Meanwhile...
Uru is a metal ore from the first moon in existence, and has existed since the beginning of the universe, being said to be rubble from the rock of creation and the strongest substance in all the realms.
and the strongest substance in all the realms.
Until it isn't.
Damn even the metallurgists have to watch out for power creep
I mean, they've been having to do that since the chalcolithic.
Damn Catholics get into everything, don’t they?
That is how our cars manage to convert gasoline into energy.
Ah, thank you. I was looking for the expression "power creep" to describe this phenomenon. In Japan, we usually call it "power inflation," and I couldn't remember how to say it in English!
You fool! I have only been fighting at half hardness!
So it's strongest than the actual rock of creation? Also funny that it was there since the beginning but it's in a moon. A moon that existed before the planet the moon is a moon of? That's not a moon lol.
The moon was made up of rubble from the rock of creation. It doesn't say it existed before its planet.
I mean moons can be captured. So it's technically possible, just really unlikely.
So, it's composed of hydrogen and helium?
To be fair, a lot of elements existed before the first stars exploded, it was just overwhelmingly hydrogen and helium.
Hey, at least its better than the placeholder; Unobtainium.
Hey I've heard that we can't obtain that anywhere. It's pretty rare.
What's it used for? We don't know! Just that it's rare and thus valuable!
Stan Lee after the meeting:
Yeah, not to yuck anyone's yum, but this has been one of the reasons why I always thought fiction in general, but in particular superhero stories, anime etc., wasn't that interesting.
Like, wow, you thought of some arbitrary description for how the villain is by far the strongest. Except for that other villain in the next episode, of course, who's even strongester. Oh, and did I mention that our hero is a total weenie, but somehow also stronger than these guys? Crazy, isn't it?
I know, you're supposed to indulge these stories and not question them too much, but pattern-recognizing brain says no. 🫠
A super-powered character could have boring stories like that. What matters is the writers coming up with interesting questions that make readers think. Having super-powered characters simply opens the door to different questions.
It's why Superman has endured. Interesting stories
"Holy Generalizations Batman! That guy just yucked our yums! Doesn't he know fictional worlds allow writers unprecedented freedom to explore the human condition!?"
"No time for that now Robin! The Joker just broke out of Arkham again, and he's practicing unlicensed dentistry!"
isn't that just a problem of looking for bad authors?
This is basically the plot of all of Dragonball Z
It was certainly one of the examples on my mind when writing that, yeah. 😅
I think, it was One Piece where I first noticed this, because I actually tried to watch that regularly on TV as a kid, but Dragonball perfected it with the whole "Power level over 9000" meme...
That's fair lol. One Piece is I think one of the best tests of if someone actually likes shonen. It's got a plot, it's got characters that are likable, and character growth isn't just getting stronger, but yeah it's also deeply in the genre and contains lots of the shonen plot loop: meet new op villain who wants to do bad things, get rekt, explore/train/character development/make friends, fight again, learn more about the villain and protagonist, protagonist ekes out a victory, story advances towards new villain…
I like good shonen, but it's definitely a genre with clear formulaic plots for the most part, and it's the story that happens between and beyond those plots, the execution of the loop, and character design and power interactions and such that make it good or bad. I personally think that Dragonball sucks because it's very "and then, and then, and then…" without much of a plan or a story outside the loop, as compared to One Piece being the story of Luffy trying to build a crew, sail to the end of the world, become king of pirates, and take on the government.
Formulaic genres are ultimately all about execution, message, and just the general comfort of the fact that a lot of these genres tend to allow themselves to be media junk food. A whodunnit is unlikely to surprise you in plot, you know the first suspect didn't do it, you're trying to figure out why and who's being set up to actually have done it. This is why BBC Sherlock sucks in retrospect but so many people loved it at the time.
Think another example of ludicrous power escalation was when in Loki they just had a drawer of assorted infinity stones. Yes, played for laughs but the problem of escalation suggested is real.
Most of the fiction I’ve been exposed to (which is a lot, I enjoy it very much and always have) isn’t like that. They don’t just describe someone as strong or evil, they describe actions and events and emotions from a specific perspective and let you come to your own conclusions.
I guess if you like stuff made for kids, teens, and young adults, you’ll run into that problem a lot more, but it’s not actually an overall problem with fiction as far as I’ve noticed. I’ve never really liked young adult fiction though, because it’s lacking in depth, much like you describe (some exceptions do apply of course).
I mean there are definitely good works of fiction intended for younger readers. Off the top of my head there's the edge chronicles, skullduggery pleasant, mortal engines, a series of unfortunate events. All things I read when I was younger and from what I remember they never did any of the "this person is eeeeevil" things, I guess skullduggery pleasant had some things verging on that but it was usually eldritch horror type unknown evil than straight up "bad because I say so". And all of those series had depth.
Yeah, not to yuck anyone’s yum, but this has been one of the reasons why I always thought fiction in general, but in particular superhero stories, anime etc., wasn’t that interesting.
That's an awfully broad brush. A lot of the better science fiction (and there is an awful lot of really good SF) speculates on what would happen if a particular technology existed. You could say the same for super hero stuff, though that's often closer to fantasy. Yes, there are lots of examples of sloppy writing, and super hero franchises that go on for decades tend to have at least moments of ridiculous ability creep, but it's inane to say that things like More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon, Blood Music by Greg Bear, or To Sleep In A Sea Of Stars by Christopher Paolini aren't really good fictional stories about people with special abilities.
Wouldn't Marvel cross the line from Science Fiction into Science Fantasy? Ignoring the metal debate for a minute, we've got litteral gods, a sapient tree, a rock man, a guy who shoots lasers from his face, and a thousand other absolutely nuts things.
~~Science~~ Fantasy.
Superpowers from radioactive waste (daredevil) or a radioactive spider sounds sciencey, tho
Not a big dragon ball z fan, I take it.
It's not so much a problem plaguing fiction in general, but fiction that runs a long time.
If it's a contained story with defined end that comes relatively soon enough, the stakes can be relatively fixed, arcs can run through to a logical conclusion, etc.
If you have unending, soap-opera like story, then you hit problems. Characters can never actually be fully realized, they have to have their development paused. Any romantic 'will they/won't they' gets ludicrously drawn out. You usually get tougher plot armor because fans are really attached, or a revolving door of characters that you don't get attached too, or people inevitably managing to be alive after having died. You have power creep where insurmountable challenges get overcome through progress and then something has to reset the new capabilities to table stakes.
Hmm, that is an interesting point, because I do also prefer roguelike videogames to RPGs. They compress the whole character development down into a much shorter timeframe.
And while it's still a factor that it's just your stats growing vs. your enemies' stats growing, you do have a pretty clear goal to reach.
You also most definitely have no plot armor either, as a single death is the end of that story. And the randomization of the levels certainly adds to that, too, as I can't get the feeling that I should be able to manage anything the game throws at me.
My favorite roguelike !dcss@lemmy.ml has these historic quotes on items and spells. And the Swiftness spell has verbatim this text as its quote:
...which is the best gameplay advice for that game, for any situation. 🫠
not to yuck anyone's yum
You're clearly trying to do this.
I’m not trying to yuck anyone’s yum but I absolutely hate that turn of phrase and think less of someone who uses it ^(not really but it is super millennial cringe coded)^
Some stories use hyperbole for dramatic effect, so clearly this is a flaw in the fundamental concept of all narrative fiction. What a dumb take.
I am literally just describing how I feel. It's not a take. You don't have to like it.
Holy crap I was about to use the same yuck someone’s yum phrase to make the same point. Keep up the good work hive mind.
Edit: To clarify, in response to the shit storm of replies you got, I meant specifically that’s my issue with Marvel movies, and I assume that’s more what you meant, not all fiction ever.
Iirc, isn’t one made with the other? I genuinely don’t know which.
Yeah i thought adamantium is the alloy that's made from vibranium metal, but that's mostly my head canon. I have no real information.
Adamantium is made with vibranium and steel.
You also have Uru, which is an entirely different thing from a magical realm, kinda like Marvel's mithril.
Their hardness, toughness, strength and magical conductivity are different, making Adamantium better for attacking, Vibranium better for defending, and Uru better for enchanting.
This is why I've just never liked super hero universes.
In isolation, it's passable, fun even, and I've enjoyed some marvel stuff.
When they actually try to do world building, it's just so, so bad.
This is my opinion, apologies to those who generally like the Marvel universe, but I just can't stand it. (Based on the handful of films I've seen or heard about).
Marvel power scaling in a nutshell—there’s always someone 20% stronger 😂
"sometimes" last century??? Perhaps "Some time"? Who wrote this, AI?
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