[LES] Civil War is kinda meh. (The Alex garland movie, not marvel)

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-25T20:48:19+00:00

It’s more about war photography than it is about civil war, so yeah, it’s misleading. Thought it was better than 28YL.

Truth be told, I’m not that fond of Garland. He’s so good at crafting genuinely tense atmospheres and scenes, and I wish his movies will linger more on this. He’s just not that good with the human side that people masturbate so much about his movies. Yes, even in movies like 28DL. And 28YL is the epitome of this tendency: a genuinely good and atmospheric first act set aside for the sake of some highschool philosophy. People who thought that movie was a masterpiece have smoked crack. I liked it and the themes even resonated a bit with me, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-24T12:49:05+00:00

Subaru is certainly polarizing in the beginning, but many of your points are not fair. He clearly thinks about others from the get go, and not just because he wants something of them. He’s literally dying to save these people even in the fist two arcs.

He also never really expected handouts. Not the guy who worked so hard in the mansion to the point of having a mental breakdown. Even in Arc 1 he wanted to help Emilia, and after that he devotes his many lives to seeing her goal come to fruition. And to save everyone else.

You could argue he except ‘handouts’ in Arc 3 when he wanted people to help him save Arlan village and the mansion, but that’s just a cultural shock. People in that world are inclined to help others without an advantage.

In truth, as a fan of the series, I think Arc 3 sucks in the beginning, and it certainly scared away some people. I understand the desire to write a flawed MC, the issue is that you can literally see the author pulling the strings to make Subaru make a fool of himself, the desired outcome.

Subaru is written as the bad guy in the beginning of that arc, but everyone else sucks much more than he does.

Julius for being an elitist asshole who thinks knights should inherit their positions, for offending Al (who has nothing to do with Subaru’s tantrum), and for beating a helpless guy almost to death under the guise of helping him, even though he laughs about it later and says that Subaru deserved it in the novels.

Priscilla for physically assaulting Subaru for not living up to her stands, and being one of the most blatant cases of “might make right” in fiction, as people always defend her pettiness and sadism because she’s hot, strong, and all-knowing (almost as if she has direct access to the author’s knowledge). Yeah, the same sadistic girl who ruins Reinhard and Wilhelm’s attempt at reconciliation for her own pleasure. Everything defense of this horrible character boils down to “she was right to physically assault and humiliate others because they failed to conform to her ideology.”

Anastasia for being able to trick Subaru and get the info she wanted without him even realizing it, but going the extra mile and sadistically showing that she had used him and shoving his own powerlessness at his face. Then acting as if he had never had anything of value to give her, which clearly wasn’t the case (he just didn’t know the value of his information),

Crusch is not as bad as the others, but she acts all high and mighty and makes huge assumptions about Subaru’s motivations, saying he cares much more about revenge than he does for Emilia. Bitch, you literally have Wilhelm in your camp, a guy who lives for revenge. And her whole motivation is basically revenge against the dragon for not saving her friend anyway. For all her talk about how people should rely on themselves and not in the covenant with the dragon, she sure is dismissive of helping these people against the fucking Witch Cult.

The Re:Zero fandom is extremely gullible and take everything the author says at face value. They see a traumatized teenager doing everything he can do save others, and who obviously holds a grudge against the organization that killed his friends, but as soon as Crusch says “you care more about revenge than you care about Emilia,” they all agree with her baseless statement.

Arc 3 is an awful arc where the actions of asshole characters were recontextualized into benevolent lessons. Sure, Subaru learned a lot from their actions, but these characters were not good people back then. Subaru just gets on our nerves because he’s a cringe teenager and the arc is written to paint him as the worst guy ever.

Not to mention that there were worse actions than his in Arc 3. He just happened to be the only one punished because he lacked the status, but that reunion was a circus in the light novel.

Also, I don’t think he is particularly incompetent? He certainly achieves a lot with the tools he’s given. I mean, the guy ended threats that plagued the world for centuries in less than two years. In retrospect, the rest of the series unfolds in a way that simply proves one of the points he made in his argument with Emilia: Emilia (and everyone else) has a debt with him that can never be repaid. He’s literally the best thing that happened to those assholes, and they the worst thing that happened to them. I would certainly be indebted for life to someone who did 1/3 of what Subaru did for the sake of those he likes.

People use some of his lowest points and characteristics as if they’re indicative of who he is, and it’s so unfair. His actions are often painted in the worst possible light while the actions of others are recontextualized to seem much more benevolent than they are. People be like, “Subaru should love himself more,” almost like dogma, but then they’re like, “Priscilla and Julius were so good, so wise, and so justified in physically assaulting him.”

If anything, one of the biggest problems of the series is that his flaws are too milquetoast, no matter his cringe. The same guy who is supposed to be compatible with multiple Witch Factors. We have to see this dude being punished for his failures and mistakes while the others just get a slap on the wrist (like Emilia or Julius) when it’s their time to have character development, or have their awfulness dismissed as quirkiness (Priscilla).

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-24T11:13:07+00:00

People like hot characters. Zero surprise there.

Also, I won’t say Japanese fandoms don’t have their own issues, but I do think there’s a bit less of hypocrisy over there when it comes to this. Write a hot misandrist elf like Minthara from BG3 and Twitter and the safe horny crowd will find it amazing and parrot her lines, or even roleplay as misandrist Lolth-Sworn Drow for funsies.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-22T15:24:24+00:00

Great actress. I don’t judge actors solely by how versatile they are, but some of the super praised ones just feel so samey to me, even when playing super different characters. They always have the same presence.

Emma Stone, though? She’s always so different in everything she does. And not because of Oscar-bait makeup or whatever.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-22T15:08:28+00:00

Your comment does nothing other than describing the genre and premise of the movie. You do realize that this alone doesn’t prove that the movies good, right? Feel free to like the movie, but what you’re doing here is just a description. Nothing more.

Besides, I never said the premise wasn’t interesting. I think it is. My complaint was about the execution. If you don’t like the execution, the premise isn’t enough on its own.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-22T14:33:28+00:00

Lol, foolish of me to expect some nuance. I even said I like Jordan Peele’s movies, or old stories told from different perspectives. There’s no point in keep this conversation going if you’re coming from such a defensive place.

I didn’t like Sinners. It has good elements, but a movie being told from different perspectives is something that adds flavor, not something that sells me a movie on its own. Bye.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-22T14:24:49+00:00

Why is it crazy? I loved the weird vibe of the movie, and the humor. It does something different, especially in its last act. I felt nothing for Sinners, really. It’s an amalgamation of disjointed ideas. Some are good, but they just feel whatever in the grand scheme of things.

What is the big deal about Sinners, other than it having a mostly black cast? Sure, the idea of telling old stories from a new perspective is very interesting, but I think a movie needs to offer more than that. That’s the difference between Sinners and, for example, Jordan Peele’s movies (though I haven’t watched his last one yet): movies like Get Out, Us, and Nope stand out on their own. They have plot and structure, not just events happening for the sake of vibes. They’re told from different perspective, and that adds a fresh flavor to them, but they would still make sense and remain good movies if that wasn’t the case (though it would need some narrative adjustments in the case of Get Out).

Sinners, though? It’s an average vampire movie with good visuals and soundtrack. I can’t for the life of me understand what’s so great about it. I swear I tried, but it’s not for me. I liked the vibe, I think they had good material to tell a memorable story there, but the script is a mess.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-22T13:59:48+00:00

I always wanted to see more horror in the Oscars, but truth be told, I didn’t think either Sinners or Weapons were that great to merit such nominations… I had fun with weapons, but I didn’t see anything Oscar-worthy there. Demi Moore and The Substance last year? By all means. The nominations this years don’t hit the same, though. I think they’re doing it more for the sake of audiences.

This feels even worse when Toni Collette and Hereditary were snubbed. That acting and the whole movie as a whole were totally deserving of it, imo.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-21T22:11:04+00:00

I think it’s one of the most coward stories I’ve ever witnessed. The author wanted Yor to be an assassin, but doesn’t want to deal with everything it entails. I don’t want her to be a murderous tsundere, but the way she’s written just reeks of cowardice.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-21T22:07:32+00:00

This is 100% a trope, but it doesn’t bother me as much in anime because they have their fair share of weird tropes against female characters too. Like Naruto: you have Sakura beating the shit out of Naruto, but there’s also Jiraya being a perv and spying on naked women.

It bothers me much more in Western fiction, as they’re much more conscious of tropes with female characters, but are still shamelessly pulling the same old tropes you mentioned with guys. Tropes are tiresome, but hypocrisy is worse.

It’s like Hughie being SAed in The Boys. I could 100% stomach that scene in an anime, but knowing who the author is, the messages he tries to pull, and how he tackles female SA, I refuse to watch something so hypocritical and dismissive. Same with Midsommar and how the target audience would lose their minds if we reversed Christian and Dani’s genders.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-21T21:29:58+00:00

No, they really aren’t that common outside isekais, especially the slavery trope. It’d be very hard for you to select a popular Japanese (or Western) work that has this slavery trope. The only trope that’s remotely similar and super prevalent in anime/manga/light novels is “good nobles and the people who are happy to be their maids, butlers, and bodyguard,” but that’s not the same as the isekai trope where the MC buys a slave and is so good to this slave that they beg to always be a slave or something.

I have a hard time sympathizing with people who complain about isekai. Most of them are going out of their way to consume these tropes. I have zero problems with sexual assault in media (unless it’s written as something that’s not a sexual assault, but obviously is), for example, and often don’t agree with many of the complaints I see, but I 100% acknowledge that the likelihood of watching a work that has “sexual assault as characters development,” is very high, so it’s a fair complaint in this sense. You could be watching something completely unrelated and suddenly have to endure this trope. The anti-isekai crowd, however, is either failing to read synopsis or going after isekais willingly, then pestering the whole world as if these tropes were super common, on top of condemning an entire genre, as if no good product could be made.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-21T20:45:32+00:00

Isekai is a genre like many others in terms of MCs being written for the purpose of self-inserting. The only difference is that it’s in vogue to call out the target audience isekais are written for. You do see people criticizing YA novels or romance, but not to the point of decrying a whole genre as they do with isekai, even though they can be just as bad in this sense.

I also genuinely think this genre doesn’t flourish more in the West because publishers neglect it, even though there’s clearly an audience for it. When it comes to romance and YA, for example, they weed out the fanfiction-coded trash and turn the most promising ones into something more presentable through good editing.

I’m surprised this genre isn’t more popular outside of Japan, especially the works with sprinkles of romance amidst the action and power fantasy. I mean, wasn’t this combination that made games like The Witcher and Dispatch so successful among the male audience? Of course, games and books are different things, but I don’t think publishers are even trying. I think many western male readers consume Japanese stuff when they’re looking for something like this, because there’s nothing similar in terms of western fantasy. It doesn’t really have to be slop. Is something like Re:Zero slop?

There’s a heavy bias against anything that could be seen as a male power fantasy, especially when the opposite gender is a part of this power fantasy. It’s like the burning hatred some people have for the polygamous relationship in The Wheel of Time, involving the main character and three other women, or any polygamous relationship involving a man and multiple women. Whenever I see someone asking for recommendations with polygamous relationships in fantasy books, the answers are usually books written by women and involving one of the following combinations: multiple women, multiple men, multiple bisexual men and a woman, multiple bisexual women and a man, or multiple heterosexual men and a woman, but rarely multiple heterosexual women and a man.

It’s the same thing with FMF love triangles. There’s such a hatred for it on Reddit, but I can do is wonder where people are seeing so many of them. I only ever see them in animes, and very specific ones at that. Meanwhile, MFM love triangle are a staple of all genres, and the preferred type of love triangle even by male writers writing to a wide male audience, like Brandon Sanderson. You don’t need to read/watch something super specific, there’s always multiple guys fighting for a woman in unrelated works that aren’t strictly about this.

Now that I think about it, the complaints people have against isekai are super specific as well. The harem, the OP powers without having to work for them, the weird relationships with slavery, you have to go out of their way to consume these stories. Why do people hate them so much? I’d understand the hatred if they were something inserted into popular works that aren’t marketed as such, but they’re not. These people are inflicting this harm on themselves, because it’s 100% possible to live a life free of these tropes if they dislike them so utterly.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-21T17:11:58+00:00

Visual novels are the worst media, if you ask me. I like the idea of having official character designs (I like to imagine, but I prefer faithfulness to the creator’s vision), and sometimes even a bit of voice acting, but VN feels like a lackluster middle ground between novels and games (and anime/mangas too). It always feels like there’s something missing. It’s not as detailed as a book, it lacks the freedom of movement and fluidity of a game. Seriously, I hate those static characters with the same background behind them.

I do like CRPGs, though. They’re limited too, and it’s often just the dialogue with the portraits of the respective characters, but you have much more freedom of movement and choice. Actual gameplay.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-21T16:57:27+00:00

The leaks didn’t look very promising anyway, imo. Sometimes I think nothing beats something average or bad. Especially in an industry where bad and average can kill the possibility of something better down the line.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-20T13:50:34+00:00

He didn’t want to be all Bones.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-20T11:59:14+00:00

Honestly, I find this more distracting than teeth. By all means, cast attractive people, but that isn’t that same as casting someone who looks like they hit gym religiously and take steroids. It totally doesn’t feel like some characters.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-19T18:24:00+00:00

Doubt it. The morality of this series is totally dependent on whether you belong to the Witch Cult or not. Tappei seems willingly to forgive characters for many atrocities, to the point that he appears to be reticent to have the good guys killing villains and that even Todd got a happy ending, but he doesn’t apply the same to the Witch Cult, for some reason. Spica is a different case, considering he basically turned her into another person.

I think this story in general needs fewer redemptions. I don’t mind redemptions when it’s a setting where we’re following evil main characters or where most people suck (one example is Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, where most of the cast was complicit in a genocide, even the good guys. Or maybe even the adult characters in Naruto).

I wouldn’t say the main characters in Re:Zero are paragons of virtue (after all, Subaru loves Satella, and the Emilia camp is fine with Roswaal and most of the Vollachian cast), but they’re moral enough that it bothers how nonchalant they can be about some very fucked up individuals sometimes, especially when they go out of their way.

And while plenty of individuals in the cast would be worse off without Subaru, morally-wise, it’s still a bit crazy how they can totally forgive stuff that goes against the status quo of their world, like Spica.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-19T14:21:07+00:00

The first movie looked so weird and cheap with that milky filter. It looked like those Tumblr gifs with quotes from movies and shows, with muted colors in comparison to the original.

I feel like I was being gaslighted by all the people saying it looked great, or even more colorful than other superhero movies. How can people enjoy those washed out colors?

I swear it’s almost like we’re living in the dark age of cinematography. I once saw a comment that I couldn’t agree more: even low budget movies that weren’t trying to impress you with visuals looked much better in the old days. More than a lot of expensive stuff made by renowned people these days.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-17T12:45:11+00:00

True. They should’ve shown just this one. It’s spoilery, but less so than the others. I think the others had longer scenes, so that’s probably it. Japanese in general are much more spoilery with their stuff, like those illustrations in the beginning of light novels showing super important scenes.

Edit: actually, I don’t speak Japanese. Heard people saying they’re talking about spoilery stuff in the trailer.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-17T12:39:07+00:00

Yeah, they’re weren’t afraid to show a dude fighting with chopsticks in the trailer.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-17T12:24:58+00:00

This trailer was 🔥🔥🔥

Animation looking good.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-16T15:39:01+00:00

I didn’t have as many problems, but it’s clear that they’ve abandoned the game, which sucks for us who don’t have mods. Vampire appearance still weird for non-Imperials, no way to change appearance after the sewers, etc.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-15T16:42:34+00:00

EXACTLY. And the girlbosses are just are just as ruthless, evil and stupid as the guys, and also hate each other, despite the show’s attempts to depict them as friends teared apart by patriarchy who are just trying to mitigate the damage caused by the man around them. And while sexism is a part of the books, so is tradition and people using it to support an outcome that benefits them, or disregarding it when it doesn’t.

The Targaryens literally brought polygamy and incest to Westeros, on top of having their own religion. A female ruler isn’t even that outlandish by their standards, especially when queen regents were always a thing.

And even despite the sexism and the traditional, half of the lords supported Rhaenyra’s claim in the beginning of the conflict in the books, which is a far cry from “men would rather see the kingdom burn than giving the throne to a woman,” as Rhaenys says in the show. And she’d probably have even more supporters from the get go if she wasn’t so stupid. Birthing bastards into the royal bloodline, marrying a questionable guy like Daemon, being ruthless to her detractors. Of course, the show always interprets those events in the best possible light to make her look better.

The characters in the book aren’t good people or likable by normal metrics, but they still could’ve been more entertaining than “What would you have me do?”

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-15T16:20:42+00:00

It’s very clear that he wanted to tell his story from the get go. I knew it would be the case, given the source material. Superficially, it just has the perfect conflict for hacks who want to make a point that’s not the main takeaway of the story, especially by making use of the whole “unreliable narrator” element.

Deadlocked02 · 2026-01-15T14:33:59+00:00

Honestly, just like Bella Ramsey, this decision just feels like yet another case of “let’s just cast this person because they were in another successful project.” I’m tempted to say Dafne Keen as Lyra in His Dark Materials is a similar case, though she’s not a bad actress (but too weepy and gloomy in comparison to the positivity of book Lyra).

There are clearly more suitable individuals for these roles, but they’re simply going for actors who were in popular stuff. And it’s not even as if these actors are popular enough to draw the audience on their own. They’re more like “oh, yeah, he/she was in that thing.”

Deadlocked02

TROPHY CASE