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incognitoamadeus:

heroicbrawn replied to your photo: UNPOPULAR OPINION [this means unfollow me]: Lines…

I’ve always thought the line was dumb as all hell too, Cat. I see the panel on t-shirts and roll my eyes.

It’s pretty memetic so that’s probably while I felt like making a post about, but it sort of sums a great deal of My Problem With Many Comic Book Writers.

Actually, come to think, it does. Captain America is even more of a Big Blue Boy Scout than even The Big Blue Boy Scout[obviously, Superman], or the original Hal Jordan from the comics.He’s so unabashedly pure, and careful, and has so much faith in Doing Right, and he is really a wonderful person; I was so refreshed seeing Captain America: The First Avenger, because he was so good and it felt so meaningful to have somebody who would say, flat out, “I don’t want to kill anyone. I just don’t like bullies.” That’s the message everyone knows, yadda yadda cliche, but how many superhero movies simply say that? How many characters have such simple, pure intents? 

And the thing is nowadays nothing is simple. Nothing is pure.

I mean, aside from how poorly his characters are written, those are my core angers with Alan Moore: Each of his works is attacking, is ripping down and stepping on something that was special. Nothing is sacred, whether it is The Good Superhero in Watchmen and Tom Strong, or the innocence and carefree tone of pulp and British children’s stories in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, or even in the less-objectionable Promethea where he tears down the mythic hero/heroine. For many writers, nothing is simply as it is; It has to be overly-complex, it has to be over-analyzable, it has to be able to have disturbing connotations which simply attack what they used to mean. 

There’s also the trend towards ’edgy’ and ‘gritty’ and ‘realism’; It’s why I feel so uncomfortable playing Catwoman in Arkham City, for they have to fill it with misogyny in the name of ‘realism’; It is in the disturbing, lecherous villian The Masochist and how she’s depicted so horribly; It is that people glorify the Watchmen, who are stereotypes of Superheroes, but negative ones, and because of this they call them real, because they are abhorrent and widely unlikable. 

And that is why I cannot stand The Ultimates. It has moments wherein the characters are well written, it can have plots that may be interesting. But overall, I read it, and it feels like a teenaged boy trying to fit as many icky or poorly-chosen ‘toeing the line’ elements and trying to act as though he’s not just doing it to satisfy himself. I read it and the only thing that is simple about it is how crass and unlikable it is. 

It’s purely juvenile, and thus, too ‘mature’ for juveniles to read.

Yo this is a hella good rant. There’s this huge trend in media, from young adult fiction to superhero movies to television shows, to make everything really dark and gritty because apparently that’s what “the real world” is like. Yeah, I’m as much of a sucker for a gritty adaptation of something as anybody, but I don’t think that gritty is always the right treatment.

And sure, an Ellen Hopkins book is good for some things, like pointing out the dark underside of society where everything IS hard and everything DOES suck and bad things happen to good people. And sure, society needs to realize that. But you know what? It’s entirely possible to depict bad things happening to good people and NOT make the reader want to vomit. Neil Gaiman writes plenty of bad, even gross things happening, yet his books aren’t particularly “gritty,” they’re fun to read, and they still make you think about things. Terry Pratchett does the same, and his books are explicitly satirical. A Series of Unfortunate Events is a lot of really sad things happening to people who don’t deserve it, but the WRITING is excellent, so it’s ultimately elevating rather than depressing for the reader. You can tear down the unfair system and point out its flaws and even depict depressing subject with methods other than disgustingly gritty realism. You just have to rely on good writing instead of shock value.

volpesvolpes:

thank you hussie for keeping that update brief-

oh god you’re going to introduce all 10 of those other trolls soon aren’t you　

Maybe Meenah will narrate them and it’ll go fast.