#[trans people mediocre joke]

[goodmorningmistermagpie]

its so funny that the save the princess game title gets shortened to stp

makes me think of. penice.

[edandstede]

being trans in the uk is exhausting. it’s dire and hopeless and i’m tired. tories trying to roll back our rights and healthcare, they don’t want us to piss in public, it would take me years on the nhs just to get a gender dysphoria diagnosis in order to even begin accessing surgeries and hormones, i gotta use up most of my raised funds just on private consultations alone and i’m one of the lucky ones who has funds at all. most surgeons won’t even chop your tits off if your bmi is too high even though bmi is fucking bullshit. we’re suffering and dying, being fucking murdered while our prime minister makes transphobic jokes in parliament, suicide rates are rocketing. we’re debated talking points and punchlines on your racist uncle’s facebook posts and our youth are treated like they’re just being brainwashed into thinking they’re trans. some of you can’t let go of the mediocre wizard books written by a millionaire terf who funds anti-trans groups just because you grew up with them, and you’re so out of touch with reality. hell so many cis gays hate us too even though to everyone else we’re all indiscernible from one another. if they’re putting me on the chopping block then you’re next so why are you helping them curl the fists they’ll use to beat you with too? every angle is just a nightmare to navigate and some people still think it’s a choice. i can’t take it anymore.

[oblivionbladetd]

The great big asterisk that dangles off every post I've made critiquing Lorch's work.

* Is this really the content that makes everything she's done okay?

I'm an absolute shitter to my core, I know this. Though as much as I love treating her as the joke that she is, sometimes you do gotta be serious. I'd never be caught dead participating in this double think where Lily is both a threat to everyone and a self-important goober spinning her wheels, though a threat to a few she certainly is.

I'm about done pulling punches, so if you want to see me pop the lid off my cool, do please read past the cut.

Because I try to keep an open mind, but besides her being a never back down epic pwner of the Cis Het MAGA losers... What is the fuckin draw? Rhetorical question by the way, you needn't look farther than her own wife to know Lily is all about pretending to shelter the disadvantaged as one of the good ones... but if a good chunk of ex-Lily fans would let me know that even that is conditional. She's created a community where you are protected by an Indigenous Trans Woman, to not really protect anybody, cozy up with all manner of people that match her freak that would also like to poke around this community of people that (to overly simplify it) just ain't got no-one else.

The evidence is all around. The effort that it would take to falsify a lot of it is actually quite ludicrous, especially archive and way back stuff. You straight up can't without a small army of top tier hackers.

Like sure she calls us stalkers for... paying any fucking attention? I do not feel like anyone is tapping her phone lines and bugging her house. She can, does, and will continue to just vomit her every life grip, problem, and story at any opportunity! The vast majority of all the evidence we have is evidence she has boldly and willingly volunteered like the braindead, shortsighted dipshit she is. Motherfuckers are not stalking you, if anything they are fishing.

Lastly, though what I feel is most important is knowing it all and just being like, "but she's so entertaining. " fuck outta here. How does any of the mediocrity she let's dribble onto a notepad make the pain that caused okay? "Yeah, I know she allegedly raped her sister but Stockholm and pokemadhouse ate so fire!" Fuckin Dumpster fire maybe. She's got some of the most boring fics if you can ignore that she's not smart enough to hide her true intentions that naturally bubble up from the subtext, the greater half of her critiques are plagiarized and the other totally scatterbrained... where is the appeal?

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Do you wanna read a new web serial?

Of course you do! Everyone loves web serials. What? You're not really into web serials? Haha, what a silly joke. Seriously now though, have some web serials.

Curse Words: Spellcasting for Fun and Prophet

Kayden is a trans boy with a curse in his heart. Since he was a baby, the most important thing in his life has been keeping it dormant. Until the day he fails, until the day it wakes up, and suddenly, Kayden's mere presence is a threat to his friends, family, and anyone else he meets.

When a mage visits his house promising to teach him to control it, it sounds like a trap. All he has to do is accept a scholarship to the world's most prestigious magic school, away from his family, away from any legal or government protection, away from his life. Knowing the reputation that mages have for killing particularly dangerous cursed people, he knows that it has to be a trap. But what else can he do?

Whisked away to a fun magical world of invisible dragons, mysterious lake monsters, and a teacher who looks way too much like a Disney supervillain to not be evil, Kayden needs to work fast to get a grip on what's going on. Because somebody's trying to kill his favourite teacher and frame him for it, and if he can't understand the situation fast enough to bring the perpetrator to justice, he might be stepping into an entirely different kind of trap that he's woefully unprepared for.

Oh yeah, and the entire world is also in danger. He should probably do something about that.

Time to Orbit: Unknown

Aspen Greaves is a sociologist and pop science author who doesn't even like going to the moon, let alone deep space, so they're the last person who should have been picked to be put in chronostasis and launched at a distant star in humanity's first attempt to colonise space outside of our own solar system. But they were one of the five thousand colonists picked, so they go to sleep, expecting to be woken up in orbit around a new planet.

They do not expect to wake up in the middle of space, five years from their destination, on a broken ship with no living crew and a glitchy AI. Yet here they are, with a new goal: survive long enough to get the ship full of colonists safely to their new planet. With no astronaut training, no knowledge of engineering, and only a basic education in biology, this is a lot harder than it sounds, and Aspen will have to unravel mystery after mystery to figure out what went wrong if they want to have any hope of not dying in deep space and taking the whole ship with them.

Charlie MacNamara: Galactic Ace (on long hiatus)

Charlie was a single mum out taking some photos for her online art course when she was unexpectedly kidnapped by aliens. This, naturally, caused somewhat of a disruption in her life.

All Charlie wants to do is get home to her kids, but this isn't on the cards for her captors. She's been shanghaied by a pirate ship under the command of the mysterious runaway royal the Faceless Princess, so with an alien hivemind made of tiny flying spiders as her translator and guide, she gets to work learning enough about the ship to change their minds -- by force, if necessary.

But she's become embroiled in a struggle much bigger than the fate of one little planet like Earth, and it's going to take all of her intelligence, charisma and extremely mediocre social skills to stay alive. Because Charlie is learning that in the big, wide universe out there, nothing puts someone in more danger than being a human.

[runawaysiren940]

Something I’ve noticed about queer ideologues is this unbridled hostility towards white gay men in media that never seems to touch white trans celebrities. Some of the commentary includes only referring to these men as faggots especially when they are effeminate, wishing these men to be hatedcrimed. Jokes about the state of their anuses and other perverse comments that imply homosexual sex as unsanitary and unnatural.

Despite, the unapologetic homophobia and borderline sexual harassment, it’s justified on account these men being white ‘ciz’ gay males. The scorned enemies of the queer community.

However, that can all go away if they save themselves, rebuke their homosexuality, and bow to the mighty alter that is trans. Apparently.

If white trans celebrities continued living as gay men they would be subjected to the same degrading homophobia from queer people. I doubt Hunter Schaffer would be treated as the coveted queen he is. Dylan Mulvaney would be torn to shreds, yet he gets to be coddled and receives all this unearned praise for his mediocrity.

Sam Smith was seen as nothing more than a boring white gay man at the start of his career. Now, with his newfound hedonistic non-binary persona, he gets to relish in his own glory, achieve unwavering loyalty after appeasing to the cultish hivemind of queerdom.

Whether to maintain relevance or to escape unprovoked homophobia, transitioning seems to be on the move for self hating white men.

I was waiting to answer this because I actually have a video in mind on this topic which basically comes down to: no one wants to be ordinary. But actually doing something about that- being extraordinary? That's difficult.

How do you shortcut that?

Easy. Claim victimhood. It's the easiest way to feel special and get special treatment. Added benefit of avoiding any and all criticism.

Great observations! I liked Sam Smith's music when he had his first album. Shame he turned out this way.

[confuzzled-crow77]

My Thoughts on Nimona

Okay, so I just finished watching Nimona for the first time and I’m going to record my thoughts because I want to. (Also SPOILERS ahead and if someone knows how to spell Goldoin’s first name, please tell and correct me)

First off, I can most definitely see how Arcane inspired a lot of the animation, and I am SO okay with that. Character designs are all lovely and I ADORE Nimona’s facial expressions and Ballister’s huge eyes (me the whole movie: babbbyyy don’t hurt the babbyyy - to a grown, trained knight). I don’t like it AS MUCH as Spiderverse or Arcane’s animation but talk about a ridiculously high bar!

I love Nimona and Ballister and their dynamics with Ambrosius, but other than that, no important side characters. And I say important like they have explored personalities and stuff: Squire dude did his part (which he had by accident and he was still a bit bland) and left, Todd was a bitchy comic relief character with a two second redemption at the end, and the Director…she was a villain alright…anyway- But in all seriousness, I’m glad that they didn’t make it so easy for people to believe she did it, but that’s about it.

Nimona’s backstory was a TINY bit predictable, but other than that very good (Gloreth you bitch, how would YOU like it if you were being stabbed with pitchforks IN THIS ESSAY I WILL-). I know that the whole thing is about influenced hatred so I’m kidding about Gloreth, I would be freaked out too. Super tragic, but gosh, I LOVED her hair animation (don’t you be judging).

All of the metaphors that were LITERALLY NOT METAPHORS for trans people and hate being a learned thing? Wonderful! It’s great and a good message for younger kids and maybe even parents and society as a whole (though I doubt a good movie will change much, as much as I hate to say it). Lovely, fantastic

The ending was…confusing and hilarious. I’ll see what the internet has to say, though it does make sense that Nimona wouldn’t die because she got stabbed and walked it off like a pro (my dad would be so proud of her). And the HOLY SH- like, yaaaaaaas Bal you absolute ✨ queen 💖

Ballister is my favorite character; they got a good mix of a sweet and emotional character who is still strong and will throw hands if need be (he’ll still probably be called an Omega Male or whatever but whatcha gonna do?). So for me it goes: Bal, Nimona, Ambrosius. If you have other characters, you need help.

So in conclusion, I LIKED the movie: good main characters, good plot, good animation, good message, but okay jokes, lack of interesting side characters, and mediocre villain. I’m a little disappointed because I thought it would be on Arcane or Spiderverse level because of being compared to them, but it was just too much to ask and that’s perfectly okay. Hey, it was gay though!! (So gay, and so cute when they weren’t chopping off arms!) So, 8.2/10, will watch again.

(chopping off arms is now my love language; don’t quote me on that)

[official-lucifers-child]

this is speaking as a queer/trans person, and i agree. as occasionally funny as it can be to joke about that one skirt that so many trans women wear when they’re first trying out fem clothes, that one skirt makes them happy. as occasionally amusing as it is to poke fun at that one pixie-adjacent haircut that so many trans men get before fully coming out, that haircut makes them happy. there is always unbridled joy in mediocrity, because mediocrity is such for a reason. it’s “normal” and “average” because it makes so many people happy.

also this ties into cringe culture somehow but i’m too tired to try to explain it.

this speaking as a cis person. Nothing brings me more joy seeing people find gender euphoria in becoming a mediocre representation of humanity. And I mean that so genuinely. Local boy finds joy and fulfillment wearing a cargo shorts and t-shirt combo. Local girl has transitioned to look like someone's disheveled aunt, has never been happier. Local person experiences gender euphoria rocking the world's worst bowl-cut. Without a scap of irony, this shit makes me see the wonder and whimsy in just, being a human. An average, person going through their day-to-day, is a wondrous thing? That's amazing. And heteronormativity has stripped these experiences of their joy. Like you're right, wearing a basic girlypop skirt should make my heart sing. Why not? Why are these expressions lesser because they're normal? All this to say. Shoutout to all the basic bitches out there. Yes that polo shirt does make you look like a divorced golfer dad. Yes, that too is kind of a slay, now that I think of it.

[spacecat-studio]

Can we stop having the same reductive argument about women reading MM it’s fucking 2024 and there is a fifty percent chance that my government is going to get flushed into a fascist toilet of censorship and explicit oppression of minorities. People reading and writing what they want is not the problem.

You want to talk about the problems in the MM romance community? Great, let’s talk about how it’s just chock full of queerphobia. Let’s talk about how entitled fans stewing in a soup of internalized misogyny, or just outright misogyny, harass authors who step outside the MM genre to write queer MF, or sapphic or trans or nonbinary stories. Let’s talk about women and afab enbies who won’t touch stories about queer women with a ten foot pole. Let’s talk about the authors who profit from queer narratives under one pen name and cater to homophobic fans under another. Let’s talk about how a huge majority of MM authors are women or afab enbies but who can’t even imagine worlds where there are female and nonbinary characters in the background, much less as a part of the actual narrative. Let’s talk about acephobia and how even the ace authors can’t seem to imagine a world where ace characters exist except as side stories. Let’s talk about how deeply conservative many romance narratives are, about how they perpetrate a singular view of what love, romance, and sex should be. Let’s talk about how many readers treat MM as a kind of escapist tourist destination while ignoring the real life issues queer people face. Let’s talk about the authors who put ���New York times best selling author’ in the bio for their gay romance pen name but won’t tell you that author name because they want to have their cake and eat it too.

Let’s talk about the defense ‘it’s just entertainment’ because it never is just entertainment. We are still dealing with the cultural fallout that the Hays code perpetuated about queer characters, in which the queer characters had to be portrayed as evil predators or tragic figures who die at the end. Trans women have been the butt of gross jokes in movies for decades. (Lindsey Ellis has a great breakdown of this on YouTube.) Big studios won’t make queer stories because they can’t market them to china. Amazon’s algorithmic doom spiral buries narratives that don’t conform to the narrow standard of comforting regressive escapism. The faceless corporate machine allows authors from marginalized groups to be silenced by bullies. Let’s talk about how it rewards the privileged authors who have the time and financial considerations to put out mediocre trash every other month. Let’s talk about how we sold our future out to the Amazon machine for the immediate profits of the now, and how that’s made the system unsustainable and hostile to our interests. Let’s talk about how authors will band together against legitimate criticism of their bad behavior to use that system to silence those critics. Authors who literally made their names writing MM narratives yet still espouse conservative ideals that get real queer men oppressed. Authors who file the serial numbers off their fan fiction and publish it as original work without bothering to flesh out the narrative or characters, for profit. The system that allows scammers to do this to fan works so easily and with little to no accountability. All in the name of entertainment.

Let’s talk about the real problems, because I’m fucking tired of the bullshit and the hypocrisy. I’m tired of having a checklist to vet authors so I don’t end up supporting yet another one who turns out to be an exploitive piece of shit. And I’m tired of seeing this argument use to justify misogyny and the persistent misgendering of nonbinary folks.

[thetinydiamond]

Eight Crazy Nights is pretty widely regarded somewhere between “terrible” and “mediocre” (1) and I’ve gotta agree: the bootlegged bits I’ve seen were of a movie that was either A: largely failed jokes largely based on crude/potty humor or B: sentimental moments …that were deflated by failed jokes laced throughout.

That said, a bunch of the songs fuckin slap. Even if their jokes only intermittently hit, Technical Foul, Bum Biddy, and Long Ago are actually enjoyable to listen to because of the instrumentals underneath. Also, Sandler somehow voices/sings for himself and the Duvall siblings (Whitey, a high-pitched old man, and Eleanor, a high-pitched old woman). Props to him being able to pull off high-pitched, elderly voices in both speech and song throughout the entire movie.

Also the one (1) transphobic joke I saw lives rent-free in my head both as a callout and a point of interest: for being a 2002 movie, 🎶my darling wife was once a he / but that was long ago🎶 (from Long Ago) is a really tame joke. This is a movie released (estimating here) about a decade before it became unfashionable for comedians to call gay people slurs, never mind trans jokes. But (barring the clear played-pejoratively-for-laughs nature) I feel like I’d see transfem tumblr users make this joke currently (if more tongue-in-cheekily). I know I probably would in some friendgroups.

[wandering-mage]

Trans people are telling you that your reporting and moderation system is failing and that tons of people reported for death threats either get ignored or they get a ban until they are let off the hook and can come back, and here you are saying there's no problem with your system, just mistakes happen. You get one joke of a non-threat and that person is permanently banned?

Give me a break, that's a mediocre dismissal of the problem. Accept responsibility and do something about it or shut up about how you all are handling things fine and don't have any issues besides occasional mistakes that are to be expected. But you know, we're used to people dismissing us when we say something is on fire.

"...we moderate behavior not people or identities"

What a pathetic excuse. Being a Nazi is a death threat to people. Being a TERF is hateful behavior. If people are identifying as those things here, that's a threat. The absolute clueless gall to make this statement here.

I hope you do something to make this better. But I expect that that won't happen unless you are literally forced to. Pleasantly surprise me.

So, the terfs and neonazis are fine, but a trans women giving threatening you is where you draw the line?

No. Tumblr teams continue to support the LGBTQIA+ community and condemn nazis. Hateful behavior from anybody, including people who identify as TERFs, should be reported and the team will look at it. To repeat though, we moderate behavior not people or identities.

With a handful of people moderating the content posted by roughly the population of NYC, we rely on reports. Please report behaviors that are in violation of our community guidelines and it will go in the team's queue to review. Every single ticket is looked at.

Now, am I saying moderation is perfect? Definitely not! Mistakes will be made, and hopefully corrected quickly. There are tens of millions of posts for every member of staff.

[gaykarstaagforever]

Because I am a delivery driver so I have a lot of hours to fill, I've watched several of Dave Chapelle's last shows on Netflix. You know, the ones everyone was mad about for what felt like several months longer than any of us had any reason to be?

My verdict is: he's a cranky old man. And he does what all comedians seem to do now when they become cranky old men, which is to stop being funny and expect their reputations to be enough for you to pay to watch them yell at the television.

Even if he wasn't laser-focused on trans jokes, this would still be mediocre stand-up. Every punchline is surrounded by what feels like 7 minutes of him complaining about something that only very specifically has ever happened to him (assuming he isn't making it all up, which he may be, which would explain why it all seems a little unbelievable). This isn't relatable or compelling. Especially not when he keeps stopping to talk about how amazing and rich he is.

Which, if that is true, why is he so defensive? In 4 specials over like 5 years, he cannot shut the fuck up about how trans people don't like his bullying, and that actually makes them racist! Like, Dave - move on. You aren't going to win them back. How desperate are you to be liked, that you are basically artistically stalking a minority group until, what, you shame them into liking you? That has got to be a symptom of some emotional disorder if ever their was one.

When he is funny in his classic Dave Chapelle "saying CRAZY things no one is allowed to say" way, even if he's being regressive, he is still funny. His timing and voices and storytelling, punctuated by exaggerated facial expressions, has always been good and still is. I just wish it was more than 35% of the runtime, with most of the rest being him saying Twitter is nothing and then complaining about what he read on there.

I get this all was kind of a revenge tour for the, yes, genuine racist bullshit he has had to put up with for decades. And he's entitled. But it has clearly left him bitter, and I for one don't want to watch Dave Chapelle be bitter for millions of dollars.

I guess people do, or at least did? Fine.

But I like more comedy in my comedy specials.

[cirusia]

I don't know what's it like elsewhere, but in my country every time you see a post about /that game/ and someone dares to bring up transphobia people will drag them through mud. they try to paint trans people as the enemy that tries to control everyone around while they're fiercely protecting a privileged woman that has an army of followers and fans (a lot of them very young and impressionable) that she's exposing to this sort of prejudice.

they have the fucking nerve to say that one person is trying to bully while they allow their childhood role model (what a joke) to use her platform to spread hate against a group of people that is already at risk.

I'm fucking mad, you know? I'm not trans, so I'm not even thinking about how it must feel when you are. this mediocre at best game is literally shoved down everyone's throat just because it's based on a less than mediocre series of books. It's being promoted by gaming fansites, people who like this series (I never understood why but cool) and people who simply hate other people and will buy a copy of said game just to spite a trans kid that is already probably bullied at school.

I'm angry but I dont know how to help you all

[darkwood-sleddog]

I understand it is difficult for some people to see the value in trans representation in sport when the sport itself is removed from the gender binary completely (not to mention non gender separated sports is a difficult thing for some folks to grasp) but consider what having the trans flag waved at ANY sporting event regardless of if the sport is separated by gender right now means for transgender people. It means. A LOT.

Right now in the United States there is a huge anti-trans push in our government and social culture. As of five hours prior to this post the Kansas senate passed a bill banning transgender students from participating in school sports under their gender identity from elementary to university age.  1/3 of transgender children in this country are at risk of loosing their gender affirming care and there have been an absolutely staggering amount of anti-transgender bills pushed into state legislatures (these are all recent articles and information as of the time of this post, no older than 2 days prior to me making this).

When we have bills like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” and Texas’s “Gender Affirming Care for Trans Kids is Abuse” that seek to eliminate allies and education about transgender people than any positive visibility matters a fuck ton. I for one am glad to participate in a sport such as mushing which can allow our athletes to compete regardless of their gender identity, one that has celebrated our transgender athletes in vast majority when they come out and understand they just want to run dogs and live their lives, simple as that.

You can understand that mushing is not segregated by gender (and often the top placements are filled with an equal amount of men and women which is very cool) AND also understand that trans representation in this sport, having the trans flag waved at such an event is still a massive positive and a massive moment for transgender people. 

[grimmjow]

Contrapoints linsey ellis and jenny nicholson are all the pinnacle of why white women should just stop talking

[homunculus-argument]

I know I'm playing with fire with Tumblr's reading comprehension with this opening sentence, but here we go: Using stereotypes as a basis for a character is actually perfectly fine if you know what you're doing. It's actually surprisingly easy to do in a way that'll result in a pretty good character instead of an absolute garbage fire, with just two simple rules:

use in-group stereotypes, never out-group stereotypes

never use just one, take two unrelated ones and combine them

Every group that can be defined has both in-group stereotypes - the things the people have observed about themselves and their peers, which are generally harmless and a way to laugh about themselves, and out-group stereotypes, which are usually negative and often harmful. It's the difference between "hahah why are we all like this" and "hahah why are they all like this".

I cannot stress enough that this is the line between doing a pretty good character and spectacularly fucking up. If you aren't confident in your ability to tell apart what stereotype is out-group and which is in-group, you're going to need to either be really careful, or not risk it at all. Look up online communities of this specific group, and see what kind of jokes they make about their own lives and communities. Memes about trans women from trans forums? Yes. Memes about trans women from non-LGBT forums? Absolutely not.

While the first point is the distinction between making a character that's ok and a character that is not ok, the second part is the one between a character that's flat and mediocre, and one that has depth, is interesting and feels real. Nobody is ever just one thing in life, even if you don't belong to any distinct group or groups.

By "unrelated" I mean two groups that aren't in the same cathegory, ones that aren't immediately connected or contradictory wich each other. As an example, let's pick two unrelated ones - first generation immigrant parent, and being an adult with undiagnosed ADHD.

So you've got someone's dad. He's devoted to his family and already once uprooted himself and left behind everything he knew in order to give his kids a chance at a better life, and would absolutely do that again in a heartbeat. And yet, despite of doing his best, he keeps missing appointments and forgetting important assignments and paperwork, being frustrated both with himself and the new country and all their fucking rules.

Without a community around him, neither he, his kids nor the local people can exactly tell how much of the way he is are cultural things and how much is just who he is as a person. He'll argue that being punctual can't possibly be important and that people weren't that nitpicky about it back home - regarless of how true that is - and will try to cook traditional dishes, but his kids still don't really know what they're supposed to taste like when they aren't overseasoned, overcooked or slightly burned.

He'll occasionally get into a wave of being absolutely fixated with some game or hobby that's popular in the old homeland, forgetting nearly everything else, and his kids will tell people "ugh, not every middle-aged man from [country] is obsessed with [game]. ...Okay my dad is, but he's an outlier and should not have been counted."

Altogether, he's not a perfect person, but well-meaning and doing his best in life. And is also now a fairly well-rounded character with depth and personality.

[greatwyrmgold]

Superheroes are an established genre these days, but they (obviously) weren’t when Marvel, DC, etc were starting out. This means that they have one thing that most modern superhero settings don’t: Unique origin stories for each member of the cast. Superman is an alien, Wonder Woman is an Amazon, the Green Lantern found a ring, the Flash got stuck in a lab accident, Batman is rich and stubborn; together, They Fight Crime!

Contrast that with more recent superhero stories. In My Hero Academia, every hero and villain has a Quirk. In Worm and Ward, every cape is a parahuman. In Steelheart and its sequels, the Epics are all…it’s kinda like Worm, if it called its villains Epics and didn’t have any heroes or general term for “superpowered human”. In Kamen Rider and Big Hero Six (among others), everyone’s powers come from science. In Miraculous Ladybug, Steven Universe, and other series on the border between superhero and either magical girl or urban fantasy, it’s all magic. And so on.

That’s an interesting shift to look at.

Obviously, not all modern superhero stories fit this formula. Some, like Mutants & Masterminds, Sentinels of the Multiverse, and Dreadnought/Sovereign, give unique origin stories to every superpowered or Badass Normal member of the cast; aliens, rich inventors, and super-soldiers stand side by side with witches, martial artists, and people whose powers’ origin aren’t really explained.

But these are all deliberate throwbacks; Dreadnought and Sovereign are trying to give trans kids the same kind of power fantasy cis ones get from reading Spider-Man or Wonder Woman, Mutants & Masterminds is an RPG for playing classic-style superhero stories, and Sentinels of the Multiverse has a whole metafictional layer of fictional comic books and pubishing history behind its cards.

There are some kitchen-sink-origin stories which aren’t so obviously “just” riffing on classic superhero stories one way or another. One Punch Man is the example that comes to mind first for me; a lot of its monsters are eventually revealed to have a common origin, and most of its heroes are “just” Badass Normals, but it still has some espers, oracles, cyborgs, aliens, mad scientists, and so forth. And then there are series like Dragon Ball, which TV Tropes insists is a superhero story so don’t @ me, which is just set in a goofy world where anything goes because the author cares less about series continuity than dumb jokes. But by and large, the rule is that superpeople in recent media share an origin story with everyone else in their setting.

And a lot of the time—especially in non-serialized media—that origin isn’t really discussed. Sky High, for all its accidental eugenicsy/fascy undertones and general mediocrity, is a pretty good example I can trust at least some of y’all to know about. Superpowers are just a fact of life, and that’s all anyone needs to know before we launch into our story about how a random dude with no powers becomes the greatest hero (by inheriting both of his parents’ powers at plot-convenient moments). There are a couple off-hand mentions of toxic waste sometimes giving people superpowers, but this is both a joke and exceedingly uncommon in-universe. Superpowers have one origin, and it’s genetic.

Putting aside how Sky High handled that setting element, it serves as a decent template for how superpowers work in everything from The Incredibles to Strong Female Protagonist to Worm to My Hero Academia to Aberrant to Wild Cards to the Milestone Comics universe to—you get the idea. People have superpowers, for reasons that may be explained in detail, or handwaved with something about genetics, or just ignored. These powers, or at least the status of having powers,are almost always heritable to some extent; when they aren’t, the superpowers are usually a recent phenomenon. Different superpowers are as unique as they are in kitchen-sink universes, each following their own internal logic, but they might share some common weaknesses (e.g. can all be “turned off” by the same kind of power nullification cuffs/field/power). And so on.

It’s rare for these rules to be stated explicitly, except in stories that try to get detailed about how their power system works (hiya, Worm!) It’s just accepted that, for instance, everyone’s powers are different yet the same; we know that’s how superhero stories work, so we accept it. Which would be normal genre stuff, if it wasn’t for the fact that there are a lot of high-profile superhero stories which don’t work that way! Anything that falls under the Marvel and DC umbrellas, for instance. Some rules apply to individual heroes—for instance, we can expect the kids of Superman, Zatanna, and Batman to inherit at least some of their parent’s powers—but they don’t apply to everyone and can’t be assumed.

That said, I’m pretty sure the genesis of this “standard superhero ruleset” comes from Marvel, specifically the X-Men. Marvel mutants all have a common, handwavey origin, with shared weaknesses (anything that removes or suppresses mutant abilities), but each mutant has their own unique powers. And so on. Aside from existing in a kitchen-sink universe, with lots of weird one-off power sources and the like, it’s just like the modern superpower system I’ve been describing.

I dunno if this is meaningful or anything, but I think it’s interesting, and I hope some other people do too. If you’ve read this far and you’re not one of them…I’m sorry.