the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.
capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.
now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.
and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.
and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.
and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".
it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"
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the other day, a friend of mine invited me over to testplay a paper-and-pencil storytelling game he's been working on for a while and feels like he's finally got a workable version of and one of his mentioned reasons was that "you're a fellow storyteller, I want to see what you'll do with it"
I promptly created a character which violated exactly zero (0) rules but nonetheless obliterated one of the core intended mechanical limitations of the game and I didn't even do that on purpose
after the game, when we were laughing about this, he admitted that one of his other reasons for asking me specifically to testplay was because he knew that "if there was anything that could be broken, you would find it and break it"
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general society is such an underthought aspect of mha. obviously there’s the big things like the obsession over heroic quirks and the demonisation of villainous quirks. quirkless people are dismissed entirely but i don’t think we talk about how society in general would have to handle a world with super powers.
we know after afo’s first uprising, the government overcorrected and outlawed public quirk usage. we know people have their quirks registered and go through quirk counselling as well as a type of gym class where they practice under teacher supervision.
how in the hell is that supposed to work?
the closest equivalent i can think of is mental health services. someone would have to study for a long time to be able to pursue quirk counselling as a career. it’s also a highly personalised system: everyone has a different quirk - even similar ones have different activations, triggers, exceptions and drawbacks - so no two sessions could ever be the same. if anyone’s been through mental health services, you know how rough it is; it’s an overworked, underpaid system and if you live somewhere that only offers a few free visits, it can also be expensive.
and that’s an elective service.
almost everyone on the planet would need quirk counselling.
there’s no way they could implement such a labour intensive and individual public system and we literally see that they can’t.
we see the gym class in amajiki’s flashback and he only has a few minutes with his teacher before he’s chided for not being more impressive and utilising his quirk to the fullest and they move on to the next student. say a standard class is twenty students like it is at ua. that leaves just over two minutes for each student to learn and practice their quirks. you can’t focus on just one kid per lesson bc what will the other nineteen do? do teachers also have to have a degree in quirk counselling? is that part of becoming a phys ed teacher or is it some random joe schmo trying to wrap his head around literal super powers?
given that inko goes to garaki - a doctor - to confirm izuku’s quirklessness, it can be assumed that quirk counselling is entwined with the medical system. i don’t know if you’ve ever had to apply for a specialist before but you can be on their waiting list for a while. a quirk counsellor is essentially a specialist. are there subcategories of counsellors? do you focus on either emitter, transformation or mutation the way doctors become cardiologists, paediatricians and neurologists? or is one person expected to be equally knowledgeable about all three?
we see through toga that her counsellor identified her need for blood but they didn’t find a way to curb those instincts or even find a supplement for her. she’s left to be abused by her family for something she can’t control bc it’s literally in her dna. compare that to iida who knows he needs orange juice to power his quirk. his entire family are pro heroes so it would be easy to assume they could employ a private quirk counsellor the same way richer people can employ private doctors.
how many people have specific requirements due to their quirks? changes in their physiology that have to be treated the same way nutritional deficiencies and allergies do? even people without mutations probably have those requirements: does kirishima’s shark teeth mean he’s an obligate carnivore? does mina’s acid change her ph levels and what vitamins and minerals she needs? how would they figure that out? quirk counselling.
what about kids like touya who would need extensive counselling so he could figure out how to live with his quirk without hurting himself? kaminari essentially has seizures and they’re so normal to him and everyone around him that they’re the butt of jokes. they wouldn’t be a one and done patient; there’s always going to be people that need continued support the exact same way there’s people that need developmental and disability support. there would be so many quirks that harm their user, are they just taught to bury their quirks? as if that wouldn’t cause any physical or mental consequences?
governments can’t create a system that applies to only some people, we’re expected to believe they’ve made one that applies to all of them?
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it is genuinely fucking weird to throw a fit about people kissing or holding hands or whatever in public in front of u irl especially if ur an adult and that ppl online seem 2 think thats like a normal thing to complain about and talk about being disgusting and use their personal disinterest in sex or physical affection as an excuse to be nasty to strangers is really weird and gross to me to be honest
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y'know, back when I used Reddit, if you found some hateful content of any sort, it wasn't that hard to report it. You clicked the "Report" button, selected "Hateful Content" out of the wide variety of options available, and then clicked the "Submit" button. I did this pretty often, because some of the communities I was in attracted rather unsavory characters as a side effect.
Do you know what happened next? Next, I received an automated message that said basically "Hey, thanks for reporting This Content (link to reported content). We've received your report and will review it shortly." Usually, a day or two later, you'd receive another message in your inbox saying "Thanks again for reporting. We found this content in violation of our TOS and have removed it." Sure enough, if you followed the link back to whatever you reported, it would be gone.
It was that easy. No explaining yourself, no explaining yourself again but differently, no redirect to a new tab, you didn't even need to know the specifics of what did or didn't violate TOS. No matter what happened, they would write back and tell you what was going on. If the reported content didn't violate TOS, they would tell you.
When I hopped over here full-time, I continued that reporting habit, thinking it'd be largely the same experience. I have had complete and utter radio silence from @staff on every single report I've ever filed. Have I been making a difference? Is my voice being considered? Who knows! But it certainly hasn't felt like it so far.
At least now I know those reports were going straight into the garbage, rather than just having to wonder.
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