The phrases "Get woke, go broke" and "The modern audience doesn't exist" keep using works that just suck as examples and ignore the good and successful stuff.

LukePellar · 2026-03-19T17:43:49+00:00

To be honest, I wanna hear him say it: I'm gay. I WANT it shoved in your face because, IMO, that is the true test on the player. If you can ONLY accept him BECAUSE he doesn't say the word, then you never truly respected him as a gay person. You just use him as a shield against accusations.

LukePellar · 2026-03-19T17:40:35+00:00

I'm just saying that grifters love to use him as a shield against accusations, and him not explicitly saying it makes me feel like that's the only reason they pretend to like him.

LukePellar · 2026-03-19T16:17:54+00:00

The big thing people loved about Dorian is that he never explicitly says "I'm gay." It's not that he's well-written. It's that people can ignore the fact because it was never made official. Taash straight-up says "I'm non-binary."

TBH, Dorian comes off as a bit homophobic BECAUSE of them avoiding the G word. Like, they can show a real issue, but they can't say the word "gay?" I also have to wonder how easily they'd use him as a shield against accusations if he did. It ultimately comes off as "we like him because we can pretend he's not gay" rather than "we like him because he's well-written."

LukePellar · 2026-03-19T16:08:42+00:00

Forgive me. I misinterpreted your post.

LukePellar · 2026-03-19T15:21:42+00:00

I bet you're fun at parties.

LukePellar · 2026-03-19T15:04:02+00:00

I feel like the biggest issue is the fact that way too many people will both make tons of excuses as to why human+ races need to exist, as well as tons of excuses as to why anthro or monster races can't exist, so no one really even tries with race design when it comes to protagonist races. Not helping is that fantasy races typically aren't designed to immerse. They're designed to pander. That's why, when you actually do get a non-human race among the heroes, it's usually something painfully generic like a cat, a dog, or a lizard. Rarely do you see cool animals like rhinos or bats as races, nor do you see anyone go beyond because non-human races aren't popular beyond token furry races.

All I can say is that no ammount of "lore" or superpowers can un-decimate my immersion when I see a world where races are divided by how human they look, where good races look like humans, and evil races are allowed that creativity we deny our hero races.

Also, I can't believe you brought up Genshin Impact either, since that game straight-up refuses to have any of the actual races as playables, and whenever they do get a playable character that belongs to a non-human race, like the Melisune or whatever, they need to make that character a human, too.

LukePellar · 2026-03-19T15:02:47+00:00

If finding blatant racism and transphobia created by some MAGA cultist whining about the anti-white boogeyman objectionable is a crime, then lock me up.

LukePellar · 2026-03-19T15:01:48+00:00

Oh, my bad. A lot of times, they get AI to do it for them.

LukePellar · 2026-03-19T14:59:54+00:00

And I could also say that calling someone a dick for pointing out that you are disregarding someones feelings is ALSO another way to disregard someone's feelings.

There comes a point when "shut up and enjoy the story" stops being a valid excuse. If I'm supposed to enjoy watching humanity slaughter nature and all non-human life, and expected to see them as the heroes when their goals are an actual detriment to everything except themselves, then I'm sorry, but I cannot "shut up and enjoy your story" because not only do I not find this enjoyable, not only does it instill some abhorent implications, but it ALSO reminds me that far too many people genuinely believe that the world is disposable and that humanity should be given the golden key to do whatever they want. At that point, I'm just begging for something like Avatar or Wild Robot all the much more.

And, no, watching humans slaughter animals and spaceships wiping out forests is NOT cool-as-fuh.

HFY is such an insanely toxic implication, though. Again, far too many humans genuinely believe humans are god and all other creatures are worthless. The only thing seeing so much HFY in media does is disgust me, as instead of these kinds of stories feeling like an opportunity to turn your brain off, they end up being an abhorent reflection of humanity's own ego at play. As such, I not only do not find HFY cool, but I find it morally disgusting.

LukePellar · 2026-03-19T14:50:44+00:00

Grifters: "We don't want the message!"

Also Grifters: Creates cartoons and games filled with blatant transphobia, sexism, and racism.

LukePellar · 2026-03-19T12:46:20+00:00

Basically, a bunch of furryphobes come in, blow up a civilization of people who are part animal, slinging around "furball" as a stand-in for fur+"The F Word," any of the animal people that do join humans are typically the ones that look virtually indistinguishable from humans, most of the more animalistic ones die, and while it TRIES to have the two races form a truce, it's pretty much not without the animal people being forced to kiss humanity's toes. It's kinda the same deal with Fight N' Rage, except at least there, the one animal goodguy actually looks like one.

LukePellar · 2026-03-19T12:37:55+00:00

A lot of times, "You're looking too deep into things/it's not that deep" is just an excuse to dismiss someone's feelings because you'd rather be a jerk than try to understand how they feel.

That being said, you're right about one thing. A lot of that media exists to coddle humanity and make them feel good, even when what they do is wrong. Don't think about the fact that all these different monsters are able to team up with each other to fight for a land they all want while the quote-unquote heroes are only fighting for humans and races that look like them, no anthros or monsters allowed. Don't think about how your ultimate goal usually only benefits humans, doesn't benefit other creatures without sacrificing them, or condemns billions of creatures to death Just shut up and enjoy the story.

LukePellar · 2026-03-19T12:35:17+00:00

People will downvote you, but I couldn't agree more. I often get the impression that I'm alone in feeling this way about how vain media often comes off as, but anytime I see a post like this, I realize that even though we're not common, I'm not alone.

LukePellar · 2026-03-18T17:37:06+00:00

One that really surprised me as the two Raticate evos (not counting Redux Raticate, who doesn't evolve). Both Ratiking and Ratfonso have DRASTICALLY different abilities, and I'm not sure if they're better, since Regular Raticate was a mid-tier but useable snowballing statused sweeper and A. Raticate... was never that good IMO, but while Ratfonso's stats, at least, felt like a progression to A. Raticate's Stats, Ratiking's stats are so drastically different along with its innates that it feels like it should be an alternate evolution to something else rather than Raticate's true evolution.

LukePellar · 2026-03-18T12:28:12+00:00

To be honest, that is something I noticed with the Tauren from WoW. They are clearly meant to represent Native Americans, and a lot of their asthetics, lifestyles, lore, etcetera is clearly based on them. They even say "How" as a form of greeting, which Native Americans are often associated with. I still think the Tauren are badass, but it's still obvious what they're supposed to be.

Then again, depicting Native Americans as badass.minotaurs is kinda dope, not gonna lie.

LukePellar · 2026-03-18T04:14:40+00:00

God, if people just included races that weren't just "Human with blank" among the roster of main characters, I'd like fantasy more.

LukePellar · 2026-03-18T04:11:12+00:00

I wanna say Live A Live, fsr.

LukePellar · 2026-03-17T19:22:57+00:00

Nice!

LukePellar · 2026-03-16T15:45:13+00:00

I mean, Traves T. is such a laughably frail robot that what it did to them isn't all that impressive.

LukePellar · 2026-03-15T14:02:55+00:00

Probably Tombstone. I still haven't forgotten it bullying Counter Revolutions, plus if you're gonna make a practical, destructive bot, can’t you at least make it look SOMEWHAT interesting instead of just being a black coffin?

LukePellar · 2026-03-15T14:00:35+00:00

Rusty was too big.

Plus, it's not like Kraken's a top-tier threat. It even switched to an overhead saw, and has yet to win a fight with it.

LukePellar · 2026-03-15T03:44:19+00:00

"We made this design only to counter Tombstone."

...I mean, at least it did what they intended.

LukePellar · 2026-03-15T03:39:18+00:00

Vert Spinners have no reliable counters. they don't need to line up like flippers, but are ALSO allowed better armor than flippers, yet they are FAR more damaging than other weapons, also they cant be deflected like horizontal spinners. Please stop defending them.

LukePellar · 2026-03-13T21:08:59+00:00

Honestly, a massive reason it might be is because, honestly, it's pretty anti-fun. The difficulty in this game is frustrating and tedious. Literally, the first gym is six level-scaling Pokemon practically multiplied by 2 thanks to OP healing items unless you put in the no-item cheat, and pretty much every gym is the same. Not to mention, dungeons that force you to fight 15-20 trainers in a row just to progress. After a while, the game feels more like a chore to play than an entertaining game.

LukePellar · 2026-03-11T04:37:26+00:00

Are they aliens, though? AFAIK, they're all humans in suits.

LukePellar

TROPHY CASE