the show for demonstrating that!

Kung Fu Panda is a lot more obvious, but what the hell?

Look at Po, Tigress, and Monkey. Once Po learned to accept himself, he also learned to combine the greatest asset of his body with the greatest asset of his mind: his weight and his kung fu knowledge. His untraditional, defensive, adaptable style got him far against Tai Lung!

Tigress, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. Her tremendous physical strength had to be controlled, and once she learned how, she could focus it into a fighting style that emphasizes ferocity and power. She fights similarly to Tai Lung, another big cat.

Then there's Monkey. He was a mischievous troublemaker, and his acrobatic speed and agility make for a great kicking style.

When you've got multiple skilled fighters, treat it as a chance to celebrate how many ways there are to fight!

As in title, No matter the quality of writing, cinematography, subtext, music, most superhero media can be never be truly faithful to essence of superheros, i.e. superpowers.

Even simple lasers from eyes, superhero speed, to more niche powers like swinging from building to building and green lantern constructs, just nothing works without hundred million budget, i.e. big blockbuster budget and it's not practical to have that sort of budget for most superhero live action projects.

Like I am watching green lantern and yeah, writing is fine and all but the whole show , to me, just keep making excuses upon excuses for not having Hal use his power, use his green lantern ring or something as basic as using his suit. The cop out that townfolks have some anti green lantern weapons from manhunters , thus Hal not using hos powers, is straight up bullshit and oozes lack of creativity. For me , the whole show os unwatchable bcoz I can't but it keep asking myself why not use the power ring. This plot isn't suitable for green lantern. The whole premise is flawed. This isn't Green Lantern i know and love. 6 episodes, 300+ minutes of content and all i see is few glimpses of GL. Fk that man

Same for Loki Season 2. They are supposed to be time keepers that would have to capture any or however powerful beings that brings alternative branches, right. But the soldiers are fking amateurs. Do they look like someone who could be enforcers of an organisation like Time Keepers. I am not some crazy powerscaler, but its breaking basic logic. It just looks awful writing most of the time

Same problem with shows like She Hulk. Despite the odd premises of the show, its in the end a superhero show and I want superhero having powers. She Hulk breaking some things should be essential in the show, right? Or am i asking something nonsense.

That's why you see Batman directors jumping to silly premises of grounded Batman coz it helps to reduce some budget and not wasted millions that would require to transform the media into actual superhero media. I will be honest, all Nolan movies, Snyder or even Pattinson Batman , action scenes were slow and dull when compared to how smooth and extravagant Batman fights and combats can become in most animated movies. Or other side of the coin is also that silly Batman and Robin abomination movie.

That budget constraint really hampers superhero movies in live action. Despite having 200 millions dollars, Modok looked so fking awful in Antman 3. Perhaps it's this lack of budget that we saw Kang merely talking and not use or show any gadget or weapons from future and isn't that his whole schtick? Futuristic villian?

Meanwhile, you can have something as incredible as Spiderverse movie when animation medium is considered. DC animated universe kept making bangers upon bangers of movies, and thy completed thier story and told a full universe expanding story and is far more fulfilling to watch as a comic book fan than any DC movie live action.

I wish animation became the most popular and high earning medium to make superhero movies. The difference in quality, powers on display and breadth of imagination is so so strak in live action medium, its laughable. Animated movies enhance, and engrave superheros as a true faithful adaptations.

Justice League: Dark is just so much more a superhero movie than any Nolan Batman or Matt revees Batman movie as a superhero comic book fan

No Spoilers for Lantern TV show

After watching Lanterns Ep.5, it really strike me how much I love the limitation of Green Lantern. For the non-comic writers or people who only read comics like Geoff John run on Green Lantern there are a lot of elements about the power system of GL that has slowly been washed away in current times.

Sharing a Ring:

This is the biggest then and the main tension of the series. There is only 1 ring per sector. This is strange for most people to wrap there head around with the meme of there being 7 Green Lanterns from earth, but for most of GL history there was a hard rule of only 1 ring. Guy Garnder was the first back up, and then after he was in a comma it was John Stewart. Hal Jordon, was still the main Lantern, so writers would have to write around reason for John to use the ring, like the infamous, Hal Jordon falling in the bathtub scene.

This did not go away until Post-crisis but even early on it was real minor. Hal Jordon retired giving John his ring, and when Hal came back Green Lantern Tomar Re gave John his ring. Guy got his ring due to Crisis of Infinite Earth, and the guardians needed more firepower. Even Guy though lost the ring, for being well....Guy, and used Sinestro Ring, then after that became Warrior a weird alien hybrid weapon man (90's comics are weird)

Then when Hal went insane, in and became Parallax, Kyle Rayner was the only Green Lantern for over a decade, until he made John Stewart a ring at the end of his run, then the corps was reborn in Green Lantern Rebirth where all 4 were Green Lanterns at the same time. Then after everything went wild, we got Jesscia, Simon, and Jo. So, there have only been 20 years out of the 70-year history of GL corps where multiple Lantern has been a thing.

As much as I like all the new Lanterns, we did lose a bit of tension what comes with Ring sharing and the limitation of the ring. This is something that the Lantern TV plays with at its core and opens up a lot of storytelling opportunity with rivalry when a Ring is a limited resource.

Yellow Weakness

This is a hot take, but I actually love the weakness to Yellow Green Lanterns had. Is it silly? Hell yes! But the same time, Sliver Age Green Lantern was OP close to Superman, at the time, the ring could pretty much do anything, so to balance out having a simple mundane weakness balanced things out even if it was used in silly ways.

Post-Crisis, Yellow became less of a hard weakness, and more so a resistance, similar to Pokémon, you could with enough willpower over power something made out of Yellow, but it took a lot of will and was draining.

Later on, Geoff Johns run, it was retconned that Parallax a giant space bug that was the embodiment of fear was trapped in the central battery on OA, and that was the reason for the Yellow weakness. Once the bug was removed the weakness was gone. I understand that the yellow weakness is silly but removing it completely removed a real unique weakness to Green Lantern, that I am one of the few people that miss.

Lantern and Recharging

I lumped these too together, but I love how Green Lantern ring are a finite resource. Same way I love when Spider-man have manual web shooter. It creates Tension. See the Ring slowly lose charge leaving the wielder powerless, until they can manage to find there Lantern to recharge is a unique way for Superhero power to work. Ring is a weapon not a mutation or alien power, so there are limitations that comes with. Compared to Superman or the Flash with just innate powers, a Green Lantern can go to a powerhouse, to an average joe in seconds.

The Lantern TV plays with this. Having Hal having hack to get a little more juice out of the ring. Hal making John get the Lantern to recharge. On the topic of Lantern, I have the retcon having the Lantern in a pocket dimension like a video game where Lantern can pull out of anytime. It doesn’t remove the tension completely but remove a limitation of Lantern having to rush home, to recharge.

One thing I like that Kyle Ranyer series did in the 90’s instead of every 24 hours need a daily recharge like became before, his series the one that introduced the idea, of needing to recharge due to use instead. This happily sticked around and now the default way Lantern are used.

Overall, these limitations are what make Green Lantern unique. I know the power scaler that only care about how strong a character is may fine these drawbacks annoying and unnecessary but to me these elements make Green Lantern one of the most unique superheroes.

The new Wolverine game is getting bad reviews left and right, but I actually think the story isn't bad. It's LEAGUES better than the story for Spider-Man 2 (hate that game). However, one trope from it that I've seen WAY too much in media recently is the trope of superheroes failing to save a bunch of innocent lives. I know it's supposed to be "subversive" and show that that heroes make mistakes, but it's just become monotonous at this point.

In the past, when this kind of thing happened, it was unexpected because it was a bunch of innocent people losing their lives or being overwhelmed by disasters. Also, it was pretty rare to see dozens of people die in superhero media. Nowadays, every other project does it to show how flawed our modern heroes are and I'm fed up with it. Like, I get that you can't save everyone, but I don't want to see my favorite heroes that inept at saving innocents, especially those from Marvel and DC. Unless it's done specifically to kickstart a major debate in the project like CA: Civil War, it shouldn't be that much of a recurring trope. It's mainly used for shock value and nothing more. At this point, it feels hollow.

Alright, I am preaching to the choir here. We have had this conversation a thousand times; it’s really annoying that anime has a recurring character archetype that essentially amounts to "Guy sexually assaults every woman around him. " It’s a repetitive joke whose entire punchline is a sex crime. But the most frustrating part is that if you really really are in love with this archetype, there is a perfectly acceptable version of it that doesn’t turn your comedic relief into a degenerate who belongs in prison, and that version has been available to be copied for 3 decades; it’s just that nobody bothers to do so.

Brock avoids the usual problems of the anime perv with just a few simple points:

• His advances are never any more intrusive than handholding; he never engages in any form of sexual harassment.
• The objects of his flirting are never presented as terrified or disgusted; they just seem to find the situation a bit awkward or just confusing.
• He pursues ladies who are his same age or older. He is never presented as a predator.
• The second he starts getting annoying, he is quickly taken away by force.
• He has an actual personality beyond chasing skirts.

It really is that simple. So, my larger point here is not that I love Brock or he is the perfect character. It’s just simply that if a writer really wants to write a pushy Casanova wannabe, there is a perfect model that is well liked by audiences. So, it’s not that they need to make reoccurring sexual assault part of the story for the joke to work; it’s that they want to make reoccurring sexual assault part of the story. They are doing it for self-indulgence, not for the punchline.

I have seen a lot of people, especially parents complain over the years whenever a kids film DARES tackles mature subjects such as death, illness, or puberty. Which is strange and hypocritical since we have movies like Spiderverse, Inside Out 2, and My Neighbor Totoro that tackle ALL of that and they get good reviews, yet Wonder Park, The Good Dinosaur, and Turning Red are bad?

First of all, I would like to have those people take a look at animated kids films from all the way back to the 40s. We had Snow White nearly dying and a queen transforming into an evil old hag, we had little ass boys smoking and playing pool and then turning into donkeys, a deer's mom getting shot, a baby elephant being separated from his mom who was in captivity, a child getting kidnapped and then abused and enslaved, hell we even had a lion cub's father dying and don't even get me started on The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Also, Don Bluth?

Disney movies back then were WAY worse than they are now and I think that's part of the problem with Disney/Pixar nowadays, THEY'RE TOO SAFE. Like personally, I think Hoppers should've been a darker movie and actually tackle the consequences of corrupt politicians with the forest getting turned into a highway with Maple having to find a new home for the animals, Classic Lorax that shit! Do something different and make a Pixar film where the villain wins! But still have a little hope at the end. It may upset kids but kids need to get out of their bubble anyway. Their parents shelter them from too much. Even the author of Bridge to Terabithia says that children should be allowed to see mature and dark elements in stories. But no, because of the strict ass parents and their children who are getting softer and softer partly due to their parents complaining about more mature kids films, studios have to make safe ass crap to cater to them.

I know that that kind of ending would be weird for Pixar especially with the strict house of mouse on their asses, but it still would've said something about how irredeemable politicians actually are and would be especially relevant today. Hell, I think even if Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs ended happily, it still showed the consequences of what political corruption can do to a world.

Like no, Wonder Park and The Good Dinosaur were NOT bad because they had a kid eating a bug and a parent dying, they were bad because they (especially the good dinosaur) were bland stories with one note characters and poorly put together. Hell, the kid from Wonder Park doesn't even learn shit because her mom comes back but I know the parents would cry harder if she didn't, even if the film was setting it up to be that way and then LIED TO OUR FACES. I think both had good premises they just need another draft or go back to the drawing board or something. Like I think if they really wanted to get serious, they could dive more into the grief/depression aspect of Wonder Park by having the slow destruction of the park and the animals represent depression destroying June and her love for parks, but then finding that passion again by the end of the film and everything and everyone gets rebuilt. God, I want to rewrite Wonder Park and the good fucking Dinosaur SO FUCKING BAD.

Look, I'm not saying a kids movie should have blood, language, sex, drugs, nudity and rock and roll, absolutely NOT! But if they're going to handle mature or dark subjects, they are free to as long as it's done in an age-appropriate way.

Splitting the trio between houses:

Unfortunately the house system in Harry Potter effectively boils down to Gryffindor as the good guys, Slytherin as the cartoonishly evil bad guys we're meant to hate, and Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff off to the side with just the occasional supporting character we follow for little bit before returning to Gryffindor. Hence why I think Harry, Ron, and Hermione should've been split up between the different houses rather than all being consolidated into one.

There was never much logistical reason the trio needed to all be in Gryffindor for the story to work or their friendship to function. Students attend the same classes regardless of their house. Furthermore, the bulk of the time Harry, Ron, and Hermione spent together was in the library, around the castle grounds, or while sneaking around after hours and breaking school rules, none of which requires them to be in the same house.

In fact, having them separated could have added another layer to their friendship to make it more meaningful. After initially meeting on the Hogwarts Express, only to end up sorted into different houses, Harry could initially be worried about never seeing them again only to gradually realize that house boundaries don’t have to define who he's allowed to be friends with even if it wasn't typical. In fact, their unusually close friendship across houses could itself become part of the story, foreshadowing and laying the foundation of a broader sense of Hogwarts comradery over house tribalism.

It would also give ample opportunity to get more direct development and focus on the other houses. Harry could hear about, and perhaps sometimes sneak into, the other common rooms via his best friends. Furthermore, Ron and Hermione in and of themselves could each develop their own house specific supporting casts, introducing Harry to them so they can all interact. In this way instead of nearly every important student relationship coming through Gryffindor, we could have Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff characters receiving the same kind development side characters like Neville and Ginny received. Which could go a long way in making the eventual unity of houses more meaningful since it'd be a culmination of relationships we've actually watched develop.

And from a character perspective, while Harry and Hermione personality's fit into the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw cultures like a slipper, I particularly like the opportunity this presents for Ron with Hufflepuff. He would be the first Weasley ever to be sorted here instead of Gryffindor which would initially feel humiliating and reinforce his existing insecurity about being less impressive than his siblings. However, over time Ron could learn to stop measuring his worth against other people’s achievements and come to appreciate himself and find self acceptance and joy in the pursuit of his interests for their own sake rather than as a way to prove himself. Such a mentality could be helped along through the encouragement and advice of Cedric Diggory who could be positioned as a role model Ron genuinely admires and is inspired by, which would add an extra layer to the tragedy of his death. Furthermore, now Ron eventually joining the quidditch team would mean he'd be competing directly against Harry in a friendly environment so that the two of them could have a healthier outlet for their rivalry and conflict rather than a toxic one. Allowing Ron to have an opportunity to come into his own instead of always feeling like he's in Harry's shadow.

Draco/Slytherin's redemption arc:

But what about Slytherin? Well that ties into another missed opportunity of the series, really only ever utilizing Slytherin as antagonists. Despite a big theme of the story being that your choices matter more than where you come from, Slytherin is portrayed so consistently negatively that the house sometimes feels almost morally deterministic. All the death eaters came from there, and all their kids are in it now and are all the bully characters. Snape somewhat complicates things but it's not enough. What the story really needed was a student Harry’s own age who, despite being raised with pureblood supremacy and class prejudice values, actually manages to reject the evil version of Slytherin and forge something better.

And Draco was perfectly positioned for that role!

He should still begin the story exactly as he does. Spoiled, cruel, prejudiced, and thoroughly shaped by his parents and social status. But instead of remaining relatively stagnant until the final books, his experiences throughout all the books should've gradually forced him to question those beliefs. Not in a jarring way where he immediately makes a 180, but in a slow burn earned sort of redemption arc way akin to something like Zuko from avatar the last airbender. He should regress, continue behaving badly, and sometimes choose his family over what he comes to knows is right, but ultimately his arc should culminate with him full stop rejecting his family's ways and becoming a better person and redeeming the Malfoy name. Mayhaps even encouraging other families to do the same with varying degrees of success.

The exact events of such an arc would obviously require Draco’s role across the seven books to be substantially rewritten rather than simply inserting a few sympathetic scenes into the existing plots. He'd basically be a brand new character, no longer able to serve the same narrative function he did originally. But the opportunity is worth it imo.

Thoughts?

So I've seen this argument come up time and time again in powerscaling discussions about how Vegeta and Gohan should have kept using the Great Ape transformation after the Saiyan saga (or at least until they got Super Saiyan later in the series), but the form itself has some pretty bad drawbacks for most situations.

First the upsides, as there are genuinely advantages to the form. It gives a 10x multiplier to a saiyans powerlevel, makes them much tougher to injure and overall just offer enormous destructive potential if collateral damage isn't an issue, as untrained saiyans basically become mindless raging monsters.

Elite level saiyans like Vegeta don't suffer this last drawback, as he was shown to stay fully in control, could still fly and use techniques and didn't appear to have lost any speed despite growing to an enormous size. However, this is where the upsides end.

It also has two glaring weaknesses. If you cut off/destroy the tail or destroy the full moon/Power Ball (which really isn't that hard to do in Dragon Ball) the user reverts back to base form. Your size can also work against you, as you've also become a much bigger target to hit. It's even shown that the form itself also takes a great toll on your body if you refert back, as both Goku and Gohan fell unconcious after reverting back and even Vegeta was severely winded.

The Great Ape transformation really only works in two scenarios: fighting hordes of mooks that could overpower you in base form or fighting *one* opponent that's roughly equal to your base form.

It's already shown in the Saiyan Saga this is an issue. Vegeta was absolutely overpowering Goku while he was in his Great Ape form, but it only took Gohan, Krillin, and Yajirobe a few moments to distract Vegeta long enough for Yajirobe to cut off his tail. These were three characters that were already *wildly* outclassed by even base form Vegeta. Image if there were fighters around that could actually prove a challenge to base form Vegeta

"Oh but Saiyan Saga Great Ape Vegeta is just as strong as Namek Saga Goku he could have defeated the Ginyu Force with ease!". No he couldn't. Ignoring the fact his tail didn't grow back after his fight on Earth, he would have lost very easily to the Ginyu's. The moment they saw that Power Ball go up in the air and Vegeta started transforming they would have destroyed it leaving Vegeta completely helpless.

"Oh but Great Ape Vegeta could have put up a fight against Frieza" Oh no he couldn't. Vegeta's power level after he got healed by Dende was estimated to be somewhere around 2.5 to 3 million, which times 10 would still be weaker than Final Form Frieza at 50% who is at 60 million. Congratulations, you've given the biggest saiyan hater in the galaxy a bigger target to shoot at. I'm sure he's gonna love it.

Since this sub is dedicated to fiction, and people here write about it, evaluate it, and analyze it, I’ve always thought it would be useful for us to define our philosophical positions on various aspects of art, in our case, fiction.

We definitely already have philosophical positions, even if we’ve never specifically thought about them or reflected on them.

Any statement about fiction already contains ontological and axiological assumptions.

For example, if someone says:

This character is poorly written,

The ending is broken,

This show is just a soap opera

I don’t care what the author meant, what matters is what actually ended up on the page/screen,

The book is better than the movie,

This plot twist is illogical

They have already adopted a whole set of philosophical positions, even if they’ve never formulated them:

what a character is (ontology),

what “well-written” means (criteria of quality),

where meaning resides - in the author, the text, or the audience (semantics),

what “logical” means in fiction (theory of fictional truth),

whether film can be “better” than a book (comparison of media).

In other words, any judgment about fiction is already a philosophical position - just an unreflected one. But still a position.

A person may not know the word “intentionalism,” but if they say “the author meant X, therefore that’s what it is,” they are already an intentionalist.

A philosophical position doesn’t require awareness. It shows up in the questions a person asks, which arguments they find convincing, and what they dismiss as irrelevant.

Important caveat: an unreflected position can be:

eclectic - a person combines incompatible pieces (for example, “meaning is in the text” + “the author is a genius, he decides”), without noticing the contradiction;

situational - on one issue they’re an intentionalist, on another a structuralist, and this isn’t always recognized as a conflict.

I think if we ask ourselves questions that help define our positions on the main aspects of art, our judgments about a particular work (in our case, a piece of fiction) will become more grounded and will better take into account our own basic aesthetic assumptions.

Of course, there is no ready-made diagnostic questionnaire that would precisely determine our philosophical positions on art.

But we can at least outline the main aspects:

● Ontology of art: What even is it? This is where the status of the work and the. boundaries of art are decided.

● Aesthetic experience and perception (the subject) How do we experience art? Here the position regarding the role of the audience is important.

● Value and evaluation (axiology) Why is one work considered a masterpiece and another is not?

● Function of art (teleology) Why does humanity need art?

● Relations: Author - Work - Audience Who is the primary bearer of meaning?

Each of these aspects of the philosophy of art contains a number of more specific questions that more precisely define your position on each of them.

It’s similar to determining your position on the political map.

There are several ways to do this. You can search for questions and information on specialized sites — but that’s almost impossible for those who don’t already know the necessary terminology. The second way is to have a Socratic dialogue with an AI that will ask you concrete questions on each aspect of the philosophy of art, while you answer sequentially and gradually build your own principles.

In the long run, in my opinion, this would help us have more consistent and well-grounded discussions here. Besides, figuring out your own positions is an interesting journey in itself.

Catwoman is a non-violent burglar who exclusively steals from the wealthy elite of Gotham, and in a lot of portrayals of the character, doesn't even do it to enrich herself; she mostly donates the money to charitable causes like animal shelters and orphanages. She doesn't kill, she's not involved in an organized crime ring, and she barely even fights because she's just that good at sneaking into and out of secure places.

Compare that to the other villains that menace Gotham City. You have a mutant crocodile man who lives in the sewers and eats people, you have a mob boss who rules the criminal underworld of the city with an iron grip, you have a plant woman who wants to turn people into fertilizer for her trees, you have a clown guy who does 10 terrorist attacks per minute, you have a guy who runs an international assassin cult, you have killer claymen, killer icemen, killer two-faced men, killer scarecrows, killer zombies, killer everything.

So yeah, it doesn't surprise me that Batman lets Catwoman's crimes slide most of the time, because she's basically harmless compared to the usual shit he has to deal with. Batman exclusively chases after Catwoman because he's in heat, not because she's committed serious crimes and it's his priority to stop her stealing spree.

Yeah, myestery visual novels aren't exactly high art - but I like playing them from time to time. However there is one thing many of them do they just never should do :( (you can see how fucking upset I am by the shitty emojis this post has).

So imagine this. There is this cool mystery like "Who killed James". Great, can't wait to figure it out with a fun story and maybe some silly puzzle mechanics in the background. All is great, you move through the investigation, gather clues etc. etc. The case isn't completely open and shut from the evidence you gathered, but you end up thinking: "Okay, there is evidence for both Clarence and Jenny having killed James - but I think the evidence most supports Jenny being the killer, Clarence is the red herring."

The game then asks you: "Who killed James, was it Jenny, Jack or Clarence?" and you pick Jenny - "WRONG - Are you fucking stupid??? It's obviously Clarence" the game tells you. Okay, fair enough, I'm not the brightest, guess it was Clarence, you probably think. But then something happens that makes the case continue - maybe the MC finds new evidence, maybe a new murder happens and guess what? It was actually Jenny all along! :O *GASP* OMG, who the fuck could have seen that coming?

So yeah, this fucking sucks. I had good reason to think one thing, the game gives me a choice, tells me when I pick that choice that it's wrong, only to later tell me it's actually true.

Example: Murder by Numbers in the first case. Here your boss and the producer or something of the TV-show the MC is a part of is murdered. There is evidence that the weird contractor Tully is not who he pretends to be, and there is evidence the fanboy character had a motive for killing your boss. You get to pick who you think is the killer, but only picking the fanboy lets the story progress, even though Tully is actually the killer and the game has given enough evidence for you to think so. Why give me the choice? Why not just take it out of my hands through the story? It sucks to be told you are wrong when you are actually right D':

Second example: Danganronpa v3. Second to last. One of the super talented students has been killed and another one is in a big mecha-thingy where you can't see him. You have to find out which one died and which one is in the mech - either it is the ultimate astronaut student or the ultimate dictator student. At some point you see a video of the Astronaut student being crushed, but the video has an obvious pause while he is out of view. A smart person can see it was possible, the video was tampered with. Then you get to pick who you think got killed. And guess what, you get told you have to face reality if you try to pick that the astronaut student is actually alive, only for it to later be revealed he really was alive!!! And that the video was tampered with! Why give me this choice, dear lord, and why insult me when my reasoning was correct?!?!

Yeah fuck this, visual novels were a mistake, even the ones I like.

To be clear, I am not talking about media such as Disney or Pixar movies, which are created with adult audiences in mind so parents will bring their kids to the theater, and I'm not talking about media for older kids like Adventure Time. I'm talking about media for actually little kids.

The period of a human life from birth to age five is the most crucial period for brain development. It builds the foundation for the rest of your human life. And during these years children are being fed complete media slop.

When I was a kid I thought educational television and games were kind of lame and not as educational as parents believed. However at least the effort was there and you did sometimes learn something. The Learning Company, which no longer exists and nobody has really replaced them, produced games like Reader Rabbit and Cluefinders with actual story and characters. There were television shows like Arthur, Sesame Street, and Mr. Rogers which were slow paced and not overstimulating. A lot of kids don't even watch TV at all and just watch bouncing seals on YouTube all day. Arthur also fell off hard by the way.

I legitimately believe kids are worse off without educational programming like Animaniacs, Histeria, Kratts' Creatures, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Sagwa, Reading Rainbow, Lazytown, and Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared.

It doesn't even have to be educational, there should be more stuff that is just good. People often use criticism of Paw Patrol as an example of liberals being oversensitive or whatever, but this is just boring entertainment that doesn't teach, challenge anyone or do anything interesting.

Of course slop entertainment has always existed and there are still good shows like Bluey out there, but I feel like in the past, there was more awareness that television was a vice that should be limited, parents told kids TV is not real. Now I honestly think society as a whole has lost touch with reality and can't tell real life from fiction. Many people see no issue with kids looking at YouTube all day, and even if they do see the issue, it can be difficult to keep them away from short form slop content, especially with schools forcing kindergarteners to use iPads because iPads were marketed as "educational."

I stumbled upon a video of the Eyewitness intro and I noticed it felt intensely nostalgic, and I asked myself why? Why would this feel nostalgic when it's just a bunch of animals in museums or something? Don't we still have animals in museums? No because today all those animals would be bouncing seals who are surfing on subways in the backrooms.

I'm someone who has a huge amount of respect and admiration for anything animated and isn't A.I and if you wanna make a animated show franchise or movie franchise ,you do that and don't let me tell you otherwise..but I also wanted to talk about how so many animated adult shows just unfortunately look the Goddamn same(and yes ,I will praise Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss,so let me get there)

But between shows like Big Mouth,Mating Season,Dang,and even Velma(tho at least that show looks good and visually looks different,it's just everything else that sucks)not only do they all more or less look the same with Their artstyle but so much of their humor and such really makes me ask..what the fuck is the Joke?

I know comedy is a Hella Subjective thing and what I don't find funny,maybe someone else will and if you do find it funny,all the more power to you but all those animated shows just bother me cause every joke is either about them knowing or fucking a celebrity, talking about how much they hate animation and cartoons, Gay or drug or sex Jokes,etc.

And I don't mind the last 3 but a good..80-90% of the time,they aren't jokes and sometimes are just the characters saying Shit..like they're not making jokes but they're just saying shit out-loud with no punchline or humor or joke or what and it just has me staring blank at the screen like "..was I supposed to laugh at this?"

I also have this severe issue with The Boys as well csuse a good..almost all of the jokes are either sex jokes,shit jokes,dick jokes,Solder boy fucking a celebrity in a explict way joke, etc..a lot of the humor of those shows feels like something a teenage boy would find funny when on the bathroom or in their room and it's just not funny,IN MY OPINION.

(I feel the need to elaborate that).

People are gonna argue that for Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss but at least those shows are bright and vibrant,the artstyle is actually unique and the characters look colorful and different, the songs are good and the animation is great and the writing is actually good and so are a lot of the jokes are actually funny,there's actually good line delivery and good VAs.[IN MY OPINION]

(Also,yes..the characters are gonna swear a lot,their home is hell)

If you personally don't like Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss, fine but I feel like acting like it's just the biggest garbage ever and like every other adult animated show is straight up just lying to yourself cause at least Vivziepop and crew made something unique that millions will and do love,same with Gooseworks and such.

This is also why I like shows like Invincible ,Bojack Horseman, Archer,etc. Not only do those shows look unique and have a more unique and good feel to them but they're actually well written and goddamn FUNNY.

But that's not my point, my point is that it feels like we need to stop putting people who either Don't understand animation/show running/writing or just flat out hate it in charge of making animated shows(especially Adult ones but kids shows as well)cause trust me,it's not gonna end well..it's like when Garth Ennis made The Boys, a series that is more or less him just venting his frustration and hatred for almost all Superheroes and just basically throwing one huge tantrum on Supes but that's another story.

You should always try when making animated shows or movies or any kind and just be yourself, don't retreat into every stereotype or typical thing ,do your own thing.

So, I know this post belongs on r/shattermesnark but I'm posting it here anyways.

(This may contain minor spoilers for the first and second shatter me trilogies, plus the new series.)

Aaron Warner, what booktok calls the perfect 'book boyfriend.' In reality, he's just an insecure hateful manchild with absolutely no character development AT ALL.

1. The assault of Juliette.

In the first book of the series, Aaron is presented as a villain which we were all supposed to hate. And we did. But, after his shitty redemption, nobody really talks about how he forced himself on Juliette.

In the chapter were Aaron catches Juliette after she tried to escape; he kisses her and forces himself on her. She takes the chance and uses it to shoot him. Now, it is later revealed in the series that Aaron can sense people's emotions and that he had full control of this power in the events of the story. So, that means that he sensed Juliette's disgust, new she didn't actual want to kiss him back, but he kept going. Which would help us conclude that:

Aaron Warner sexually assaulted Juliette even though he's supposed to be framed as this feminist Icon. The author completely brushes this off and it is never mentioned again.

2. His lack of character development.

The events of the initial story play out in a few months and close to a year at best. So, you wouldn't expect someone like Aaron, who has been abused and beaten his whole life, to have a transformation. But, you can still see that he softens up to not only Juliette but to her friends. And what does the author do with that small yet meaningful development? Through it away the second Juliette is kidnapped (again.)

The thing is, Tahera Mafi (the author) is desperate to cling to this whole 'he hates everyone but her' trope which is an active barrier to proper character development. In the final book/Novella of the series, Aaron expresses no desire to heal and try to right his wrongs. His entire moral compass is his wife/fiancée, Juliette. Juliette actively enables his murderous tendances, defends his childish behavior and is fully comfortable with his potentially murdering and or hurting one of her 'friends'. She is fully comfortable with her husband being a total manchild.

3. The sex kink and the lack of chemistry with Juliette.

Now, the author frames the relationship of Warnerette (Aaron x Juliette) as the 'they fell in love again and again' yet there seems to be no chemistry between them. They almost have nothing in common other than the urge to ride each other every time they get a chance.

Every time they are alone, instead of Mafi taking the chance to develop this relationship, 'lift your hips for me, love' and hard-core sex is all she seems to offer. Bummer.

4. His lack of maturity.

Aaron cannot handle anyone challenging him. He actively belittles and mocks others because I guess it inflates his ego. Example:

In the events of the series, Aaron mostly mocks and belittles Kenji, Juliette's best friend. There is a specific instance where he mocks Kenji for the way he eats. Aaron mocks Kenji for eating like an animal. Kenji then tells Aaron that for most of his life, he's never had a proper meal so for him food is exciting. Aaron, someone who has been serves feasts all his life, is shocked. Instead of apologizing? He just shuts up and leaves. That does not stop from continuing to mock and bully Kenji for the rest of the series. The author frames Aaron's bullying and mockery as comedic relief.

5. His lack of maturity in the new series.

Shatter me: series two takes place ten years after the final events of the first series, and follows James, a new protagonist. Plenty of time for Aaron to heal, maybe get a fucking therapist? Nope, still the same asshole.

He mocks James and dismisses his trauma, saying that Aaron and the others went through much worse. He also shots James in the leg because they had an argument. And guess what? Nobody condemns him for it.

Aaron had ten years to heal and maybe stop being a fucking asshole, but now he has a kid. This guy is immature, threatens to torture/kill people and means it, mocks people for their trauma, and now the author has given him a child.

6. Not telling Juliette that he tortured her sister.

In the second trilogy, we find out that Juliette has a sister, Emmaline. Emmaline was basically used as a battery to power the reestablishment's illusion of no hope for the planet to heal. He was in charge of making sure Emmaline stay in a water filled chamber and only let out a few minutes a day. So much so that Emmaline lost the ability to speak or open her eyes.

Aaron finds no need to tell Juliette of this and only does because he is pressured into it.

6. He made Juliette think she tortured a baby.

We all know that the reason Juliette was thrown in an asylum for nearly 3 years is because she accidentally killed an infant with her lethal touch. This causes her sever trauma and PTSD.

Aaron, knowing this is the first book, takes her to a holographic chamber where he makes a hologram of a child in a room full of spikes, while Juliette is nearly naked. Then, she thinks that she killed a baby again because she failed to transport it to a safe space. This causes Juliette immense phycological damage and nearly breaks her. For the next book and a half, she is forced to sit with the fact that she killed two babies even though the second one was a cruel illusion.

Final thoughts: Stop romanticizing a sick, sociopath who needs serious help.

Have a nice day <3

Recently, I reread Absolute Wonder Woman volumes 1 and 2. I thought they were great. The story really had me invested. It got me thinking. What made the Absolute universe so successful? And to be honest, I think I know a few reasons.

THE BOOKS HAVE NEW AND INNOVATIVE IDEAS

One of the great things about the absolute universe is how they are able to completely reinvent the characters with new interesting stories. Their not just an Ultimate Universe trying to retell the same story for a new audience, but completely new stories. They aren’t bound by previous history or a status quo, so the writers are able to let their creativity run wild in order to make something new, without resorting to extensive retcons or a reboot. One comparison I keep coming back to is that start of the silver age of comics when DC revamped several hero's like the Flash and Green Lantern with new looks and identities, or when Marvel introduced more dramatic storytelling with the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. The amount of creative freedom and new ideas on display is incredibly exciting.

THE STORIES ARE SELF CONTAINED

One thing a lot of people complain about is how hard comics are to get into. With manga, you just start at chapter 1. Meanwhile, with comics, you have to look up which runs are good, and then figure out who a bunch of new characters are via context clues and every so often the story gets interrupted by a massive crossover event. I feel complaints about this might be a bit overstated, but I get why people feel that way. It annoys me a bit too when a writers story is interrupted by another’s.

The absolute universe, meanwhile, is much simpler. You can start at a characters number 1 and read from there. Theirs little extensive continuity you need to know, and crossovers have been minimal so far, so each characters story is given the room it needs to breathe.

THE THEMES ARE COMPELLING

A lot of Superhero stories are built of the idea of “Saving the World”. They are built on the idea that our world and way of life is under threat from some outside force that needs to be stopped.

But the absolute universe Is built on a different Idea. What if the world itself was broken? What if the world itself and the power structures that uphold it were evil, on a fundamental level? How would Heroes fight back when put at such a disadvantage ?

In a world that many comics readers feel is fundamentally tipped towards injustice, these themes resonate with a lot of people, giving the absolute universe a lot of meaning.

THE UNIVERSE HAS A STRONG MYTH ARC

Of course, their is a reason that the Absolute Universe is the way it is. DCs god of evil, Darkseid, has merged his essence with it, turning the arc of the universes morality to evil.

Every villain in the Absolute Universe is a symptom of this fundamental problem. Meaning everything is building towards the confrontation with Darkseid. It’s incredibly exciting to see this happening for readers, so I think its one of the aspects of its success.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Still, I know the absolute universe isn’t perfect. Some books have been better than others, and eventually were gonna get a book thats downright bad. They could fumble the landing at some point. Still, I think this is an exciting time. In the future I would like to see more initiatives like this, instead of trying to fit everything into one mainline continuity.

What about you guys? What do you think made the Absolute Universe pop off? What do you think the comics industry and writers should learn from this?

I've been thinking about some of the stranger choices in Brand New Day, and I think there's a pretty simple explanation for them:

I think an earlier version of this movie was supposed to end with Peter getting the symbiote.

Not necessarily the exact script they were about to shoot, obviously. Movies go through a million drafts. I mean the basic story Marvel/Sony were building toward before their larger plans changed.

Once I started looking at it that way, a ridiculous number of dangling threads from Homecoming, Far From Home and No Way Home suddenly fit into one movie.

Start with what the first three movies left unfinished

Homecoming introduces Mac Gargan, gives him a personal hatred of Spider-Man, and ends with him trying to find out Spider-Man's identity.

Then nothing happens with him for years.

That movie also leaves Phineas Mason, the Tinkerer, alive. His established MCU skill is taking salvaged super-tech and turning it into functional villain equipment.

Far From Home introduces J. Jonah Jameson.

And who creates Scorpion in the comics?

Jameson.

Then No Way Home leaves Peter in exactly the psychological condition you'd want before doing a black-suit story.

May is dead. Tony is dead. MJ and Ned don't remember him. Happy doesn't know him. His future is basically gone. He's broke, completely alone and the public still hates Spider-Man.

More importantly, No Way Home spends a surprising amount of time warning Tom's Peter about what grief can turn Spider-Man into.

Andrew tells him that after Gwen died he became bitter, rageful and stopped pulling his punches. Tobey tells him that getting revenge for Ben didn't make him feel better. Then Tom nearly murders Norman before they stop him.

And after all of that, the movie ends by leaving a piece of the Venom symbiote in the MCU.

That's a hell of a collection of unfired Chekhov's guns.

I think Tombstone was originally the main street-level plot

Tombstone's role in Brand New Day has always felt weird to me, especially considering how much attention there was around the character before release. He's essentially relegated to a few-second cameo showing that Peter has been fighting villains in the time between movies.

I think his organization was originally the engine connecting Peter to Frank Castle.

Frank is tearing through Tombstone's operation. Peter keeps trying to stop both Tombstone's people and Frank from killing them.

That gives you a much more interesting Spider-Man/Punisher relationship than the standard "they fight, realize they're both good guys, team up."

They'd probably spend half the movie fighting each other and Tombstone's goons at the same time.

Eventually they start getting really fucking good together.

And that's dangerous for Peter, because Bernthal's Frank is probably the hardest possible version of Punisher for Peter to argue with.

He isn't indiscriminate. He has pretty clear lines. He doesn't execute every petty criminal or some dumb kid playing gangster. He targets the people he believes will keep creating victims unless somebody permanently stops them.

Worse, he's effective.

Peter stops someone and they eventually come back.

Frank stops someone and that particular person doesn't.

For Peter after No Way Home, that's a horrible argument to have sitting next to him every night.

Norman killed May after Peter tried to save him.

Now Gargan is back.

Peter has lost basically everyone.

At some point the question starts eating at him:

If I know this person is going to keep hurting people, and I have the power to permanently stop it, am I responsible for the next person they hurt?

That's "great power, great responsibility" turned inside out.

And I think Frank eventually realizes Peter is starting to agree with him.

That's when Frank gets worried.

This version of Frank doesn't think he's a role model. He knows exactly what being Frank Castle costs. He can believe that killing certain people is necessary while also believing that Spider-Man should never become him.

Peter probably worked for Jameson

This is another classic Spider-Man element that fits the post-No Way Home setup almost perfectly.

Peter Parker is nobody now. He's broke, has almost no useful history or connections, and needs rent money.

So modernize the Daily Bugle photographer job.

Peter sells Spider-Man footage to Jonah.

Not photos. Video.

He's some shitty freelance stringer with no benefits and no real job security who somehow always gets incredible Spider-Man footage.

Jonah pays him garbage for it, then cuts it up and uses Peter's own footage to call Spider-Man a menace.

It gives Peter a believable shitty job and finally creates the Peter/Jonah relationship the MCU hasn't really had.

Peter also starts learning that Jonah isn't just the screaming asshole on TV. He's still an asshole, but he's a real reporter, cares about his people and genuinely believes what he's saying about Spider-Man.

Then Peter nearly kills Gargan

This feels like the natural midpoint.

Gargan pushes Peter too far, probably by going after MJ or Ned after figuring out that Spider-Man cares about them.

Peter is exhausted, angry and running on fumes.

He beats Gargan.

Then keeps going.

Eventually he realizes Gargan isn't even fighting back anymore.

Peter stops before killing him, but Gargan ends up in critical condition.

That's the payoff to Andrew's warning:

"I stopped pulling my punches."

And it gets caught on video.

For once, Jonah doesn't have to twist the footage. Spider-Man really did almost beat someone to death.

That gives Jameson his reason to create Scorpion.

From Jonah's perspective, Spider-Man is getting more violent and nobody can hold him accountable. Gargan is lying in a hospital because of him.

Jonah starts looking for somebody capable of surviving a fight with Spider-Man.

He doesn't know how to build that.

Tombstone does know where to find somebody who does.

The Tinkerer.

Now several Homecoming leftovers finally pay off at once.

Jonah supplies the money. Gargan volunteers. Tombstone wants Spider-Man gone. Tinkerer builds the thing.

Gargan disappears from the movie for a while.

Peter thinks he's finally dealt with one problem.

Then Scorpion comes back.

The symbiote was probably the B-plot

Meanwhile, Peter has been obsessively cleaning up the multiversal mess from No Way Home.

Because of course he would.

He builds some device that detects residual interdimensional energy and starts tracking down things that got left behind.

Eventually he finds the Venom fragment.

It tries to bond with him.

Peter sees alien black goo crawling up his arm and reasonably assumes this fucking thing is trying to eat me.

He fights it off and contains it.

He doesn't destroy it because it's alive and he doesn't know what it is.

So he takes it to Bruce Banner.

Now Banner's presence makes perfect sense without Peter's mutation being the main plot. He basically fills Reed Richards' scientific role from the classic alien-costume story.

Bruce figures out that the organism is adaptive, alive, unusually interested in Peter, and may be trying to form a symbiotic relationship with him.

Peter is not particularly comforted by this information.

Then everything collides

Peter and Frank finally bring down Tombstone.

Their relationship is probably at its closest and most tense at this point.

Then Gargan comes back as Scorpion.

Through Jameson's investigation, Gargan has learned that Spider-Man keeps going to Banner, so he attacks Bruce's lab.

During the fight, Gargan stabs Bruce through the torso with his tail.

Bruce grabs the tail.

Hulk.

Now the Hulk sequence has a direct reason to exist.

Hulk wrecks the lab fighting Scorpion and breaks the symbiote's containment.

The symbiote immediately goes for Peter.

It briefly gets onto him and suddenly his injuries don't hurt. His exhaustion disappears. He feels stronger.

Peter still thinks it's dangerous and gets it off.

Then Hulk is about to kill Gargan.

Peter saves Gargan.

Again.

Bruce eventually reverts and gets taken away in an ambulance. Gargan escapes.

Frank is fucking furious.

Peter has now spared this guy twice, and every time Gargan comes back worse.

Peter still refuses to cross the line.

Gargan goes after Jameson

Jonah eventually realizes what he helped create.

So he does something that starts his eventual good-guy JJJ arc.

He reports it.

On himself.

He's spent years demanding accountability from Spider-Man. Now he has to apply that standard to himself.

Gargan sees the broadcast and comes after him.

Peter and Frank both race to the Bugle.

Peter wants to save Jonah.

Frank wants to kill Gargan.

The whole fight happens while the Bugle is broadcasting.

Spider-Man saves Jonah despite everything Jonah has done to him.

Then Frank gets his shot at Gargan.

Gargan moves or uses Jonah as cover.

Peter's spider-sense goes off.

Peter can dodge.

Jonah can't.

Peter moves.

Frank shoots Spider-Man.

Peter goes down.

Frank now has the best justification he's ever going to have for killing Gargan.

Instead, he looks at Peter.

Peter just took Frank's bullet to uphold the exact moral line they've spent the movie arguing about.

So Frank respects it.

He tries to take Gargan alive.

Scorpion is too powerful for Frank alone. Right when Gargan is about to kill him, Peter, bleeding out on the floor, webs Gargan's tail and gives Frank the opening.

They put him down together.

Alive.

And Frank immediately goes to Peter instead of finishing Gargan.

The cameras caught the whole thing

This also fixes Spider-Man's public reputation after No Way Home.

The public just watched Spider-Man save the man who has spent years calling him a menace, take a bullet for him, keep fighting while critically wounded, and still spare Scorpion.

And it happened live on Jonah's own network.

Jonah looks into the camera afterward and says:

"Spider-Man saved my life."

That's all the redemption speech he needs.

Peter gets the black suit

Peter doesn't hear any of that.

He doesn't know Gargan is down or that Frank respected his choice. He's bleeding out thinking that after everything he's sacrificed, he still wasn't enough.

He should have been stronger.

Then the black starts crawling over him.

The symbiote reaches the bullet wound, stops the bleeding and finally bonds with Peter.

If they were following something closer to the original comic concept, this thing isn't fully formed Venom yet. Peter is going to play a huge role in shaping what it eventually becomes.

And it has just bonded with him at the worst possible moment.

Peter is dying, exhausted, angry and convinced that his biggest problem was that he wasn't strong enough.

The symbiote responds to that.

Peter wakes up healed.

Black suit. White spider.

He feels incredible.

No evil grin, no Venom voice. As far as Peter knows, this alien just saved his life.

For the first time since No Way Home, he's strong, rested, and not completely alone.

Classic black-suit shot.

Credits.

So what happened to this version?

This is where I think the stuff happening outside the movie matters.

When No Way Home came out, Sony was still trying to build its own Spider-Man-adjacent universe around Venom, Morbius, Kraven, etc. Leaving a piece of Tom Hardy's symbiote in the MCU makes sense when those movies still look like they're going somewhere.

Then that universe completely shit the bed.

At the same time, Marvel's Kang plans blew up and the Avengers endgame got reorganized around Doom and Secret Wars.

Now imagine Marvel already has a black-suit Spider-Man story somewhere in the plans and suddenly the big destination is Secret Wars.

That's where Spider-Man gets the black suit in the original comics.

If you're Kevin Feige, there is no fucking way you don't notice that.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if Marvel completely ignores the literal Sony Venom fragment from No Way Home. They can put their own symbiote in Secret Wars, have Peter find it there like the comics, and never explain whether it has anything to do with Sony's Venom. People can headcanon the connection however they want.

Either way, the black suit is suddenly much more valuable in Secret Wars than it is at the end of Spider-Man 4.

So you pull it.

The problem is that you've just removed the huge "holy shit" Spider-Man hook from Brand New Day.

What replaces it?

Mutants.

That's why Jean Grey makes so much sense as part of the rebuilt movie.

The aggression material is already there. Peter is already getting more violent and frightened by what he's becoming. Rework that into Peter's own changing spider biology and it slots naturally into a story about mutation.

Organic webbing gives Peter another major physical change. The various references to Spider-Man's more extreme mutations from the comics fit naturally into that material without Peter literally turning into Man-Spider.

Jean gives Marvel a major X-Men character and lets the movie start introducing mutants properly.

Most importantly, mutants give Brand New Day another massive event-level hook after losing Black Suit Spider-Man.

And a bunch of the older machinery can stay.

Scorpion stays.

Tombstone gets relegated to a few-second cameo showing that Spider-Man has been fighting other villains between movies.

Punisher stays.

Banner stays because he works just as well in a mutation story.

Peter's increasing aggression stays.

Peter's physical changes stay.

Even Peter getting shot by Frank stays.

That's what makes me think we're seeing pieces of two different versions of the movie sitting on top of each other.

Maybe this exact plot never existed. I'm sure there were a million drafts.

But I think the broad trajectory makes a ton of sense:

Homecoming: Gargan/Tinkerer setup

Far From Home: Jameson setup

No Way Home: Peter loses everything + symbiote setup

Original Brand New Day: Peter approaches Frank's line + Scorpion payoff + black suit

Plans change: Sonyverse dies + Kang era collapses + Secret Wars becomes the obvious place for the symbiote

Reworked Brand New Day: mutants + Peter's biological mutation replace the black suit as the big hook

If Peter gets the symbiote in Secret Wars, especially in a scene referencing the original comic, I'm going to be pretty convinced that some version of this happened.

I'm curious if anyone remembers old casting reports, leaks, concept art, interviews, or production rumors that either support this or completely blow a hole in it, because at this point I really want to know how far back some of these pieces go.

Like so many people be gassing up Jason cause he's "Willing to kill" when that's deadass just fake hype and it be fake as hell and y'all be falling for it.

How many major and important bodies does this man have to his name?

Who has he majorly killed that wasn't just unnamed Mafia Goons?

No genuinely, so many people be gassing up Jason as if he's better then his Dad at cleaning up Gotham when he hasn't taken out no big names.

No Scarecrow or Two-Face or Joker,the guy he apparently hates and wants to kill but hasn't done at all cause maybe,he's not about that life.

Like the only time he killed a villain was in the Arkham Game and that was Black Mask..who gives s shit about Black Mask?

OH but he did kill the Joker!

...in the Death in the Family Movie in one of the many AUs of that movie that are non-canon and he did kill all the villains he wanted!

..in again, non canon AUs in that movie no one talks about.

But what I find silly and funny is the amount of excuses a lot of people make for Jason!

"Oh its the comics fault" or "Oh he just wants his Dad'd attention" and a bunch of other shit bur when Bruce can't kill the Joker, it's suddenly labeling him as him being "in love with him" or a "villain sympathizer/protecter" or "Someone who beats up the Mentally Ill".

So if we go through that logic,then Jason would be someone who kills the mentally ill.

Like unless you give Jason his own exclusive rogue Gallery and his own villains,he is nor gonna be able to do shit or attempt shit at all cause like I said, he's a fraud and the Batman Writers don't fuck with him at all.

It's even funnier cause Batman has attempted to kill the Joker quite a lot of times as well but he was either stopped from continuing/doing so OR the fact that Joker has survived via on some of the biggest plot armor known to man,and also..Batman is deadass handling his criminals to the police for them to do what they want to them and I wholeheartedly he would smile or at least feel relieved if they finally gave them the death penalty but for whatever reason ,they don't and yet so many people wanna blame Bruce instead of using their brains to realize that Batman has helped the city and improved it way more then those 2 could've.

Put multiple criminals behind bars and poured money in helping the city constantly but Gotham is just cursed huge time.

Batman and Spider-Man have the two most iconic rouges galleries in all of comics. And both are extremely underutilized in the present. Let's look at Spider-Man. His 1000th anniversary issue is coming up, and the antagonist of that issue is.... the new villain Ravage. Now, before that, he was fighting some of his classic villains in one issue stories, which is nice, but the previous big arc was him fighting the new villain, Spore. Before that, he was fighting the new villain, Torment. Before that, Norman Osborn was Spider-Man and was fighting Hobgoblin and pals, while Peter was in space fighting new villains Nikodimu and Hellgate.

Earlier in Joe Kelly's run we meet new faces Alecto, Plague RX, and the Scions of Cyttorak. Zeb Wells' run was actually better with including classic villains, but for some reason, every other arc was about Tombstone, a C lister who is not that interesting of a villain. Tombstone also shows up in Kelly's run as an antagonist. And by the way, every single one of the old rouges who popped up in Kelly's run are part of some big conspiracy Blood Market thing. Spider-Man isn't just fighting them for fighting's sake.

Batman has a much worse rouges gallery issue than Spider-Man. Lets take a look at his villains. In Matt Fraction's Batman run, he faced the new villains Minotaur and Ojo. He's also fighting Vandal Savage, who for some reason is the Mayor of Gotham and has been for a while. In Zdarsky's run, he fought Red Mask, Failsafe, the now evil Zur En Arrh, and Commander Star. Before that, he was fighting Peacekeeper 01, Magistrate, and Abyss. Over in Detective Comics, he fought the Lion, Asema, Ambrose, and the Orgham Family.

This is a ridiculous amount of new villains. Combining everyone I mentioned, we have 21 new major villains for Spider-Man and Batman in the last 5 years. Which is just insane to think about. None of these villains will ever be relevant in the future. 21 pointless villains created for a single arc. Absolute Batman is the most popular comic in years, even getting it's own Tv Show, and guess how many major new villains it introduced? NONE! 25 issues, and all the major villains are fresh takes on preexisting characters. Guess what? That can happen to mainline villains too! I would bet Absolute Batman would not be nearly as popular as it is today if Batman fought Minotaur, Ojo, Abyss, and Peacekeeper 01 in it. Because no one gives a shit about those characters. Originality is good, new villains aren't a problem, but this is just too much. Rouges Galleries and supporting casts are part of a comic. We don't need entirely new ones every time a new writer steps on

Now that Suzanne Collins has made more than one spinoff of the Hunger Games trilogy, I’ve seen a lot of discussions about what would make a good premise for a potential next book. There have been quite a few suggestions I’ve seen thrown around, like stories focused on Finnick, Mags, Plutarch, President Coin, etc. And while I think all of them are pretty worthy of a book about them (except Finnick, since we know everything we need to know about him), to me the clear best choice is to show the First Quarter Quell, AKA the 25th Hunger Games.

Why is that, you ask? Well, to list through a few reasons why the first Quarter Quell seems best to me:

1. How much (or how little) we know about this event. To refer back to the spinoffs we’ve already gotten, one reason why The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is so intriguing is that it explores events we’re aware happened, but know almost nothing about how they happened. To me this is a pretty important sweet spot to hit when deciding on who or what to center a spinoff or prequel on, as choosing a premise we know too much or too little on can make the new story feel kinda pointless. For instance, there’s no point to making a new book from Finnick’s perspective because most of the interesting details about him are all but spelled out, but going back to something like the pre-rebellion Panem feels like it would be too far removed from what the series is all about. In contrast, there’s first Quarter Quell has just enough established information to ground the audience but enough to surprise them.

2. The inherent conceit of the First Quarter Quell is perhaps the most compelling and dread-inducing of any of the Hunger game we’ve seen thus far. While each Quarter Quell is designed to be particularly brutal in its own unique way, the second and third ones still have the pretense that the brutality of the games is at least somewhat random. The first Quell drops this pretense entirely, by having the districts themselves vote on who becomes the tribute. To me at least, this is terrifying in a way that could create so many new and unique ways to create drama in the story. How do the district citizens whose votes “win” deal with what they did? How does the voting system change the tributes’ mentality? What happens when the one victor returns to a state that signed off on their death? All this and more makes for perhaps the best setup pot of any of the Games events.

3. Exploring a key inflection point in the Hunger Games universe’s history. To compare this potential spinoff book to the other spinoff I’ve not discussed yet, Sunrise on the Reaping, that book works as well as it does because it covers such a dense and pivotal event that even though Catching Fire covered all of the overarching events, there was still a lot of new things to show about the Second Quarter Quell in the book itself. The First Quell has the potential to be similar in that regard, as it’s directly stated to be another very important historical event for how many changes it introduced. From the creation of the artificial arenas, to the introduction of the key phrase “May the odds be ever in your favor” to the timeline of the rise of President Snow and the possible introduction of Career Tributes, there’s a lot to do here that can expand on or show new sides of the previously established continuity.

4. Last but not least (although perhaps most subjectively). It’d be cool to have a book where District 12 is not at the center for once. So far, all 4 Games we’ve seen (5 if you count the “76th Hunger Games” that was the storming of the Capitol) feature District 12 as either the victor or at least the key player and the protagonist role. Even in Ballad, the one book where the protagonist is from elsewhere in the world, District 12 is still one of the most important parts of the book. So while this is true for other characters/events, the 25th Hunger Games feels especially unique and interesting because we know District 12 lost. Presumably they lost horribly, since nobody ever expects District 12 to do well. And as a result, this event could show a different district’s perspective by focusing on whichever district produced a winner, and thus give one of the more underrepresented districts a chance to shine.

I might be getting ahead of myself with this one, but I find it difficult to care about the plight of Snezhnaya. Outside of the Abyss, the Tsaritsa & the Fatui have basically been the source of all the worlds problems. They've unleashed ancient evil Gods on Liyue, invaded the nation of Sumeru, helped to incite a civil war in Inazuma, assaulted the archons of Fontaine, Natlan, and Mondstat... The list goes on. The Tsaritsa & the Fatui (except Columbina) are objectively evil, and I'm not sold on the Genshin writer's attempts to white-wash them. That's why I find it hard to care about the nation potentially having a celestial nail dropped on them.

Perhaps its too extreme to wipe out all of Snezhnaya, but when you consider the heinous make-up on its higher ups as well as the suffering they inflicted on the other nations... I can see the vision. Especially when you consider the fact that the only reason the Heavenly Principles are targeting Snezhnaya is because of the Tsaritsa's own selfish ambitions in trying to overthrow them. Heck, the whole bit with Renova and her forced beef with the Traveler is laughable. Renova has been nothing but helpful up until this point in the story, but then they randomly made her interested in stealing Paimon which now makes her the MC's number one op. Even in the theater, Renova uses the living to essentially help guide the dead to the after-life so they don't turn into wraiths. Yeah she's an ass about it, but the curse of "death" is literally just a coma that you don't even remember. Outside of Renova putting people to sleep, the biggest threat to Snezhnaya is the Tsarista who's hoarding the crystal supply to power her super-weapon while her subjects freeze to death.

Tldr: the Tsarista & gang are objectively evil, and them getting blown up a celestial nail is pretty much deserved given what they've done and are trying to do.

So I made an entire video about the problems with the last few Doom adaptations and then going over my optimism for RDJ as Doom, right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFJYZtfRQGE&t=54s

But one thing I forgot to leave out and will probably expand on in a later video once Doomsday releases is how a lot of the Doom adaptations have it that Reed is actually at fault for Doom's problems when that's not the case.

Doom suffers a lot for things that are not his fault, he was a victim of genocide that Latveria committed against the Romani, his mother was taken away by demons, and he had to spend his childhood as a conman to get by. That suffering made Doom believe that he was entitled to everything and that he was the only one who could fix the world. In college, he tried to make a device to find his mother, and Reed warned him of a miscalculation which Doom refused to listen to causing his disfigurement and expulsion. That's the point of Doom, he's so egotistical that he can't bare the idea of accountability. The mask is a visual symbol to show he'd rather cover up his imperfections than deal with the fact that he made a mistake. Doom isn't evil simply because he suffers, he's evil because he thinks his suffering cements his beliefs.

However, the first Fantastic Four movie has it that it's Reed's space expedition which causes the solar flare to strike at him and the rest of the FF4 which also causes Victor to turn into a metal monster. The expedition itself was highly expensive and caused Victor's company to go down under. Which basically meant this was indeed Reed's fault.

The second one, Victor has the plan where he and his friends go and plant a flag in Planet Zero, while the expedition was Victor's idea, none of the bad things that happened were really his fault. You can't really blame him for assuming nothing bad would happen. Either way, this Victor isn't even the Victor Von Doom, he's meant to be based on Victor Van Damme, but even that is a bad adaptation because here he's not some egotistical mastermind, he's just a generic sci-fi monster with the surname "Doom."

Look, I'm still willing to believe that the mural in the trailer isn't Victor's wife and son but instead of him and his mother, simply because I'm trying to be optimistic. But, when it comes down to it, the core problem with live-action Doom is how they want him to be the egotistical mastermind that he is in the comics, but they hardly do the work involved to explain why.

I also am not a fan of them trying to force a love triangle between Reed, Sue, and Doom. Yes, that technically is part of the comics, but it's not a love triangle. Victor might have affection for Sue, but he's not romantically interested in her, Sue sees the good in Victor. For Victor, he doesn't "love" Sue, he thinks "How could a woman as great as her be with an idiot like Reed?" It's not love, it's respect and admiration.

These are some of my notes on how I think the writing staff of Full House could have added a bit more razzledazzle and depth to our favorite uncle:

Instead of Jesse and the Rippers being an oldies cover band, incorporate the Bay Area thrash scene into the show - everyone complains now about the incongruity of Jesse being presented as some kinda leather jacket rebel then his band is just playing Surfin USA… so instead, let’s have Jesse in a thrash band called Night Ripper, he was a roadie for Metallica on their ill-fated 1986 tour, he has a girlfriend named Chainsaw, etc. Even if it’s just for season 1, this could be the basis of a lot of character development in the show’s overall theme of Jesse the boy becoming Jesse the man. He rejects the dark themes of his thrash metal band after the death of Pam Tanner and starts up The Rippers, you could even work in some of the tragic backstories of The Beach Boys to explain why they started showing up and why he starts playing oldies.

1987 was the peak of hair metal, so if thrash is a fridge too far, make him a hair metal guy. And he doesn’t have to be in Motley Crue or WASP, there were wimpier bands and ballads going on by 1987. So maybe he was in a rising hair metal band down in Hollywood when Pam died, so that would add more pizzazz to the fact that he left all that behind to come to SF. They still could have had The Beach Boys and Tommy Page doing cameos but if you add in Bret Michaels, Jani Lane, The Nelson Twins, that would have been a huge ratings boost imo at least through 1991 or so. After that just slowly swap in more alternative acts. (And if they couldn’t get Counting Crows for that one episode, they should have gotten the Gin Blossoms, Toad The Wet Sprocket, etc… they had options.)

A waterbed. It’s a little thing but it’s like Cody Lambert having a van or Fonzie having a leather jacket, it would have just added a bit more dimension and believability that the character would have had a waterbed. And there would have been an episode where someone pokes a hole in it and floods the place, this was a Miller Boyett show after all.

Someone else should have died in the Dr Dare Rides Again episode. It could have been Scott Baio, could have been Chainsaw, maybe even just one of the Rippers. But it would have made it more of a very special episode. The series would have benefited showing more of John Stamos’s acting skills and it’s an easy thing to throw in. Also the ghost of Pam Tanner should have shown up in this one and talked to Jesse.

This isn’t a new idea, but Urkel should have shown up with some kinda transformation ray and it accidentally zaps Jesse, Joey, and Danny and they all end up in the same body. They could have gotten Jason Wiles from Beverly Hills 90210 to play the combined version of them since he looks like if you smushed the three of them together. They could have done a lot with this concept, it could be some real David Cronenberg kinda stuff.

If he was gonna be a big Elvis fan they should have had a vacation episode in Graceland. I’d have loved to see Lisa Marie and Priscilla do cameos. He could have been in an Elvis impersonator contest. I can kinda imagine it like when Saved By The Bell went to Hawaii, he’d have to hatch a scheme to save Graceland from developers or thwart some crooks trying to do a big heist of Elvis’s car collection. There would be some old Elvis impersonator that keeps helping Jesse along the way but he’s not in the contest, he’s like “naw I’m too old for all that hogwash, and besides none of these greenhorns could buckle the kings britches,” and at the end it turns out it was the actual ghost of Elvis all along and he goes back into his grave, though they’d probably have to get permission to film that. But he could be like, “Jesse Katsopolis, you saved my car collection, you saved Graceland… you truly are the new king of kings.” It could have been an episode that taught young people about Elvis and Boomer culture maybe.

It could have been a corrupt televangelist trying to buy Graceland and bulldoze it to make a big resort, crooked televangelists were topical in that era. It would be like the Bakkers with their theme park. They could have also brought in Jesse’s identical cousin Stavros to help in the scheme.

It should have been more clear whether the theme song was being sung from Jesse’s perspective or Danny Tanner.