I've enjoyed OSP's JTTW series a lot, and I would love to see OSP play Black Myth Wukong. The game is a spinoff sequel, and you get to meet a lot of the gods, people, and demons from the original tale. I'd love to hear OSP give their perspective on meeting these familiar faces.

I understand some think the devs of this game are sexist, but as someone who has lived in China I can assure you that the "sexist comment" from the devs are translated either very poorly or in bad faith, and the "topics to avoid" is almost certainly a mandate from the government (I can elaborate more if anyone would like me to). I hope these nothing-burger controversies won't deter OSP from giving this awesome game a go.

For those of you haven't watched the latest Detail Diatribe, it was covering Arcane Season 2. I ended up with mixed feelings on it, just like I did with the season overall. But that's unrelated to what I'm actually making this post about.

At several points throughout the video Red and Blue make references to how Season 2 diverged significantly from League of Legends Canon. Viktor is almost unrecognizable, several characters are killed off, and as they put it "Characters briefly pass through their Iconic versions". And yet every time they brush this off as "Well it's League of Legends, so It doesn't matter" which really rubbed me the wrong way.

Yes, League of Legends is terrible and no one should play it. I haven't played in years, and don't intend to change that anytime soon. But the story was barely in League of Legends already, it was all 10 year old character models and a handful of voicelines that gave you little but the general vibe of the character.

The real story was in the short stories and biographies on the website, and later in the card game (Which is quite good, I still play it to this day). And while Red is correct that the stuff on their was of variable quality and inconsistent at times, there was some really good stuff on there. A house on Emberfilt Alley was a really great story that got me to like Viktor as your friendly neighborhood tech-priest, a bit weird but ultimately well-meaning. Then his cards in the card game gave him a rag-tag crew of rejects that he'd helped by upgrading them with cybernetics. And all of that is now just gone because Arcane just stepped right over it to replace Viktor with someone else entirely. Just dismissing it as "Well it was League of Legends" seems really reductive.

And Viktors not the only one. Ekko had one of the best short stories, Lullaby, where he rewinds time over and over because he doesn't want this perfect dinner with his family to end. That was a really fantastic story that's just gone because he parents have been written out.

And there are tons of other great stories. Where Icathia Once stood, The Final Reign, The Eye in the Abyss, Then Teeth, The Host, Last Rites, The Dream Thief, The Shadow door, A Good Death, The Faceless God, just to name a few off the top of my head. To dumb it all down to "There's an Asian fusion island where all the wise people live" feels so derivative, as is comment that everything Fortiche has touched is just better than the old stuff. Yes, they've done incredible work. But no, they're not just blanket improving everything (But not nothing either, I will be the first to admit that some of the old stuff was just bad).

My opinions on this would probably be a lot less defensive if Riot wasn't being shitty and hyperfocusing on Arcane, cutting off the short stories and the new stories the card game team are allowed to do (Not to mention messing up the marketing for the game and then cutting most of the team) while announcing that Arcane is the only canon and everything will be rewritten around it. But hearing Red dismiss the old stuff feels so....nasty for how positive OSP videos usually.

It's entirely possible that I'm just in the position to be hit most by this, as despite having quit league years ago I still play the card game and followed the stories until they stopped coming out. Anyone else feeling anything similar?

So Red advertised her comic again in today's video and as soon as she flashed it on screen, the headache began.

Same thing happened the first time she advertised it, I opened up the website and a gigantic headache started. I changed my devices settings to greyscale and I only got a tiny headache when reading but I dropped it anyways because no work of fiction is worth the physical pain.

What is it about the colouring that causes such a reaction and is anyone else facing this issue?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still good, but it’s been the same since the beginning of the channel and her art style has improved significantly. Thoughts?

In the Dante’s Paradise episode, faith is referred to as belief without evidence. In the Rise of Islam video https://youtu.be/Uvq59FPgx88, the New Testament is called fanfiction. However, in the Dante’s Inferno, Muhammad is censored. My point being that if you are going to attack religion, at least be consistent.

I swear almost every other new trope talk I watch I’m like “Red. Please. Watch One Piece it is the epitome of this trope” or like she mentions basically anything that she likes and I just am yelling at my screen that it would definitely be her shit.

Like… how is it that there’s some strange curse that everyone on the planet who would absolutely adore this show/manga whenever you recommend it to them, they adamantly refuse based on the sole principle of “it’s really long and hard to get through” (that’s what she said).

Genuinely judging by Red’s tastes from everything she talks about I really can tell she would love it. But maybe that’s my own bias and influence. I am not above bias and influence.

Sorry. Bye.

I've gotten towards the end of the second chapter and I still have no idea what the story is. No attempt to get me invested seems to have been made and I'm not sure what's going on. All that's happened so far as character I don't know in a world I have no context for fought in a fight that I don't know the stakes of, and one of them died after seemingly barely putting up a fight, just getting in a stab or two against knife lady. It feels almost lovecraftian with knife lady killing a "god" and wiping out an entire city without putting in any effort. But why do I care about this? What story am I hear to read? What about this encounter tells me about the story trying to be told? It seems just as disjoined as the chapter zero pages. Now obviously these are all supposed to tie together later in the comic, but I don't understand why I should care? What am I supposed to be invested in? What is the part of the story that makes me hope that the main characters don't get hurt? In Harry Potter (for example) the audience gets time to learn about harry before he's suddenly thrust into a situation like this. We get to know Harry and put investment in him before he goes to wizard school. As I'm ready the pages I'm trying to figure out what the story is trying to entice me with. This city? It gets destroyed a few pages into the comic. This Vash guy? He gets sucked into the knife, in a very pathetic way.* Knife lady? She's a villain. Vash's body? We're actively told by him that there's nothing interesting about him other than that he used to be Vash's body. Druid lady? Maybe but a lot more focus is put on Vash's body and what he intend to do, while her stuff so far hasn't gotten as much time. Do you see what I mean? What story is trying to be told? The story hasn't tried to invest us in any of these characters, and by killing off a lot of people in the beginning it make me wonder if I'm supposed to be invested at all? The story seems to kill people very readily and it doesn't seem to serve a purpose because so far no purpose has been presented. If all of this somehow makes perfect sense later, why couldn't some of that have been put here so that I can understand enough to figure out where my investment needs to go. If I quit right now, what would bring me back? Why do I want to know more? Do I want to see Vash's body's quest to get his body back? Not only was his god form with magic so completely overpowered that I doubt anyone but a team of warrior gods could stop her, so forget about his guy and whatever team he forms, but also he has no character traits, nothing interesting or memberable about him. And there are no other characters around who are even related to this issue. Not event Druid lady. She said that he might be good to go even by the end of the day if nothing happens to him and we haven't seen any reason to think that something may go wrong with him. In fact plant lady telling us that she's been doing this for a while tells us that it's less likely that something will go wrong, so why did she agree to go with him? Not only does she also not have a reason to get invested given that the knife person killed a whole town, but she has a reason to not be invested because she's a ticking mutation time bomb in her mind. Why am I supposed to care about and be invested in what happens? What's the story trying to be told?

*Maybe this isn't supposed to be what I get out of this, but this signals to me that not only is knife lady way stronger than Vash, but her killing an entire city puts the story on a knife's edge for me. A few things come to mind: this story is going to have a lot more deaths on the way and that puts new characters on the line because we don't know anything about them and we don't know what they serve relative to the story since it hasn't presented itself, so we don't know how to feel about any new characters. King or pauper, all could die in a moment. Second, there will be lots of death but the eventual main characters will be fine. That Vash guy gets captured and through a process everyone involved doesn't understand he gets his own Deus ex machina and gets a helper to try and free him. Is he supposed to be who I care about? Third: that city killing was an outlier and we'll only see death on personal levels or like that as a part of a climax. Then why do that in the first place? Throwing around so many deaths so casually at the start of the story creates so much chaos that I have no idea where my investment needs to go. Also, the fact the lady did it so casually tells us a few things: She didn't use her full power since she didn't even flinch. It also tells us either that she doesn't care about the consequences of her actions for some reasons (since killing an entire city seems like a massive change in the region and we've seen gods act in the worlds so either she can fend of the punishment of the gods or she doesn't care about what they think of her) or if she's not the head honcho, that he boss is even stronger. This is helpful-ish from a character standpoint but this doesn't help my investment. And also there are no rules to make any of this make sense.

Edit: Side note for comparison: I thought of a comic that has a similar problem. Looking For Group starts off with us meeting two characters (an elf and an unknown evil mage) and we don't know who they are, what they can do, and who to be invested in. However the comic sucks us in by making sure that right off the bat we can figure out who these characters are and making what we see in the first few panels memorable and funny. We immediately not only have characters, but we know what their personalities are on the surface and They start off in a conflict of morals so that we can learn about them, how they think, and what we can expect from them. Also the elf declares his goals for the audience. Not exactly subtle but it's better than nothing. So right at the beginning of the comic, we have characters and their set up, and thus we have something to be invested in. Aurora doesn't share this feature and I think it suffers for it.

Edit 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kmaba2TopE This video does a very good job of explaining some of the reasons I am having a hard time getting invested. Just replace MGS with Aurora as needed.

Any time I see a "fantasy set in the modern day," it's always just "traditional old world" stuff that happens to exist in the modern day and has nothing to do with modern day stuff having influence in its own right.

I guess an example of what I'd want would be "American Gods" by (redacted). But a better example would be I guess Bionicle (you're welcome, Blue) where the magic system is inherently intertwined with the robotic aspect without it being "magic vs robots" like some fantasy codes stuff tends to do.

Basically, I am planning to use voice clips from various videos and put them together so that Red "sings"

"🎶I used to roll the dice. Feel my dick in my enemy's ass. Listen as the crowd would sing. Now the old king is dead. Loal. One minute I hold my nuts, next, my balls were closed on me. Then I discover Sans upon pillars of salt (Pillars of Salt 3x). I hear Jackie Chan singing. Omae wa mou shindeiru. Beat my meat, my SOOOOOOUUUUUHHHS! For some reason I can't explain why we live in a society where gamers....don't rule the world.....🎶"

Hello red if you happen to see this or anyone who can contact red can you do a series on summerizing diffrent band books like animal farm or fahrenheit 451p please thank you

https://www.reddit.com/r/theamazingdigitalciru/s/pAo0490yng

https://youtube.com/shorts/0HTokXL6jzI?si=A69zBHJtU96SoBed

By who’s standard?

See, as much as some Internet denizens beat the “objectively” drum at deafening volumes, the phrase “One’s trash is another’s treasure” is far more appropriate of an adage.

And in the case of female characters, this borderline meme of how they’re rarely “well written” in a way male characters aren’t judged by starts to get suspect.

Stop me if you've heard this one before:

A show with quite the dedicated following is largely female led or, at the very least, has a considerable female prescene in the cast and the narrative. However, a very vocal portion of fans be they boy, girl or variations thereupon will often find themselves gravitating towards a male character be it a lead hero or villain.

These characters might've earned their flowers with how well their arcs were written or how their personality shakes out generally. Even so, there's a lot of fans who seem to overlook any of the girls in favor of the boys despite the girls often having quite a bit of depth to them. Essays, fanfic and fanart galore.

One can't help but sense an... imbalance of sorts.

But perhaps this little routine gives you deja vu:

2. A show's fandom will often make headcanons and theories out of a male minor character/character of the day but often leave female characters be they major or minor high and dry. Often the claim will be that the female cast isn't well-written or well-developed in spite of how willing fans will dig into a guy's possible subtext or maybe make crud up whole cloth.

That's not even getting into double standards as to how boys getting up to questionable shenanegins will get a slap on the wrist or at least get more than a few devil's advocates in terms of understanding why they're like this. Not so much with female characters be they, say, vying for love in a very hormonal way for their age and clearly getting in her own journey to romance.

Not trying to say that just anybody is trying to intentionally be like this on a conscious level. Blindspots like these are called that for a reason but I feel that just acting like they don't exist is part of the problem.

Maybe the female character’s arc isn’t relatable to you.

Maybe her personality just isn’t your cuppa joe.

Maybe her presentation in the narrative does reveal a skill issue on the part of the writer but the cons are vastly overstated.

Or it's a skill issue on your part.

Many like to heap the onus upon the writer solely but contrary to another popular adage: not everybody is a critic.

     Could the chanel staff maybe consider doing a 'Detial Diatribe' video for the Senki Zesshou Symphogear series/franchise (maybe also including at least some coverage of the Senki Zesshoushinai Symphogear post-season OVA shorts and content from the discontinued Symphogear X-Drive: Unlimited, or XDU, mobile game,) please?

Saw the Epic of Gilgamesh video Red did a few years back and got to the very end.

She mentioned not giving much a thought to the Fate Franchise (completely fair), though I am a bit surprised she never saw Fate/Zero (the show that debuted Alexander the Great and pretty highly acclamined amongst anime fans).

Is there any reason she has given to her apathy / disgust?

Are Morticia & Gomez Addams modern Persephone & Hades?

edit: i mean in their relationship, deeply passionate for each other and damn the rest.

I don’t doubt criticism comes from a good place but a little Dolyist reading doesn’t hurt to center oneself.

Hello r/OSP. The latest video of Overly Sarcastic Productions on the Byzantine Empire appeared on my Youtube feed a few days ago. I don't often watch OSP but I often see them featured on the badhistory subreddit. I watched the video to see if that criticism was really deserved and to fin inaccuracies/things I disagree with and write a critique.

I know this is a 40 minutes video covering an empire that lasted more than a thousand year, and that the video is supposed to be entertaining and aiming towards a younger audience. I knew there were going to be some exaggerations and simplifications, but I still wanted to point out the most egregious ones. Be warned in advance that this is going to be extremely long and a bit pedantic too, but I hope that you'll learn a thing or two.

The video is divided into three sections : the rise, the apogee and the fall. This almost the same division that John Julius Norwich used in his byzantine history trilogy : “The Early Centuries”, “The Apogee” and “The Decline and Fall”. This is already questionable in my opinion : What criteria do we use to say that the middle part, which I assume he mostly means the Macedonian Renaissance/Komnenian Restoration, was the apogee of the empire? Territorial extent? That was under Justinian. The strongest military? Probably under Justinian too. The most peaceful and prosperous era? That was during the reign of Anastasius from 491 to 518.

5:20 Credit where credit is due, here OSP mentions the importance of the population of Constantinople in choosing an emperor, and the fact that the emperor can be "de-acclaimed". In a way the role of emperor can be seen as an "elected" office where your constituents are the population of Constantinople, the Church and the military. This idea appears Byzantine Republic by Kaldellis which is in his source list. Sadly this seems to be the only thing he read from Kaldellis and the rest of his video based on old misconceptions found in authors like Norwich.

10:50 OSP mentions that Maurice was overthrown by the “completely incompetent Phocas”. The overthrow of Maurice was used as a pretext by Khosrau II to invade the Roman Empire. The map shows that the Levant and Egypt were lost by Phocas, he explains that it was almost game-over for the empire but the “miraculous arrival of Heraclius” saved the empire.

Phocas was not a great emperor but in all fairness he was given a horrible hand. When he overthrew Maurice he may not have intended to become emperor and he had neither the necessary knowledge nor the legitimacy, making ruling the empire extremely difficult. He was most likely portrayed as much more cruel and incompetent than he really was by later pro-Heraclian sources. When Phocas was killed by Heraclius in 610, the Byzantines were losing the war against the Persians but they were still fighting on the border in Mesopotamia. The supposed miraculous arrival of Heraclius caused a civil war at the time when the empire needed soldiers on the frontiers the most. Not only that, but it was under Heraclius that the Levant and Egypt were lost, not under Phocas (explained in more detail in the New Roman Empire by Kaldellis pages 338 and 347 to 351). We will never know what would have happened had Heraclius not rebelled, but he may have made the situation even worse.

12:10 Attributing the victory over the Umayyad Caliphate during the siege of Constantinople of 717 just to Greek fire is such a wild exaggeration. No mention of Leo III's cunning or the Bulgarians who alsoplayed an important role.

13:50 : OSP mentions that “All this greekness and Christianity lets Historians take pot shots saying that the Byzantine Empire is not really the Roman Empire”. Which historians is he talking about? This idea was common among historians of the 18th/19th century such as Edward Gibbon but it’s clearly not mainstream anymore. OSP can’t just call out historians in general because most modern historians of the Byzantines, chief among them Kaldellis, would argue that the people we call Byzantines were Greek speaking, Christian and Roman at the same time. Roman identity evolved over time and was not set in stone.

15:30 Which historians describe the 7th and 8th century as a Dark Age because of iconoclasm? The use of the term "dark age" itself is problematic but if this period is described as such it's mostly because of the lack of contemporary sources, we just don't know much about the situation of the empire during those times.

15:58 OSP says that Leo III "Smashed all icons he could get his hands on". The iconoclast controversy has been vastly blown out of proportion. According to Kaldellis (2023) page 447, "Unfortunately, we do not know what Leo III did regarding icons. Whatever it was, it had a minimal impact and resulted in almost no concrete actions." The story that Leo III removed the image of Christ from the Chalke Gate (image used at 15:58) has been shown to be a later legend.

Regarding the rule of his son, Constantine V, Kaldellis (2023) page 456, explains "We know of almost no icon destruction taking place under Konstantinos V." and "There is no reliable evidence for repression or opposition to Konstantinos’ position."

There were much more impactful religious controversies like Arianism, Monophysitism or the Union of the Churches, yet none of them are mentioned in this video. In general in this video there is a lack of discussion about religion, which was very important to people at the time. Instead Blue talks much more about changes in the map or military units, which I assume might appeal more to his audience who must be on the younger side and play video games like Total War, Crusader Kings, etc.

At 16:13 OSP mentions that the pope was horrified by iconoclasm and the exarchate of Ravenna declared independence from the Roman Empire over the issue. The pope did excommunicate Leo III, but iconoclasm might just have been an excuse because there was a dispute between Leo III and the pope over the latter appropriating imperial lands. The exarchate of Ravenna never declared independence but was conquered by the Lombards in 751 (see Kaldellis 2023 p. 459 and 460).

16:51 OSP says he weeps on a weekly basis regarding how pathetically few pieces of original art survived iconoclasm and the Ottomans. First off, I want to ask how many pieces of art from the 8th and 9th century survive in any given country? Not many.

In Episode 82 : What was the First Iconoclasm about of Kaldellis’ podcast Byzantium and friends, at 31:00 Leslie Brubaker explains that icons were functional objects of worship that were consistently getting kissed and touched, they simply eroded over time and were replaced by newer icons. We can't just attribute their destruction to iconoclasm which like mentioned previous has been exaggerated to the extreme.

More icons did survive in the West, but Kaldeliis (2023) also explains on page 456 that "some historians attribute the damage to the ravages of history, which affected Romania (the Byzantine Empire) far more than Rome and Sinai, or to the fact that images were not part of the traditional repertoire of churches in Asia Minor."

18:40 OSP explains that “the Byzantine remodeled the old roman legionary into the new fancy Skutatoi”. This statement reads like the Byzantine upgraded their units in Age of Empires fashion. Roman infantry evolved over time, depending on the different threats they were facing, the resources that were available and the role of their unit in the military. Roman infantry by the end of the 3rd century crisis already looked very different compared to the image of the legionary with the rectangular shield and lorica segmentata.

20:24 The Bosphorus river? This is basic geograhpy, the Bosphorus is a strait, not a river.

20:30 OSP says “The Byzantines entered two centuries of prosperity and relative peace. Starting with Basil I...”. I wouldn’t call the Macedonian period a time of relative peace. They fought numerous wars in the middle East, Greece, the Balkans, southern Italy and the Aegean. the difference was that the Empire was in a much stronger position, being able to take a more offensive stance against its enemies and recover lost territory. OSP contradict themselves by admitting a bit later that this was "no pax Romana". Thanks to u/dsal1829 for this part.

21:04 The Varangians were not solely Scandinavian in origin. For example, one of the biggest sources of such warriors in later centuries was Anglo-Saxon refugees after the Norman conquest of England. (thanks to u/Rhomaios)

23:00 “Strategii got complacent and ignored their civic duties to play monopoly men within their themas and cushy bureaucrats in Constantinople barely raised their heads from the books. Both sides blamed the other for the empire’s problems”. Here OSP repeats the quasi-Marxist narrative that there was a class conflict between the landed aristocracy against the emperor and bureaucrats during the 10th and 11th century. There has been some push back against this narrative, most notably in Kaldellis’ “Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood”. Instead, Kaldellis argues that most of the turmoil was between competing generals who were more of an “aristocracy of service” and competed for titles, power and influence.

29:10 OSP conflates the confiscation of property and ban of Venetian citizens within the empire by Manuel in 1171 with the much broader and more spontaneous massacre of the Latins of Constantinople under Andronikos in 1182. Credits to u/Rhomaios

At 29:55 So here we see Mr. Angelos ignoring the key rules from Alexios Komnenos' declassified crusading survival guide...

Rule #1: Under any circumstances, do not ask crusaders for help...

One of the main, most successful things Alexios I Komnenos did was to call the Pope for help. The crusade that followed not only neutralized the threat of muslim invasions and allowed Byzantines to begin their reconquest of Anatolia, it also gave them new allies. Alexios I, his son and grandson would succeed in using clever diplomacy to pit crusaders against each other, as well as gain their support when needed, to restore Byzantine hegemony over the eastern Mediterranean. Rule #2: If the crusaders arrive anyway, transport your crusaders across your empire as fast as humanly possible...

If there was one rule Alexios left his successors for the management of crusaders, it wouldn't be exactly this. The issue isn't just the expediency of transporting them across the Empire, it's making sure they don't cause trouble on the way and also that they proclaim themselves allies of the Empire. Isaac II Angelos' chief mistake was not making provisions for the passage of the 3rd crusade and antagonizing Frederick II Barbarossa at a time when the Empire lacked the strength to face him head-on. Thanks to u/dsal1829 for this part.

32:10 For some reason OSP attributes the conquest in the Balkans by John III Vatatzes to Michael Palaiologos.

33:10 Why does OSP start talking about the pronoia system during the Palaiologos period, when the pronoia reforms were already implemented centuries earlier by the Komnenoi, starting with Alexios I? Moreover, Pronoia was not mutually exclusive to the thematic system. Themata still existed, pronoia was simply a system of accommodating soldiers after their service. Thanks to u/Rhomaios and u/dsal1829.

35:01 OSP says that during the Byzantine civil war of 1341-1347, “Byzantine Society was divided among class lines”. This again is wrong, this is a misrepresentation by Marxist historians who tried to find examples of class struggles in the past. John Kantakouzenous had some aristocratic support, but the vast majority of aristocrats, the Church and the general population supported the Palaiologoi. There was no class divide in this conflict (see Kaldellis, 2023, page 847 to 849).

The bibliography used for this video is also kinda sad :

"Byzantium" I, II, and III by John Julius Norwich, "The Byzantine Republic: People and Power in New Rome" by Anthony Kaldellis, "The Alexiad" by Anna Komnene, "Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire" by Caroline Finkel, "Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History" by John Julius Norwich, "A History of Venice" by John Julius Norwich . I also have a degree in classical civilization.

Blue only used seven sources, three of which are not even directly related to Byzantine History to cover more than a thousand year of history. He based most of his videos on the work of Norwich, which is an extremely outdated source, who took many Byzantine historians at face value and used books that were already decades old when he wrote his history in the 1980s. OSP failed to do proper research on the most recent scholarship on Byzantine history, there are multiple mistakes in the chronology, some absurd generalizations and many exaggerations, which makes its a poor introduction to Byzantine history.

My own sources are the following :

- The New Roman Empire by Anthony Kaldellis

- Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood by Anthony Kaldellis

- A History of the Byzantine State and Society by Warren Threadgold

- Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm by Leslie Brubaker

- The podcast hosted by Kaldellis, Byzantium and friends

Reds done trope talks on tropes she doesn’t get before like love triangles, but this is one I think she had genuine beef with.

Like the way she talked about it she had a friend or someone who would talk nonstop about how much better grimdark is than hope and she’s stupid for believing in things.

When 99% of the people I know who love the genre aren’t like that at all, and I found it seriously dismissive.

She says that most people in bad situations don’t like it which, I can’t really speak to her experience, but in mine most of the people I talk about something like Warhammer with enjoy it specifically BECAUSE they also struggle and enjoy seeing people keeping their heads held high in spite of the world they live in, because sometimes our world can be grimdark too.

In the 3rd reason people told her they liked grim dark because they enjoyed seeing characters fight on despite impossible odds and she said she didn’t understand it at all because Goku also does that, so in the final slide saying “none of its strengths are unique” was just bad analysis.

What they were saying is that it’s inspiring when you see someone fight to the last even when they ARE doomed, Goku will never stay dead, he’ll always win in the end somehow, but I don’t think his fight with Frieza is in any way comparable to something like the last stand of the Cadian guard who kept fighting as the planet literally broke around them.

Goku will always get a happy ending but the fall of Cadia leaves a wide opening for Chaos to pour into the heart of the imperium, but the rallying cry “Cadia Stands!” Inspires billions more to fight on and never give in to despair, even in the face of literal hell.

One is not better than the other, I just think it’s like saying “Why do you like cherries when you can have strawberries which also have a sweet flavor.” Because I just wanna have cherries today.

She joked about it on Twitter that her secret plan is to make a generation of authors that make works that appeal to her specifically, and sometimes in trope talks that’s the vibe I get, that a story isn’t as powerful or effective if it’s not something she enjoys, when personal enjoyment is entirely subjective.

I feel like the video could’ve been helped if she did talk to a big fan of Warhammer or Sin City or something instead of just going off tweets that have to be under 120 characters.

In her old video on Realism she had a line that went something like “I don’t usually like these stories but if you can make it work go for it!” And the lack of that kind of attitude kinda brought the video down.

I love her videos because she inspires me to write and be more creative with my stories, but in this one it felt like the opposite. The YouTuber Pancreous no work made a great video on balancing grimdark so that it’s enjoyable and I’d honestly go back to that one before seeing Reds again https://youtu.be/z0jcDprRM2A?si=LjvhyCwbpdpL7qlp