#killer worms

[darktripz]

[basementofthebizarre]

Wriggling Terror: Uncovering the Cult Appeal of SQUIRM (1976)

The 1976 horror film Squirm, directed by Jeff Lieberman, serves up a spine-tingling tale of nature turning against humanity in a creepy, worm-infested nightmare. Set against the backdrop of a small Southern town, Squirm leans into environmental horror, exploring a “man vs. nature” theme with an inventive, if unsettling, focus on killer worms. Known for its practical effects and atmospheric…

[postanagramgenerator]

Ship of Theseus

ship of theseus

->

shit of peeshus

[if you liked this anagram consider donating to ola’s gofundme | #205 on the vetted gaza fundraiser spreadsheet!]

[artbyblastweave]

Do you know how Steven Universe was a show about a seemingly-prototypical Saturday-morning cartoon kid hero who, under the prototypical conditions of his genre, eventually internalized a deeply unhealthy model of himself as a problem solver and utilitarian object, valuable only in terms of his ability to live up to the expectations of his role? And you know how that show had an entire wind-down season about how the mindset that carried Steven through the first five conventional seasons left him totally adrift and unprepared for “civilian life,” how he’d been inadvertently left without the most basic skill set for existing as his own person independent of a larger heroic goal? Because there was just never time to squeeze it in? Well, if you take away the part where his guardians did that on accident instead of on purpose, as a deliberate lever of control, and if you let that kid age out of his cute, photogenic adolescence into an upper-middle-age to which the audience is much less reflexively sympathetic, and if you take away the part where anything was ever okay again for anyone ever, well. You're sort of getting within swinging distance of the lens through which I view Eidolon

[superdogbiter]

Put in the tags what animal you would ride and where you would go with them

[shotmrmiller]

ghost face is in hunt now and like-

[andaniellight]

"bitch i only looked away for ONE FUCKING SECOND-"

[naffeclipse]

Just realizing that the fact that there exists an “Angel Eyes” Eclipse implies the existence of either a more foreboding or comically innocent version of him called “Devil Eyes”

oh, Lumi, you just unleashed something devasting

As entertaining as a detective Eclipse would be, innocent and way in over his head when it comes to dealing with a mob boss Y/N who just so happens to find him devilishly handsome and too clever for his own good, I'm thinking of something worse than a mob boss.

As a young rookie cop, you are attempting to put out so many fires in the city. The crime rate is abysmal. The politicians are running on fumes and bribes. The police force is barely hanging on through constant corruption. Animatronics are still considered inhuman, unalive, objects to be owned and used, and disposed of. You're hoping that the laws declaring animatronic rights will pass soon.

Murders happen every single day in a city racked with gangs, crime lords, and thieves. You and a few other officers are tasked with dealing with a particular crime scene. It's not unusual for a politician to get assassinated, but there's something particularly brutal about the killing that sits in your stomach wrong—there was blood everywhere.

Then another important person gets knocked off, the carnage grisly and crimson, then another, and another. You can't shake how savage the murders are.

High-ranking officials start having you and other cops stand as bodyguards, taking them where they need to go, standing outside their meeting doors and on the street of their homes at night.

The killings keep happening. You learn of police officers who were standing watch were gutted, too. Slained just as well as the intended target.

You do your job, but you don't like it. You became a cop to help the city. This wasn't what you had in mind, much less babysitting powerful and possibly corrupted individuals that you despise.

That's how you confront him.

Late one evening, sitting in a squad car with a fellow policeman, you two keep each other awake with small talk until you hear the faintest scream. You both take off, and you take the back of the house. When you enter the gauche kitchen, there's a cook animatronic knocked to the ground. You stop to speak to the poor robot, her optics fuzzy until you offer a helping hand and get her back onto her wheels.

Before you can send her somewhere safe, a cold shudder rolls down your spine, as if someone were walking on your grave. You whirl around to find a towering figure at the far end of the room, dark and threatening. Black optics with pinpricks of electric yellow peer at you in judgment. The devilish eyes startle your soul.

You yell out commands to stop but the animatronic—you realize—doesn't head and disappears deeper into the house.

You give chase. You hear a gunshot upstairs and a shout from your partner. When you reach the second landing, you lift your gun to take aim, but a large fist clamp around your own. You fire once, hitting nothing. You're thrown against the wall, dangling by the wrists under the looming killer. Sharp rays, burgundy and royal blue, circle his face plate, splattered in bright blood.

It's too late. It's too late for the politician, it's too late for your partner, and it's too late for you.

He takes your gun and drops it far away. His staggering height gives no hope that you can fight him off, and already, he has you pinned. You simply hope that it will be quick, painless, but your heart sinks when he lifts a hand to your throat. His optics glint. You close your eyes.

A cold, slick finger tilts your chin up. He commands you to look at him, and you aversely obey. The optics scan your face. You wonder if he takes a sick pleasure from causing harm. You loathe that he most likely finds fear in your eyes but you are determined to not make a sound.

"Officer," he says in a cold, dark voice that spears your heart. He studies the badge on your chest, reading your last name etched in brass. You clench your fists, still suspended by his one large hand.

"Who are you?" you demand.

He doesn't answer. He cocks his head with a flash of sharp teeth in a metallic grin. When he drops you, you nearly crumple to the ground. You're aware of the blood underneath your chin where he had touched you. When you try to reach for your handcuffs, he's already down the stairs and out the door, fleeing the murders. Trembling, you fumble for your gun, but you find the clip gone.

The killer animatronic left you alive.

[darktripz]

[hipsternumbertwo]

Nightmare Time Future Episode: Hailey and the World Worm

[loadingbnha]

Toshinori: Would you love me if I was a worm? Chizome: If you were a worm I'd make you a terrarium with the most nutrient rich soil and the perfect amount of humidty, maintained constantly to your ideal tempature. Chizome: I would take you to plants in need of fertalization so you can be helpful, and then take you back home once the work is done and give you pieces of all your favorite foods so you can continue to live a long healthy and happy life while you do good. Chizome: I'd spend ever moment making sure your worm hearts can feel as much bliss as I feel from merely knowing you'd trust me with your worm self. Toshinori: O-oh

[elizakai]

Every time I draw or think about human Dust sans he has to be trans masc and I simply do not make the rules.

[triglycercule]

wahhh wahhh triglycercule post more NON jk fashion au related content i whisper as i post this. double post today because i genuinely love jk!dream and also if i dont post the dreamtale twins together i will actually die! you might consider her crazy way of somehow getting into trouble a form of bad luck but i see it as more of a being too pure for the world meeting a world that's not all that great. jk!dream lives up to her name she is a idyllic dream

valedictorian. practically a million extra curriculars. she can sing she can dance she can cook she can do advanced math she can fix a car jk!dream is everything jk!nightmare isn't (a loser). the types of trouble she gets into though aren't manmade (like some guy trying to rob her) but instead are naturally occurring. like one day the dreamtale household washing machine explodes because dream used it and coincidentally it was because it was faulty or something like that. really really crazy coincidences

nightmare is a fighting force in keeping her little sister alive i swear to god. she has to monitor dream a lot and when she can't she gets one of the mtt to do it for her. because if she doesn't there is bound to be something that hurts her. and because jk!nightmare is an absolute fucking loser who's stupid she came up with the genius idea of roleplaying a bigger issue than the one that dream's about to encounter (because then she gets to keep her safe and also feed into her pretend villian persona). like for example with the washing machine thing earlier nightmare would probably distract dream with some sort of evil monologue and then put her own load in the washer before she could. that way it won't FUCKING EXPLODE (comments from currently existing jk fashion au sanses :3)

"ah, my younger kin, dream. quite an enigma she is. on one hand, she's the epitome of perfection. even i can admit that, for she's loved by our school, family, and i. but of course, like all aside from i, she has her faults."

"for example, last week, our bloodline was strolling around the kingdom on the search for a new mirror of truth, as the one in our castle bathhouse had shattered. how did that happen? uh, i might've maybe... i shall maintain secrecy."

"returning to the point, dearest dream had almost lost herself in the shopping district, claiming she had seen a lost puppy in a mirror that she wanted to help. a chivalrous reason indeed, but my, dream can be quite... foolish sometimes. nevertheless, blood is thicker than water, and our bond has never been closer."

they still love eachother in this universe because there was no corruption thing. also nightmare's bullies were just other elementary school kids in this au so it wasn't like fully grown adults vs a 6 year old at least. she's recovered from it (somewhat) and doesn't blame dream. dream's too perfect for anybody to hate her. dream supports nightmare's delusion and nightmare keeps her alive. equivalent exchange (dream has no idea nm is doing this. ok now the mtt‼️

"oh. my. god. dream? like, dream dream? she's literally my idol, i love her so much! i'm the 7th member of her fanclub out of like, the entire school, which is like 300-ish students! she's cute, and pretty, and she gets this a lot, but her voice is literally like an angel's~ i've never heard what a hymn sounds like, but it probably sounds like dream's voice. and no matter how much i search up online, i can never find any dirt on her too! she's got a perfect online footprint! huh? why was i searching dream up? eh... haha... let's move on~"

"dream? she's really cool. there's a reason she's part of the star students at this school, along with swap and ink. nobody really knows what it takes for someone to become a "star student" though. none of the students know, none of the teachers either. apparently it's a title given to a student specifically from the principal? still, dream probably deserves it though. she's good enough to win a nobel prize. one day she's gonna cure cancer or something."

"oh, dream? that girl with the angel halo crown thing? yeah, i know her. she volunteers at the dog park i bring my dog to, the bakery i go to get snacks, the local art museum, the ice cream shop during summers, nightmare's gang, the... car dealership? wait, hold on. how many volunteer opportunities is this girl doing? is she not getting paid? that has to be illegal. or at least some form of monster rights violation..."

both of the jk!au dreamtale twins are soooo silly i love them. the more and more i elaborate on jk fashion au the more i realize that this is just turning into sans aus but anime tropes but its okay i like it its funny. jk fashion au was always meant to be silly and slice of life and fluffy anyways. anyways i love her i'm literally her number one fan. i mean i AM the principal of this school aftersll,,,,,, this really was our,,, jk fahsion au. says dream at the end of the au (there is no end because this au has no lore what am i talking about

[lightbulb-warning]

so has anyone figured out WHY there is the Need To Share our Artworks™ or is it just the vibes and our Soul apparently

[vamprisms]

durge on tumblr: im so sso so fuckiin sorr,,,y i. ddidn;t kno.,w they woul,d die iff i killed t.hemm it;ss ono.,t my fault i avhe woorms in myy br.ain eatinn mmy mmemories. i guesss i;;m a[ picee of ssit, please foorgi.,ve me ;

raphael in their replies: hi I'm looking for an honest sugar baby to spoil with a $3000 per week allowance private message me if you are interested in this

[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.