#How to make a wall of text

[magnapanther]

drew hallownest's crown in its prime, before any stray wyrms decided to move in and create some random kingdom :3

surely the moths who built this fine statue would never turn their backs upon the being it represents, causing it to be forgotten and grow spiteful, seeding death and sickness in the interest of revenge!!

...

ANYWAYS, i know it's not super complex, but i'm pretty happy with it. been trying to figure out how to draw rock/stone and clouds in a sketchier/looser style, so here's my attempt at that, if anyone has some tips/tricks for that it'd be super greatly appreciated!! :3

also felt like i'd been drawing a lot of super gloomy dark environments and was kinda stuck in a rut/art blocked, so i wanted to step outside my comfort zone :)

seriously though imagine some beautiful sunny day with multicoloured clouds and sunbeams shining down through the crystal peaks, refracting off crystals and stuff.... i'd love to see that in-game somehow dude

[izzystizzys]

Half the jobs Fox is sent on are not within his jurisdiction. This certainly isn’t.

Planetary protection unit, they said. Military police. Orbital security force.

And now Fox is being pointed at Count Dooku on some backwater planet and told to fetch. How the mighty have fallen.

He’s pretty sure Kenobi, Skywalker and their units could’ve karked this all up perfectly fine on their lonesome; they don’t need three Guardsmen there to watch them do it. But the Chancellor says jump and Fox surpressed the urge to bash his head in with a durasteel chair. So it goes.

Which is when things start going terribly, terribly wrong, of course.

“Is that Spinder?!”, Skywalker exclaims, arms wheeling out in the air wildly to try and catch his balance. “The Count fucks?!”

Across the room, Cody rips his helmet off, several shades redder than a baseline human should be. “The Count fucks my brother?!”

Two lightsticks hover uselessly in the air, Skywalker’s zig-zagging in a relentless hum with his gesturing. Fox stands stock-still, in the hope that maybe he’ll spontaneously turn invisible if he does. Around them, 501st and 212th troopers gape through helmets. Behind him, Nuisance gasps for air amidst screaming laughter.

Ping, went Fox’s comm unit, in that unmistakeable lascivious jingle sound. Ping, answered Count Dooku’s within a split second. Match found close by.

For a moment, Fox considers what it would be like to run at the Count’s lightsaber at full speed.

…not like that.

“Count”, Kenobi says, with a face like he’s bitten into a rotten fruit. Not that Fox knows what fruit tastes like. “This is a highly… unexpected development.” He fwoosh-es his lightsaber shut, obviously having given up on fighting. “I’d call it a conflict of interest, but I’m not sure that applies?”

“Oh, it’s gonna be a conflict of something, for sure”, Cody hisses, fists clenched at his sides. He looks about ready to boil over, with Crys and Waxer inching closer in preparation. “What have you done to my brother, you monster?!”

“I don’t think you want to know that, Commander”, Nuisance gasps out between barks of laughter, proving why he’s eternally Fox’s least favourite. Cody’s splotchy red complexion slowly fades into ghostly white as a sheen of horror settles over the room. “Thanks for the fancy chocolate bouquet last week, Count!”

Dooku, who has been thus far staring at the floor with an empty thousand-klick stare, looks up at that. Fox has seldom seen a man that defeated outside of the mirror, he has to admit - but shudders when he remembers exactly what the chocolates were for.

Oh Force, he’s sexted Count Dooku into buying him gifts. Does that make him a Seppie spy? Traitor by proxy?

“I feel”, says the Count, gravely, still holding his long red laserknife in a white-knuckled death-grip, “that I have been taken for a fool.”

“Uh”, says Fox, nervously. All eyes snap to him. Oh Force, oh Force, oh Force. They’re going to invent a whole new kind of decommissioning for this and name it after Fox.

“Is it really scamming if you actually get what you pay for?”, asks Grids, considering. Fox slowly pulls off his helmet just for the comforting feeling of burying his head in his gloved palms. The sounds of a struggle ensue, and Kenobi makes a choked-off noise. Maybe if he’s embarrassed enough he’ll give himself an aneurysm.

“Grandmaster, why are you paying people for naked pictures of themselves on the holonet?!” Kenobi asks, despairingly. “Aren’t you a little old for that?”

“Oi, no one said I was naked!”, Fox exclaims, head whipping up.

“So naked”, Nuisance laughs, palm thumping against the floor. He might be crying.

“I’m not decrepit”, the Count blusters, and Skywalker makes a gagging noise. “I have - there are needs, and they are perfectly natural!” It takes three troopers to restrain Cody from launching himself at the Count.

[untitled-tmnt-blog]

I absolutely HAD to draw something for @phoebepheebsphibs's DTIYS (based on this pose)! I decided to mix things up a bit by experimenting with a more limited color palette, which was a pretty fun challenge.

[darewolfcreates]

mmm... many thoughts...

[rawliverandgoronspice]

I think what particularly annoys me with the "zelda was always gameplay before story" is that... it's not true? At least I don't think it's true in the way people mean it.

Zelda games were always kind of integrating story based on the standards of the time. When game stories were in game pamphlets, Zelda's stories was in the pamphlets. ALTTP tried to tell a pretty complicated stories with the limitations of the time. OoT was actively trying to tell an epic, cinematic tale packed with ambiance and expand what 3D could offer that 2D games struggled with. Majora's Mask is deeply character-driven in many, many ways. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are both pretty concerned about their stories, down to the point that some people were bored by TP's cutscenes in particular. Skyward Sword, from what little I have played it, is very very invested in its characters and their journey (and 2D Zeldas have Link's Awakening, Minish Cap... None of them are visual novels, but they are concerned with emotional journeys, character arcs, mysteries about their own world...)

What is true is that the narrative wraps around the mechanics, and not the other way around. The mechanics drive themes, aesthetics, emotional beats and character journeys; and that's great. The world is a puzzle, and the world is delightfully absurd when it needs to be, full of heart when it calls for it, dark and oppressive when it suits the player experience.

That does not mean the games aren't invested in their stories. Even BotW has a pretty complicated story to tell about an entire world rather than one specific tale or legend --all of it at the service of the gameplay, which is exploration and mastery of your environment.

So. Yes, none of the Zelda games are million-words long visual novels that care deeply about consistency and nuance; but stories don't need consistency or deep lore to be meaningful and serve an emotional journey. Again: gameplay is story. The two cannot be so easily parsed from each other.

And Zelda as a franchise obviously care deeply about story, characters and setting (and still does right now --otherwise there wouldn't be a movie), even if it doesn't try to imitate prestige narrative-driven games, which is great and part of why I love this series so much. Doesn't mean it couldn't have done better in the past, it obviously could have, but I feel like pretending that nobody ever cared about story or character is just... false? It's a huge disservice to the devs too. Some of them obviously cared immensely.

The "gameplay above story", at least in the extent to which it is paraded today to defend TotK, mostly, is a really recent development. And I think it's one that deserves to receive some pushback.

[helluvabutt]

Wishful thinking that he'd open up enough to initiate a conversation and get help but I can dream.

Inspired by this tweet:

[glouris]

“they are very annoying and irritating” are you familiar with the concept of fun and being entertained by drama

[jackshiccup]

fishlegs’ display of unwavering loyalty to hiccup after everyone turned their backs on him has to be one of the most poignant moments in book 9 for me. the entire scene of him announcing ‘i do not turn. i do not turn… hiccup is still my king. slavemark or no slavemark.’ making sure he was heard by all the other tribes when he did and then bestowing his most prized posession to his best friend as a blessing for luck and as proof of his faith in him, putting the necklace around hiccup’s neck ‘so grandly that it was like he was a hero annointing his king’ because that’s essentially who they were in that moment… and then by the end when hiccup is forced to flee— crying for him and his fate but stubbornly holding on to hope, willing himself to be strong and wearing hiccup’s helmet instead of his own

[sleepygaymerdisease]

Does anyone else think about how Shinji said this twice...

The first time was somewhat innocent, because he didnt believe in the idea of fate. He refused the idea outright because it was just too bleak. He wanted to think that there was a way for everyone to live, so why believe in something like destiny or predetermination?

And yet... He likely said this out loud to comfort Tezuka, to motivate him, to keep him from giving into despair. Shinji does not believe in fate, but the person he is dragging out of the battle field does, and he wants Tezuka to borrow his own feelings of determination and passion for just a moment, so they can both live to see the next day.

But what Shinji doesnt understand is that Tezuka did this sacrifice precisely because of Shinji's passion. Shinji has nothing to offer to this man because Tezuka has already made the choice to purposely refuse the benefits of Shinji's savior complex. He make his choice the moment that he walked out the door of Atori, and purposely distanced himself so Shinji wouldn't try to die for someone else. Tezuka explains that he changed fate for Shinji to live. Tezuka explains that he took this man's place so that Shinji can fight in this war, so that Shinji can find an end to the violence. Tezuka wants him to continue where he would fail, where he would have blamed himself for the death of another friend and never gotten back up.

Shinji wishes there was another option, that he could have somehow seen this coming and stopped Tezuka and figured out a way to live too... But what can he really do? Tezuka's last words left such an impact on him, and while Shinji originally didn't believe in fate, he could not help but lean into the idea after Tezuka's death. He tends to weigh other people's ideas more than his own in his head, so when Tezuka dies because he followed his principles to the end like this... He just can't deny it as much as before. Denying that fate exists would be spitting on the face of his friend's choice, right?

So the idea sits with him. The idea that fate was already changed... He's not sure if he can believe it, but he can't not believe it, either. There had to have been another way that things have gone, right? That's what he wants to think, but he cannot deny the weight of Tezuka's ultimate choice. He has to learn to accept this, somehow, but it's hard for him, it's hard to remember which thoughts are his own and which thoughts are borrowed from his memories of Tezuka. Shinji slowly becomes burdened by the idea of fate. Believing in Tezuka's last hope is the only way for him to continue, it's the only way for him to cope.

And that's when the narrative throws a fucking curveball. This character, wrattled with grief, finally trying to move on from that horrible moment of senseless violence, is forcibly dragged backwards. Six months. Six entire months happening all over again right before his eyes. Shinji gets an impossible second chance to fix what never should have happened. He knows who is going to die and he has the time to prevent it. He can change it.

But he discovers that he cannot change himself. He watches everything in horror as it happens all over again because he cannot break out of his own skin. He can't change his habits, he can't think different thoughts or change his actions, he can't seem to remember the details of that future that has not happened yet. His future self, and his future grief, is buried deep inside of him. He tries to claw his way out in any way he can, but he is trapped in the prison that is himself. He can only catch the smallest glimpses of clarity through the bars of his cell, and by then it is often too late.

When Shinji finally gets back here, to this moment, he must have repeated these words. He cannot change his thoughts, after all. So he says it and it means the same thing as before; he wants to comfort Tezuka and lend him his own determination and will to live. But there is now an additional meaning to it, isn't there? There is now a layer of despair. A part of Shinji is so, so desperate for things to change. A part of him knows that Tezuka diverted fate for his sake, and isn't that diversion a part of fate now too? Can't we change that too? Do not die when fate tells you to die. Don't do this, don't leave me again.

[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.

[dog-bonezzzz]

sometimes i feel like some of the hlvrai fandom needs to remember these are not corporate soulless characters owned by rich white guys made solely for profit. the science team (and the others) are a group of stranger's half life gmod improv roleplay characters. the cast members have shown they do check on the fandom from time to time these characters do belong to normal everyday people. be mindful

[todayisafridaynight]

whatever //blasts your old man with the butch beam//

[saintadeline]

Lately ive been feeling like im progressively becoming more and more completely unable to word my thoughts and sound coherent at all, my whole brain is foggy and it makes it hard to make sentences when i cant remember how i started them, and its even worse irl ive been stuttering a LOT and i'm starting to get really self conscious about it since i know people have trouble following what im saying and take me less seriously. Idk. So bear with me etc

[skrunksthatwunk]

aurghhh ok still rewatching '97 and the way guts and casca only have the room to breathe and really come to understand and care for each other in griffith's absence because he has such a strong hold over them both.... and the way their mutual dedication to him is what causes them to bicker for years (casca thinks he's not serving him well enough, guts thinks she doesn't get that he cares/how much he cares, casca's jealousy over griffith's feelings for guts, how he won his heart without even trying or being aware of it or doing anything with it) and is also a big part of what brings them together (earlier when guts deviates from the plan to save griffith and she commends him, in the cave casca opening up about griffith and her's past, showing that vulnerability, while it's mostly confrontational, leads to guts kinda getting her better, and his efforts to save and protect her (falling off the cliff with her, taking on the 100 men so she can escape, encouraging her to return to griffith so she can help him because it's what she feels she's meant to do (her dream, the direction in life guts shares and yet is questioning because of griffith's speech at the fountain, whether or not it's enough to serve him if it means he'll never be a true friend in griffith's eyes because he's not an equal), supporting the idea of her being with griffith/being his most important person like he won't because he doesn't view it as a competition like she has been since day one) leading to her realizing that he's kind of not that bad a guy and they have a lot more in common that she thought. and how the bonfire of dreams conversation is guts opening up to her in kind, the answer to her talking about how griffith saved her, how she feels. how neither of them ever call it love but it's something they know they both have for griffith. how it's something they're beginning to have for each other, different in ways they couldn't put a word to. because they're equals this time. the way griffith kind of becomes less and less important as they find other reasons to live and fight, as they become less singularly obsessed with him. how griffith is unable to stand it, guts' personhood, that agency and peer-to-peer equality he claimed to want (and perhaps truly did) that disappeared guts from his life, his plans, his side. how it barely even matters to griffith how casca changes because he never wanted her like she wanted him. god i can't fucking stand their shakespearean nonsense drama (<- hopelessly in love with their interpersonal dynamics)

[unimaginativebepisenjoyer99]

the satrinyavas