#she's your protagonist

[sir-subpar]

Redesigning/Reimagining Hazbin's Characters-1 (Charlie)

I tried y'all, I really did, but I didn't have much to work with. Sorry about the cut off, the shoes did not go as planned.

So- How'd I do? Tell me your thoughts!

(I'll go in depth under the cut)

Okay, so, where to begin..

Well, first, I'll start by stating the obvious.

I don't like Charlie's design. If you like it, fair enough, but it's just not working for me.

There's thr usual problem of- you guessed it- Too. Much. Red.

Red eyes, red background, red details, red clothing, red cheeks, red Bang style, red under sleeves (even though the shirt is supposedly White when you look at the chest area, but then you see around her wrist and it's a dark red for no reason. I'm willing to bet that the animators just forgot which color goes where because the color palette is just red, pink, white, and black. Over and over again.

Next: I get that she's supposed to be bubbly, and happy-go-lucky, all that stuff. But to be honest, I feel like it would be more interesting if she actually wasn't that nice.

I feel like one thing that would be fascinating is the idea that she wants to help people, but she's out of touch. She's one of the most powerful things in Hell after all. She doesn't understand the point of the lower class People. Plus, she's never been out of hell, she doesn't know what Earth is like, or what heaven is like.

I feel like a version of her where she is trying to do good, but is ruthless or harsh in the way she does it, could both be entertaining- and provide character devolopement as she learns how nuanced proper care is.

Also, if she's the second / third most powerful thing in hell, she shouldn't be scared of Alastor. I don't mean that he can't be in the series or anything, I feel like there would still be plenty of uses for him. But with her being a high class royal, and as powerful as she is, she shouldn't need to rely on him for his power or his money for that matter.

I understand the idea that maybe Lucifer Cut Her Off from funding because he basically disowned her or whatever, so maybe funding could be an issue, but even so, she should not be afraid of Alastor.

I like the idea that she intimidated people into going into her hotel so she could "fix" them, not realizing that the fear of her wrath is the only thing keeping people there.

Or maybe the whole hotel thing could be an act of defiance against her father fitting, as "history repeats itself" (referencing Lucifer's defiance of God in biblical lore)

Perhaps she does good things, but isn't all that nice to begin with. But she attempts to be friendly and relatable without understanding how to ACTUALLY relate to or approach others.

How does all of this tie into my design of her?

A few things:

1. Viv said at some point that Charlie was meant to look like a porcelain doll, which... She doesn't look like at all. (I do like her new ponytail. But other than that I don't like the design.)

To me, she just looks like Ellen DeGeneres with long hair and clown makeup.

Don't believe me? Look:

So, I made her more doll-like. But it wasn't enough. It was too simple.

Then, it hit me: in a lot of movies with demons or ghosts, oftentimes a doll gets possessed by said demon/ghost.

I'm not even afraid of dolls personally, but I know a lot of people who are

So What if, Charlie did the same? Maybe her true form is something really scary, so in an attempt to come across as more approachable, she has some sort of doll-like shell? (But, unbeknownst to her, most people are very afraid of dolls. So it does very little to actually help. I think that's some decent comedy potential.

Plus, imagine her having stiff or janky movements, like she doesn't actually fit that well in her body.

It's all appearances

2. The horns.

I actually kind of liked her weird demonic form, at least I liked the horns and the moving hair, but since I decided not to give her a crown, I gave her those weird 4 horns with decorative string tied between them, as a way to make it appear *similar* to a crown. Plus as a reference to the whole 'demonic' thing

I kind of used Sofia from "Harmony and Horror" as a reference. (Btw, great analogue horror series on YouTube, highly recommend it)

3. I did make Charlie's hair a bit darker, but just a little. That was in reference to part of Lucifer's lore, which said that when he fell from heaven, not only did his feathery angel wings burn away into bat wings, but his once golden hair burned into a dark red. So I decided that for Charlie, her hair is darker, but since she's trying to do good, it turns lighter.

But yeah, I'm honestly not sure about her outfit, I'm probably going to experiment with that in the future. But overall I'm okay with how this turned out.

It took me a few times, as you can see here:

[chloesimaginationthings]

The death of Vanessa and the birth of Vanny in FNAF

(Inspired by this art by Yuto Sano)

[kristybluebird]

Broke: Smash the world's shell.

Woke: Burn through the VHS tape; Escape the narrative!

[seriousbrat]

actually Lily is the main character of the marauders era

[cametotheshowinsd]

THE ROARING TWENTIES (1929) | Written + Directed by Taylor Swift *ALL-TALKING PICTURE* Flapper Clara falls in love. With a Princeton sophomore. Every night they spend together feels like a dream. All the social occasions, the scent of wine she tasted on his lips, dance floor reflecting broken mirrorball lights, tossing pennies in the pool, sneaking in campus, night walks around the Nassau Hall, joking about school dorms, long dinner that seems never end and sophisticated conversations. His innocence and passion. Her wide-eyed gazes. Breathes that felt too close in the dark. Finally, one day, the kid went down on his knees and pulled that damned rock out of his pocket. Will Clara say "yes"?

[ganondoodle]

okay, bc i have seen this argument alot now (and it also seems to be the view point of aonuma himself..) is that "zelda cant do everything link does bc whats the point then"

and i take personal offense on that bc its a stupid argument (in. my. very. personal. opinion.- not judging people for liking it. its a ME thing)

whats the point? its that its her. its still a different character, different in story, background, personality, but i WANT to play zelda and she can do everything link does, why does she have to be so restricted and be bend over backwards to find some new way to make her 'useful' when link gets to do basically everything no questions asked (the only thing thats hers is like .. sealing power and sacrificial maiden, which i find a little underwhelming to say the least), if theres no point to it why are there always modders that model swap link with someone else, and in that case it has even less impact bc its an artificial model swap with no changes to the story (which can and should still be different when its the vanilla game with a different protagonist... its still a different character), clearly theres joy in just the model being a different one- and that isnt even to mention the story possibilities, since, again, its stil a different character

if we ever (never ... i know who we are talking about here) get to play as ganondorf i want to him to be just as versatile and active as link is, if we got a point and click adventure game for him instead bc 'whats the point' id be disappointed too- you can find any sort of excuse/explanation for zelda to be singled out but the fact remains it tracks with how female characters are often treated, and that hits a very sore spot for me

i guess i am unfortunately one of those annoying people that want to see female characters be treated exactly the same as male characters, possibly bc i am myself afab but identify as agender and have a deeply personal dislike for anything 'traditional' feminine bc i cannot and never will be able to truly live as myself in real life, it influences all of my work, my work is as just as much as my opinion on this, very personal

and in line with my point about modding, i see theres joy in just beign able to play as her even if its like this, i get that, i also get it for the creative aspect (though that mechanic worries me even more for the future bc it really seems to be the path now that -freedom = good, linear anything = bad-) it is a different idea and its not like i cant see that value- im not trying be "right" either, just bc i have that opinion doesnt mean i need everyone to agree, its a very personal thing, if you like it good for you! not for me though, and i think both of that is equally valid

i just personally wish she was allowed to be just like link, fight just like him but be different bc its still her and not him in the end- to be physically/playstyle like jsut like him, but you know ... as her, i dont think shed stop being zelda if she could wield a sword just like him

i dont really know how to get my point/feelings across, i dont want to step too much into personal stuff nor spam people with something that ultimately doesnt interest me alot, im just saddened by it really

(EDIT: bc i forgot to add this on here again; this isnt as much of a problem as it might sound like here, just the main topic i wanted to talk about; why im so uninterested in it is MAINLY bc i dont trust them to write anything interesting/care about lore anymore after totk, im always on the more pessimistic side that thinks its most likely worse than id hope and i know even the past games arent perfect or super interestingly written, but now its much more just a general distrust, together with everything like the price ... im just much less hopeful and cant get excited until i see more of it, like im waiting for the game to get out and reveal that its just as much of a mess and money i regret spending- kind of fear)

[seawitchkaraoke]

The thing is if your story is about teenage protagonists and antagonists you really can't go too deep into the "omg they are children why are they responsible for this??" "Omg they are children why are they getting blamed for [evil thing they did]" bc if you do that to much, your entire world is gonna unravel

You really only have a few options. You can

a) kill all the adults, tell a post apocalyptic story, very effective

b) ignore the fact that the adults should really be taking care of this, trust the audience to suspend disbelief or

c) have all the adults canonically be assholes

So... Why is Kipperlily fully seen as making her own choices and being responsible for choosing the ragestar and killing her party despite being 17 and probably influenced by the adults around her?

Bc well, if you excuse everything she's done, you'll have to do that with every future teenage villain in this world too. And you'll have to do the same with the bad kids! They're just children, Kristen shouldn't be held responsible for Cassandra getting corrupted again she's a child! Fabian shouldn't be responsible for all those pirates in leviathan getting killed he's a kid they shouldn't have listened to him!

And like. On a meta level saying all that is all good and fine, we can go well the adults are all assholes if we want but you can't pull that into the story if you want to still have any adult characters believably be good guys.

Doesn't mean this was the only way to handle Kipperlily but I do think any redemption would have needed more time and investment from the bad kids which, bc they are also teenagers and they never saw any reason to be sympathetic towards her, isn't there

Doesn't mean Kipperlily can't ever be redeemed but just "well she's just a kid" isn't enough to do it believably and well and an epilogue isn't enough time to do it in. If they'd brought her back she'd have either gotten a waaayy too speedrun not very believable redemption arc and/or the bad kids would have looked really naive

Let her be in hell, she'll probably rule the place in no time, she'll be happy there

[guujikaroko]

So, that dream sequence after the first "fight" with Sunday. Robin managed to awaken from it on her own because she saw her brother unwilling to cage the bird in that childhood memory, something that she could never fool herself into believing it happened.

Leaving the sheer sadness of it aside, I wonder about the Trailblazer's dream. They couldn't wake up until they realized the contradiction with Misha, so up until then, they could believe everything that happened in that dream or, at the very least, they wanted to believe it.

And this is really interesting to me, because that means everyone in that dream is how Stelle sees them. The ones that caught my attention the most were Jing Yuan and Dan Heng: Stelle sees Jing Yuan as a good-natured, fun man that humors her jokes and Dan Heng as her soft, kind friend.

And dunno, but that kind of fucked me up in an unexpected way! What do you mean she looks at these two men burdened by tragedy and shackled by their pasts and sees beyond the tragedy? What do you mean Stelle has such unabashedly good versions of Jing Yuan and Dan Heng in mind? I think they'd need a second to process this if they ever saw Stelle's dream sequence because I sure as hell did!

[salty-an-disco]

“You OK in there? You sound a bit… off.”

“What did you expect me to sound like? It’s not like you heard me before to make this kind of comparison.”

Yes, it is rather assumptious of you to think she sounds off just because it isn’t what you expected to hear.

Voice of the Hero: You also said she could’ve ‘put more emotions’ in her line.

You walk down to the bottom of the stairs.

The room below is a cluttered mess. Cardboard boxes piled about, used print peeking out of them, or simply littering the floor and other surfaces. Large rolled up diagrams leaned against the worn walls. The smell of ink is almost suffocating.

At the center of the room, surrounded by this clutter, is the princess. There’s a heavy chain around her wrist.

Voice of the Hero: Woah. She’s so pretty. Even surrounded by all this mess. Are we sure she can end the world?

What, you think beauty is inherently opposite to evil doings? Have you never heard the phrase, ‘don’t judge a book by its cover,’ knightly figure?

“And… here you are. Are you here to free me? I’m not sure what else you’d come here for.”

Now this is momentous occasion. Your first face-to-face meeting with the Princess. She decided to go for the half-hearted, but still curious, and maybe even hopeful approach, but you don’t have to follow her lead. This is the time to establish your character.

Voice of the Hero: No need to feel pressured, just go with what feels right.

[dw-flagler]

In this post, I will attempt to calmly, reasonably, and in-a-good-faith-manner argue all the points raised by tumblr user @library-bat-girl in the following posts. I am starting a new thread so as not to further destroy the original poster, @skitterenjoyer's, tumblr notifications. Worm (+MHA) spoilers ahead. This will be a long post.

Firstly, I would like to apologize on the worm fandom's behalf. We will not engage in ableism of any kind. I sincerely hope that this was a singular incident and @skittersdrippygirlcock will be better about this in the future.

"MHA has better characters,"

My Hero Academia's primary achievement, I think, is managing to make many decently well rounded characters in a fairly short time-span. It certainly has very good visual character design, with easily memorable character designs, like Mina Ashido or Tsuyu Asui. Most of Class 1A is shown to be more than single-note gimmick characters. For a story with such a tight schedule, and only so much page real-estate, that's impressive! For instance, a character decidedly outside of the main cast, Fumikage Tokoyami, is shown to have more to his personality than "is an edgelord," showing a humility and friendliness that is highly against-type. This is very different than a lot of its peers, especially in Shonen manga, where side characters (and sometimes even main characters) are never more than their tropes (see Fairy Tale, One Punch Man*, The Seven Deadly Sins, or Black Clover). My Hero Academia does clear that bar, by making side characters little more than their tropes. This is to say nothing of the primary cast, who, again, is largely defined by tropes and easily slotted into standardized interchangeable Shonen roles. Rival, Love Interest, Rival but Nice About It. Additionally, MHA has an uncomfortably sexualized main cast, for one composed primarily of minors.

This is compared to Worm, in which many characters are fully realized and could have been the protagonist (and often were in older drafts of the story, due to Worm's 10-year development hell). Every character that gets an interlude, and most that don't, all have fully realized interiority, traumas, and wants. In fact, this is one of the major themes of Worm. Every character, from the protagonist Taylor, to characters so minor they're seen only once (see Damsel of Distress, Dauntless), to major antagonists and monsters (see Jack Slash, Bonesaw) all have their own story, even if this is never shown on-screen. There are no "side characters" in the same manner as in My Hero Academia, because every character is a protagonist of their own story, and not in a trite "life is so beautiful" way.

Taylor isn't the center of the universe, there's an entire world outside of her 3-block bubble. The mechanism by which all characters get their superpowers means that the mere fact of having powers implies this about them. Even the seeming exceptions, aren't (see Alexandria, Garotte). Taylor is a good character. I don't even know how to elaborate on that. She just is. Worm does not have the character Minoru Mineta.

"a better plot,"

What... what is the plot of My Hero Academia? For the life of me, I can't seem to recall. I can tell you the general formula of most of the arcs for the first ~2/3rds of the story. Class 1A goes to do a hero high school thing, like do rescue training, or on-the-job training, or on-the-job-training, or on-the-job-training (they do it like 4 times for some reason), the League Of Villains shows up (even when it's seemingly not the league of villains it actually is the league of villains) they fight about it, the class beats all the villains, and Deku beats up strongest bad guy and also breaks his bones. Repeat step 1. But like. What's... the plot? The League of Villains is evil and wants to kill people and do bad stuff. They explicitly do not have greater motivations. There's generally themes of passing-on-to-the-new-generation, so there's Tomura Shigaraki as the arch nemesis to Izuku Midoriya, just as All Might's Nemesis is All For One. Eventually they fight a big fight about it and I stop reading because I find out about Worm. From what I understand (I have not read the conclusion) the series ends without addressing any long-running questions, wrapping up any character arcs, or concluding anything in a narratively satisfying manner. As if severely rushed.

Worm, there are maybe 15 main stories going on simultaneously, which are all tied into the final confrontation with Scion. The most obvious is Taylor's and the Undersiders' story, about taking over Brockton Bay and defeating Coil, which is a smaller part of Coil's story about taking over the bay, until their confrontation with him in arc 17, when it supersedes Coil's story, and then intersects with Cauldron's story, the Traveler's story, the Case 53s' stories, the Wards' story, all of it, in arcs 18-19. This is one example. A great deal of attention is spent making sure the reader knows that Taylor, the Undersiders, Coil, all of them, are bit players in a very large game. Despite this, it's never hard to follow, because Wildbow, while lacking some of the more flowery prose, manages extremely well at making his stories easy to understand.

"I feel like even people who like Worm can agree that Worm is not the most consistent piece of fiction ever written. The disjointed way it was written meant that emphasis was primarily put on 'What Wildbow thought was cool in the moment', [sic] and the story RADICALLY shifts gears every time a new arc starts."

What? Huh? Worm is extremely consistent. Like. 1.1 to E.x. It's, like. Not disjointed? Oh my god, are you talking about interludes? Is that what you mean? The interludes shift gears? Because that makes sense. It's one of the hardest things about worm, yeah. It's gripping! The interludes are a great idea to expand the world of worm, but the problem is that taylor's story is so intriguing that stepping away from it to focus on something else is hard, no matter how individually interesting. I want to read about taylor's escalation spiral, not the travelers! (As opposed to My Hero Academia having random escalation and de-escalation between arcs with no real explanation. We're reading about lives-on-the-line battles with child-slavers and then move to playing on a playground with little kids? Best I can think of is that this whiplash is intentional, but this is never communicated to the reader. Worm does not do this. Any de-escalation is met with the explicit understanding that this is merely a period of calm before things get even worse). Taylor's story wraps up in an extremely narratively satisfying fashion, following her story to its logical conclusion. There were so many ways it could have been avoided, but there was really only one way that it could have ended.

"better worldbuilding,"

This actually offends me. MHA could have had great world-building. It doesn't. Every potentially interesting bit of world-building is backpedaled out of or stopped before it could get anywhere. Or it's just never elaborated or expanded upon. Everyone having a superpower could have been cool, but the implications of this are nonexistent. The reasons for this having no real implications, that being the banning of quirks, also has implications that are also immediately backpedaled out of. It's been hundreds of years since our time, yet life is exactly the same. Nothing ever happens. Endeavor is a cool concept. I like Endeavor. his existence implies such interesting things about the world, how important hero ranking is to these people's lives, that he would create this horrific system of domestic abuse to try and get to the #1 spot. What does this say about this system of heroes that operates like a popularity contest? It could have said a lot. It says nothing. What does the League of Villains, a league of people who call themselves out-and-out villains, who base their ideology in opposing this system of heroes, say about society? Nothing. On purpose. Worm does something with this. One Punch Man does something with this. My Hero Academia puts it in the story, and lets it sit, unused, for a decade.

Worm has... unique world-building. Because it's both good and bad at the same time. Worm's #1 feature is its world. It's brilliant, full stop. Triggers, The Birdcage, the PRT, Exclusion Zones! Why does the status quo exist? what does it say about that society? What does it say about our society? Why hasn't society radically changed from how it is in our world? This is explained. This plays into the themes. The story wants to say something about this world, and so it does. There are characters whose stories explicitly delve into these themes that are set up in the worldbuilding, like Armsmaster, or Battery, or Bonesaw, or Coil, or Piggot or Alexandria or Taylor herself or Brian or Lisa or ANY OF THEM THEY ALL DO THIS. Sorry.

Anyway, the bad part is that the actual world is not well built (and is kind of racist). What's going on in Europe? There's a 3 blasphemies! a 3 what? never explained. What's going on in Asia, aside from Japan? China is a monarchy for some reason. Why? It's never elaborated on. India gets a little bit of elaboration, we're told its different but not how it's different. Wildbow uses machine translation wrong and names some guy caliph of dogs. This is like worm's #2 problem honestly (#1 is Amy). Wildbow tries to make the implication of a well thought out globe without actually making a well thought out globe.

"stronger themes,"

It really doesn't. As I said in the worldbuilding section, MHA makes a point out of not saying or doing anything. I don't know if editors made Horikoshi walk back the more ambitious story beats or what, but there are multiple points in the story where the author pretty much looks you directly in the eye and goes "This Story Isn't Saying Anything At All Even Though It Looked Like It Would. Lmao."

Worm has lots of themes. I think Armsmaster/Defiant's story is my favorite. His entire character arc (which is fully realized despite him being a background character for nearly the entire story) has a point to it. It says something. It's misanthropic and uplifting simultaneously, and manages to feel like it earns both. It's a shared theme with Bonesaw/Riley's story, explored in two different ways.

"Meanwhile MHA establishes an actual overall theme/message right from the start that expands and develops throughout the story. The worldbuilding is informed by the message, which informs the characters arcs and the people they become by the end of the story."

I notice that you never actually say what that message is. What is it? Like, for real. I'm not being confrontational or anything, like what is the message? Cuz' I can't think of one. My Hero Academia, at its very core, is a defense of the status quo. Much like its world-building, but much less forgivable, because it does do something new and unique with its world-building. MHA could have done some extremely interesting stuff with its early implicit critique of heroic society as shown with characters like Bakugo, or Shigaraki, or Endeavor, or Overhaul, or Midoriya himself! It just doesn't! It doesn't do stuff that Worm does do!

Worm does have a message. It has a lot of messages, actually, some that the author disagrees with somehow. Prison abolition, for one. We know Wildbow loves prison. Anyway, the big one is in the subtitle: doing the wrong things for the right reasons. Taylor's constant spiral of escalation, her dwindling attachments to her friends and greater focus on treating herself like a soldier is prevalent, and it is to be avoided. Taylor isn't a sin-eater. They don't exist. From what I remember, this is sort of explored in Deku's character arc for a short period of time, but much like everything else in MHA, it is backpedaled out of.

The funniest is "don't text and drive" though.

"Just on a basic level the way that the audience is meant to feel about Taylor oscillates wildly between being directed to think of her as a misunderstood victim of circumstance, or history's greatest monster."

That's kind of the point. Like. the audience isn't meant to look at Taylor the same way throughout the entire story. It's meant to change as she changes. Taylor's opinion of Taylor changes. The mistake here is saying it "oscillates wildly." it doesn't. It's a slow and steady change for the worse, as Taylor gets more violent and starts throwing away greater and greater parts of herself to become more like a robot and less like a person.

"But a bigger issue in general is tone. It's very focused on being dark and gritty and edgy, and it makes the mistake a lot of consciously edgy media does. IE: it thinks that all it has to do to be smart is be bleak and/or graphic. It doesn't really try to say anything, in fact it contradicts itself throughout the book as I mentioned before, it just throws in extremely graphic scenes and content periodically to remind the audience how fucked everything is."

Did you read the boys and think it was worm? What? It's not being smart when it's bleak or graphic? I actually personally like the endbringers or the slaughterhouse 9, and not because I like watching people suffer. These things exist for a reason. It's not being dark for the sake of being dark. The heroes could stop the slaughterhouse 9. We see that, when they almost stop the slaughterhouse 9 (it's explicitly shown that they are stopped from destroying the slaughterhouse 9). The question then becomes why don't they? It's a grim, brutal calculus, and one that wasn't worth it. That's the point. The Endbringers are different. It's not until arc 27 that they're really explained. You could either read them as a criticism of Eidolon or of ableism, honestly. I mean, it wasn't intentional, he didn't create them on purpose, he needed something to fight, because without that he's nothing. His powers are all he has.

"Worm spends so much time trying to be edgy that as with a lot of edgy media the edginess loses all impact quite quickly and becomes sort of cringe."

I don't really think so, but like. Okay. I don't think this is a reconcilable viewpoint (none of this is really but this especially), so like we're probably gonna have to agree to disagree. The only thing I can really think of as edgy for the sake of edginess is Amy's arc. But even that's not really true. It's meant to be an utterly avoidable tragedy that could never have been stopped because of the people involved. Much like Taylor, actually. Amy could have stepped back from the brink, but she didn't, because Amy could never have done that, and nobody else was willing/able to help. It's supposed to be a thing where you sit back and think of all the tiny ways this could have easily been avoided, but wasn't.

"When body horror happens it still has impact because it's not happening constantly."

I mean, I guess. But like. I never got desensitized to the body horror in Worm. It hit pretty consistently for me throughout. As opposed to MHA, where it was usually walked back by the end of every arc. I never felt much tension or suspense because it felt as if there weren't actual consequences. In Worm, when Brian was strung up on his nerves, it felt disgusting because I was fully aware Worm would explore the ripple effects of this. It felt entirely possible he would die there, or never recover, because Worm didn't pull its punches. MHA did. This is a matter of opinion. We'll just have to agree to disagree about it.

"But most importantly - you root for the heroes because the world actually seems like it's worth saving."

that's just, um. sorry. I'm really trying here. That's just. Uh. Dumb. Do you root for Batman cause Gotham is a nice city? Everything's worth saving, that's, like, at its most basic what the concept of a superhero is about.

"Not only that but MHA simply does villain protagonists objectively better than Worm."

um. No? There straight up aren't villain protagonists in MHA. The villains are the POV characters for, like, one arc? You know what, here's a good spot for it. It's stated throughout the story that Shigaraki and the League of Villains have a goal, beyond just death and destruction. They're here to stop the corrupt society of heroes (that MHA hints at the existence of before backpedaling away from), and bring about a fairer society. But then, and this part pissed me off, one of the characters, I think Bakugo, says: "you're just using that as cover! you just want to kill people, you have no noble goal!" and shigaraki's like "dang you caught me." and then it happens again with Deku! Because My Hero Academia is allergic to saying something. Nope! They're villains! No moral depth here! They're Villains, We're Heroes, Go Put Them In Jail.

This is opposed to Worm, where- "The characters of the villains and their origins are used to highlight the flaws in the Superhuman society"

"Most of the villains are only villains because society failed them in some way, and the specific ways in which that happened become big plot points that then play into the future arc of our heroic characters."

I had to walk away from my computer for this one. It's hard to be civil. It's really hard. Polite and reasonable.

So Worm is about this. To even say this without a shred of irony makes me thing you've never once read a single word of Worm and are doing this purely as bait. Or you've read all of Worm and are doing this purely as bait.

"They're actually extremely complex in a way that ends up being fundamentally important to the overall story - where in Worm the villains are either based heroes fighting a corrupt system or they're histories [sic] greatest monsters... until they're presented as heroes again."

I think I get it now. I really think I do. You're not supposed to agree with all the characters. Like. Worm is inconsistent, in that it follows the perspectives of inconsistent people. Of course Triumph and Armsmaster don't agree on what is right! They're different people, they have different perspectives!

"See. Worm fans keep saying "This is Bait." It's not Bait, you all are simply ridiculous and obsessed with this series to such a degree that you feel compelled to say "This is Bait" instead of just... ignoring it, because you have no actual counterargument."

Perhaps worm fans are inclined to believe you posted rage bait because you brazenly walked into another fandom's post and wholeheartedly proclaimed that the thing they liked was Stupid Idiot Bullshit For Fucking Morons, and refused to elaborate until prompted, at which point you said several things that are demonstrably false about Worm.

"Your only response to anything I've said is pedantry, bigotry, and deflection. If it was obviously just bait why are you engaging?"

Well, I'm engaging because I've been in a foul mood since I woke up this morning. Also because you, again, said some very rude and patently false statements about a story that I really enjoy and find narratively rich, even in its faults.

"MHA's characters do fall into archetypal shounen character roles - but they are all given a solid amount of focus explaining why they are like that and developing them into something bigger."

Again, as I said, it's a genuinely impressive feat to have an ensemble cast like what My Hero Academia has, and give so many of the characters a degree of depth, with such little manga to work with. I think worm does it better, but worm doesn't have to be economical about it. MHA does. The problem I have with this statement is that it becomes a question of scale. How much bigger? They're no longer defined by their tropes, instead defined by their opposition to their tropes. It's still a one-note character, you've merely changed the note from C to C sharp.

"so almost every member of the cast has an arc that either develops them past the person they initially seemed to be or explains why they're like that."

This is probably my favorite part about MHA. They do have arcs! I love ensemble casts! it does a much better job in this than all of its contemporaries, even One Piece. However, they are comparatively simplistic arcs that all follow a similar formula.

"I've heard people say MHA is neocon or pro-establishment but the story literally concludes by showing that society HAS TO FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE or the same problems that created the villains in the first place will keep happening. The entire time skip specifically focuses on the fact that for eight years the main characters have been forcing change in the world and addressing the issues the villains brought up."

Now, I'm going to be clear. I stopped reading My Hero Academia around chapter 275. I don't know the exact number, but it was the latest chapter in ~mid 2020. I would occasionally attempt to reread, in an attempt to catch up, but give up around chapter 200 out of boredom. I don't know exactly how the story ends, but I have read ~2/3rds of the story. I feel this gives me a pretty good understanding of the general tone of the story, unless it wildly changes tone at the 3/4ths mark, which you have explicitly said it does not, as it is extremely coherent and consistent. Therefore, I believe I can state with some degree of confidence that MHA does not do that.

I would certainly believe that it tries (and fails) to SFP it, but SFP does not promote a fundamental societal change. That's the problem. Strong Female Protagonist was willing to come up and say that Alison lived in a fundamentally unjust world, even if it was never willing or able to offer real change. And hey. You do what you can. I sincerely doubt My Hero Academia is even willing to call its world fundamentally unjust, from the 200+ chapters that I did read.

"In the case of the actual main characters, they have extremely comprehensive character arcs."

Adding this behind the last point just so that I don't have to reiterate I haven't finished the book. I am, however, very much not inclined to believe the actual main characters had extremely comprehensive character arcs.

Which plays back into the initial theory that ANYONE CAN BE A HERO.

man, spider-man did that better (not a real argument, but like, spider-man totally did that better). Not least because midoriya specifically could not become a hero were it not for all might giving him a power.

No, the Villains don't get happy endings,

Why not? Why do they go to jail, even the ones who changed and wanted to redeem themselves? Endeavor never goes to jail. He did some horrible stuff. He's redeemed himself in the eyes of the story, right? Anyone can be a hero, right? So why not them? Why haven't they redeemed themselves in the eyes of the story?

You may wish to turn this back on me and ask why doesn't Armsmaster go to prison? Because he's similar in some respects. But worm never calls prison justice. (for some reason, even though wildbow totally loves prison). Prison is punitive, a tool for those in charge to control those it manages to capture. Maybe some deserve life in the birdcage. Many don't. It doesn't matter. Because the birdcage isn't a tool of justice. It's not meant to be. it's a box to put the uncontrollable capes in, until they can be used as meat shields. So Armsmaster doesn't go to prison because the story says explicitly there is no point to it. But MHA? MHA says there is a point to it. Endeavor needs to go to prison if he wants to atone. He's escaping justice every second he's outside.

I have actually read Worm, and for the first half to two thirds I loved it.

Weird. That's exactly how long I really enjoyed MHA. Not, like relevant, to anything. Just odd. I mean, I don't actually dislike MHA. I think it's fine, actually. It feels like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to me. Funny (when Mineta isn't around), bombastic, and a good time, even if I don't think it's super thematically rich.

I'm not coming at this from the perspective of someone who has never seen any of the merits of Worm, I'm coming at it from the perspective of someone who really liked it, gave it a fair shot, and was eventually disappointed when it ended up not tying together right.

See, this makes me more inclined to think it's bait, actually. since you said "Oh yeah. MHA is published. MHA's been an ongoing publication with a large following for ten years, in a notoriously competitive industry. Now this might seem kind of unimpressive, it's a very low bar to clear I know. But it's one Worm hasn't, so. I dunno, I'd say that's fairly objective. Now you may think "Yeah, but Trash fiction gets published all the time." And that's true but again - Worm hasn't. The worst piece of fiction you can think of got published and Worm didn't. You wanna be an asshole about this? The thing you love is so mid that it was self published in 2013, couldn't get picked up for professional publishing until 2019 and as far as I can see has stayed in development hell since then." in your previous post. Sure, perhaps we can say you were pissed at the time, but "the thing you love is worse than trash fiction, an altogether nothing piece of literature that isn't even worth the paper it would hypothetically be printed on" does not strike me as the words of someone who "really liked it, gave it a fair shot, and was eventually disappointed when it ended up not tying together right." In fact, going back through your other statements on the story, you seem to have genuinely disliked it from the very beginning, on grounds of being too edgy (which I can fully understand the logic of): "IE: it thinks that all it has to do to be smart is be bleak and/or graphic," thematically incoherent: "It doesn't really try to say anything, in fact it contradicts itself throughout the book as I mentioned before, it just throws in extremely graphic scenes and content periodically to remind the audience how fucked everything is," and utterly devoid of purpose or meaning. "When it does introduce new lore that new lore is almost always overly convoluted and acts as a catalyst for things happening, but not really things happening that play into a wider theme or message. It's just "Oh and here's this team of god-level serial killers who are gonna string a dude up by his nervous system." Like yeah, cool visual, but what is any of this actually saying?" This does not sound like a ringing endorsement of the first half of Worm to me. In fact, this sounds like you hated every second of it.

"And frankly given the number of comments that are just people saying "Bait" - I don't think any of y'all have engaged with this in a fair or honest way"

I'm going to reiterate on my previous statement. I like my hero academia. Capeshit is my favorite genre, it probably always will be. They're my favorite genre of story. While I find the themes—or lack thereof—extremely frustrating, I still think of it as fun. I gave it a fair shake. I would probably really enjoy the ending if I didn't have a reading list that was 300 books long.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

oh btw there's so much inconsistency with she-ra's height. she's supposed to be 8ft something but there are some frames where she's only slightly taller than catra or glimmer?? and both these characters are canonically pretty short.

like,, look at these frames.

catra looks pretty short here, she only reaches she-ra's shoulders.

but then there are frames like this

where it looks like she-ra is only like half a head taller than catra. it just makes no sense.

the whole "8ft warrior lady" sounds like a cool concept but then it seems like adora is around the same height as, or even shorter than shadow weaver and hordak. which immediately makes it less intimidating.

[sincerely-sofie]

Brainstorming a protagonist for the Dugtrio Day AU

Meet Echo, everybody!

[per1w1nkl3]

everytime I turn on my little star trek episode and kirk has that little slutty green wrap around uniform it is a joy to the eyes

[funishment-time]

my favorite part about Danganronpa is how Kodaka really strains to Justify certain relationships in the Dating Sim Modes. you choose a serial killing misanthropic war criminal who drinks milk straight from the carton and defends JK Rowling on Facebook (not Twitter, Facebook) and the protagonist is just like "ah.........but i trust him..................."

[eolewyn1010]

@bookshelfdreams tagged me to

make a poll with five of your all time favourite characters and then tag five people to do the same. see which character is everyone's favourite!

So... I shall try to limit myself to 5.

@str4wanzerin @chrisoels @mutantenfisch @cricrithings @bibastibootz if any of you feels like it?

[skoulsons]

“Joel was wrong it should be Ellie’s choice”

Yeah, it should be Ellie’s choice. Because she’s a child and this is everything her journey has been building up to. She should know all the risks that could come with and what it ACTUALLY (apparently, considering they did no scans or nothing???) takes to make a cure. She should be told everything. But if they kept her alive, she’d probably ask questions that the fireflies would not be willing (or able) to answer, hence keeping her under and not telling her. They were scared. They didn’t know what the hell they were doing

But think, for a second, that he’s the not the one who ‘took it away’ in the first place. The fireflies took Ellie and knocked Joel out. They did not tell her what this would entail. They got her under, somehow, and had no intention of waking her up again. They took away her choice and any agency she had WAY before Joel did. They were going to murder her in cold blood with NO certainties

Is what Joel did morally wrong? Yeah, I mean he killed a ton of people, that’s terrible no matter what way you slice it

But that is his child. I have little kids in my life that I love more than I can comprehend. You know what I’d do if their life was on the line like that? Whatever I had to to save their lives. You expect Joel to just sit there and say “yeah, go on ahead”??? Joel would not do that, not after what they’ve gone through and what they’ve become. He wouldn’t do it because he is a father. Because his child means more to him than some world that’s already twenty years deep into the infection. He loves her more than a world full of raiders, slavers, and cannibals that a cure couldn’t change the ways of

Marlene wouldn’t have compromised with him. He wouldn’t have compromised with Marlene unless they woke Ellie up and were able to run scans and things and Ellie agreed to let them do things that would NOT kill her. But that’s not how it went, so it came down to the extreme. Kill them all to save her. And really, you can’t blame him