Tell me more about the significance of Good Guy™ Superman.
Ok I'm typing this all up a second time, a couple of days later, because the first time I typed it all I did it perfectly but it was on my laptop and the hellsite fuckin goofed and it's all gone now so that made me sad. I can't promise to hit all the points I wanted to hit but I'll do my best
We gotta start by clarifying that in the tags that triggered this ask I did specifically say that clark/kal-el/superman being a Good Boy is important to me. I note this because while I have very good justifications for why it's important to me that he's a Good Person™, I acknowledge that this is one of those cases where the facts may back me up, but it genuinely just comes down to matters of individual taste.
So, like, big picture here: superman is Moses. I've talked about this before, you've read about this before, this is more fact than opinion. The parallels are obvious, and loud, and obnoxiously repeated in online spaces just as much as in books such as up, up and oy vey (this is not a recommendation, just pointing out that it's universally acknowledged pretty much everywhere). I'm not going to waste my breath trying to convince you of this fact. Superman is Moses. Moses is, in Judaism, possibly the holiest man to ever live. The first in the prophets. As many of you may recall, in my lecture on Jewish superheros, I argued that Jewish ideas of prophecy found their way into the modern Jewish stories being told by the comic book authors creating the very first superheroes - the very first superhero, of course, being superman.
One noteworthy thing about prophecy as described by Maimonides? The most basic component of prophecy isn't actually talking to god or receiving holy visions, it's actually just... Doing good. Good™. Good as an action, good as an innate need, good for the people around you and the people of the whole world. Moses showed this tendency as a young man - privileged, raised in the house of the pharaoh, he couldn't stand seeing any man get beaten, even if he was a slave. He loses his home over this, the family who raised him. He sees a man getting unjustly punished, and he kills the oppressor over it. And when he goes out again the next day and sees two Hebrews fighting, he tries to stop this as well (Exodus 2). Moses is our holiest prophet; before he ever even acknowledges God's existence, he feels the need to do good and prevent evil; superman is Moses; superman must follow a similar path of goodness as an innate need followed by action.
That's all big picture stuff, though. There's the smaller stuff, too. Not my bigger analysis of comic book heroes and the ideas of prophecy in Maimonides' writing, because honestly that's just... A lot. When it comes down to it, it is so much more satisfying to me that Superman is a person.
He's the first superhero, right? And he's got this insane level of power not really often seen since. Any person who attempts to defeat him needs to use a mix of his one singular weakness and genuine cunning, because there's really no brute forcing your way passed fucking superman. So yeah, you could tell a story like that of the Boys (although I didn't make it past episode 3 of that, my apologies). You could tell a cynical story where terrible people do terrible things and it all gets waved away. But the boys isn't really a story about people who happen to get powers - it's a story about people who have power, positions of authority, government officials and the like, not just superpowers.
That's not Clark Kent's story. Clark Kent is an illegal immigrant who was raised by good people in secrecy. He's handed superpowers, yes, but very rarely power - he's a journalist with farmboy training, and his greatest nemesis is a billionaire who becomes the fucking president of the united states. He fought Hitler in WWII, did you know that? He represents good because it makes for a compelling story. The underdog who's secretly not an underdog at all, choosing every day to fight evil and represent truth (being a reporter is vital to both of these, in case you're wondering). Yeah, he's a bit of a shit dad to Connor, but him not being a perfect person doesn't make him not a good one, especially since - again - in my definition of good, goodness is an action, and one you constantly have to perform and perfect and adapt to changing times.
Going back to Judaism - in Jewish tradition, we all have the force of evil and the force of good inside of us (yetzer hara and yetzer hatov). The word yetzer comes from the same root as the word for creation - we are capable of creating evil and creating good. Superman represents hope and justice because he chooses every day to create good.
And that, in a nutshell, is why it is so important to me that Kal El-Clark Kent-Superman is a Good Guy. Because he can be.
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Tbh the fact that Kim likes your karaoke no matter whether you pass or fail the check is touching in a way but also it’s so fucking funny how offended he gets on your behalf if u fail and no one claps for u. “These people wouldn’t know a good performance if it bit them in the ass.” “He really sang his heart out.” He’s like you fucking NORMIES just don’t get it. You philistines.
Even funnier that it’s not even really about you, bc if he genuinely didn’t like it it he’d probably be about as tactful about it as he is about shaving the mutton chops. It’s the principle of the thing. And then u add yet another layer of humor when u know Kim’s personal music tastes. Kim’s not a particularly artsy guy and his conceptualization skills are (at least in Harry’s opinion) “rudimentary,” but he’s also super mega ultra repressed and his release valve seems to be music. Specifically the loudest and nastiest most vulgar music possible. He loves ur performance bc u basically go onstage and have a breakdown set to music for two or three minutes and he’s like so fucking true bestie. Now THAT’S what a good performance should be. An honest display of torment for me the audience to live vicariously through. Except I’m the only one doing that bc I’m da king of da karaoke bar and everyone else is a tasteless hack. <- was listening to “An Asshole is a Mouth for Shit (And I’m Puking)” in his Kineema ten minutes ago
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I want your opinion on something. Do you think it's better to try and the the cards of the character you like or skipping some to brench out? Like, say you're a fan of Leona. Should you try to get all of his bday card and stuff or stick to one and get other characters ssr?
personally, as much as I would like every single card...I gotta ration my keys, so I focus on my favorites!
which isn't to say that I only pull for certain characters no matter what! more that I take a good long look at every card that comes out and go "do I really want this one? like...really really want it?" (the answer is usually yes, but -- look, the art in this game is very pretty, okay)
honestly, from a gameplay standpoint, I think it doesn't matter too much whether you focus on pulling for specific characters or not. there are very, very few points where actually having a good mix of characters is important (Those Two Stages in episode 6, where I think you can use retry tickets for the easy mode? and also guest room battles if you care about those) and you'll probably end up with at least one halfway decent card per character just from doing 10-pulls and events. so even if you're only pulling for Leona cards, you'll still end up getting a bajillion other characters as well. follow your heart! chase that grumpy lion bliss! ✨🦁✨
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