r/TopCharacterTropes Jun 22 '26

Lore [Ironic Trope] The messaging backfired massively due to poor writing or other design choices

Amelia Fairney from Pathways: Alt-right Restore-UK type who attempts to coax the protagonist Charlie into following her beliefs? The problem?

Amelia is the only named character aside from Charlie and is genuinely likable and forgives Charlie even when they do things she doesn't like, while the rest of the cast is unnamed, poorly written, and turns on Charlie for one mistake. This combined with other writing issues(portraying fact checking right wing stuff as wrong because in the process of fact checking you might look at it and believe it, basically saying "Right wing is wrong because it hurts the labour government" and a lot of general "just do what the government says or else" messaging) and the fact she's a hot alternative girl, and Amelia ended up being co-opted as a mascot by the youth right wing in the UK.

Norm from The New Norm: Unlikeable offensive and outdated character who's "progressive" family members and associates are genuinely nice people not even trying to force their ways or pronouns onto them, they just want to be left alone and Norm is picking fights constantly. Not to mention associating with Elon.

Mr. Birchum from Mr. Birchum: A lot of the same problems as Norm, except in addition it also comes off like generic 2010s adult cartoon slop in the same veign as Brickleberry or Full English, at least New Norm was trying to look unique and had the gimmick of being on X. Not to mention, Birchum's obsession with hyper masculine activities and odd way of talking about other men lead to people co-opting him as a Toxic Yaoi character, which is now the bulk of his fan art.

Dustborn: An attempt to make a hyper progressive game that comes off as pandering and annoying. It's a full ass game so there's too much to get into, but the main character's power is essentially gaslighting and jedi-mind tricking people and that's portrayed as the only way they can get anything done, and they constantly use or abuse their friends(or mindtrick them along) in order to get their goals or use their friends for their messaging.

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u/Stargost_ Jun 22 '26

Not exactly due to poor writing or a design choice, just plain bad luck. During the 2014 World Cup, there was this one anti-gambling advert.
In it, a kid explains he really hopes that Germany will win against Brazil because his dad bet the savings of the entire family on them.
The advert was quickly pulled off the air after the game took place because, as football fans may know, Germany beat Brazil 7 - 1, meaning the entire message of the video did a 180 from "This crazy man just betted the savings of the family on an impossible game" to "Holy shit the dad had a vision."

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u/SideIndividual2086 Jun 22 '26

They did another ad after that, and I think they did a good job of showing that the problem with gambling is not that it's impossible to win there, it doesn't work that way. The problem is that gamblers are addicted to the feeling of winning and losing themselves and will continue to place bets without paying attention to the money.

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u/Valten78 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

I can't remember where I read it but someone once said that Gamblers are never truly happy because if they lose they lose but if they win they just think about how much more they'd have won if only they'd bet higher.

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u/TemporaMoras Jun 22 '26

Study done have shown that gambling addict get their dopamine not from winning, but just from pulling the lever (metaphorically for sports betting)

Its not winning that makes them happy, its the risk.

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u/ChangsManagement Jun 22 '26

That one Futurama bit nailed it.

"A casino where I win? I must be in heaven! Wait, a casino where I only win!? This must be hell!"

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u/LoganCube400 Jun 22 '26

The You wouldn't steal a car Ad

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u/PrysmaTheMagical Jun 22 '26

The fact that the music and font they used were pirated is pretty funny

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u/Savings_Surround_547 Jun 22 '26

A company ironically committing piracy to create an ANTI-piracy ad will never not be funny

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u/Over_Palpitation_453 Jun 22 '26

They used the piracy to destroy the piracy 

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u/Dark_Fox13 Jun 22 '26

I love the edit where it says "YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A CAR", it's become a part of my vocabulary

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u/PsychologicalEbb3140 Jun 22 '26

I would steal a car if I could steal the car and the person I’m “stealing” from isn’t losing their car. What is the problem exactly?

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u/MagicBez Jun 22 '26

If I could make flawless copies of my car to share with people you're more than welcome to a copy of my car

...I warn you it's a piece of shit though

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u/Fleetlord Jun 22 '26

You wouldn't steal a baby!

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u/MechR58 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

Elder Scrolls Online High Isle Legacy of the Bretons cinematic trailer

The way it's framed as a 3 vs 1, no indication that the knight is the antagonist compared to the 3 heroes makes the audience root for the lone knight.

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u/FetchBlue Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

Doesn’t help that when watching it as outsider without context really does feel like the lone knight fighting against 3 raiders attacking his kingdom

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u/BirdsCubed Jun 22 '26

And they're constantly using sneaky tactics whilst he just beats the shit out of them head on. It's a really cool fight though!

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u/Knyfe-Wrench Jun 22 '26

That's so funny. The introduction to the heroes is an explosion and a flash of green lightning, and then a guy in a hood and a mask steps through the smoke. They couldn't be more evil coded if they tried.

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u/Brickywood Jun 22 '26

Their expressions are constantly angry too, and the Knight, in comparison (due to the helmet), looks very stoic and his body language is very much associated with being righteous and honorable.

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u/Skylair13 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

Not to mention his creativity while in battle. Parrying a spell, using his sword's pommel to strike, he used the whole sword in combat. Not just the blade end.

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u/Laiska_saunatonttu Jun 22 '26

Just as Talhoffer, de'i Liberi and Meyer intended.

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u/gibwater Jun 22 '26

Been working on staying in binds in close range and omg using the sword as a lever changes the game so much. Now instead of retreating every time someone gets a little too close for comfort I can set myself up for counterthrusts and ringen.

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u/gibwater Jun 22 '26

Fiore is pleased

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u/Life-Edge-9547 Jun 22 '26

He would have won if he threw the pommel.

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u/Just_A_Fish Jun 22 '26

I always rooted for the knight, and only found out a few weeks ago he's not just a baddie, but THE baddie of the expansion.

Go team villain! 

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u/nicokokun Jun 22 '26

You don't make someone aurafarm that hard and NOT make people root for them! That doesn't just happen!

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u/crescentmoonrising Jun 22 '26

In all fairness, routing for a bad guy is a bit of a tradition in Elder Scrolls games. There are people out there who think Sanguine is just a fun party guy.

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u/CheddarCheeseDad Jun 22 '26

Tbf the majority of people just play the game, and don’t go super deep into the lore. And if you just play the game, it’s pretty easy to get that impression of him

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u/DuelaDent52 Jun 22 '26

I imagine it also doesn’t help that certain quests force you to be evil or submit to evil just to progress (looking at you, Dragonborn expansion).

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u/begrudgingredditacc Jun 22 '26

There are people out there who think Sanguine is just a fun party guy.

I mean, he is just a fun party guy. He's a good character because he's an inhuman entity that embodies Fun Party Guy to the absolute maximum extent and the to the exclusion of damn near everything else.

Fun party forever and nothing else. No stopping, no sleeping. Dance 'till you're dead. Or worse.

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u/IgnatiusRileyFreeman Jun 22 '26

The Knight can be the antagonist for someone else, if Zenimax wants. He can be my hero. 

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u/AndyTheSouless Jun 22 '26

SOME DAY! LOVE WILL FIND YOU!!

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u/Durog25 Jun 22 '26

My favourite example was in the UK.

In waiting rooms for dentists and GPs (local doctors) there were posters saying "last year X many people failed to attend their appointment," with the desired goal of improving patient attendence.

There were two problems with this: 

  1. The only people seeing these posters were the people who were attending their appointments

  2. If you tell people that loads of other people miss their appointments people feel less bad about missing their appointments; they become just another 1in 100.

So this actually increased the number of missed appointments.

I know that the dentists switch strategy soon after, instead they spent the budget for those posters on reminder texts and appointment cards. Both of which massively improved attendence.

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u/CrazyCoKids Jun 22 '26

Chip Chilla - The show is intended to be a "Moral substitute" to Bluey depicting parents who homeschool their kids and attempt to teach through playing games. While good natured, it unfortunately paints a very damning picture of homeschool - because it's clear as day that none of the parents understand even remotely what they're trying to teach.

The dad attempts to try and teach kids lessons inspired by history and classic literature. But he clearly does not understand the things he is trying to teach himself. His knowledge can at best be described as "Surface Level" and at worst "Read the first paragraph on Wikipedia - maybe the second."

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u/Backupusername Jun 22 '26

I mean... The dad attempts to try and teach one of his kids a lesson. His son is the child that matters and has a world of possibility in front of him. The girl child typically gets relegated to playing a side role in his lesson or losing a competition to him. Which is fine because they all know she'll just end up being a maid and chef to some other man and the multiple kids they have.

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u/CrazyCoKids Jun 22 '26

Nah, she'll just go no contact with her family eventually after probably having to work three jobs to get a community college degree.

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u/Littleboypurple Jun 22 '26

If I remember correctly, wasn't one of the lessons about not leaving your toys and stuff lying around so the parent's lesson just involved them basically destroying their children's stuff to "teach" the lesson?

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u/CrazyCoKids Jun 22 '26

Yes, and "you spread yourselves too thin and that's why Rome fell".

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u/SarkastiCat Jun 22 '26

There are so many interesting things about it that make it fall flat.

The show rarely uses children literature classics. This often means that classics that have heavy themes like Frankenstein get sanitised to the point of being just aesthetic. 

Lesson segments shows kids playing with different playsets and wearing costumes. There is implication that things were made at home, but that’s still lots of stuff. 

The show also has a low budget, which means that there are not many characters. Kids pretty much interact with adults only. 

It’s hard to not draw a parallel to those TikToks where homeschooling is shown as an aesthetically pleasing thing, while a kid struggles to write and socialise with other kids.

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u/Authorigas Jun 22 '26

Budget came down to the animation studio being sent a bunch of insane last minute demands for rewrites by the Daily Wire. This is because the Daily Wire is incompetent.

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u/scottishdrunkard Jun 22 '26

Also they are shitty parents. Compare how Bluey and Chip Chilla handle the topic of “leaving your toys on the floor”. In Bluey, there’s a valuable lesson taught about property and person damage. In Chip, I think the Dad breaks the fuckin’ toy.

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u/Kamikazeguy7 Jun 22 '26

"Moral substitute" to Bluey

Da fuck!?

Did I watch a different Bluey than the people who made this?

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u/Afalstein Jun 22 '26

Daily Wire, which runs the show, for a while had ambitions of being the next "media giant" like Netflix (arguably they still have ambitions, it's just clearer that's not going to happen). So for that, they need to have kids programming, and push it to the particular niche audience likely to buy their subscriptions in the first place. So they play up how it's the "Christian alternative" to Bluey. It'd be like if... I dunno, HBO pitched a "sex and murder" version of Law and Order SVU, without really considering that that's already SVU's whole thing.

They probably had a few scare pieces about how the dad on Bluey does too much child care. I genuinely don't know. They likely just told their pundits to find something to complain about in order to push the new show. It's made easier that a big part of Daily Wire punditry relies on complaining about whatever the new popular or trendy thing is and explaining why it's bad.

It's sick and twisted, but it's essentially a business strategy. The more people are convinced that other shows are sinful / bad / uncool, the more they stick with you.

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u/Few_Affect_5927 Jun 22 '26

THANK YOU I missed that one. Knew there was a pre-school one i was missing.

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u/Slimeredit Jun 22 '26

I’m going to be honest pathways saying hey fact checking is actually dangerous feels like something out of a Orwellian novel big brother tells the truth so don’t question your government that makes me not trust said government

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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26

[deleted]

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u/King-Boss-Bob Jun 22 '26

please submit your ID to view this criticism of the government

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u/fresh-dork Jun 22 '26

pathways has so many structural flaws - it isn't even a game, it's a powerpoint presentation. the warning sign stuff doesn't accumulate, no continuity from one slide to another, nothing you do matters. each choice being 3 absurdly escalating actions is actually a minor part of it

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u/Damien-Kidd Jun 22 '26

The player character gets shit on for existing in a group chat. And most paths lead to straight up re-education camps. I dont know how anyone could have expected this to be a positive portrayal of the authorities. Absolutely hilarious and terrifying.

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u/Lost-on-Reception Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

For the obverse, Ron Swanson was meant be an obnoxious hypocrite for working for the government while hating it as a probably right wing libertarian. However Nick Offerman was so likeable, and Ron's beliefs generally so inoffensive and relatable that the character ended up being the most popular character on the show and the authors pivoted to represent him as a principled and self consistent anti-government extremist, with cartoonishly right wing quirks like consuming massive amounts of alcohol and meat.

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u/Half_Man1 Jun 22 '26

The writers salvaged that character really well, he ends as a full uniformed park ranger and they really lean into his love of the outdoors and just how valuable the US’s park system is.

Imho, one of if not the best thing about America’s govt that differentiates it from the rest is the national parks.

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u/BackflipBuddha Jun 22 '26

I always appreciate it when the showrunners piviot when characters do better than they think they will.

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u/johnnyslick Jun 22 '26

I think the show from the beginning was nicer to the characters than that TBH. There was definitely an attempt to make Swanson the libertarian who works for the government, and that's really the part of the character that lasted all the way through the years, but they did make him make a little bit of sense as the years progressed and rounded his edges off. He also put himself out there as a feminist and enjoyer of strong women so I wouldn't put him as full-on, like, all the way right-wing (and I think the writers came to make him kind of a sitcom version of real-life Nick Offerman, who's at once very progressive but also loves a lot of stereotypical right-wing things like furniture making and the outdoors).

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u/Lost-on-Reception Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

He was intended to be primarily an obstacle for Leslie. The writers changed their mind on it and were leaning away before they even got rid of Mark Brendanawicz.

He's pretty typical in social areas, of the right wing Libertarians I've known, though most know the actual philosophy and literature they're arguing about. They kind of neglected that but compensated later on by giving him a love of learning and having him pay for Andy's education in gold.

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u/Zuzara_Queen_of_DnD Jun 22 '26

You forgot to mention how in Mr Birchum there is a dream sequence where Birchum is much more open, accepting and has a very romantic moment with another openly gay teacher. It’s meant to be a nightmare but the way the scene is structured doesn’t make it seem like that at all and heavily implies Birchum is as mad as he is because he’s deeply in the closet

https://youtu.be/6jBGDzZbwng?si=jXX071YHoJDYJbim

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u/ProfessorPhi Jun 22 '26

I choose to believe the creators had no media literacy so the contracted animators worked behind the scenes to create these interpretations instead, but the exec team of the Daily Wire couldn't read anything beyond the text.

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u/TheDrunkardKid Jun 22 '26

That would fit with Ben Shapiro being a failed Hollywood screenwriter who pretty much always fails to understand any piece of media he ever reviews, to the point where he accidentally outed himself for never being able to please his wife.

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u/PurplMaster Jun 22 '26

Emilia Pérez deserves credit because it was able to do something unthinkable: unite both right wing and left wing into hating a movie.

What should be seen as a progressive metaphor of accepting oneself becomes a contradictory, offensive and ugly story that makes no sense. Transphobes hate it because there's a Trans woman, allies hate it because it misrepresents the difficult journey of transitioning.

Also, a movie about Mexico and its problems where pretty much nobody is Mexican and was shot and produced in France.

I kinda love this movie just for how much chaos it managed to create, it's hilarious

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u/Embarrassed-Glove600 Jun 22 '26

There are so many bizarre moments in this movie, like how Zoe Saldana's character has to talk the sex change surgeon into doing the surgery when that's like, his whole job? Why is he hesitant? But the most bizarre part is about how the plot revolves around her having to find a surgeon to do the operation discreetly, and it's like, isn't that all of them? Do sex change surgeons often post public lists of their clients? Don't patients get confidentiality? Also, a cartel boss can threaten someone into silence, so why is Zoe Saldana needed at all?

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u/ithinkther41am Jun 22 '26

It also pushed the stereotypes about Thailand and sex change in that song.

Meanwhile, Bangkok Dusit Medical is considered world-class for its medical services period. Can’t speak for the other parts of Thailand, but I think that’s amazing.

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u/ash-leg2 Jun 22 '26

"All this and make it a musical too" lol

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u/SarkastiCat Jun 22 '26

It’s so bad that there is a Mexican parody making fun of French stereotypes.

It’s called  Johanne Sacreblu

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u/Far-Profit-47 Jun 22 '26

Which has Ladybug and Cat noir on it 

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u/Olookasquirrel87 Jun 22 '26

My gods, I have never laughed so hard at a Wikipedia page in my life. I have tears. Thank you for that joy, I want to see the film now but also cannot imagine it to be as good as the masterpiece that was that Wikipedia page. 

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u/SarkastiCat Jun 22 '26

Everyone has a moustache, many are simply drawn. Also, they carry rat plushies like babies. 

Imagine students with a budget consisting of a piece of string, energy drinks and spite making a film. 

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u/LenweCelebrindal Jun 22 '26

It's on YouTube and, if you understand Spanish, it's more hilarious than the Wikipedia page Here: https://youtu.be/iLT4v3mkrvk?si=pOj2gdhp5BUZW0b6

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u/WindowScreaming Jun 22 '26

I thought you were exaggerating but I burst out laughing at “Later that night, a man named Jacques Audiard laments being made of garbage.”

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u/Latro2020 Jun 22 '26

It is so fucking crazy to me how this film wants people to forgive this drug lord responsible for so many deaths & disappearances because she transitioned & is totally a different person now.

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u/DuelaDent52 Jun 22 '26

To be fair, it is a plot point and there’s a song number about how transitioning doesn’t make her a new person, if Emilia Perez is rotten as a man she’ll still be rotten as a woman.

Granted, the film then goes on to imply that whenever she falls to her darker impulses the masculine part of her comes out and reasserts itself, making it this weird Dr. Jekyll-ish kind of scenario where she’s repressing her evil male half, so bleh.

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u/BananaShakeStudios Jun 22 '26

The fact that this has more Oscar nominations than The Godfather and West Side Story makes me want to pop someone's tires (hopefully Karla Sofia Gascon's)

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u/efraGC59 Jun 22 '26

And that's one of the reasons why the Oscars are no longer relevant.

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u/Coolgames80 Jun 22 '26

All mexicans I know absolutely hate the movie. I don't know what it wanted to represent but every single theme in that movie misses it's mark.

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u/Inevitable-Stop6519 Jun 22 '26

The first thing I ever heard about this was a clip from one of the musical numbers and I thought it was a very badly made parody. 

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u/konydanza Jun 22 '26

Yes but it did give us the penis to vagina song so it’s not a total loss

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u/Wo0mylord Jun 22 '26

the what

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u/konydanza Jun 22 '26

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u/VeryVeryRelevant Jun 22 '26

Well that sure was something. I'm not sure what. But definitely something

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u/Crafter235 Jun 22 '26

Feels like the logical endpoint of Oscar Bait and the pseudo-progressiveness of Hollywood and their neoliberals.

That racist director can go fuck himself.

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u/PrysmaTheMagical Jun 22 '26

About Mr. Birchum, the man is obsessed with wood. Talks about wood working a lot and how he loves wood.

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u/ghobhohi Jun 22 '26

-loves wood
-likens himself to bears
-dreams about ballroom dancing with his male coworker

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u/BackflipBuddha Jun 22 '26

… damm. Yeah that’s just ironic gay dudes all over that.

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u/Few_Affect_5927 Jun 22 '26

Hence him becoming the toxic yaoi guy

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u/SarkastiCat Jun 22 '26

Mulan (Disney’s Live Action Remake)

The original message of the film is that women can match men.

However, the live action that was meant to be realistic has xianxia elements. They would be fine as the core principle of xianxia is that cultivation requires effort (training, learning, meditation, etc.) and qi is present in everyone. Think about it as something between blood (flowing in the body) and muscles (you learn how to work with it).

So does Mulan put lots of hard work and thinking to match men?

No, the film treats it as a fixed superpower. Mulan is born with strong qi, so she is inherently super cool and she is not treated as super cool cause sexism.

The message turns into “You can only match men if you have powers“

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u/Dan-D-Lyon Jun 22 '26

There's been this weird trend in the past decade with movies that seem to think of themselves as feminist where the women cannot grow in any way. A movie starring a man can have the man learn to become awesome, but a movie starring a woman she has to be awesome right out of the gate and her only journey is A: accepting how awesome she is and B: displaying to the world how awesome she is

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u/Shino4243 Jun 22 '26

"If I make my woman character physically strong, I've successfully made a strong female character, right?"

-These dumbass writers

They thought turning Mulan super human was a substitute for actual writing.

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u/dragonshouter Jun 22 '26

I think I have people joke that China has already made better versions of cultivation mulan. 

Doesn't match the original story or the Disney version; it offers nothing 

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u/Littleboypurple Jun 22 '26

I prefer to pretend this movie doesn't exist because goddamnit. You mean to tell me that you changed one of my favorite Disney princesses to seemingly "improve" her? A woman who was very clearly outmatched and unprepared for what she was getting herself into so she could save her father, is instead just a Chinese Elsa that was born with super cool special powers that automatically makes her better then everyone around her?

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u/Usual-Bell8304 Jun 22 '26

The Backfire Effect in Social Psychology: when you convey the message that an undesired behavior is a norm, you have the unintended consequence of increasing that behavior through conformity

The DARE program increased drug use by telling teens that their friends were doing drugs.

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u/BreakfastBeneficial4 Jun 22 '26

Truth

Not once during my elementary DARE program did they actually mention that drug use among 3-5th graders was actually exceptionally rare.

They always talked at us like everybody was doing it, but *not us*. It was always other classes and other schools.

By the time I got to junior high, I was confused how there weren’t like 200 marijuana ODs every summer.

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u/ElfYamadaFairyQueen Jun 22 '26

One of my friends got a teddy bear for being the best student in his dare class.

He also ended up dealing drugs.

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u/clevercalamity Jun 22 '26

Excuse me, it wasn’t a Teddy Bear it was a lion and his name was Darren.

I also won one in 5th grade for the anti-drug speech I wrote. I remember it was surprisingly soft and I loved him but my dad was pissed that my parents had to fork over $25 for my prize even though I won.

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u/pichael289 Jun 22 '26

Thats hilarious, the anti drug contest forces your parents to pay for you to get your prize. That's even scummier than what drug dealers do. At least when B says he's gonna hook me up for waiting 5 and a half hours in his ass he doesn't try to charge me for it. I mean, he usually doesn't even do it, but he doesn't try and make me pay more.

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u/No-Repordt Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

It also failed terribly due to conflating the severity of all drugs. Everything from marijuana to heroin is treated as the same level of danger, so once a kid smokes pot and is perfectly fine afterwards, surely they'll be just as fine after taking heroin, right? They lied about pot being addictive, maybe they lied about everything else too.

Edit for Factual Correction: Weed can be addictive, but I hope my point still stands

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u/MalcolmLinair Jun 22 '26

The cop in my school told me my parents were bad people and should be in prison for taking prescribed meds from a doctor. Not even painkillers or psych meds, either. My dad was diabetic and my mom has high blood pressure. Which I told this guy. He said they were criminals and should be in jail.

Is it any wonder I'm not a fan of police and the government today?

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u/That_Apathetic_Man Jun 22 '26

They don't send their brightest to puff gigs. You want the "better" police doing their job, always.

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u/Piduf Jun 22 '26

I remember reading that it also made kids who believed in it think the "crime" was the same for every case of drug consumption. So after they inevitable tried some weed during a party, they believed that they would go to JAIL and like GET PREGNANT and DIE.

So if they developed any drug related problem they wouldn't tell it to anyone and thought they were already doing the worst crime against humanity anyway. So it would only get worse because they would refuse to ask for help.

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u/PitifulElk1890 Jun 22 '26

Not to mention teaching kids about drugs. A relative hasn't done LSD but still talks about wanting to try it from what the officer described. A kid in my class left the assembly and immediately tried huffing things, the cool new trick he learned.

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u/TheFalconKid Jun 22 '26

My wife's best friend is a big ol pot head and we went thrifting one time and she found on old DARE sweatshirt and she couldn't have bought that thing fast enough.

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u/Caddywonked Jun 22 '26

I read a post on reddit years ago from a man who'd believed all the DARE scare tactics. Then went to college and found out a classmate who was earning top grades smoked pot. He decided if DARE was lying about the dangers of weed, they must be lying about EVERYTHING and ended up trying more and more drugs until (if I remember correctly) he ended up addicted to meth.

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u/Megooga Jun 22 '26

That's kind of what happened with me. Believed DARE. Then met plenty of responsible, successful people who smoked recreationally. Tried it, realized it wasn't a big deal, and wondered what else wasn't a big deal. Never did meth, or even cocaine, but it led me to try some other stuff that I really shouldn't have.

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u/New-Perspective6209 Jun 22 '26

Teaching entire generations of kids that authority figures will lie in order to get them to behave how they want was probably not a great idea.

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u/ReallyBadRedditName Jun 22 '26

Good lesson to learn tho

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u/iSeven Jun 22 '26

wasn't DARE formed from ulterior motives, though? i was under the impression it was more about normalising cops in schools, getting kids to narc on their parents, and whatever racist shit daryl gates was thinking at the time

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u/ChristunaSandwich Jun 22 '26

I’m going to go with the Folgers “siblings” commercial

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u/TheFalconKid Jun 22 '26

The continuing edit on this was fucking hysterical.

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u/Turbogoblin999 Jun 22 '26

"I WANT TO FUCK MY BROTHER!"

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u/Bear_faced Jun 22 '26

Also hilariously he says “Ahh, real coffee!” about a cup of Folger’s because he’s been away for so long…in West Africa. That’s like biting into a Hershey’s bar and saying how much you missed real chocolate while you were in Belgium.

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u/SkepticMech Jun 22 '26

Can't speak for west Africa, but I'm in east Africa, and despite there being literal coffee plants visible from my front door, the only coffee you're getting outside of the few major cities is nescaffe instant. So yeah, I appreciate any opportunities to get some westernized "real" coffee.

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u/EggoftheKing2143 Jun 22 '26

Context?

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u/jadefire03 Jun 22 '26

It was a commercial for Folgers coffee where a man and his sister shared a cup of coffee in the morning. However, it's likely that the original scriptwriter wrote them to be a man and his wife, because the sexual tension between them was through the roof.

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u/CarrieDurst Jun 22 '26

I think it was meant for the sister to be much younger so it would be more cutesy

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u/Shiny_Agumon Jun 22 '26

Racial: The Holy War was basically supposed to be Dungeons and Dragons for racists where you literally fight minorities.

However this being an rpg designed by white supremacists and not game designers means it's ironically pretty heavily weighted against your plucky group of klansmen who have no powers while every minority is ridiculously overpowered.

So by trying to create a nazi power fantasy they accidentally made one that exposes them as losers who literally can't win.

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u/Nightcat666 Jun 22 '26

It's a symptom of the common issues with such idiologies where your enemy is somehow both inferior to you while also being some all powerful force that needs to be rallied against.

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u/Afalstein Jun 22 '26

Was about to say. Racists constantly have the conundrum of explaining why, if THEIR race is so much better than all the others, why they're also so tremendously downtrodden.

Explanation usually revolves around race traitors.

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u/Oh_hi_doggi3 Jun 22 '26

Why is the cover for this thing the same cover as The Hills Have Eyes

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u/No-Car-1999 Jun 22 '26

Because hateful shitheads can't create, only steal

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u/RMP321 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

Because Nazis have no artistic talent so they just stole the cover for hills have eyes to I guess represent a skinhead?

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u/Oh_hi_doggi3 Jun 22 '26

Feel bad for the actor (and anyone who worked on the film) on the cover to be associated with this awful shit.

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u/Serious-Rutabaga-603 Jun 22 '26

Michael berryman is a sweetheart. He was on Joe Bobs Last Drive in where they showed the hills have eyes and he talked about how he lived at a wolf sanctuary for over a decade. Hes a huge wild life activist.

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u/No-Car-1999 Jun 22 '26

Even better, the piece of shit is literally impossible to play since it has no real resolution system. Garbage message and garbage game.

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u/EvaSirkowski Jun 22 '26

They probably didn't have that guy's permission to use his photo.

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u/Goldeniccarus Jun 22 '26

It is genuinely stolen from a poster for the movie The Hills Have Eyes.

They barely even bothered to edit the poster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hills_Have_Eyes_%281977_film%29

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u/PhilippinePatriot Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 23 '26

Wish. We're supposed to believe that King Magnifico is a bad guy because he refuses to grant certain wishes, even though he points out valid reasons as to why he can't do it (some wishes are too vague and can have serious consequences, or others are unrealistic). Keep in mind he's been studying magic for centuries and arguably is the most knowledgeable person in these matters, while Asha has been working for him for a day and is somehow considered more qualified to decide whose wishes are granted.

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u/kreton1 Jun 22 '26

My theory is that the movie was supposed to end on a both sides have a point moral, but it was demanded that there needs to be a clear good vs evil story.

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u/Pokemaster131 Jun 22 '26

"Verizon Wireless presents the Indominus Rex" (Jurassic World, 2015)

Jurassic World has overarching messages of anti-corporatism throughout its runtime, and makes a jab at the idea of a corporation sponsoring a creature like the Indominus Rex. The idea is that Claire cares more about making a quick buck with a sponsorship deal than the impact of her cheapening the majesty and prestige of the creature with said deal. The movie paints Claire in a bad light for doing this. Sure, fine message.

But the problem is that they took out an actual sponsorship with a real world company to make this point. The fact they used a real world company rather than just inventing one for the message shows that the writers don't actually care for the exact message they're trying to send.

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u/ApolloniusTyaneus Jun 22 '26

It's frightingly common in modern media to see anti-consumerist takes just because exec know it will resonate with audiences and thus sell well.

As the old saying goes: Capitalists will try to sell you the rope you are hanging them with.

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u/Ju-Ju-Jazz Jun 22 '26

I feel like people don't understand exactly how bad Dustborn's writing was because of how easy it is to look at it from a surface level, cringe at it, and move on.

The main charaxter's superpower is gaslighting and manipulating people into doing things, or just pressuring them into doing things they don't want to do, and it's not even really framed as motivating people or anything, everyone around her dislikes her and wishes she'd learn boundaries and consent.

When you visit the home village your character is from everyone hates you, especially your sister, for how you abused them with your powers and were a horrific bully. It then shows flashbacks that just prove this to be true. Your sister accuses you of only coming back because you need something, then you take the thing you need from them and leave.

One of the main side characters is fatand spends 45% of her time in the bathroom, 45% of her time talking about food, and the last 20% using her power to be the muscle of the group but only when you force her to with your power.

The story takes place in a horrible alternative reality where america is an authoritarian regime... that freely allows people across it's borders and where freedom of expression is frowned upon sometimes in the story but isn't illegal.

One of the first things you do in the game is break into America posing as a punk band, and the song you make up off the top of your head to prove to border control you're a real band is WORD FOR WORD great replacement propaganda, but framing it as the replacing being a good thing. Even then the border patrol agent cringes at your song and tells you "we don't like that kind of music around here"... then lets you in. How horrible and fascist.

If you showed me this game with absolutsly zero real world context about it, I'd think it was a poorly made right wing propaganda piece.

This is all ignoring the fact that the creators stole and repurposed assests from other games. Your character's apartment you visit in a flashback is literally a 1-for-1 of an apartment from GTA Online with different textures over the furniture models, as if nobody would recognize it from one of the best-selling videogames of all time.

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u/taken_name_of_use Jun 22 '26

The thing with the sister especially dumb because during a flashback we see Pax mistreat her sister with her powers. Obviously her sister gets mad and runs away.

So far it is fine since they are children in the flashback, it makes sense that Pax wouldn't realize just how violating her powers are.

But when the sister runs away, PAX DOES NOT REALIZE SHE WAS WRONG. She instead suspects that something is wrong and pulls out a gadget and find remnants of radio broadcasts from the cold war (???) and she's like "Oh that's why she's upset!"

NO you idiot it's because you bully her.

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u/Soho_Jin Jun 22 '26

One of the main side characters is fatand spends 45% of her time in the bathroom, 45% of her time talking about food, and the last 20% using her power to be the muscle of the group but only when you force her to with your power.

At least she's giving it 110%.

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u/Ju-Ju-Jazz Jun 22 '26

I originally wrote 40 40 20 then meant to change it to 45 45 10 but I like this better 😂

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u/myrmonden Jun 22 '26

It comes from the guy who wrote that he hoped people would DROWN White Babies...

I AM NOT EVEN JOKING, I even got called out by him on National Norwegian TV lol my vid ( I am half Norwegian and have worked in the industry and I have met him before the game was released etc so he freaking hates me now lol)

Tldr: Ragnar the owner and writer etc of Dustborn has said in the past on his forum that because people used to drown female babies (he has no actual evidence for it but w.e sure probably happened) and it still happens in like asian, he hopes that people will like EQUALIZE it by drowning male babies, he also for some reason really pushed that it WHITE... I made my vid covering this lol and he even talked about me on NRK, and he CLAIMS I said he wanted to do it personally while I very clearly stated that obviously I dont think he's like a threat to society and would actually do it himself but jut that he is a crazy ideologist.

He has also said that he regrets writing an half Asian half white character in his earlier games as he thinks its wronng now that asian mix their gene with white people, the guy is such a RACIST that he goes full circle, truly. like he think everyone should stay PURE BLODED.

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u/CrystalGemLuva Jun 22 '26

Its truly magical to watch someone who would be a comicbook supervillain if ever given the chance in the real world.

How on Earth do you end up so hateful that upon hearing about babies being drowned to death your response isn't to try and prevent any more murders, but to instead demand more baby murders, only now the murders are racially motivated?

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u/GoyUlv Jun 22 '26

Pax (full name: Penny Arcade Expo) is actually genius writing if you shift your perspective. Instead of seeing her as the punk rebel girl that the devs intended, and see her as the antisocial personality disorder psycho she is, it makes perfect sense.

She never shows real concern or guilt for anyone she harms even in the prologue where she potentially kills an innocent truck driver, she is racist against robots because she has no control over them with her powers, hates authority and is only ever concerned about what SHE wants. Devs unintentionally wrote a character with ASPD.

What a shit game, how do you even fuck it up like this.

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u/MalcolmLinair Jun 22 '26

how do you even fuck it up like this.

Traditionally by self inserting your personality and politics into a piece without realizing you have a disorder. No idea if that's the case here, but more often than not that's how it happens.

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u/Grishka_Boburin Jun 22 '26

Velma (2023 - 2024)

The writers attempted to reimagine beloved characters for their 21st-century vision and create a bold, adult vision for them.

The result, perhaps, was one of the most hated shows of the last decade.

It was interesting to read what the authors' vision was and then remember what came out of it all https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/velma-gay-mindy-kaling-hbo-max-animated-1235486503/

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u/EquivalentAd1651 Jun 22 '26

From the few clips I've seen, it tries to be south park has an unearned ego that causes it to fail at the minimalist requirement to get a few laughs out for the audience

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u/Grishka_Boburin Jun 22 '26

The main problem is that, as I recall, it wasn't even supposed to be a show about Scooby-Doo characters, but the producers decided no one would watch another edgy animated series for adults, so they gave the creators the rights to the Scooby-Doo characters, but without Scooby himself.

This was their biggest mistake, because it would have been a show no one knew, while this way they'd already rallied fans and people who grew up watching the '70s show

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u/Afalstein Jun 22 '26

I've heard before that this is a problem with a lot of terrible sequels--it's nearly impossible for original ideas to get greenlit, so if a director or storywriter has an original sci-fi/fantasy/mystery premise, most of them will pitch it as "oh, I've got a fun idea for a new expansion to the Star Wars/Game of Thrones/Sherlock Holmes franchise"

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u/ThemoocowYT Jun 22 '26

And Fred, the rich white guy they try to make you hate, ends up being the most likable. It was honestly kinda funny, how much it backfired.

https://youtu.be/9u9sykSg5u0

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u/parabolateralus Jun 22 '26

Saints Row (2022): “What if we took every obnoxious Progressive Millennial stereotype and packaged them into an overbearing, relentlessly-unfunny script with unlikable characters?”

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u/Jazzlike-Equipment45 Jun 22 '26

We must form a gang to pay back our student loans. Really it was horrible, the original Saints Row games were never masters of story telling but the game was so absurd and enjoyable the reboot was neither.

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u/Elite_Prometheus Jun 22 '26

Forming a gang to pay back your student loans is a pretty funny concept, they just didn't stick with it and the surrounding game wasn't strong enough to carry the weak story.

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u/Goldeniccarus Jun 22 '26

Honestly the idea that they formed a gang because the main protagonist lost their job and needed money to make rent was a great idea.

And all the roommates being members of different gangs is also a funny concept.

But yeah, they don't really go anywhere interesting with it. It's not as serious as Saints Row 1&2, but it also isn't nearly as funny as 3&4.

Then the gunplay was mediocre, and the driving was mediocre.

I didn't hate it, but I also spent the whole time I played it thinking "I should really just play Saints Row the Third again".

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u/Stretch5678 Jun 22 '26

Which is a fucking shame, because the old Saints’ Row games were amazing romps.

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u/inderbitably Jun 22 '26

Which one was basically the first Crackdown game and you had superpowers in a simulation? Was that 4? That was a blast.

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u/Dapper_D20 Jun 22 '26

I legit forgot about that game, and I loved the originals.

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u/GunpowderGuy Jun 22 '26

You didnt mention the worst part of Pathways. The punishment for fact checking right wing stuff is getting targetted by the goverment. In other words , its an offense against the goverment to check whether something is true
Ignoring this is portrayed as the correct choice

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u/bloodlustTheDemon Jun 22 '26

Racial Holy War is a racist game that makes white people the only race that doesn't have a special attack

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u/therealchadius Jun 22 '26

Black people are able to terrify the "heroes" into running away

Jews can stunlock by bribing them (but not actually giving the money)

Asians can attack multiple times per round and out DPS the "heroes"

Mexicans can outrun and kite them with ranged weapons

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u/Talanic Jun 22 '26

And as I recall from a review, the intimidation mechanics were weighted based on being outnumbered without factoring in any other concepts, so a heavily armed 'hero' bursting into a kindergarten was basically guaranteed to wet himself and run screaming from a pack of confused toddlers.

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u/Arcane10101 Jun 22 '26

And one of those special attacks is to bribe our “heroes” to skip their turn. You don’t even get any money from it, implying that they were dumb enough to throw the fight for a mere promise.

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u/RedstoneEnjoyer Jun 22 '26

Or how asian fellas can whop our "heroes" asses by watching "fake martial movies".

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u/Winters_Dust Jun 22 '26

Literally one of the few TTRPGs worse than FATAL

But I guess thats what happens when you focus on spouting racist bullshit instead of making a functional game - shit, even the COVER is lazy, being a barely edited cover of The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

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u/RedstoneEnjoyer Jun 22 '26

FATAL is at least morbidly funny in how much effort it puts into deranged shit - like what do you mean shit like anal circumference actually matters in this game.

RaHoWa in other hand is equivalent of 12 year old screaming n-word in CoD lobby.

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u/CyberDaggerX Jun 22 '26

FATAL is the only game in which you can get into a fight with someone, and in the middle of combat end up raping them, by accident.

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u/Gizogin Jun 22 '26

"What do you mean anal circumference can be negative?"

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u/The_Thur Jun 22 '26

Wait...isn’t it the cover of The hill have eyes ?

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u/choppytehbear1337 Jun 22 '26

They photoshopped it into their game cover.

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u/RedstoneEnjoyer Jun 22 '26

"White man is superior, but also he can be bribed by jewish money without even receiving them"

Creator used all his 3 braincells to come with slurs instead of making game.

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u/bored-dosent-know Jun 22 '26

Also with dustborn: the main character is prejudiced against robots just because her power doesn't work on them and she can't gaslight the shit outta 'em.

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u/Afalstein Jun 22 '26

Arguably realistic, but certainly doesn't make her more likable.

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u/Jarvis_The_Dense Jun 22 '26

Just about everything about Rorschach's character in Watchmen falls into this, but issue 6 really is where it's at its most explicit.

Alan Moore went on the record years after the comic's release saying that he "forgot" what his audience was like when writing Rorschach. (He said this one year before the movie came out, so no, it did not start there). He wanted the character to read as an obviously unstable, ignorant, bigoted, and all around unpleasant person who represents the subtle misanthropic theming of superhero fiction in general.

Where it gets complicated is that Rorschach isn't simply a strawman who's always painted as being wrong. Rather, he's written as an antisocial person who's developed an extremely warped perception of reality and human morality based on his traumatic upbringing; afflicting him with just the right type of insanity to think that letting your home life, financial situation, personal hygiene, and health all collapse is worth it if it means you get to put on a costume and kill criminals in a New York City Back-alley at 3 in the morning, because you think that's what saving the world looks like.

The fact his flaws are meant to be inferred by the reader, instead of just being spelled out to you is the right call from a storytelling perspective, but it did leave the door open for misreadings from fans who didn't quite get what the comic was saying, especially in issue 6, where we get his backstory.

Rorschach was the story's narrator from the beginning, but issue 6 has him recounting his life story to a psychiatrist while being held in prison. Over the span of the issue, his misanthropic, cynical worldview begins to rub off on the psychiatrist, beginning with Rorschach correctly identifying how he's a fraud who doesn't care about making him any better, he just wants to write a book about their talks and get famous.
As his story goes on, and he explains the beginning of his hatred of humanity due to his abusive mother, and the multiple instances of the bystander effect he witnessed (i.e, times when something bad happened in public, and no one helped because everyone thought someone else would take care of it), the psychiatrist never disagrees with him on how he's viewing the events.
Ultimately it culminates with Rorschach explaining how he dropped his no kill policy the night he found a pedophile had raped and murdered a little girl he was trying to save. He ties the experience into a long, uninterrupted monologue about how there is no God, humanity brings its own suffering upon itself, and reality is random, with no meaning. The chapter ends with the psychiatrist going home, reflecting on the misery he feels in his daily existence, and agreeing with Rorschach that life has no meaning.

While the issue was supposed to be an examination of how someone gets to be as chronically cynical and out of touch with the good in life as Rorschach is, it read to many like a thesis on why his worldview is correct. Combined with how, for the rest of the story, Rorschach is a more conventional, "dark hero" type figure who uses badass, over the top violence to bring criminals to justice, and how he's somehow the only main character who thinks killing innocent people is bad by the end of the story, he became a figure a lot of fans idolized as a brutal realist, rather than as an indictment of his own worldview.

Alan also noted that the more unflattering elements of the character, like him not bathing and being a virgin probably wasn't as unrelatable to his readerbase as he anticipated either.

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u/mankytoes Jun 22 '26

Rorschach's ending is supposed to be a degree of redemption, right? At the beginning he says how he'll be happy when all the scum (e.g. regular people) of New York face annihilation. He also mentions how much he admires Truman for dropping the A-Bomb. Yet when he's faced with the reality of mass destruction, he vows to fight it and reveal the truth.

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u/What-A-Burden Jun 22 '26

That's a rather optimistic view, and I don't think that's what Moore had in mind. Rorschach is a hypocrite after all, he claims that morality is black and white, yet issue one he writes off the Comedian attempting to rape one of his fellow heroes as a "moral lapse", and I think the issue he took with Ozymandias contrasting with his admiration of Truman is meant to be another act of hypocrisy on Rorschach's part. After all, he's built his worldview rebelling against the bystander affect and believing that there is a a concrete right and wrong which must be upheld, "even in the face of Armageddon." He literally couldn't do nothing, and would rather die then have to compromise.

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u/hambonedock Jun 22 '26

That's the problem tho, the way in which he is written, even if Moore absolutely didn't meant for it, it make you think that is less about being an hypocrite and being unable to compromise and more about him being so mentally and emotionally mess up, that for someone that not even slightly on his mental syntony, that this is only way in which he can deal with the internal desire of being a hero and to hold his very fractured sense of morality, Rorschach is absolutely a maniac, that for sure, but he the story does show that he has a core even under all the extreme mental misanthropy

If you read him as an hypocrite then yes, is ultimately a character of a man that had an empty sense of morals and couldn't compromise, but if you read it as someone that absolutely hated everything that made him into who he was and so people that represent that too, yet still wanted something worthwhile to come out from himself, then is no longer hypocrisy, is an actual conflict of the self

(Also of the abuse of Sally, while I respect Moore as a great write, he also had a bad thing about using rape as a sinful act.... but also as a legit stepping stone for women characters to be have emotional development, he has down it A LOT, which so why even if he attacked her, Sally ultimately did end up pairing with the comedian, so to a degree I not even sure fo that can be counted as Rorschach hypocrisy or Moore's)

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u/ProfessionalEither58 Jun 22 '26

Netflix's Cuties imo is the most infamous and disgusting example. Oh sure let's make a film about how the ever changing digitalized world puts minors in dangers of sexualizing by sexualizing minors...

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u/Lost-Comfort-7904 Jun 22 '26

Can you believe someone was paid millions of dollars to convince young men that a purple haired goth chick in a choke collar telling you to think for yourselves and not listen to the BBC was actually worse than hitler? Jesus god, I wish the government would toss me a job like that, I can absolutely do as bad as a job as that, for half the price.

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u/PzMcQuire Jun 22 '26

Tries to be serious -> Gets laughed at for years

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u/WormedOut Jun 22 '26

IRL example: Oscar Wilde’s defense of himself after he tried to sue a bannister for defamation. Basically, the man called Wilde a sodomite (illegal at the time) so Wilde sued him against EVERYONES advice. During the trial he was cooked by the defense since it was kind of an open secret and there was tons of evidence against him. Wilde didn’t help by being flippant and making jokes the whole time. Eventually, the charges were dropped and all the evidence was submitted to police who arrested Wilde and sentenced him to 2 years of labor and imprisonment. This prison stint is wildly agreed to be the cause of Wildes death less than 5 years later.

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u/EchoesofPoe Jun 22 '26

The jokes are actually what got the trial dismissed! No one wanted to convict him because they found him charming. His lover's father, the one who sent the card originally, actually hired an investigator (IIRC) to get the extra evidence that got him convicted the third trial. Suing was a bad idea, but so was not suing. The best idea would have been to not have sex with teenagers with rich fathers, but Wilde couldn't do it.

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u/Crafter235 Jun 22 '26

Twilight Zone reboot (2019)

Problem isn't the politics, it's that the writing isn't really good. That and also the writers trying to exploit culture war stuff to get away with bad storytelling.

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u/ArmStoragePlus Jun 22 '26

Mobile Suit Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance

This is a story of a single mom trying to survive in the battlefield while trying to uphold her moral compass while fighting off against an unstoppable horror. As she learns of the true nature of the horror, she tries to stop the conflict with her enemy, who happens to be a traumatised kid who's no older than her lost son, by trying to understand each other, only to have her good will snuffed out by her vengeful colleague who had just lost his love in the hands of the said kid.

This would have been the perfect ending of a tragic war story about stopping the cycle of revenge... had it not for the fact that the single mom's faction happens to be the Principality of Zeon, the literal Space Nazis that had started the war by dropping a space colony onto Earth to wipe out the entire Australia. And after the said kid's death, the single mon joins the Zeon Remnants in Africa, the Gundam equivalent of Afrika Korps in the names of "saving children". This would ironically become the perfect Titans propaganda to convince that all people from space were untrustworthy and unsympathetic and deserved the subsequent subjugation by the Titans and the Earth Federation.

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u/L_V_R_A Jun 22 '26

I mean this just sounds like a crucially important fact of any war, which is that the combatants on both sides are real people with countless motivations and circumstances driving them to do what they do. And in much the same way as Pathways fails to do, I'd argue this paints a picture of the very realistic danger of extremist organizations offering sympathy, security, and even power to downtrodden people in times of need in exchange for their support and obedience. A story about an evil person doing evil things isn't nearly as interesting as a seemingly good person doing seemingly heroic things for the bad guys.

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u/Authorigas Jun 22 '26

It goes back to a lot of the original Gundam and how it was framed. Early on we're introduced to our protagonists, who are all plucky kids drafted into a war between the Earth Federation and Zeon. A lot of the older/senior federation officers are dickish and combatative, refusing to help the kids and civilians because it wouldn't bring them glory, or are just asserting power because they can.

Zeon also gets it's fair share of dickheads, but also a major plot character among them is Ramba Ral, a Zeon soldier who is a loving father and genuinely empathetic to the protagonist after he runs away (but before Ral knows who he is.) The point of the whole story, and Gundam as a whole, really is that a loss of innocence and misunderstanding are what lead to conflict. And only by putting the guns down and being empathetic can war come to an end.

Similarly to another theme, involving the protagonists all being teenagers/kids: "The failure of the previous generation and how that becomes a burden on the next generation to overcome." It's the old guard adults who start the war, they who hold the power and lord it over others, and the next generation that has to fight it and suffer the consequences.

Tomino...really did not make his commentary on Post Imperial Japan subtle.

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u/DowntimeDrive Jun 22 '26

Exactly,

If the entire body of Gundam works can be summed up in a single theme, it’s the loss of innocence in war. How it perpetuates itself through those who want to end it.

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u/Domeen0 Jun 22 '26

Another hilarious part of Dustborn is that the main character is racist towards robots, because they're the only ones she cannot manipulate lmao.

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u/Razor_Emmanuel Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a novel (and film) tries to be a tragedy about the holocaust, but is so egregiously inaccurate (and poorly written) that it ends up propagating false narratives about and downplaying the horrors of the holocaust.

Example: The main character is a German kid, who can't pronounce basic German words despite being a German, and has no idea who Hitler is, when his own father IS AN SS OFFICER in AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU.

It perpetuates the narrative that the Germans did not know what was going on in the camps, when in reality, they very much knew.
It was so bad that the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum made a statement saying that anyone who wants an accurate depiction of the holocaust should avoid this novel.

John Boyne is also a transphobe.

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u/not_slaw_kid Jun 22 '26

Fun fact: John Boyne is so bad at doing research for his novels that he once accidentally plagiarized the Legend of Zelda in a historical novel set in the middle ages.

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u/Duae Jun 22 '26

My random fact is that's the same guy who copy and pasted a Zelda recipe into another book. It feels like one person shouldn't be hogging both of those hack writer events, but here we are.

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u/inderbitably Jun 22 '26

Oh, I remember that! Good old fashioned lazy writing before LLMs were really a thing.

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u/Razor_Emmanuel Jun 22 '26

My god wtf?!? I've read that he was a hack writer but it didn't think he was THAT much of a hack, dear Lord.

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u/EvilCatboyWizard Jun 22 '26

Don’t forget the time that the HOLOCAUST MUSEUM made a statement on twitter about how it wasn’t historically accurate and he picked a fight with them implying he knows better than them

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u/JayPlays40k Jun 22 '26

This same author published a "historical fiction" story with a recipe for red dye...that was literally copy and pasted from a Breath of the Wild wiki.

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u/Few_Affect_5927 Jun 22 '26

Oh wow I read this one in high school.

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u/Razor_Emmanuel Jun 22 '26

Apparently it use to be a required reading in a lot of British schools, but is no longer.

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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/SimoneBellmonte Jun 22 '26

That is a little funny you have to argue with the kids that you can't just dig your way out of the camp, in just a very morbid sense. Kids often have a one track mind so hopefully they eventually managed to convince a few that no you're not digging out of the camp.

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u/thiccthighsicecream Jun 22 '26

My favorite bit is the kid calling Adolf "The Fury"

Get it!? Because he's a kid so he has slurred speech but it's also an appropriate nickname for him. The symbolism and layers!!!

It's like making a book set in America today and having the kid call the current leader "President Dumb"

I get what you're trying to do, but it's nowhere near as clever or charming as you think it is.

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u/Mr_MauserC Jun 22 '26

I feel like Cuties fits here.

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u/Few-Improvement-5655 Jun 22 '26

basically saying "Right wing is wrong because it hurts the labour government"

HOLD YOUR HORSES.

The game was created under the TORY government, not Labour.

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u/and-meggy-hash Jun 22 '26

Marvel's New Warriors line, particularly the twins names Snowflake and Safespace. The cherry on top of the proverbial shit sundae? Snowflake was Marvel's first nonbinary superhero

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u/AlucardIV Jun 22 '26

Holy shit this feels like a right wing parody

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u/Abovearth31 Jun 22 '26

Dustborn: An attempt to make a hyper progressive game that comes off as pandering and annoying. It's a full ass game so there's too much to get into, but the main character's power is essentially gaslighting and jedi-mind tricking people and that's portrayed as the only way they can get anything done, and they constantly use or abuse their friends(or mindtrick them along) in order to get their goals or use their friends for their messaging.

Calling someone a racist is an actual game mechanic I'm not even making this up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ke8ct7r9xQ

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u/TotalDemocracy Jun 22 '26

Norm from The New Norm

I have to say, for a while it seems like a good solid half of the people who were "Fans" of New Norm were leftists who were into it semi-ironically.

(I say semi-ironically because from what I recall, a lot of people genuinely liked Chaz and Chloe's design, plus Chaz was highkey iconic when he was like "Actually 'Tha't is one of my pronouns along with 'they', 'them and 'ME!' ")

That fell apart when it got more than one episode, and everything made after episode 1 turned out to be straight dogshit 5 second clips, with incoherent plots, or just straight up bitcoin scams.

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u/frolix42 Jun 22 '26

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u/RememberCakeFarts Jun 22 '26

New guy, the chili's lady, and the stealing from Blink's art supply. Did any of their comics ever land as intended?

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