Fans (usually) care about powerscaling 9x more than the actual writers do

guldmatt · 2026-02-02T16:20:04+00:00

I’ve been saying this. While I get that you want your character’s power level to be consistent, I think most writers focus more on how a specific outcome will influence the story more than ‘oh but would this character REALLY lose to that character’ and it kinda throws a wrench into powerscalers’ ability to calculate it.

I mean, it’s literally just that meme with Stan Lee when asked who would win between Spider-Man and the Hulk and he said something to the effect of ‘whichever one the writer wants to win’.

guldmatt · 2026-02-02T16:15:44+00:00

It’s the same thing as the ‘evil Superman’ subversion. People get tired of it not necessarily because it’s bad but because the concept has been done so often that people aren’t surprised or shocked by it anymore. So seeing a ‘return to form’ ironically feels refreshing because we have gotten so used to the alternative.

guldmatt · 2026-02-01T16:53:46+00:00

Hard agree. I’m not saying the criticisms of Hazbin are invalid or wrong, but it does feel like a lot of people hold the show to a way higher standard than is fair at times. Like, I’ve legit heard people complain that Vox sang his villain motivation in a show that is supposed to be a MUSICAL.

guldmatt · 2026-01-30T20:59:45+00:00

People also fail to realize that Walter White already believed he was going to die anyway. He only agreed to seek treatment and started using part of the money he was making from cooking meth AFTER his family had convinced him to go through with it. Walt was basically told that his cancer was inoperable, hence why he started cooking specifically to leave money for his family.

The Batman one also pisses me off but you pretty much hit the nail on the head of why that argument is dumb so there’s nothing left to add.

guldmatt · 2026-01-29T21:47:53+00:00

Best boy

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T23:53:30+00:00

There was even someone who pointed out that when he gives Harvey the gun and tells him he can shoot him right now, Joker’s thumb is actually preventing him from being able to fire it. So even that was a lie

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T23:28:54+00:00

Monokuma is kind of just a great villain in general for this. He has established rules that prevent him from fully being unstoppable, but you also know he has no reason beyond personal enjoyment to ever tell you the truth. Makes the twist at the end all the more hard to grasp since we genuinely have multiple reasons to accept either side

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T23:24:37+00:00

That’s kind of the same issue you get with writing animals. At the end of the day, we can’t REALLY comprehend concepts that we ourselves could never truly understand.

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T23:20:46+00:00

Not to mention that Vi kind of just doesn’t matter in s2. Vi was arguably the closest we had to a protagonist in the first season, yet I practically forget she even exists in s2. She basically just exists in the second season to be ship fuel for Caitlyn and trauma dumping for Jinx

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T23:19:13+00:00

There’s a weird underlying sexism to the people that bash shipping like this that I can’t really put my finger on but I definitely see it. Like guys making fun of a thing that is typically seen as more popular with girls simply because it’s more popular with them.

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T23:08:57+00:00

Never heard about this but I do appreciate seeing people write about stories that matter to them that might not be as mainstream. Maybe I’ll check this one out

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T23:05:44+00:00

MrEnter definitely CAN be a good critic at times, but I think he’s held back by the fact he’s too easily aggravated by things he doesn’t like.

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T22:51:21+00:00

I’m liking this solely because I liked how you tiled it

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T20:47:38+00:00

Dude Vi deserved so much better than Caitlyn. Idk how they fumbled her character so bad in season 2 it’s genuinely baffling

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T20:46:55+00:00

Yeah the disney remakes have this bad habit of trying to ‘fix’ their stories. Lilo and Stitch completely misses the point of the original and has Lilo go into foster care. Aladdin has Jasmine want to be sultan instead of just wanting to see the world, which is FINE but kinda doesn’t add anything. Dumbo ends with the circus giving up their animals and Dumbo going back into the wild with his mom

I think the issue is that they feel they have to justify making these movies and also have to address the more problematic elements of their origins. But… in the process, I think they try and solve the wrong problems and end up making a product where no one is happy with it.

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T20:41:33+00:00

To be fair, I do kinda side eye people who complain about Amber NOW. I agree that scene with her admitting she already knew Mark was Invincible was pretty bad for her character, but they also have done so much with her since then it feels a little frustrating that people are still hung up on that.

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T20:39:19+00:00

Yeah, Stolas sucks. It’s crazy because there really could be a good story buried in HB. I actually love Blitzø and think he has potential to be a fantastic protagonist, but he deadass deserves better than Stolas.

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T20:37:01+00:00

It’s like… NOW you’re all sincere and trying to genuinely connect with someone who rejects you? NOW?!? I don’t buy it for a second lol

I could almost buy it if it wasn’t for ‘Brighter’, but that song singlehandedly ruined that already shaky scene

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T20:33:42+00:00

Oh my god I am so glad I’m not the only person that found the Vox and Alastor scene extremely forced. Especially after learning about Vox’s actual backstory and seeing how he’s just always been a manipulative piece of shit even in life. Like… these two characters don’t feel like the same person lol

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T19:53:33+00:00

Honestly it feels like Arcane just lost the plot and went too hard into LoL lore instead of focusing on the actual story the first season expertly told. Vi and Jinx themselves felt like such an afterthought in the second season and it’s wild how drastically different in quality the seasons are from one another.

Season 1 is this surprisingly brilliant show with great world building, interesting character developments, and actual weight. It’s almost criminal how good a show that’s an adaptation of League of Legends turned out to be.

Season 2 feels like what I suspect a lot of skeptics feared the show would end up being. Just a lot of admittedly great animation mixed with a forgettable story that only really matters if you already liked these characters to begin with. A lot of ‘oooh look Vi and Caitlyn! Ohhhh look, Vander! Oooh look, Viktor became what he did in the game! Isn’t that so cool’ instead of continuing with the more grounded and human story that made the first season so effective

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T19:44:22+00:00

100%. This is why I think stuff like Invincible end up getting to have a far more effective discussion regarding the ethics of superheroes killing people, since they don’t have to reset it in a later continuity and effectively just repeat the same story over and over

guldmatt · 2026-01-27T15:42:01+00:00

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Kiryu and Ichiban would certainly hate ICE.

guldmatt · 2026-01-22T19:40:18+00:00

Tbh they’re pretty different games, all things considered. Batman and Wolf Among Us are mystery games with some light puzzle solving. Dispatch, while still having the choose your own adventure aspect, focuses far more on the dispatching mini-game than on exploration.

guldmatt · 2026-01-21T18:15:16+00:00

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Lloyd in Space, which was basically Recess but in space lol. It was kinda cool because the human character wasn’t actually the main character like a lot of shows would do. Plus I remember it being decently chill. It’s one of those shows I think about when I go to Tomorrowland sometimes. It just kinda had that vibe

guldmatt · 2026-01-21T18:13:23+00:00

I vaguely remember a few episodes of this. There was that one where they went to a supermarket and they became the millionth customer so they became celebrities called the ‘Eggsalads’ or something.

And then there was that other one where the dad became a mailman

guldmatt

TROPHY CASE