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Syrc

@Syrc@lemmy.world

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Syrc ,

I’m all ears if God decides to come down and tell me what I’m doing is wrong. Until then, I’m gonna keep doing it.

Syrc ,

That’s just a load of bull.

Putting aside the fact that the guy in the video was pretty annoying and relied on the viewer reaching the same conclusions as him the entire time, and that God preannounced himself SO WELL that there’s an entire branch of religion that believes in the books preannouncing him, but doesn’t see Jesus as the actual messiah.

He keeps comparing it to a relationship, and how you want your partner to choose you out of their free will. Well, the little difference is that if the girl I like doesn’t choose me, I’m not condemning her to eternal damnation. That’s called being a psycho.

The analogy doesn’t really work when it’s “choose me out of your free will, or else”.

Syrc ,

James Acaster’s bit on Ricky Gervais is a classic example. The transphobia is the punchline, and forms an integral part of the routine.

Holy crap, I liked what I saw of Ricky Gervais but this got me looking into that Trans sketch and it’s really bad taste. Plus he supposedly ends it saying he supports trans people but just finds it weird that there’s people who don’t want to do surgery. Which I mean, isn’t the worst of takes (kinda speaking out of his field though), but… punching down isn’t really the best way to show you’re “supportive” of something.

Syrc ,

So it’s not even a one-off thing, wtf. Now I really want to hear him having a serious conversation about it because I really don’t see how can a person repeatedly doing punching down jokes on a community say they’re supportive of it.

Syrc ,

Miles Morales isn’t a race swap. That’s why it works and everyone likes it (well, except actual racists).

It’s an entirely new character that exists in the spiderman multiverse and has a different personality and backstory from Peter Parker. That’s what inclusivity actually should look like.

Syrc ,

It’s almost like racists are only ever going to whine about inclusivity, and “characters remaining their own race” vs “creating new characters” is a moot point because the people out there who are upset by the former are going to be upset by the latter anyway.

Uhm, no?

Have you seen the reception to both Spiderverse movies? It was overwhelmingly positive. I’d say they were probably the most universally liked Marvel movies of the decade. You would really compare that to the reception the new Little Mermaid or Ghostbusters got and say “yeah, the same amount of people got upset by both things”?

It’s nowhere nearly close. Obviously, it’s also because the spiderverse movies are written much better, but that’s also a symptom of better writers being hired for better projects. The fact that raceswapping a character and writing an entirely different one are received the same way is just plain false. Not to mention, even better, just making new movies with black characters altogether. But those two things require considerably more effort than taking an old, already liked movie’s script and copy-pasting it with a random character of a different race. And Hollywood doesn’t like effort, they just like money and free advertising.

Syrc ,

The fact is that those movies were lazy, and that was the reason they failed.

I addressed that before, in a sense. Imo, the raceswap is part of the laziness. And yes, the reason they failed is because they were lazy, but if they weren't lazy they wouldn't have been just bland raceswaps. That's what I think about it, at least.

And honestly no, I didn't hear complaining about the game, but I admittedly read very little about it online. My friends liked it a lot and that's all I know. Complaining about that seems even dumber to me though: the franchise just got a very popular movie with a new main character, why wouldn't you put him in the game too? I don't think the complaints could've been that many, at least not at the level of those two above (or pretty much any disney remake).

Syrc ,

Imo, it’s why it works. It’s different and original, and even fits in the same story as the old ones.

Obviously I have no objective proof of that, but you can’t even hypothetically think about what would’ve happened if it was just a race swap, because the whole premise of the movie is that Miles isn’t Peter Parker.

Syrc ,

But when Miles Morales was first introduced, it was considered a race swap, and the usual crowd definitely moaned about it.

“The usual crowd” probably has different meanings between us. You’re linking to a site that (besides misusing the term raceswap) is absolutely positive about it, cites an editor that’s positive about it, and even the article it links to when talking about “reactions” is pretty accepting of it.

Who, exactly, is this “usual crowd”? Some racist on /b/? People who listen to Fox 24/7? That’s not nearly the full extent of the current complaints about raceswaps. Plenty of “normal” people complain about whatever Disney decides to put in their remakes, it’s not just that “usual crowd” that moaned about Miles in 2011 (and honestly, complaining about diversity inclusion when it wasn’t “trendy” yet is kind of a joke).

The multiverse explanation reminds me of people saying “But the elves liked being slaves!” in Harry Potter. Yeah, they were written that way, and they could have been written another way.

…how are those things even related? Elves in HP are a concept since very early on. And they were probably introduced with the very intention of sending that… pretty disturbing message. The Multiverse in Spiderman is effectively a late addition, but one that fits the narrative and is a way to add diversity to the franchise without messing too much with the original lore.

Where’s the issue with the multiverse? How is it nearly as malicious as HP’s portrayal of elves?

Syrc ,

You insist on gatekeeping the term “raceswap”. Fine. Call it “reimagining an existing character as another race”, if you want. You would have to be delusional to deny that Miles Morales is a Black-Latino version of Spider-Man.

Except it’s not even “reimagining an existing character as another race”. It’s a completely different character, with a different personality and a different backstory. The “existing character” is even in the same movie. The only thing they have in common is that they have spider powers, and they aren’t even the same powers. Goku and Superman have more similarities than those two. And that’s why

The specific claim I am contesting is OP’s strong thesis that raceswapping is always bad. I gave examples of it sometimes being good. Miles Morales is certainly an example

This isn’t a good way to contest it. What OP said is “If new movies can’t make new characters and stories with different races and sexes without seemingly purposefully causing controversy by replacing one race or sex with the other I’d take that as a low blow”, and Miles Morales is exactly that: a new character with a new story.

The article I linked to mentions the backlash and controversy about political correctness and Morales. I’m a little surprised you missed the point there.

My point is: where is that backlash and controversy? The article talks about it but only shows people painting it as a good thing. This feels like the one time where “People want to cancel Snow White because of the non-consensual kiss!” made the headlines, and then the headlines were more than the actual people complaining.

I am saying that your explanation gets things backwards: the multiverse doesn’t show how it’s not a race swap. On the contrary, the race swap is the reason why they needed to use the multiverse as a narrative tool. Forget the analogy to elf slavery if you don’t get it. The point is that some writer wrote a multiverse storyline in order to justify the existence of a Spider-Man of a different race.

First, not really. The multiverse exists to have Miles interact with Peter. It’s not needed for him to exist, since a Peter Parker already existed in his own universe. That’s also why I’m saying they’re different characters. If anything, the narrative tool is the original spiderman of that universe dying.

And even then, if it was a narrative tool for that purpose, so what? Every author uses narrative tools to tell the story they want to tell. This isn’t anything new, and no one is bothered by their existence. They’re annoying when they’re blatantly shoehorned (i.e. Star Wars 9), but everything people want is a reasonable explanation for stuff and it’s usually good. Obviously, unless the message they’re trying to convey is disturbing to them (like “slavery can be good” to normal people, or “black people can be superheroes” to racists).

Really, I don’t get the point of that last argument. What did I say that you’re trying to confute? I agree I probably misunderstood that.

Syrc ,

But you’re basically saying that the last 80 years of shared, televised cultural history, even past all of the racial segregation of the 50s, the 60s, and on, is just inaccessible to the “other kinds.” Like, is a black woman not allowed to write a Cinderella?

Not that much of a problem, imo, even if it was inaccessible to everyone. Do we really need to keep rehashing the same stuff over and over? I can understand stuff like War of the Worlds where the first movie wasn’t really appreciated, but if we already have a Cinderella movie people appreciate, can’t we just… leave it alone? A lot of unnecessary remakes got hate even without raceswaps, that’s not the only issue. Remakes of bad stuff, on the other hand, are easier to “change up” because fewer people are attached to the original, and if it’s based on literature usually race isn’t specified at all.

Last thing: You should go looking for these people more often. Not so you can be like them, just to see them.

Oh I know that they exist. But quantifying them is pretty much impossible. We know there’s a lot of racists around, but it’s hard to say how many of those are actual Spiderman fans who got upset by the sequel game. The complainers might be bad actors, or a loud but really small minority… the internet is full of echo chambers, it’s hard to get an actual grasp on people’s opinions.

Syrc ,

If it’s upvoted it just means people like it. Not much you can do about it.

I get a bit annoyed by the constant preaching to the choir too, but the post score tells me I’m definitely in the minority and I just ignore it and move on. Not everything has to fit my taste.

Syrc ,

Plenty of people don’t know either. Writing it on Lemmy is kind of preaching to the choir, but try asking random people in a Fantastic Beasts screening if they know. Guarantee at least half won’t.

Syrc ,

That’s the thing, we don’t-

( ͡ಠ ʖ̯ ͡ಠ)

Syrc ,

I mean, what’s the problem with NordVPN? Pretty much every youtuber I respect who does sponsorship promotes it, and I’ve never heard anything bad about it. Generalizing like that is always bad (or well, mostly always, or ironically I would be generalizing).

Syrc ,

The whole lore is an absolute mess, to be fair.

There's Pokémon who should be ridiculously dangerous to even get close to, but no safety measures are required whatsoever and people use them all the time with no consequences. Villains are ready to destroy the world or whatever it takes to reach their goals, but they still won't attack you, or anyone opposing them, directly with their Pokémon. And that's just two of the huge holes in the worldbuilding.

I love the series (well, at least up to XY), but the lore constantly swings between "happy-go-lucky kids-friendly game" and "deep character-driven narrative/creepypasta material", with no coherence between the two. And I love both sides, but trying to make sense of it all is pointless unless you go full theorycrafting and make up your own headcanon.

You can't even use secondary sources because everything has their own canons and you can't make sense of the game through manga information, for example (even though I really wish the game plot was as good as Pokéspe's).

Syrc ,

Well, a lot of the commenters here didn’t even know his name. I read about him once but all my brain registered is “the change my mind guy is an asshole”, his actual name flew out of my mind almost immediately.

I think the people calling it “the Stephen Crowder meme format” are in the absolute minority.

Syrc ,

I love how those people think there’s a “Man indicator” and a good old chainsaw can fix a shortage.

Also obligatory reminder that gays are the real men

Syrc ,

As someone with a right-wing father and a left-wing mother: for fuck’s sake date people with your same beliefs. Deep disagreement on something like that is NOT something you can build a trustful relationship upon.

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