#because that was a nightmare that made every character involved infinitely worse

[captain-space-kin]

”Skybound ruined Jaya for me” Skill issue.

[linkspooky]

Is the story in Owari no Seraph good? Heard it's just your average shonen manga.

Thank you for the question, anon! Owari no Seraph is not just “your average shonen manga” it’s THE AVERAGE SHONEN MANGA, it is every single average shonen manga ever combined into one and that’s why I love it.  I might as well turn this into a reccomendation post to answer your question.

You Should Read Owari no Seraph

Owari no Seraph is like several different shonen manga sewn together in a horrible frankenstein’s monster, but once again as I often say on this blog tropes are not bad things. They’re all about the execution. Owari no Seraph is like, one of five exorcism/demon fighting manga published by shueisha right now (Chainsawman, Kimetsu no Yaiba, Jujutsu Kaisen, Ao no Exorcist, Owari no Seraph). It stands out by raising the stakes as high as they can possibly go, it has no reservations at all over the fact that it’s a tropey, pulp, nightmare. It knows exactly what it is and just tells it’s story anyway. 

So here are a few things I like about the manga that make me want to reccomend it. 

1. The World

The worldbuilding of Owari no Seraph sounds like it was made up on the spot. This is coming from someone who has read the entire manga through twice, and every single english translation available of the spinoff novels. It basically goes like this, there are exorcists who fight demons with magical swords. Then there are vampires but they’re way too strong for an exorcist to ever defeat. Demons are former humans, or maybe former vampires. Eventually the exorcists learn to put demons in swords and allow them to possess you. The world ends because of things called seraphs which are children that were experimented on to turn them into angels to call the end of the world. 

It’s basically a mythology where every single supernatural creature exists simulatenously. It reminds me a lot of the Buffy mythos, where all sorts of supernatural creatures exist and vampires sort of just reign supreme as the strongest. 

While it is kind of a mess, it works well for the story. It basically creates a world where literally everything is out to kill humans, and the humans themselves can just barely fight back. It makes humans seem even more smaller and insignificant in the world they are inhabiting because there are just so many types of magical creatures that are infinitely stronger than them. 

What I love about the exorcists in this manga is how physically weak they are. Literally no matter what desperate strategy they pull, even if they are a once in a generation genius, or from some kind of chosen bloodline, every single character in the manga is desperate to survive at any time. No victory is ever achieved without tons of losses. The characters backs are perpetually against the wall. 

The exorcists really do come off like underdogs just trying to survive the extinction of humanity, because the world of magic is just so overwhelming and unknowable to the human characters. It’s like if the world exploded and every single fantasy creature came to life at once, and they all hated humans and wanted to stamp them out. 

Another thing I like about the vampires is that they’re not X Men. Sometimes when writing vampires authors just make them X Men, as in rather than being vampires themselves they just all have some kind of mutant power like flame conjuring or shapeshifting. The vampires are at the top of the hierarchy in this world because of their sheer strength alone, each one of them is a powerhouse of raw strength. 

2. Yuichiro Hyakuya

Yu’s character is interesting because it’s so weird and offputting but only if you read far enough in the manga to realize why. Yu’s attitude is something that is eventually deconstructed to horrifying effect much later on in the manga.  People often call him a boring shonen protagonist who only cares about fighting and friendship, but to me he’s always been more like Gon. That is a deconstruction of the “Pure-Hearted Hero” protagonist. 

Yuichiro tends to naturally attract people around him, especially damaged and lost people because of how accepting and trusting he is. The problem is Yu is able to accept everything because you get the sense that he doesn’t care. He just doesn’t even think about or consider the consequences of his actions at all, or even how his actions will affect other people.

Yu cares about the people he considers family and that’s it. The rest of the world might as well not even exist. And this is never once framed as a good trait. Yu just doesn’t think at all before he does something, and it’s not even him being stupid it’s him being suicidally reckless. He just kind of assumes that if he wants it everything should work out in his favor.

It’s gotten to the point where people around him are constantly bringing up the consequences of some of the reckless things he wants to try and he just shrugs it off. Somebody warns him reviving the dead is a bad idea, and he just says “but I want my family back.” He trusts and allies himself with complete enemies if he thinks it can return his loved ones to him. 

Yu doesn’t actually trust anyone. He just has the part of his brain where he distrusts people completely shut off. His complete and total blind faith in people ends up becoming a bad trait because as much as it brings his comrades closer to him, you get the sense that he just doesn’t care what happens in the end. As the manga progresses what seems like a typically all loving hero just becomes more and more distant from other people. The fact that he trusts without question is presented as something that makes him seem inhuman.

3. Shinoa Hiragi

Owari no Seraph is one fo the few manga where the female of the main character trio is just as connected and important to the plot as the two boys. Shinoa’s arc about learning to love and trust people also works because she was raised in a family with no love at all that only ever saw her as a tool.

Shinoa is probably the most complex of the main three characters because she engages with everyone behind a mask, but she’s also not a perfect actress. What’s great about her is that she’s flawed, she’s kind of a mess. Unlike her older sister who can manipulate anyone flawlessly, Shinoa is much more human behind the mask and has a difficult time repressing it. 

Shinoa’s arc is as central to the story as Yu’s. However she’s also his opposite and a good complement to him because while Yu is wild and reckless Shinoa is reserved and overly cautious. It’s not a fear of being weak in the same way Yu is afraid to be weak, what Shinoa fears is being out of control. However because she’s not the genius her sister is for Shinoa she only ever really has the illusion of control over situations. 

It’s a female character where basically the entire conflict of her character revolves around her agency, and trying to be her own person separate from her sister. Which is so rare for female characters to be that well developed and present such an interesting conflict. Which is another thing I likie about ONS, it’s a mishmash of tropes but it always uses those tropes very smartly. She fits in so well with the series because basically everyone in the series knows they’re already doomed and we see how each of them cope with it and struggle against it. 

4. Guren Ichinose 

Guren is hands down not only the most complicated character in the series, and also one of the best mentor characters of all time, he’s also where the excellent moral ambiguity of the series itself shines the brightest. Guren is basically the second protagonist of the series at this point because he has his own light novel spinoff and is just as important to the plot as Yu. 

What makes Guren compelling is that he’s not a bad guy at all, but he ends up committing some of the worst deeds in the manga. It once again solidifies the theme that life is more complex than bad people do bad things, sometimes in fact good people do a bad. Guren is great because he’s always one person who is basically struggling against the whole world, and sometimes you get the sense he wants to destroy it because that’s the only way he can throw his burdens off of him. 

But at the same time, this cold blooded guy whose constantly doing terrible things, and is desperate and hungry for power really is just a person who wants his friends to be safe and happy. Guren is someone whose lost literally everything to an uncaring world, his family, his close friends, his lover, he’s also been kicked on and stamped down his entire life. You understand why Guren would end up becoming such a selfish person because literally the world has always told him that he doesn’t deserve to be in it, he’s not a part of this story.

It’s like the struggling of a side character whose not even involved in the plot forcing their way in and trying to be the main character. Guren is so much weaker than everything around him, but he’ll keep fighting. And it’s amazing when Guren does literally every single thing, sacrifices everything, throws away everything and then he still fails in the end. That’s what makes his character compelling because he never gets what he wants no matter how desperately he struggles but he still keeps on fighting. 

His foiling with Yu is also incredible, and you get the sense that Guren is a worse person because he actually cares about things unlike Yu who is so reckless and doesn’t even think about the consequences of his actions.

5. The Conflict

Here’s how the manga starts. The world ends. You’ve been enslaved for several years by vampires that suck your blood. You finally escape but all of your family that was introduced died in the first chapter.

It’s overload but yet, Owari no Seraph always manages to keep these stakes consistent. It’s a manga that actually feels like the characters are struggling at the end of the world. Literally every single person there is past the point of no return in one way or another, and yet they keep fighting.

Which is what makes every fight fresh and compelling to read. Because the main characters don’t even win that often, or if they do win it’s a minor victory that’s evened out later by some loss. Every battle is for survival, not gaining territory. Which really helps along the themes of the story as well to create this picture of a severely broken world, where individual people are all desperate to band together to survive. 

The story itself also never grows stale or stagnant because things are constantly developing and changing around. You never feel one arc drags on too long. Because every single faction is just trying to survive, enemies from yesterday will become allies today and you end up getting to understand the perspective of each faction. 

If you can get past the premise, the manga is actually pretty grounded. Most of the emotional stakes comes from the connection between the characters and the fear of losing them, and that’s the primary focus of the story. It’s about inhuman tragedy and circumstances, and a world that’s so fantastical it’s almost impossible to believe, but there are humans still in the middle of it trying to survive and live even though their lives are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. 

[thefarrons]

FFXV is just so disappointing to me

Ok before I go any further I just want to say that YES this is a rant about XV however this is not in any way me forcing anyone to share my opinion on the game nor is it to shame those who do love the game.

Everything I say about the game comes purely from a place of excitement as a fan of this franchise and a fan of Jrpg's in general.

That being said let's get into this.

FFXV out of all the games in the franchise is the one game is the one game I REALLY struggle to see myself ever returning to in the future and again please don't think I'm saying this just to be edgy but I genuinely mean it. The game is in no way a complete train wreck however I just struggle to find anything that I really like about the game. I really don't think XV does anything particularly well.

Story/characters

Not gonna dwell on the story for too long because at this point everyone and their grandmother knows about the problems with this narrative but just to reiterate cutting the story up into a movie/ anime and paid dlc was a GIGANTIC detriment to this game. What square should have done was make XV as best as they could then made supplementary content (such as the movie, anime ect) to compliment XV's narrative. But since they didn't nothing in XV's story makes all that much sense. It's all payoff but no execution.

Luna's death and ardyns reveal should have been much more impactful then they were but because everything in this narrative is so poorly fleshed out you just don't really care and what's supposed to be a "OOOHH!!" moment quickly becomes a "oh ok." That's bad. I've said it once and I'll say it again but Luna's death I's easily one of the most beautiful and cinematic scene in the franchise however the entire scene falls flat emotionally because you the player just either don't feel for these characters, this off screen romance, or barely can even comprehend what's going on.

XV just has this HUGE pacing issue as well and it's just mind boggling how fast and abrupt certain scenarios and events happen and end. Again the transition from free roam in the open world to the Leviathan is such a WTF moment. It begins so fast and ends so quickly and abrupt you can barely even comprehend what just happened so you just forget about it and move on (not to mention the battle itself is shit but more on that later)

Or take the train scene for example. One second everyone's all fake mad at each other (particularly noctis and gladious) and then all of a sudden they get attacked by ardin and then gentiana shows up and is revealed to be Sheva and prompto gets kidnapped and this all happens within the spawn of 10mins (slight exaggeration)

The game just also has a complete tone and gameplay dissidence problem. Take for example when the party learns insomnia has been taken over and that the king is dead. It's a emotional scene (I guess) as noctis has just learned that his father is dead and his kingdom in imperial hands. Now what is noctis and the party gonna do about it?

Dick around in this open for a bit until coir gets in contact with them I guess.

Oh.

You also just don't even feel the weight of what's just happen as you just barely have a clue as to who the enemy is and what their motivation is. The whole game I knew NOTHING about them empire, their king or whatever plans they had. They were completely off screen the whole game. Which leads me into my next complaint.

The characters.

This is easily my second biggest problem with this game. A lot of people find that the cast in this game is the best thing about it. People find the Bros funny and witty with a lot of banter. I can somewhat agree with this. The cast is likeable and lighthearted which is a good contrast from XIII's moody cast.

Unfortunately a lot of this is ruined by just how one dimensional, corny, underdeveloped, stero typical and generally unimportant this ENTIRE cast is.

Look I'm gonna compare this cast to XIII and before I do so let me point out that I'm not trying to convince you that XIII'S cast is high art or that they are best written characters ever because tldr they're not and their actually pretty simple HOWEVER. Every character in XIII (save fang maybe) had an arc of sorts (and fang at least had a motivation) all the characters in that game have a problem (typically one that involves another party member) and they interact with each other to solve that problem and move on with the main one. You can argue just how "good" all the characters arcs were but none the less they were THERE and the characters did change. XIII had a lot of drama in the cast. Yes some of it was melodramatic and over the top but it was there and the characters eventually got over their differences and worked together so when they start throwing banter around in the second half it actually works considering all they went through previously.

Now back to XV's cast.

I'm not saying the cast needs to have drama between them or that they need to be fighting all the time or anything like that BUT you can't just have me go off the "oh we're just Bros to the end" without any real development or explanation. Why exactly are these guys friends? And what do they go through exactly? One of which is answered in the anime so it doesn't count to me and the other is just kinda non existent to me. During the main story I really struggle to remember scenes in which the party truly bond and have a moment with each other. The game is apparently portraying the plot through noctis perspective but he really don't get any good moments or arcs with any of the characters.

The only arc of sorts that I can imagine is the exchanges between noctis and gladious which in my opinion was some of the cringeworthy and forced scenes in the game. Noctis is trying his hardest to save everyone and deal with the hardships he's facing but gladious for no fucking reason is being a complete DICK to him. Everytime gladiolus opened his mouth I wanted to punch him or at least have noctis do it. Some have said that the reason for this is because gladiolus wants noctis to become a good king or whatever but unfortunately gladiolus doesn't say this until the very end so the entire game the player just thinks of him as an asshole.

And that's just one of many problems. Let's not even get onto promptos little "I was born in a lab" subplot that goes absolutely nowhere (at least in the main game)

And then the side characters.

I mean what's to even say about them? Their bland, unimportant, one note and show up only once. Aranea is the only good side character but unfortunately she shows up only twice and overall has no real relevance to the main story.

But yeah that's just XV's main plot.

A whole lotta nothing.

A lot of people even fans agree that the plot is the worst thing about the game but they say that it makes up for it with it's gameplay.

To that I also heavily disagree.

XV is a horrible story with mediocre gameplay.

First off I'm not gonna compare XV's gameplay to games previous in the franchise or even most Jrpg's in general as gameplay wise XV really shares nothing in common with them. XV is most comparable to an action game so I'm gonna compare it to games like dmc or bayonetta.

What's the end result?

It's shit.

Ok no let me backtrack some. I really wasn't expecting dmc or bayonetta levels of complexity or fluidity however at the same time I was also just expecting something competent. XV's battle system "works" and I mean that just as plainly as I write it. On first impression it looks cool and feels nice but as hrs start to pass you realize just how shallow, repetitive and poorly designed it is and can be.

Most if not all battles can be summed up to this.

*Warp strike and hold circle until you see an attack coming or have a button prompt*

*When hurt pull up the item list and use elixers*

Rinse and repeat.

The game never actually gets "harder" it just throws enemies with larger health sizes at you who can take you down in one hit if they're slightly higher a level than you.

And when the battle system isn't being boring it's bugging out. The camera is god awful half the time especially when in tight places, enemies rarely ever have proper attack patterns and just seem to attack at random making you just fucking give up on timing and just hold square infinitely.

Boss battles are no better if in fact just worse. Leviathan was just an absolute nightmare for me and ifrit was a well. The camera always got lost, the warp strike prompts were inconsistent ect. And if the battle wasn't infuriatingly broken then it was just boring case in point the final battle with ardyn.

Then we have the open world.

If this was what the sacrifice for the main story was then I'm sorry to say but it was most certainly NOT worth it.

The open world is visually appealing and on first impression pretty nice. However once you start really start "exploring" you realize just how boring and uninspired the whole thing really is. First of all the whole map in reality is just a giant circle with a highway connecting it all. Every area is just some boring fantasy locale you've seen in any Jrpg.

Grassy plain area, desert area, volcano area, beach area.

Wow this was really worth the wait I see.

It's wouldn't even be so boring if the games areas at least had some personality attached to them but nope. Not even a memorable tune is herd in this areas just plain ambiance which really doesn't work for this game.

The car was also a disapointment with it's on rails driving and what not only to look tacky and tacked on.

And...yeah.

That's just ffxv to me as a whole.

Just nothing.

[sakurarisen]

» character development meme

Reblog, fill in with your own character’s information, and tag your friends!

TAGGED BY: Stolen from one of my other blogs

B A S I C S

Full name:  Seraphina Mayuzumi / Fair (Takes on Zack’s last name as of late CC, 7 Proper) Nickname: Sera, Seraphim, Kitten, Sunflower (both of the later two by Zack) Age:  16 (at the start of CC), 23 (7 proper) Birthday: March 29th Ethnicity: Japanese Gender: Female Romantic orientation: Demiromanitc Sexual orientation: Demisexual Languages: English, Japanese

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

Parents: Takeshi Mayuzumi (father), Unnamed (mother) Siblings:  Ami Mayuzumi (older sister, deceased), Takeru Mayuzumi (older brother, deceased), Thurston Mayuzumi (older brother) Significant other:  Zack Fair ( @honorisen​; Fiance) Children:  Shayan Fair ( @legacydriven )

P H Y S I C AL  T R A I T S

Hair: Blonde; falls to about her waist Eyes:  Honey brown Height: 5′3″ Weight: Won’t reveal; A bit underweight for the majority of her life, but later manages to attain a barely healthy weight and keep it there Body build: Slim, frail-seeming, small

Q U E S T I O N  T I M E

What would you say are your character’s strongest traits?

Her kindness and gentleness, loyalty, protectiveness, warmth, supportiveness, dedicaton

What would you say are your character’s weakest traits?

Can be emotional, inability to understand ‘normalcy’, frequently afraid, lack of strength in herself, self-critical

What is your character like when they’re in love?

Sera is soft and supportive, and gives her all to her partner. She thrives on seeing them happy and smiling, and supports them to kingdom come - She wants to see them succeed. She wants them to have all the reasons to he happy and smile, and will actively look for reasons to provide that to them. She’s softer, wants to be closer to them, gentler... It’s obvious she’s in love just by how she looks at them. Sera doesn’t see a point in hiding it, though, and she’s more than happy to show she cares for them as well, albeit within reason - .she knows her limits and while she’s happy to scream it from he mountaintops, she knows sometimes keeping quiet is important and shows it in quieter ways, such as her ring tattoo in support of fiance Zack when she knows talking too much about their relationship could cause him trouble. She’s not going to hide it if she has no reason to, and will make it obvious he means the world to her, no matter how quietly it has to be done.

What kind of upbringing did your character have, and how did this affect them now?

Admittedly a horrible one. Raised in an abusive household, Sera didn’t know love and support outside of her siblings, Ami and Takeru, and losing hem when she was nine was crushing, especially when their loss came with learning just how much they’d done to keep her going and protect her. She knew little of the world outside her home until she was thrown out and forced to survive in it, still little more than a child - And even that wasn’t a time she cares to dwell on, full of its own nightmares and traumas. Sera very much raised herself after the loss of Ami and Takeru, and as a result, she’s essentially the tale of the boy raised by wolves; she doesn’t understand how to be ‘properly’ social, has very little reading ability or schooling to her name, poor health and eating habits... Sera is a traumatized girl who deals with more than anyone should, but doesn’t allow herself to dwell on it, persay. She allows it to drive her and push her forward, but not towards deepening her depression and PTSD - She lets it drive her towards being kinder. She’s suffered enough for dozens, so why should anyone else have to? If she can lend a helpful hand, why shouldn’t she? The only thing her life has done is drive her to change the world through kindness, seeking to improve it and eliminate the suffering and pain it holds. To break down those divides and unite everyone, and show all are equal. And if that means taking all that pain and putting it on her own shoulders... She’s already suffered, and she won’t let anyone else hurt the way she did. She’s just going to do it with genleness.

What is their relationship with their family like?

Truthfully, she has no relationship currently with her birth family, and doesn’t want one. Her father is wicked and corrupt and spent her childhood hurting her before disowning her, her mother refused to stop it, her remaining brother is as wicked as their father - She sees no reason to have any contact with them, and actively avoids Thurston if they’re ever in the same place together, wanting as much distance between her and him as humanly possible.  Her birth family are three of a very small handful of people she’s capable of hating, and boy howdy does she hate them. Instead, she counts her friends and her fiance Zack’s family as her own, and her relationships with them are infinitely better. It’s a warm and supportive, loving bond she shares with them, and an even tighter one with Zack himself and their later son, Shayan. They’re her reason to keep going, and Shayan’s entrance into her life was the driving force she needed, even, to begin really taking care of herself, wanting to be in his life and see a better world for him to grow up in. Her found family, Zack, and Shayan are he reason she continues to hold her head high and keep looking forward, and she loves them with everything in her, and hen some.

Is your character religious? What religion do they practice, if so?

She’s not really religious and doesn’t actively practice any religion in general, but she does believe in a few different gods, including Ifrit and Shiva (whom she considers to be gods, at the very least, and has yet to find anything that could counter that belief). In particular, she believes the most in Shiva and frequently references her name when angry or startled (EX. ‘Oh, Shiva-’ in lieu of ‘oh, god-’).

How does your character deal with mistakes?

Gently. Sera is the kind of person to be bothered by a mistake and try to make it right as soon as she realizes it’s been made, if at all possible, though particularly large mistakes may take her a little bit to try and rectify solely because she wants to make sure she’s not going to make it worse, first. At the very least, Sera wants to at least apologize for what she’s done, even if she can’t make it right, and does so relatively often to hopefully begin easing any hurts.

What kind of friendships does your character have?

Her friendships are oftentimes more akin to a famlial bond than anything else, but her friends are definitely people that mean quite a bit to her. The ones she has are people who genuinely care, people who are warm and supportive and tend to smile more than anything else. They’re genuine and that’s something the draws her to them - In a world that so often seeks to hurt, these are people who tend to be more honest and giving, and their very presense is comforting. She, in turn, tries to be the same to them for a friendship that’s full of laughs, support, and warmth. They’re bonds that are treasured and can be leaned on when nothing else can, and ones that all parties involved can thrive.

Does your character forgive and forget or do they hold a grudge? Why?

For the most part, Sera tries to forgive and forget... But this is provided she’s also given a good reason to forget, too. Forgiveness comes more often than not, but forgetting is harder for more serious offenses - She can forgive someone for blowing up at her for the sixth time in a week, but it’s harder to forget after that many, for example. A fight with a friend may be forgiven, but it’s harder to forget when they may have said something worse than normal - But to her credit, though she may not always forget, she rarely holds it against them without a damn good reason; ex. being wary to put her trust back in someone after burning her three or four times in a row, just because she’s wary of it happening again at that point. Holding a grudge is reserved for more serious offenses, like the one she holds against her birth family, those who’ve hurt her since then and caused her varying traumas, and folks like the company of Shinra. It’s also worth noting that outside of these select instances, ‘holding a grudge’ is more ‘being wary of being hurt’ than it is anything else, largely because she’s been hurt so often, she’s constantly afraid of it happening again on some level. Even so, she’s more prone to forgive and forget - There’s enough on her mind without constantly thinking back to something just to get riled up all over again!

How do they view the world they live in?

As something broken and divided, full of hurt and suffering with a core of love and light struggling to break through the shadows surrounding it. It’s hard not to see the nightmares of the world when her life’s been full of them, but at the same time, Sera’s no stranger to the world’s kindness, either - She’s alive because of that kindness. She’s seen it in the warm smiles of the people she meets in her travels, the welcoming strangers offering her a warm campfire to sit and joke around beside, the brightness of the children at the Leaf House Orphanage... There is a bright and warm core to the world, fighting to break free, and it just needs a little help in the form of a gentle nudge. It can be a nightmare, but that is far from all it is, and Sera is dedicated to helping that core break through like it struggles to do. It’s there, she knows it - Every struggle is there for a reason. It has to be.

Does your character think with their head or with their heart?

Both, though it’s usually more her heart than her head. Sera is a woman driven by her heart and her emotions, and they often have more say than her head, especially when she lacks the life experience to understand something, be it because of a lack of proper schooling or simply because she’s never really been raised like most among others. But that’s not to say she’s not a logical person, either; she does have a habit of stopping and thinking before leaping, and would much rather find a more peaceful route through something than just throwing herself in if at all possible. ...She just happens to throw herself in in support of others anyway.

Is your character well-schooled? What sort of education did they have?

Absolutely not. Sera has very little in the way of schooling, and what she does have is a result of Ami and Takeru trying to teach her before their passing, as well as the people she’s met along the way teach her things here and there mixed with current friends and Zack trying to help by teaching what they can. She struggles to read, though her ability to is increasing little by little between her good friends Mako, Kunsel, and Zack’s aid, and might otherwise be on the level of perhaps a third grader otherwise. Anything above the most basic math is out of the question, she can’t tell you directions, struggles with reading analog clocks, still needs to count on her fingers a lot of the time... She’s trying, she promises, but it’s definitely slow going and she appreciates Mako being a teacher for a bunch of first graders when it comes to learning!

Finish this meme with whatever you want to tell us about your character!

Sera can’t cook. Never ask her to. She will quite literally blow up an entire kitchen and leave a hole in the wall at worst, and at best deliver to you a meal that probably blinks. Somehow, though, she can bake remarkable and delicious dishes and even she’s not sure how she manages to make a three tier death by chocolate cake, but can’t make oatmeal- In all honesty, though, Sera’s kindness is absolutely genuine and she thrives on seeing others happy, no matter how much she believes she deserves none of it for herself. Her mentality towards herself is slowly changing and that’s greatly added to by her family’s role in her life/the addition of her son Shayan, but she wants nothing more than to see everyone around her thrive and everyone happy and living the best life they can possibly have! <3

TAGGING: Take it if you want, I nabbed i from one of my other blogs <3

[dramarising-replacement]

As much as i love this game, this community is on every possible level one of the most irredeemable abusive shitholes I’ve ever had the infinite misfortune of being forced to share space with. There’s so much horribly wrong with everyone’s heads here that i don’t know where to start and if i tried to type it all out i would eventually find out whether or not this text box has a character limit. It is with full confidence that i can say that this community, and by extension tumblr, is absolutely the political spectrum opposite’s clone of 4chan. Possibly even worse in some ways. This community’s habit of witchhunting and dogpiling pure venom on anyone who so much as blinks in a way considered too different from the majority is disgusting even by human standards.

Every single person I’ve ever met on here was either an absolute scummy prick scammer(most of these turn out to be in plague and light, looking at you IA), a walking tumblr SJW stereotype who makes a thread every time their cat yawns(most of these turn out to be in shadow, arcane, light, and wind, prone to making posts to complain about phobias whenever something new is released), an impressively out-of-touch greedy airhead who puts way too many smileys on everything(most of these turn out to be in light and occasionally earth, especially prone to “no one ever gets dom because they’re just not trying at all lol git gud” mentality), a spoiled 9 year old with 0 reading comprehension who vanishes into the aether after two days of playing(evenly spread), someone who acts like a spoiled 9 year old with 0 reading comprehension to get free shit on the forums(evenly spread but a lot move to shadow, likely to be an older player’s alt), a walking collection of pink heart emojis and glitter who screams about cultural appropriation every time they get a turban popping out of a chest and doesn’t think that there’s any difference between “criticizing art” or “Saying you like this art better” and “viciously attacking this POOR DEVELOPING ARTIST CHILD’S FEELINGS YOU HORRIBLE HEARTLESS DOUCHEBAG”(evenly spread but tend to jump between arcane, light, water, wind, and nature, most likely to have an OCD breakdown whenever the official art on something is updated), an incredibly devoted nature user with vegan stuff and possibly bible quotes all over their profile proudly proclaiming that their dragons are vegan too and carnivore breeds can just go fuck themselves and starve and probably had a goddamned moral meltdown where they threatened to call peta when someone exalted their fodder hatchling(mostly nature, rarely light or water, likely to have a hatchery with a whole novel worth of anti-exalt rules bolded in red at the top), a just flat out asshole who thinks they’re being cool by snarking at and threatening anyone who tries to have a civil conversation with them and then playing the victim(mostly plague and fire, sometimes light, second most likely to have an ocd meltdown when old art is changed, most likely to spite exalt just for fun, just as likely as the scammer type mentioned above to falsely report someone and gloat at them for the lulz), an utter recluse who’s been on since 2013, has a 2 page lair of all basic dragons with no apparel, and probably thinks that “Forum” is a kind of sandwich, the lucky bastards(surprisingly common in lightning and to some degree in fire and nature, also seen a few in wind), or some unholy crossbreed of the above.

I assume that just by statistical probability alone there must have at some point been at least one half decent person and/or actually mature adult on this entire forsaken website, but ya know what if i meet them i’ll let ya know. Best i can tell? Everyone with a scrap of sanity in their skulls has been driven off entirely or at least partially assimilated into one of the categories above by now. Same as every other petsite that has ever existed. It’s awful. Unbearable. Taking one look at any part of this site where you can input text gives me a sickening feeling of being in some twisted nightmare dimension where everything is assbackwards and the halls are covered in glitter and stars.

And dom? Oh god, don’t get me started on that. Sports team culture? Fused with a hint of racism/nationalism for extra flavor? That’s nearly impossible to build up the manpower and money to win without having the bonuses from having already won?(And don’t start me on that “oh it’s just pennies” bullshit, pennies build up fast any you know it. If someone can sell an item for a profit of one gem and the person next to them can sell it for a profit of one and a half because they get a discount buying it in the first place, sure it’s not a big difference, but if they sell exactly the same amount of items then by the end the second person will still have made significantly more profit than the first. And then when the next round comes? That extra money can buy extra fodder and lair space for extra dom push, which means not only that they are far more likely to win and have an easier time doing so but also that when it’s over they’ll be able to buy even more items than the first person to resell for profit, and still likely save money from that dom discount. And this is just what happens with the “pennies” bonus of one single dom round.)Was this faction discrimination-riddled cesspool not toxic enough already? I legitimately can’t think of a game addition that could possibly have been worse for this record-breakingly immature bully culture than some goddamned dragon-themed imitation of sports team rivalry fused with a global cold war and a touch of monopoly.

(Also inb4 someone in the comments says something like “i think the problem is really with YOU if everyone you meet is bad” or “i think YOU’RE one of the rotten ones” or “lmao if you hate it so much leave” or “someone’s salty because ______ didn’t happen to them” or “SJW? i bet you’re the type who thinks racism doesn’t exist/911 was a conspiracy/immigrants are stealing our jobs/barney the dinosaur is going to bring the nuclear apocalypse/ect too” or “You’re not perfect/you don’t sound like such a nice person either” some such thing. I never claimed to be perfect bruh, or even good. The only thing I’m claiming to be is pissed off.)

It’s not like i can “just leave if i hate it that much” either. Have you ever actually seen a good dragon petsite beyond FR? I’ve looked. THEY DON’T FUCKING EXIST. FR DOMINATES THE MARKET ENTIRELY. THERE IS LITERALLY NO SIGNIFICANT COMPETITION WHATSOEVER. THERE. IS. NOWHERE. ELSE. TO. GO. And there will likely NEVER be anywhere else to go, because petsites tend to be the sort of market along MMO lines where there’s only room for one successful title at a time. If i want to play with dragons at all, this is my only possible option. And i don’t believe for one second that if a decent competitor site ever managed to exist that it wouldn’t immediately be overrun by the same types of people that are ruining everything here. There’s so, so much more that pisses me off but the pure rage and disappointment bathing my brain right now is fucking with my ability to think straight enough to list it.

I love this game, and i don’t want to stop playing it, but my tolerance for it’s player’s shit is holding on by a thread. I’ve been drowning in so many assholes with not one genuinely decent person in sight for so long, and I’m starting to think they either all fled, assimilated, or went into hiding. Are there really any good people on here? Please tell me there are and they’re just buried under everyone else. I just want there to be some glimmer of hope that this community isn’t an entirely lost cause, but I’ve found no evidence of such a thing. By all my observations it only becomes more toxic and abusive by the day and that doesn’t look like it will ever change. I’m nice to people, I’ve never been involved in any drama, i always complete my business transactions quickly and politely, yet all i ever get in return is snarky fake smiles, manipulation, scams, and flat-out dickishness, and when i look around at others i see more of the same happening to and being perpetuated by them aswell.

Please help me I’m trapped in this glittery insane asylum hell of backstabbing and toxic clique culture and all i have with me is a book full of stamps shaped like dragons and an increasing sense of general misanthropy

Please tell me that nice people really exist here even the fucking people I’m related to that play this game are all textbook “smiley fake sweet ‘git gud lol’ airhead” types

*SCREECHES IN ENDLESS AGONY*

[old-long-john]

looks like you are someone in the black sails fandom who agrees that every character is pretty damn flawed (except for, like, madi, and we didn't see enough of thomas hamilton to see his flaws but i am certain he had them) but I have to say some of fandom and their determination to make silver THE VILLAIN of the show just reminds me, over and over, of the quotation "civilization needs its monsters". like you can write john off as an evil white "het" man, even though he is clearly bi, but

in my opinion people like john silver are only made because society makes them. i think silver was probably wounded young, and then just wounded over and over for a period of years that almost certainly felt like forever, as prolonged trauma does, and it is so frustrating to me that fandom doesn’t want to embrace how complicated and tormenting and heartbreaking and infuriating that john silver is. but then i look at state of world and my country (usa) and need for scapegoat in all things, well. 

Thank you for this ask. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately and it’s been frustrating me too, so it was nice to be given a reason to actually say something about it. I hope you don’t mind me answering it publicly (let me know if you do and I’ll delete it). I’ve spent about four days trying to work out an answer to this that I’m happy with though, because it feels like some of my thoughts might be skating on thin ice and asking for trouble if they’re not carefully expressed, and that’s not at all what I want. I’ll stick this under a read more so I don’t clog people’s dashes.

Honestly, at this point I’ve pretty much stopped interacting with any ‘discourse’. I’m so tired of it. I’m reconciled to the fact that everyone in the fandom is mostly set on their opinions by now, and that’s totally fine, when people stay polite about it. Everyone brings their own shit into the viewing of a show (and I mean that in the nicest way). It’s not just unavoidable, it’s incredibly apt and a powerful thing when it comes to understanding stories like this, which attempt to show us such a broad range of human experiences and conditions and complexities. With a show like Black Sails especially, that doesn’t allow you to be a passive viewer, that demands engagement to be able to understand it, it’s no wonder people feel so strongly about so many aspects of it, and often find themselves feeling helplessly understanding of or very personally wounded by certain characters’ choices. And being part of a fandom which is filled with a beautifully diverse group of people, with opinions informed by their beautifully diverse life experiences and personal baggage, can be such an amazing way to broaden one’s own horizons and see things from different points of view.

That being said, the other side of it is exactly what you described: being exposed to mind blowing bullheadedness. At this point I pretty much just share the same irritation as you. I understand the reasons why some people can’t forgive the things Silver did, and I understand why some people just plain don’t like him (hell, I hated him too when I first watched S1). That’s for them to decide, if it even is truly a decision and not one of those things that exists somewhere beyond choice. I know I couldn’t choose to hate him now or to not understand to a really quite painful extent the fears and emotions that motivated him to do what he did. Quite honestly, I’ve only watched that 4x10 forest scene twice and the second time I was so angry with him too, but I still understand, and it hurts all the more for it. As with so many of the most powerful moments in this story, they’re at their most moving when you can see all the ways in which both parties are right, and choosing a side is almost impossible.

Like you said though, what’s really beginning to grate on my nerves is this idea that Silver is the villain of the piece; irredeemable, two-dimensional, bland, or simply the ‘abusive cishet white man’ (a tag I’ve seen too, and one that made me roll my eyes so fucking hard I almost sprained something. Tumblr’s a truly magical land of over-simplistic juvenile twattery sometimes). It’s utter bullshit, and it feels like my annoyance has taken a step up out of the complexities of canon and into the difficulties of tumblr and fandoms. Sometimes I really think some people could benefit from stepping away from the bubble of tumblr and going outside once in awhile. (Do you hear that? It’s the sound of my fragile glass house shattering around me.)

Black Sails is not perfect. I am fully aware of that. But the one thing the writers managed incredibly consistently (mostly) was creating complicated, flawed, and human characters. There are only a handful of characters who approach being two-dimensional, villainous, or flawless, and they tend to be the ones who had the least screen time to be developed, or served more as plot devices than characters. John Silver was certainly not one of those. People are free to despise him, people can be horrified or outraged or disgusted by his choices, people can even just not personally find him that interesting, but reducing him to just The Villain? That’s choosing to be ignorant and refusing to engage with the text, simply because it doesn’t suit their own narrative. Good people can do appalling things, and bad people can do good things, and most people (and so most characters in this story) are neither of those two extremes, but horribly messy shades of grey, just trying to do the best they can for themselves and their loved ones with what resources they have. Some people are better, some are worse, but most traverse that middle ground, rarely remaining static or uncomplicated in their ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’, and Silver is most certainly among us complicated good-bad people. Refusing to acknowledge the depth of those nuances pisses me off because it feels like such a disservice to the hard work of everyone involved in creating this show and the astonishing things they accomplished with these characters and their relationships. Beautiful art deserves fair and thoughtful analysis. Anything less than that feels like a waste of everyone’s time. Why bother consuming a story like this and investing so much time and energy in discussing it if you’re not going to engage with it in an honest way? It’s possible to hate a character but still appreciate their complexity.

What you said is so true. It’s abundantly clear (from very early on, if you actually take the time to look for it) that Silver is a very damaged person, good at reading people but dead set on avoiding becoming attached to them (and the things that suggests are not pleasant), and someone who had nothing in the world but the clothes on his back and his wits. He was never going to be an idealist, because the world had made him a realist. Even if people think his choices in the end were abhorrent, surely they must see why he made them? To be in a position to end a war, which he saw as only an unwinnable nightmare, to save the people he loved from death (and every other innocent bystander whose lives would have been weighed against the cause, without their consent, and sacrificed in its pursuit). How is that difficult to understand? Even if it seems unutterably selfish or short-sighted, it’s the easiest thing in the world to empathise with on a human level. And his love for both Flint and Madi just isn’t up for debate. It’s right there in every scene, and confirmed in every interview with the writers. Even if he loved them poorly, he still loved them. That’s a very human thing too. Perhaps people would’ve felt differently about him if they’d definitively told us what those ‘unending horrors’ he’d suffered in his past were, but they didn’t and so we have to read between the lines. It just doesn’t take that much effort to see those lines flashing like neon signs throughout his arc, if you aren’t actively trying to ignore them for the sake of stuffing him into that box labelled ‘Long John Silver – Moustache Twirling Villain’.

It was also a pretty damn significant element of his story line that his becoming disabled slammed a whole lot of doors in his face, gave people a reason to judge him as less than other men, and left him desperately clinging on to the one vaguely happy life and future he had left within his reach. Are people conveniently ignoring that aspect of his character arc because it doesn’t fit in with that tumblr attitude of ‘boo, fuck white cis men. They’re all disgusting and none of them can know true suffering or injustice in this society that favours them’? Of course those privileges exist, and of course white male characters so often get free passes for things they really shouldn’t, and those are things that desperately need addressing and I wouldn’t try to minimise, but I don’t see how going balls to the wall in the opposite direction and refusing to see nuance makes any more sense. Especially when it comes to a story set during that historical time period and a character who we all saw have one privilege (being able-bodied) violently ripped away from him. Anybody who can dismiss as irrelevant the impact of his disability and the profound suffering and limitations that came with it is being wilfully blind. (I’ve written absurdly excessive meta about the significance of that.)

There are infinite different ways to suffer and end up irreparably damaged, and just because he doesn’t know some types doesn’t mean he hasn’t experienced others and hasn’t been truly and deeply scarred by them. It’s not a goddamn competition. This isn’t a world where only the most widespread and systemic suffering ‘counts’. Half of the point of this story was showing us the myriad fucked up and inventive ways in which the structure of ‘civilised’ society shat (and still shits) on anybody who wasn’t sat comfortably at the top. Or simply the ways in which ‘civilised’ society didn’t give a fuck about anyone else shitting on the little people either. Of course he hasn’t suffered the specific and enormous cruelties that say the people Madi was fighting for suffered, but I sure as fuck wouldn’t want to live whatever hellish past it was that he couldn’t even speak of either, and which sits within the context of this whole narrative of fucked up pasts as the single one too awful to be named. I also definitely wouldn’t want to live the present that saw him mutilated and handed a lifetime of suffering that no ideological war could in any way redress. And I’m really not trying to weigh his suffering against other people’s, or trying to build it into any kind of justification or excuse, because that way lies ignorant fuckery and it isn’t my point. The only point I’m trying to make is that some people’s determined lack of acknowledgement of the ways in which he was a beautifully complicated, damaged, suffering, good-bad person too is aggravating to me as someone who is in awe of the intricately complex things the writers and actors accomplished throughout this story. More than anything I just don’t see how anyone can have watched his whole character arc and honestly come to the conclusion that he’s bland and two-dimensional, or that his relationship with Flint was insincere or insignificant (to either of them), or that his ultimate choices can be explained simply by labelling him Evil™. He isn’t even as simple as that in bloody Treasure Island.

It doesn’t even seem to be about whether or not people see Silver’s actions as defensible at this point. It does seem to have devolved into a division between people who have very different opinions on that, but ultimately see why he did those things, and people who refuse to engage with the more sympathetic aspects of his character at all, for whatever reasons. Maybe because it makes the whole thing more difficult and uncomfortable when you have to accept that The Villain was an ultimately shifting and amorphous thing that was someone or something different for every character, and that in some ways Silver was as much a victim as anyone else in that story, and it was partly the result of the ways in which he was victimised (before and after we met him) that bound him to a course where he ended up horribly hurting the people he was trying to help. Nothing is ever black and white, in real life or on this show, and trying to reduce it to that is being either intellectually lazy, disingenuous or obtuse, and missing so much of the beautiful subtlety of the writing.

This answer got way out of hand…but yeah. John Silver isn’t a hero or a villain, because he is not a two-dimensional character, and he sure as fuck isn’t bland or boring. Few people on this show are. We’re all of us in love with a bunch of thieves and murderers and master manipulators. But that’s the point. They’re all just people, beautifully multifaceted and forced to extremes at the very edge of the world and clinging on to life by the skin of their teeth. They’re complex and fucked up and every single one of them running away from something or running towards something else. With barely thirty seconds of thought I could find sympathetic things to say about almost every single character in this show, even if those things wouldn’t be enough to tip the balance of judgement in their favour or make me like them. I’m completely aware that Silver is far less in need of defending than some unfairly maligned characters on this show, but I think perhaps to a certain few it’s the complexity of the writing and therefore the necessity of complex interpretations that needs defending. Nobody is obliged to forgive Silver or to like him, but if they’re happy to forgive and like other characters who have done equally fucked up things or worse ones then that’s a double standard they really ought to take the time to consider. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose, but a story like this deserves better.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

3) No continuity baggage.

 “For new readers, getting into comic book series that have decades of history can be intimidating.”

 Then new readers need to learn to get over that and dive in because that’s honestly the only real way to do it.

 “No matter the amount of recap pages, helpful captions or so-called “jumping on points,” there’s always going to be an unspoken baggage of continuity underlying the modern-day issues they pick up, which, at best, make old enemies feel less stale to new eyes and at worse render plot twists, cliffhangers or entire storylines completely incomprehensible without knowledge of prior arcs involving these characters.”

 Tell that to everyone who ever picked up a Spider-Man comic book in the 1980s and 1990s (which was way more than today btw, with the 1990s having the highest selling issue ever) who didn’t have many jumping on points, new #1s, the internet, that many reprints, no Marvel Unlimited and 20-35+ years of Spider-Man history but became regular readers anyway.

 Shit tell that to anyone who picked up Spider-Man in the 1970s after Amazing Spider-Man #100 who had to somehow find out what happened across 100 issues they had to track down due to a lack of reprints, no electronic services and had to cope with those being collector’s items in high demand and even higher prices.

 Once upon a time comics were written in such a way that every issue was somebody’s first. There was no ‘unspoken baggage’ bullshit like the author is pretending there was.

 Readers went back if they could or wanted to but generally they could roll with the story as was.

 I did it. my first Spider-Man comic book was literally the last part of the last story in the 2+ year long convoluted nightmare that was the Clone Saga and it thrilled me because it was well written and well drawn.

 That’s all you need.

 A good writer writes to the old established fans AND the new comers alike.

  “Spider-Man has a particularly cluttered biography, between the “Clone Saga,” “Spider-Verse” and the history-altering “Brand New Day.”

 Spider-Verse wasn’t a cluttered biography it was one arc. The clone saga makes sense when read in sequence though it is long and BND never altered history, OMD did.

 And the degree to which it rendered Spider-Mans’ history more convoluted was AT LEAST comparable to how Secret Wars fucked Miles’ history.

 But we’re gonna conveniently ignore that so the author can continue to shill Miles I guess.

 “Those coming from other Spidey media expecting more fun stories of a webhead fighting bad guys and maybe tussling with other animal-themed villains might leave disappointed.”

 Nowdays sure because he’s Iron Man.

 But hand them a decent older run and they won’t be.

 “That is, unless they pick up a Miles Morales book,”

 Or the David Michelinie run, or the JMS run, or Marvel Knights Spider-Man, or the Lee/Ditko run, or the Roger Stern run, or the Tom DeFalco run, or the DeMatteis runs, or the Peter David run or the Marv Wolfman run.

 “which despite their own origin in universe-rupturing crossover events are about as accessible as a modern Big Two superhero series gets, lacking that excessive amount of history and backstory.”

 See above about accessibility.

 And...no.

 Kamala Khan and other new characters existing in the same universe they were created in less than 5 years ago is as accessible as it gets.

 Finally Miles’ got shittons of baggage by virtue of switching universes, having his origin story invalidated and you know continuing shit from the ORIGINAL Ultimate Spider-Man series.

 It’s not like Miles series starts fresh that you don’t need to have some familiarity with Peter’s adventures. Ultimate Spider Woman, Mary Jane, Electro, Gwen Stacy, Green Goblin, Aunt May. All these characters are present in Miles’ first arc with a presumption that you know who they are already.

 Also that backstory makes the franchise RICHER not poorer.

   2) He’s still a teenager

 “The debate over whether or not to allow comic book characters to age will never be done.”

 Only because morons keep bringing it up and not recognizing you obviously should let them age.

 “On the one hand, you have the example of “The Simpsons,” where Bart Simpson has been a rabble-rousing 10-year-old for over 20 years and likely always will be there.”

 Putting aside how cliché this example is, the Simpsons stopped being about Bart by like season 3 or 4 and it stopped being actually good in season 10 which was nearly 20 years ago. Which blows up the argument here.

 “On the other is John Constantine who, in the original “Hellblazer” run, aged in real time. Most superhero books land somewhere in the middle, with the de-aging properties of reboots and relaunches accepted into the fold.”

It’s not accepted. It’s practiced by DC to obviously crappy results hence Rebirth is a thing.

 “It can be difficult removing a character from the original age, however.”

 No it isn’t.

 Peter Parker, Smallville Clark Kent, Dick Grayson, Harry Potter, Son Goku and Son Gohan prove that to be the case.

 “Spider-Man is a character whose entire existence is rooted in teenage angst and the drama of high school.”

 No he isn’t. He’s rooted in down to Earth realistic life experiences and the responsibilities one has to contend with as part of that whilst balancing that against the realities of living up to the responsibilities of being a superhero.

 If you think Spider-Man is anything other than something along those lines you do not understand Spider-Man.

 The author is a superficial idiot who’s never read much Spider-Man and is parroting erroneous lines they’ve heard elsewhere, like from Tom Brevoort’s lying mouth.

 Spider-Man was in high school for 28 issues before his creators graduated him.

 He isn’t rooted in angst he simply felt it because all 1960s Marvel characters did but Spidey especially since he was a teenager initially but that changed over time.

 The drama of high school wasn’t that big of a deal early on next to the drama of Jameson and Betty Brant who were unconnected to Peter’s high school life.

 “Removing Peter Parker from that made sense at a certain point, but after he graduated college, creators have floundered to find something for adult Peter to do, cycling through freelance photojournalist to scientist to CEO to public school teacher.”

 Yes.

 The acclaimed Roger Stern, Tom DeFalco and J.M. DeMatteis runs of Spider-Man sure are great examples of ‘floundering’

 Him having to cope with dark stuff like gritty street crime, marriage, existential issues self-identity challenged by the presence of his clone, impending fatherhood, and his own mortality sure was the writers floundering.

 Seriously, all the examples the author listed were just different JOBS Peter has had, not proof writers have floundered constantly since 1983. They don’t even prove Peter’s JOBS have floundered in real life adults often change professions.

 “Miles remains a 14-year-old high schooler,”

 No he doesn’t. He’s been allowed to age and is closer to 17 years old currently.

 “that rich vein far from fully tapped at this point.”

 Because a high school adventurer who deals with crazy unordinary events as well as regular high school experiences is something comic books and pop culture as a whole hasn’t revisited ad infinitum as the default setting of countless series.

 “For fans craving the classic high school Spidey experience, look no further than Miles Morales to deliver the hormone-fueled goods.”

 Or you know read the older Ultimate Spider-Man comics, the Ditko Spider-Man comics, Spidey or watch the Spec Spidey cartoon.

  1)��  He Still Has a lot to Learn

 “Miles Morales is still relatively green. He’s been receiving a helping hand from an Avenger here, another Spidey-adjacent hero there, but the fact is he’s a kid. A kid of better-than-average intelligence and the proportionate strength and agility of a spider, but a kid nonetheless. There’s still an almost infinite amount of scope for him to learn and grow, and also for him to completely mess up in the way rookies do, all of which make for interesting stories and a clear character progression in the years to come.”

 Peter Parker has at least 30 decades worth of character development in him if you make him a father, let alone anything else you wish to do with him.

 And this is such a bullshit goalpost moving argument to make.

 Miles is better because he has LESS character development and is at the start of his career as opposed to Peter.

 Okay...I guess every new TV show that just started this year must be by it’s nature automatically better than the Sopranos, the Wire and Game of Thrones.

 I guess Speedball was an inherently better character than Peter Parker because he was 25 years behind Peter.

 I guess every Robin ever is automatically better than Batman and Superman combined.

 I guess the Iron Fist TV show is better than the Daredevil TV show because it’s only had ONE season instead of two.

 I guess the DCEU versions of Superman and Batman are inherently better than the MCU versions of Captain America and Iron Man because they’ve only had 1-2 movies about them whilst Cap and Iron Man have had a minimum of 3 each.

 The POTENTIAL for character development doesn’t make you better than the character who HAS the character development.

 Practically EVERY character has potential for growth. But staying stuck there, or going downhill (as Miles has since his inception) kinda makes you far LESS than a character who’s got the character development.

 Character development>>>>Hasn’t got there yet.

 “Peter Parker, comparatively, is spinning his wheels.”

 Yeah right NOW he is. He didn’t USED to do that, he wasn’t even doing that a mere 15 fucking years ago. This isn’t going to last.

 “He’s done everything, beaten everyone, self-actualized several times over as a spider-god, the literal center of the multiverse in “Spider-Verse,” and now as an international industrialist.”

 a)   Being an industrialist never self actualized him

b)   He was never a Spider God, the author needs to read the damn books

c)   He was also never the centre of the Multiverse

d)   What the hell does self-actualizing even mean in this context?

e)   He’s never been a father in 616?

f)     He’s never owned a small business

g)   He’s never had to make peace with his abusive father-in-law

h)   He’s never turned evil

i)     He’s never learned magic

j)     He’s never swapped powers with anybody

k)   Oh look there seems to be lots of shit whether good or bad he’s never done

 “At this point, writers have to keep applying new gimmicks to the original Spidey to make him interesting, and though the results have sometimes been magnificent — thanks to Dan Slott, J. Michael Straczynski and their innumerable collaborators — it feels like arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”

 With Slott sure.

 With JMS no it was never a gimmick it was all natural.

 Notice the author only citing the most recent regular ASM writers as though they did a quick google search and nothing more as research.

 We don’t need to apply gimmicks to make Spider-Man interesting. We just need to allow him to progress again. Renew Your Vows proved that.

 “With Miles, the fascination and entertainment comes naturally.”

 Well it would do if Bendis wasn’t writing him and hadn’t fucked him by switching his universes.

 And it would also help if the fascination with Miles wasn’t rooted in yet another teenage superhero story. It’s been done to death by this point and this is another teenage superhero story about another smart kid who has spider powers and calls himself Spider-Man. 

  What can we conclude form this ‘article’?

 1)    The author is a Miles Morales shill who will move the goal posts and stack the deck in order to paint Miles in a light that puts him over Peter

2)    If this article is indicative of the attitudes surrounding Miles Morales on the whole then Miles Morales is excruciatingly overrated

3)    The author doesn’t understand much about storytelling

4)    The author doesn’t understand or know much about Spider-Man in general (specifically Peter Parker) or the defining philosophies underpinning the franchise

5)    The author wants to generate cheap dishonourable clickbait

BONUS!

CBR is such clickbait bullshit they even made a crappy video to go along with their crappy article for anyone too lazy to read it.

See this video indicates to me the speaker and/or writer and/or researcher of the artcle and video really don’t know what they are talking about.

·         Because they only site Dan Slott and JMS among the creators who;ve worked on Spider-Man beyond the early days which says to me they did a quick google search of Spider-Man writers and since those are the latest two with full on runs they threw the names out to look smart.

·         Because no self respecting Spider-Man fan doesn’t know how to pronounce John Romita’s name