They say there are no original ideas out there, and we can believe that. Storytelling themes are universal and we understand when a character or scene gets “borrowed” here and there.

But it’s hard not to feel betrayed when you find out that some of the stories around which your entire childhood revolved were, for the most part, copied and pasted in with a cavalier attitude of, “the little bastards will never know the difference!”

We’re talking about…

#6 –   The X-Men

Mutated freaks gathered by their wheelchair bound mentor in order to protect a world that fears and hates them. You think we are talking about the X-Men? No we are not. Well, we will be in a second, and technically we are, but not in this paragraph, except for the parts where we do.

They are a Rip-Off of:

The Doom Patrol, which debuted in comics three months before everybody’s favorite, more marketable mutants.

Unlike the X-Men, the Doom Patrollers were once normal people who suffered an accident that disfigured them but also gave them superpowers. Shunned by the world for just being plain ugly, the freaks were gathered by Doctor Caulder, a paraplegic, who thought that maybe the world wouldn’t dislike them so much if they used their powers to save the normal people’s asses from giant robots once in a while.

If this sounds somewhat familiar to you, it’s because the same thing as X-Men with the only difference that the smart guy in the wheelchair was bald in one and X-Men uses mutants as an allegory for minorities instead of people with elephantiasis or whatever the heck Doom Patrol was going for.

Even the tag line is the same! At least make an effort, guys!

Possibly, the most unnecessary thing borrowed by X-Men was the name of the Doom Patrol’s enemies: The Brotherhood of Evil. In Doom Patrol the name made sense; because they were a group of evil assholes, which got together to do asshole things. There was never any confusion about what the group was about.

On the other hand Magneto stole the name, added the word mutant at the end of it and then whined endlessly about how humans persecuted and hated him. Maybe people hated you, Magneto, because your group’s name was The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and you went around the world trying to wipe out humanity?

How successful would the American Paraplegia Society be if they called themselves the Brotherhood of Child Molesting Guys on Wheelchairs? Magneto’s weak PR skills aren’t the only reason the original Brotherhood looks awesome by comparison …A brain in a case and an armed gorilla? How is Magneto more famous?

No, we’re not talking about the fact that The Lion King was Disney’s take on Hamlet (interestingly, Shakespeare originally intended to have his plays performed by animals but had to reconsider when his lions escaped and caused the London Massacre of 1600).

But Disney wasn’t happy to just rely on the bard, and massively ripped off an old Japanese cartoon just to wipe away any inadvertent hint of originality.

It is a Rip-Off of:

Kimba the White Lion.

Kimba, the small albino lion cub in the picture, is the creation of legendary Japanese cartoonist, Osamu Tezuka, creator of other famous characters like Astro Boy. And this is were you go “Kimba? But the Disney lion is called Simba. OH! Wait, they are lions and their names sound alike; that’s all?” Oh no, that’s not all, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Or should we say theftberg?

(Ed: Since you asked, no, you should not.)Even though Disney denies it, it has slipped more than once that The Lion King was initially a remake of Kimba, including this early sketch with Simba colored white that was included in one of the DVD versions:

Maybe the color blind won’t notice.

At some point Disney decided not to inform whoever holds the right for Kimba about this remake, recolored the lion cub and went to town. The Lion King also borrows scenes and characters like the shaman monkey, Simba’s bird friend and the evil comedy relief hyenas.

The main bad guy in Kimba was Kimba’s aunt, while Disney’s version gave her a sex change operation and she became Simba’s uncle. And some of the most famous scenes from the movie were practically Xeroxed from Kimba, including the one where Simba speaks with the ghost of his father who appeared in the clouds.

Read the rest here:

Sometimes it can appear that there are no girls on the internet or on any video games. But 38% of the gaming populace is female and we’d like to take a moment to talk about why Gaming Girls rock. But don’t worry, we’re up to the task of being complimentary while adding as much sexual innuendo as possible.

#7 They’re easy to approach

“Uh, hi, uh, nice, um, shit. Dammit, I mean shirt.”

With a guy you’ve never met, you can walk up, say “Sup, man” and become life long friends. Going up to a girl to talk for the first time can be a task more panic inducing than having the power go out 5 seconds before you were going to save.

But if you know a girl that plays on the same realm as you do then a simple “Hey have you made a Death Knight?” could just be the start to a good friendship that may eventually lead to some raiding.

#6 Their self esteem is high(er)

As we mentioned in another article, playing games can teach you how to deal with obnoxious people. Gamer Girls can take that skill and amp it up even more by being able to throw back taunts like “you just got beaten by a girl.” And anyone who’s beaten a game on expert knows the euphoria that follows the final cutscene and credits. Just be in the same room with a Gamer Girl as she wins and you might find that you’re a winner too. *

*We’re either talking about how you will learn how to beat the final boss from her or the fact that in her excited state she will have sex with you without even being drunk.

#5 You’ll know them better than some of their other friends

Three to four hours spent raiding or courting headshots can be fun but many times it can be tedious. In those long periods of nothing spectacular happening, people usually start talking about stuff. This is no different with girls, except that a group of guys will probably not be talking about their feelings.

If you do a lot of online play with a Gamer Girl you’ll soon start learning many things, some which can be helpful the next time you’re looking for a date and other things that you could probably do without.

In the end you’ll have accumulated a vast knowledge of the feminine mind. But despite that information you will still never be able to understand why they like the Jonas Brothers.

#4 They’re Tech Savvy

If you play games for a while there’s bound to be times when stuff just stops working for no reason. Gaming girls, just like guys, learn to search for fixes, updates and where the best spot to kick your console into working again is located.

And as many of us guys are clueless we can learn that if they ever call us to come over and fix something, despite them knowing more than we do, we might just stumble our way into a great one on one match to see who comes out on top.*

*In case that wasn’t obvious enough, we’re talking about sex AND gaming with this one.

#3 They Don’t Mind If You Play Video Games

It seems like the simplest thing, you like video games and thus you play video games. To another guy this will make sense. To a girl, this might sound like an addiction. “How can you not want to spend time with me your girlfriend/platonic friend” they might say.

It’s not that we don’t want to spend time, we actually like doing that. It just so happens that we are on level 45 of a side scroller that uses passwords to save and our last pen ran out of ink and pausing the game for one second could completely destroy our momentum.

Gamer Girls get this. They understand that there are some times when you just gotta play. Once it’s over you’ll be there, they know that. They might even watch you play and try to help you out which can sometimes be helpful and sometimes hurtful. They might break out the PSP or DS and play a game of their own while they wait for you to finish.

Regular girls might snap and pull the plug on your computer and quite possibly on the life support system you’ll need after a ten inch stiletto heel spikes you in the gut.

#2 They’re equally as attractive as non gaming girls

Looks aren’t everything, right? Right?

Gaming girls come in all shapes and sizes, unlike male gamers who tend to come in extremely skinny or really, really big boned. Gamer Girls can be cute, hot, sexy or average.

At least until the costumes go on.

It’s a Gamer Girl Sandwich

If you go to a gaming convention dressed as your favorite character, chances are that the suit has some “adjustments” to accomodate the difference between your online avatar and reality.

Gamer Girls however, can do a pretty damn good recreation of their avatar, right down to the bright red breastplate, done to scale and with the correct amount of encrusted diamonds and gold lining.

#1 They Understand you

Male and female brains are wired differently. Females are more likely to like the color pink and guys are more likely to laugh at someone getting hit in the crotch by a ball.* A common interest in video games allows the male and female brains to cross the gap into understanding each other better. Gamer Girls know the pain of a weapon being retooled into a piece of crap and the joy of finding an exploit before anyone else.

And other than serving in the military during war times, games can forge a bond of friendship that you might not share with any other woman. Going through a six hour raid and sacrificing health and loot to save one another is something that Brazilian underwear model will never understand.

They also know how to handle a joystick.

* Footballs are the most comical balls to be hit with. They’ve done studies on this.

Source: Gameist