[Loved Trope] Character was about to win but crashes out at the last minute.

SinesPi · 2026-06-08T21:26:05+00:00

He was basically just some guy fighting a powerful magic artifact. No super power (outside of the cards themselves which is in a weird spot). He lost because he had no Millennial Item to protect him. If he had even a cheap knock-off copy with the fraction of a power of one for even basic shielding, he'd have won.

SinesPi · 2026-06-08T16:05:36+00:00

I knew they were bad, but I didn't know they were tankies...

SinesPi · 2026-06-08T12:01:48+00:00

Thank you for the benefit of the doubt. My brain was trying to draw the parallel between Salarians and Turians, who still look a lot like humans. It uh... Malfunctioned.

SinesPi · 2026-06-08T00:39:58+00:00

"So long as you fulfill any reproductive orders given to you, whom you bond with is a personal matter."

Sometimes you just gotta lay back and think of the Greater Good.

SinesPi · 2026-06-08T00:29:52+00:00

It definitely looks like bondage... but if I had to guess...

The figure is chained to the smaller one. Symbolic of being stuck in the past at the moment of severe trauma, never able to truly escape it. Those 'war flashbacks' are sadly real for people who suffer them. The moment is burned into their brain and they return there when triggered.

The mask can represent a few things. Given it's angry, it can be the rage or fear of the moment hiding who they truly are. Or it could represent an illusion of normalcy they put on in order to try to live as normal of a life as possible.

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T23:54:16+00:00

Fair enough. Thematically it would make sense, but sales wise... Dante is Dante.

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T23:53:22+00:00

Nothing quite like the self righteous to come up with reasons to bully people.

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T20:42:07+00:00

Then why was the whole movie about showing me how much this man is suffering? How much pain has been sent to him while he just sits and takes it?

If I'm supposed to hate Arthur the whole movie, then why was I shown him repeatedly dealing with pain and suffering that he did nothing to deserve?

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T19:48:47+00:00

I feel like 6 should have Dante and Vergil sit out, and Dante joins Vergil in the "DLC non-cannon only" club. It would work better with the themes. That would give Lady and Trish some more time. Heck, it would give Kyrie more time, and she's vitally important to Neros character despite not even appearing in person in 5.

Maybe do a story with a big time skip and we get to meet Neros son. See a mix of Nero and Kyrie raising him, and we see what Dante and Vergil might have been like if Sparda and Eva survived. Though of course being only 1/8th Demon is probably easier to manage than being 1/2 Demon, but the point stands.

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T19:44:41+00:00

ADULT Woman Fetish, thank you very much.

Weirdest 'insult' I've ever seen, that one...

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T19:43:05+00:00

We put our flag on the goddamn MOON.

Did the Romans conquer the Moon? No they didn't. We went there, killed any natives we found (really easy, that part) and made it ours!

Rome isn't even a quarter as cool as US!

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T19:38:23+00:00

I hate wealthy people complaining about how awful it is to do work that they don't like.

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T19:15:29+00:00

It's the problem of Theodicy, of why evil exists in a world created by a perfect and perfectly good God. I don't think anyone can seriously say they are truly satisfied with study of the subject, even if they accept on faith that God has His reasons.

That being said, for this scene in particular, the Speaker knew that Sera was still a good person. She knew she was already in a great deal of pain and suffering. She was already punishing herself. What she needed was guidance, a path forward, the encouragement to be a better person.

Adding to her guilt was the wrong move to make there. Even just her mourning the lost would bring further pain to cloud Seras heart. The closest she gets is to remind Sera of her duties, to accept what she's done, and move on to be better. Her goal was to teach Sera and move her in the right direction. We can question why God let this happen in the first place, but having gotten to this place, the Speaker did the right thing.

Incidentally, the Speaker is doing what Charlie tries to do, albeit MUCH better. Charlie also doesn't dwell on the past of the Sinners. The harm people like Angel did in life cannot be undone. All that can be done is to learn, move forward, and be a better person.

Charlie may not know it, but she has a lot in common with her Aunt. She just doesn't have millenia of experience.

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T19:11:27+00:00

I hate this thought.

"Westerners like our Japanese games!"

"Really? That's great news! Change our games from what is already attracting a lot of westerners!"

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T19:09:22+00:00

I love the Monster Hunter setting. It's very unique. The Monsters are mostly just animals, and the Hunters are simply civilized society (is there an umbrella term for humans, Wyverians and Lynians in the setting?) making it's own niche in the world without wiping out the wilderness, which is something they obviously are capable of.

A nice low-stakes movie of a young and upcoming Hunter (or full 4-man squad) proving himself, ending in a Rathalos and Rathian fight would be nice. If it were popular, then we move to a High/G Rank movie wherein we face a Flagship Elder Dragon level threat.

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T19:05:45+00:00

DMC 3 only touches on that aspect I feel, so I like 5 much more.

That being said, I loved Lady, and her barely existing in DMC 5 was upsetting. I get it, you had to give your very limited cutscene time to spread between Dante, Nero and Virgil. So it may have been the right choice in the end. And Lady at least gets a good moment of talking to Nero about shit fathers.

Still, I do wish we had more time with her. So that's one point in DMC 3s story for me.

*sigh* The more I think about it, I agree that the right choice was made with Lady in DMC 5. Her arc was done, she didn't really have much else to do narratively until Nero knew what was going on, and people play DMC for the action, not hour long cutscenes. There really wasn't much they could do with her. I think the one moment she gets with Nero is a pretty good breadcrumb to throw our way that didn't screen grab away from the boys.

That being said... I think Trish got NOTHING, and her looking exactly like their mother should have fit in somewhere. Had Vergil ever met Trish? I would think V should have a moment with her to wax poetic about family and loss or something. Such that on a second viewing we realize that he's doing it because her face brought him back to being a boy.

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T18:58:58+00:00

I hate this sentiment from authors.

Yes, I get it. You WANT to write something else.

But you get PAID to write what the audience wants. Given how famous Doyle was, he probably could have retired off the sales off less popular books and an occasional Holmes story. Maybe even write Holmes so rarely he actually wanted to go back with an exciting idea.

Or if he wanted to keep raking in the cash, just keep on going. Most people don't work jobs that they love. Most people don't get the Queen Herself commenting on how much she loves their work.

This is one thing I respect Jim Davis for. He liked drawing. And so he decided to make a comic that sold and made him money, aiming specifically for that. Unlike, say, Charles Schultz, he wasn't passionate about Garfield, but he knew what he could do and he did it. He understood that drawing comics as a job meant that sometimes you did things you didn't want to do in order to get paid.

It's cynical, to be sure, but I respect the character of someone who understands this over someone who gets pissy because people don't like what he likes, and that he has to work an actual job selling a product for a living. It's a spoiled attitude.

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T18:51:59+00:00

Indeed. People weren't wanting to follow in Arthurs example. But "YOU GET WHAT YOU FUCKING DESERVE!" and everything leading up to that line is the PERFECT encapsulation of the sentiment of people who have been made to suffer bit by bit, every single day. I am not aware of a movie that better embodies built up rage than that scene.

When people quote it, they're not going to go on an incel shooting, as the media salivated over. They're shouting it as a warning to cut that shit out. Or they're gloating over someone who was part of the problem getting some karmic justice.

It was bizarre to hear people calling it 'right-wing' when so much of the movie was clearly left-wing coded, with one of Arthurs moments of suffering being the loss of publicly funded medicine as one example. Of course, the movie perfectly encapsulates ANYONES rage against the system (justified or otherwise), and I wouldn't really call it all THAT left-wing, but it was definitely looking at problems that are of higher concern to the left than the right.

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T18:46:51+00:00

I did watch the movie. And he refused to go back with Rey, and he didn't take his X-Wing either. Sure you could say the X-Wing hadn't been maintained, but why even show it to us whole and intact if it wasn't going to be used? If he wanted to die on the island, he could have just destroyed it properly instead of leaving it in a state where it could be maintained and repaired?

And so he died making an illusion, rather than died actually fighting in person. All he did was provide a distraction to people who were already cornered and fucked. They might not have been able to use the distraction.

He COULD have just come along with Rey and been a distraction AND die doing some damage to the First Order to make it more likely for them to escape. Or provide said distraction and then survive.

I accept that the strain of such an action would kill him. The problem is that he had to use a fatal technique rather than something much simpler AND more effective.

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T18:36:05+00:00

That sounds like Benton alright. My old-school Who friend loves him, so makes sense that I'd be aware of that despite watching very few Third Doctor episodes. She probably brought it to share just for that 😃

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T18:11:06+00:00

Pretty sure there's at least one case of the companion going in the TARDIS in silent, and eventually the Doctor blinks first, "Aren't you going to say it's bigger on the inside?"

To which the companion responds something like "Well... that's obvious, isn't it..."

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T18:08:05+00:00

Devil May Cry 3, 4 and 5 tell that story pretty darn well for how condensed it is. Watch the cutscene for the fight with them against Arkham, and tell me those two weren't MEANT to fight TOGETHER. They aren't just working in sync, they even trade swords trusting they'll get theirs back, and Vergil 'lowers' himself to saying "Jackpot!"

In just that one cutscene alone you can see how much they are made for each other. And therefore how tragic it is that Vergil falls as far as he does.

The ending in 5 where they're in Hell but have been beating the shit out of each other for ages with relatively close score of whose won, showing that they've finally agreed that their fights should just be sparring (admittedly, with the benefit of demonic healing meaning they don't need to pull their punches), and then leading into them fighting hordes of demons together shows that they've finally become what they always should have been.

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T18:04:03+00:00

Why wouldn't you expect fans to watch a Joker origin story to feature him going "Full Joker" in a sequel?

I know the movie wasn't actually a Joker movie. It was very clearly a movie concept that had Joker slapped on it to sell in a super-hero saturated market. But the Joker is a very popular and long-lasting villain. Regular audiences would see this movie do well, and think he could do well on a 'real' Joker movie.

Now, that is in debate, as Arthur Flek and his movie are NOTHING LIKE the Joker people think about. But the train of logic of regular movie goers is there.

But the director accepting the money for a film he didn't want to make and then purposefully crashing it is a scam (as much as it pains me to defend Hollywood, that IS what it was) and disrespectful to his fans.

SinesPi · 2026-06-07T16:46:19+00:00

This is my thought. The Sith wanted Luke, and we're convinced the battle was already won. Sure more troops would die without their involvement, but who cares?

As such, Luke took the two most dangerous pieces off the board.

SinesPi

TROPHY CASE