#oh god I'm just joking

[ghost-proofbaby]

can y'all please come into my humble abode and imagine something with me i don't yet have the wits to write a full fledged fic out of (yet)?

so, everyone knows how when you get a tattoo, part of the healing process is the itchy phase, right? and for obvious reasons, you can't scratch it. favored method, in my experience and fellow tatted friends, is to just give it a good old slap.

perfect. so now, with this in mind, can you imagine having gotten a large hip/ass piece, and how mortifying it would be to smack your own ass to soothe that itch? and it's just plain painful. you want your new ink to heal properly - it's gorgeous and you put a lot of time, pain, and money into that damn thing - but it just sucks.

enter best friend eddie.

he loves your new ink. thinks it's fucking sick. nearly creamed his damn pants when he found out you were doing a hip/ass tatt (because how can he ask to see it without being weird? how can he react to that without being weird when he's spent the last several years with the world's most pathetic crush on you?) at first, it's fine. you show him the tattoo in a totally friendly, totally platonic way. he hypes you up, he calls you 'the most metal person he knows'. flourishes you with all the compliments and looks at you with starry eyes out of sheer awe at the way he's managed to snag a person into his life who is just so. damn. cool.

but the days pass by, that new ink begins to heal, and it fucking itches.

when you first proposition him, you're even more embarrassed than he is. stumbling over all your words, the request coming out contorted every wrong way. you don't want to make things weird, but is it really that weird for a friend to help a friend? it is really that weird to ask your best friend to smack your tattoo to help with that itch you can't even really properly reach?

it's just friends helping friends.

and that's the mantra you both repeat to yourselves - as you request the embarrassing favor of him, as he agrees almost too eagerly, as you find yourself face-planted in your bed wondering how deeply you can bury down your shame as he tries to make jokes to make it all a bit less awkward.

it's just friends helping friends, until eddie's hand lands down on your ass with a resounding smack, and that first little whimper escapes your lips.

[nebuladreamz]

A little different than last year's, but here we are again. To say that this past year hasn't been absolutely wild would be a lie, cause HOLY SHIT MAN

This year's birthday is. A little different for me, but you already have the silly comic to show that so I won't make like a broken record oops

But, despite the changes and hills that life's decided I should climb or throw at, it hasn't changed the fact that I'm so genuinely fucking thankful to the people that I've known since joining this fandom. I'm not even kidding when I say that being here has actually changed my life for the better. I know I said something similar last year, but this time, hoo boy it sure turned up the AMP and test how far I could go.

So, to everyone, both new and old; thank you for being here :D

@garbagechocolate @darkxsoulzyx @smoljeanius @bunmuffin @skizabaa

@tuzesdays @sleepykas @fernzwing @kandidandi @starsketchez

@just-a-drawing-bean @notdysfunk @ilsole @amberluvsbugs @cloudyvoid

@nomsthecat @alfinefalf @nosleepygay @theblog-with-thestuff

@cacaocheri

(Edit: ty kibbits for informing me of the. Fuck ass tagging system)

AND TAGGING OTHERS BECAUSE. POINTS. BONKS WITH HEAD. GETTING TO EITHER INTERACT OR TALK OR WHATEVER IS ALWAYS A DELIGHT

@ohno-the-sun @kibbits @ink-yy @saltyfryz @kaprisvn

@hierba-picante @sunny-sophies-garden @cookiiemancer @sneeblbop @justaduckarts

@pepethehumanz @crystalmagpie447 @woolysstuff @mocha-illustrates @duhsty1

@sanchensky @pillowspace @victarin @witherfide

[I DEFINITELY GOT SONAS WRONG AND THESE AREN'T ALL THE SILLY PEOPLE I KNOW BUT IM SITTING HERE AT 2:30 IN THE MORNING JUST KNOW YOU'RE THERE IN SPIRIT HANDING YOU ALL POPTARTS WAUGH]

[saltlog]

[starwrighter]

I am not a baby!! (yes you are)

(Ao3) (Masterpost) (Previous) (Next)

(Chapter 17 long ass chappy!!)

As expected, his plan worked! Dami managed to scare off the other Leviathan! The shallows were finally safe again! For the time being at least. Danny paced around his base, celebrating this victory with a thawed peeper. He pondered throwing one to Dami, but they still had yet to make any attempt of eating any fish. Plus, the leviathan might see his offering as an opportunity to chow down on him. They were temporary allies through a shared enemy, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a potential snack. 

Maybe he should be more concerned about the existence of a third species of leviathan. After all, the existence of three suggests there might be more. Scratch that there were more and that he was certain of. Dami was a graft of two species and Taser fish wasn’t the parent neither was the giant beta fish-looking guy from lurking near Lifepod three. . According to the scanners on his Lifepod, this was a planet mostly composed of water it’d make sense there’d be more nightmare death creatures swimming around in the depths of the ocean. He could easily avoid them if he tried hard enough. A quantum detonation, however, was a threat he couldn’t run from or throw hands with. At least not effectively that is. 

Danny looked down at his message log with a wince. He’d take more nightmare-death fish over the Aurora exploding any day of the week. At least he could fight the leviathans. How was he supposed to fight the genetic meltdown of a peeper blasted with the radioactive energy of a small power plant? It would be like Chernobyl all over again and he wouldn’t have the industrial equipment to clean up the fallout. 

The nuclear power generator was one of the blueprints stripped from his PDA by the crash, as were the disposal protocols that came with it. He had no way to fabricate anything but a primitive water filter. It wasn’t even one of the grayed-out blueprints like the battery charger; it just didn’t exist in his PDA. He wouldn’t be surprised if baby mode blocked the recipe out. It let him build a knife but it wouldn’t let him play with a nuclear reactor the PDA Truly was the most responsible piece of technology on this planet.

God speed Alterra…

Danny snickered, swiping through the screens of his PDA looking desperately for something he could do to help. Was there anything he could do? There wasn’t a blueprint for a radiation suit in his PDA but he was a Fenton! They got irradiated for breakfast. He could at least try, to fix things for both him and the survivors.

Taking out his sea glide Danny shot out his sea base like a speeding bullet. Time is limited and it was slipping through his fingers with every moment he wasted anxiously waiting for the perfect opportunity to help. There had to be at least one life pod that landed in near the Aurora someone who was either stuck in their pods or getting blasted by the bad vibes of the Aurora’s drive core.

Dami watched him intently from the edge of the shallows. Clicking teeth and a worried croon from the leviathan as Danny crept closer to where the crash site should be. He only swam a few feet before Dami bolted from his spot in the sand hands attempting to nudge him back to the shallows. 

With puffed-up cheeks, Danny nipped at the other darting around the leviathan's tail to further his journey. He couldn’t go back to the shallows. He wouldn’t sit there uselessly until things literally blew up in his face. Dami didn’t know how dangerous things could get. He didn’t know the catastrophic consequences this could have on his home.

The waters were murky sand yet to settle and debris scattered across the sand. Any plant life the biome had previously cultivated was crushed, uprooted, and torn apart by the impact. The wrecks in the crash site made the shallows look clean. Metal torn apart like playdough were scattered throughout clouded waters. Not a single place was clear of debris, a burning sensation in his palms the longer he swam.

A stabbing pain like a jackhammer to the skull hit him like a truck. Nausea broiled in his stomach, bile rising up his throat. Danny didn’t stop swimming not when the edges of his vision began to blur not when Dami desperately tried to push him back. Snapping teeth and swiping through the water in an attempt to intimidate him into turning back. Danny didn’t care, he… he had to do something, he had to try.

His PDA screamed, a glitching image that looked concerningly similar to what you’d find on one of the barrels in his parents' lab flashed on screen. It sounded painful, the tablet flashing like a strobe light and a shrieking noise filling his ears. Any words jumbled, thousands of audio cues playing over each other and meshing into of mess of trailed-off screams cut off when the screen went blank.

Fuck.

Shit… That wasn’t a good sign, was it? His pounding head made it hard to truly wrap his head around what just happened. If death would be permanent this time would anyone even know what happened to him? Every distress call he’d responded to every destroyed life pod he found… All of them were gone, reduced to nothing, only a splotch of red if they were lucky. If his PDA was broken how would his family know what happened to him?

Dami screeched, a noise so high-pitched it made his ears ring. The leviathan wrapped his entire body around Danny, his claw barring him from escaping. Panic swirled through his mind before a lower, spine-tingling roar broke through the sea. Peaking through the gaps in Dami’s claws, Danny’s heart jumped into his throat.

A leviathan with a sickly gray body circled them. Pitch black eyes that held something primal. There wasn’t the gleam of intelligence in its behavior, just gnashing teeth and snapping mandibles. Decorated with red, muscle so defined you’d think that was all that made up the creature’s body.

Maybe it was the headache amplifying the noise but the guttural sounds the creature constantly let out were like a nuclear bomb. His eyes stung all he could do was watch as Dami snapped his tail like a whip, slashing at their attacker. Yellow blood spilled into the water and Danny couldn’t tell if it was Dami’s. 

Saying their attacker was aggressive would be an understatement. Nothing seemed to deter the creature. Dami’s strikes only seemed to piss it off further. Every impact from Dami’s tail pulled a furious shriek from the predator. It circled them like a shark, it didn’t care that Dami was much larger it just wanted to eat.

Pointing his scanner through the gaps in Dami’s claws seconds felt like hours as the tool worked its magic. On swing from this worm on steroids and he was triple dead! The thing could swallow him whole with no room left for seconds!

At least it would be a cool death. “Danny Fenton, cause of death; Radiation poisoning and fish bites,” He’d be proud to have that written in his obituary. If anyone survived to collect and fix his PDA it’d be one hell of a conversation starter.

His skin burned like he’d pressed himself against the surface of the sun. His dive suit felt like molten lava and his air tank felt like it was filled with smoke. Dami thrashed slapping the steroid fish into the sand.

They couldn’t keep going. If both he and his PDA were being affected by the radiation then so was Dami. Their attacker wouldn’t hesitate to finish them off if the radiation didn’t melt their internal organs into a shapeless goop. They needed a route to the Aurora that wasn’t surrounded by a toxic death field. But when the death field originated from the Aurora there wasn’t much he could do. There was no safe path to the Aurora so long as he was without a radiation suit.

Danny slapped his palms against Dami’s almost transparent skin. His oxygen running thin, he tugged the leviathan’s fins until the other turned to him. Hopefully, as another sentient creature, he could understand the plea of “Let’s get the fuck out of here before we both die a slow excruciating death,” 

Thankfully, he understood. As Dami snapped his tail at the creature one last time grabbing Danny by his oxygen tank and boosting away from the crash zone. The two of them cut through the water easily gliding faster than his seaglide could at its base. 

Dami wasn’t as muscular as their attacker but he made up for it in size, speed, and intelligence. If they’d stayed to finish the fight Dami was the obvious choice to bet on. He would’ve won if he hadn’t been focused on guarding Danny from being eaten.

When they finally reached the shallows Danny could’ve kissed the sand. He’d never been so relieved to be in the kiddy pool of this planet's ocean. He felt like crying, he’d never abandon his beloved biome of coral tubes again!

Thwack!

A Peeper charged into him, hitting him in the cheek full force. Was this revenge for the fridge? Dami let out what he could only assume was the fish equivalent of a laugh, gently batting the little blue fish away. Danny didn’t have the energy to smack the leviathan for this offense nor did he have the strength to chase the Peeper who attacked him. Sleep never seemed so sweet before but he knew if he slept now he might not wake up to see the light of day again.

Danny watched the faint yellow sparkles trailing behind the fish as it rubbed itself against plants and rocks. More social than the normal peepers swimming around. If you could count tackling everything in sight as a social behavior. Danny scrunched his nose at the offensive fish rubbing the glitter-like substance off his face. If this was how Peepers tried to make friends he’d have to say it’s ineffective. 

Danny turned back to the leviathan, yellow blood oozing from long thin scratches running along his tail. He frowned, that was his fault, wasn’t it? Dami had tried to stop him, likely knowing what lurked near the crash and Danny blatantly ignored him. He’d been naive, thinking he knew better than the literal native who’d likely lived on this planet his entire life. A stupid thing to do even with the risk of an explosion. Especially with the risk of an explosion, a deeper part of his psyche nagged, pulling the bile halfway up his throat. 

What if someone had been with him? Someone had been with him! Dami wasn’t indestructible. What if that thing managed to kill them both? What if he’d gotten Dami killed just by leading them in there? Radiation poisoning was an all but painless death. Vomiting your internal organs in their liquidized form wasn’t a fate he wished on anyone let alone an ally.

The visible injuries on the leviathan seemed to be minor. If the nonchalant way the leviathan lifted Danny to the surface with a clawed hand told him anything. It was good to know they had a mutual understanding that air was a necessity for him. Accidentally being drowned by an ally wasn’t on his list of ideal deaths. Maybe if this were a horror movie he’d be more welcoming to the idea so he could haunt people more than he usually did. 

Danny tapped Dami’s forehead alerting the leviathan to his next movements into the kelp forests. Dami stayed where he was in the shallows, keeping a keen eye on Danny from afar. He swallowed the bile rising up his throat keeping up his routine of bribing the stalkers. They were like gator-shaped trolls. Demanding a toll of fish snacks before they’d ensure a safe passage through the shallows. Some of the bolder ones approached him with open mouths. He didn’t even have to chuck it at them! 

“Warning, leviathan class creature in the area,” He yanked out his PDA brushing his fingers against the screen. The tablet's light was dim but it was working. He could swipe through the tabs and see what the fuck the AI was talking about. It’s a little late for a warning about the leviathan at the crash site.

Danny swiped through the tabs of his PDA landing on the new data entry he’d risked his ass for. Apparently, the empty-eyed fuck they’d been assaulted by was a reaper leviathan. All muscle, tiny brain, and no sense of morality. Danny didn’t know what kind of morals his PDA expected from a fish like that. Lancer always told him not to judge a book by its cover but holy fuck, if Vlad stood next to one of those guys he might actually look decent.

The warning popped up again and Danny’s anxiety spiked. Did a reaper follow them? Was it the Leviathan he’d seen back at life pod three? If it was the stalkers might get to him before he could get close enough to strike him.  He pulled out his blade glancing around the kelp forest. His eyes landed on a glimpse of blue poking out from behind an arch of stone. 

…

It was talking about Dami, wasn’t it? 

Dami was following him, hiding it quite poorly. It was honestly, embarrassing he hadn’t noticed it sooner. The leviathan was out of his depth, any camouflage the other could have possibly had was squandered by his size. It was probably his size that intimidated everything into not acknowledging him.

Danny ignored the leviathan, mostly to spare the other’s ego. Danny was like a needle in a haystack while Dami was like an elephant in the chicken coop and if this were a game of hide and seek Danny would’ve demolished him by now. 

Using his blade to cut off pieces of creep vine Danny pressed the kelp together, stashing as much as possible into his bag. The fiber mesh he’d make from this would make decent bandages if he couldn’t make the blankets he wanted.

Would bandages even work on Dami? Tying gauze around the leviathan's tail just seemed restrictive. The language barrier would ensure Dami wouldn’t understand he was trying to help. Dami would just see it as Danny mistakeingly assuming he could finish the Leviathan off after a risky encounter with a reaper. He winced, getting slapped to death by an ally would be such a lame way to die. 

There had to be some other way to ensure Dami didn’t die of sepsis or whatever other infections a giant fish teenager could contract. Who was equipped to deal with this kind of thing? A vet or a marine biologist because Danny lacked the qualifications for both professions. He was two for two when it came to dying, any medical advice he could give was just a health hazard. 

Danny swam back to the shallows, Dami clumsily following him. He wasn’t bleeding anymore and Danny could vaguely make out yellow scabs clotting over his injuries. Only time would tell if that was a good sign or not. If there was anything wrong with Dami he’d find a way to fix it. It was his moral obligation to do so. 

Dami protected them from a reaper and the oversized eel! While he’s pretty sure Dami knew electric fish, he still slapped him into pissing off! Making sure the leviathan didn’t die was the least he could do even if he was friends with the electric fish secretly.

The “fight” was far too similar to the ones he’d have Dani or Jazz. Less a fight to the death and more like one of the lectures he’d get from Jazz for doing something stupid. Not antagonistic like the fights he’d have with Vlad. It was more like when Dani would hide his model rockets in the walls when he pissed her off. Dami and the electric fish acted painfully similar to how he acted with his siblings.

Would he ever see them again?

Shaking his head, a croon rippled through shallow water. Dami stared at him with glowing eyes, an expression as concerned as a gigantic fish could get. He crooned again, louder this time. A call probably evolved to be heard in deeper open waters. It wasn’t as effective in the shallows, he could hear Dami anywhere in the shallows no matter how quiet the other tried to be. All this call served to do now was to add fuel to the fire of his splitting headache.

Danny held his head in his hands, Dami taking this as a cue to be a bit quieter. The next croon he let out was softer barely audible but he got his point across. This guy was weird. He fussed over Danny more than he fussed over himself to the point he cramped himself in the shallows to stay here with him. He belonged deeper down, ancients he’d be happier deeper down but he just…stayed here? Sure he tended to follow Danny whenever he had the opportunity but Danny had mostly stuck to the shallows so far. Was this the fish equivalent to tourism? Had the crash screwed over his home so badly he couldn’t live there anymore. 

Danny glanced back to Dami, the leviathan looked perfectly fine but he didn’t exactly have another member of his species to compare to. It was like he was perfectly comfortable acting as Danny’s personal guard dog.

…

….

He was like a dog to this guy, wasn’t he?

Looking down at his tiny hand Danny squeezed them into fists. Pathetic, hardly a threat at all. Dami’s a teenager and Danny is a itty bitty squishy thing smaller than any of the other survivors. He was like a stray puppy to this guy! Like a little Yorkie happy and cute. 

He scoffed choking on the mouthful of seawater that flooded into his mouth at the action. He wasn’t anyone’s pet! He was the farthest thing from a pet! Sure, he might’ve watched Dami fight like it was a Pokémon battle but he still thought of the guy as a sentient being. It all made sense now, this dude thought he was an animal! There was no way to correct him either! They didn’t speak the same language nor was there a way for them to learn at the moment. 

How would he even go about speaking to him anyway? What was he supposed to say? “Hey, dude sorry for catfishing you but I’m not your pet,” He’d probably be dismissed and then be treated like a parrot. 

Ancients, he’s too nauseous to deal with this shit. Dealing with anything else but this would be better than this. He was stuck with a teenager who was convinced he got a new puppy… No wonder he tapped on the window like a small child seeing the fish tank at the dentist for the first time. 

At least he wasn’t the type of teenager to “Play” rough with his pets. Back home Sam went ape shit on a group of senior boys who kept shooting BBs at one of the oldest boy’s cats. Danny had yet to be manhandled, thrown, or shot at, nor was there any attempt to put him down after he bit him multiple times.

Maybe he was more like a cat?

He wouldn’t degrade himself into being anyone’s catboy. The thought alone made him want to cry. Tucker would never let him hear the end of it if he found out. The hacker would have all the ammo he needed to take revenge for being called a furry so often. He couldn’t let this happen! There’s no way he’d allow himself to be treated like a pet. If Dami ever tried to pet him he’d get stabbed! Puffing up his chest, Danny turned foot and swam back to his base. 

His to-do list was completely and utterly fucked over. Fixing the Aurora had been his top priority but he couldn’t fix it without a radiation suit and a distraction for the buff death fish! It was just like back home, the moment he sat down to knock something off his ever-expanding to-do list the entire universe ganged up on him!  

{Proposed Desagi seabase (200m)}

The signal caught his attention. It was on one of the main tabs of his PDA along with the signals for the Lifepod he’s aware of. On the front page of his to-do list, as a sub-task of finding survivors was searching for the Desagi sea base. Scrunching his face Danny pondered. If the seabase even existed there could be something down there to help him. Even if he didn’t find a survivor, the information he could gain from this could be crucial to figuring out what the hell is going on with this planet.

With the date of Paul Torgal’s environmental log, he could tell the Desagi had been on this planet within the first month of communications with the ship had been lost. Had they ever left? Did they crash or land here willingly for some unknown reason? Was what happened to the Aurora connected to the Desagi? Hopefully, he’d get his answers when he went down to explore.

Staring blankly at the signal, he studied the coordinates and the environmental log thoroughly. The cave he’d entered previously had multiple entrances. It was only logical if members of the Desagi were to build a seabase they’d build it close to an entrance. It was further into the cave system than the entrance he’d swam through had led him. 

He could search around for another cave entrance closer to the signal but it was still 200m down. His lower oxygen needs gave him a leg up but it could only carry him so far. His ability kept him from drowning in shallow water but anything deeper than 100m and it was game over, no restarts or save points!

With his current oxygen tank, he wouldn’t have the time to find the seabase let alone explore it. When the entire point of finding the seabase was exploring, it made his air tank seem about as useful as a warning label on a stick of dynamite. Any idiot with common sense could tell going down there without some kind of plan for oxygen was a sheer way to drown. While his common sense was sparse he still had it.

The blueprints for a seamoth were still missing so he’d have to go on a scavenger hunt for not only the blueprint but the resources to build it. Danny could only wonder how the Seamoth would be altered for him. The seaglide was made slightly smaller but what was it supposed to do about what was essentially just an underwater car? Pedal extensions, A controller, maybe just an autopilot? That was all he was willing to work with, a booster seat was too humiliating for his bruised ego to take. 

Along with a seamoth he’d need to upgrade his tank and replace the batteries for his seaglid. The seaglide drained power like spectra drained the happiness from children.

Digging through his storage lockers he scavenged the glass he needed for his new air tank. He fed the fabricator the ingredients waiting eagerly as the light show began. A loud jarring noise sounded from his PDA the moment the new air tank touched his hands. 

“New blueprint acquired.” The robotic voice drawled.

Danny glanced down at the tablet, staring slack-jawed at the appearance of the rebreather on his list of blueprints. Convenient, he didn’t dare question the PDA’s choice of only giving him the blueprint now instead of after all the other times he almost died. It was painfully easy to gather the materials he needed. With the creepvine he’d collected earlier he was set to make the rebreather.

Now all he had to do was get past Dami…

Why did he have a feeling that was going to be easier said than done?

@ashoutinthedarkness @avelnfear @meira-3919 @thought-u-said-dragon-queen @hugsandchaos @blep-23 @zeldomnyo @bytheoldwillowtree @justwannabecat @shepherdsheart @starlightcat04 @stargazing-bookwyrm @pupstim @dragongoblet @noxcheshire

[katierosefun]

modern family is all fun and games until you get to the scenes where you burst into tears because the once-vaguely homophobic dad now refers to his son's husband as family, and also the academically gifted daughter realizes that her dorky, clumsy dad was always really proud of her and just never surprised because he just assumed she could do anything, and also the eldest daughter who eloped comes crawling back to her parents' room and whispers that she still wants her parents to be present for her wedding, and also the anxious queer lawyer character admits that he was terrified that his husband would just leave him alone with their baby daughter, and also that the once-vaguely grouchy dad looks at his stepson and tells him that what makes a family is who sticks around, not who you're blood-related to and anyways what was i saying

[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.

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

NOOOOOOO DETECTIVE WILLIAMS WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU NEED MORE TIME YOU AND YOUR WIFE WERE MY FAVOURITE COUPLE!!!!!!

[tastycitrus]

i want to see a game like the batman telltale series featuring the entire bat-family, not only because i want the bat-family to get represented in its entirety more often outside of comics and i think a more story-driven game would be great for letting their characters and interpersonal dynamics shine, but also because i want to see the whole family comically get wrecked whenever i fail the quick time events, spider-man web of shadows style

[the-kestrels-feather]

Real talk, and I know this isn't a new or hot take, but the fact that James Somerton faked his death, and watched people attack anyone who criticized him even a little for "bullying a gay man into suicide" while going

From his alt account is inexcusable. This man is a fucking ghoul.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

set out to create a serious, canonesque drawing with which to say "feel free to go in my lackadaisy tag and help me mystery speculate" but only got going when i made it bowling and the rarepair agenda

[lumensuperbis]

someone will die ... OF FUN

[queenjulia11]

The thing is, Brennan could've just said "Sean hugs Marion," but he specifically detailed that Sean gently caressed the side of Marion's face as he cried and that's just not very heterosexual activity in my experience!

[electrozeistyking]

so has anyone talking about this yet, or... cuz it was in that latest news video on the amazing digital circus. and uh... i took a screenshot of it.

[hecatesbroom]

"I've become much more comfortable with my sexuality because of Blanche" um. EXCUSE ME DOROTHY??

[jichanxo]

sooooo... *twirls her hair* how many asks should i send until kuwagami art. jk as well. the real question will be: does it happen often that someone else’s art inspires you? in fandom spaces specifically

well you see it’s like a loyalty card program, every 10 asks or so you get a complimentary kuwagami

just kidding you can just breathe in my direction and I’ll be tempted to draw them. kuwagami blast! (you've caught me on a... just okay art day lol)

(people still like kabedons, right?)

anyway for my actual answer: in terms of direct inspiration, it doesn't really happen much? the last two times i did art directly based on someone else's work is probably this one from this fic, and also that time i drew art of someone else's judgment au. oh! and there's that moriohpsycho art based on this comic! (filthyguts' work is so very. hgngngghh. very good.) nothing else really comes to mind, and when i think of the other things i've been into recently there hasn't been as much opportunity for that to happen...

flex and herds = strong fixation but lmao. almost nobody else made stuff about them. nobody is surprised umineko = surprisingly i don't read much umineko fanfiction? and in terms of illustration, i certainly picked up imagery and indirect inspiration but nothing concrete enough for me to give an example... now that i think about it, i did once draw andromalius from redaction/sunny, but that was years ago, and also mostly because i was acquainted with the writer. ...i don't have that artwork on hand right now death note = didn't really get involved with the fandom + i enjoyed my own ideas well enough! ...i can't recall if i drew long-hair-L art before or after seeing other artists do it. and as for everything else the same kind of reasoning applies. didn't really get involved with the fandom or wasn't really compelled to make art in response to stuff i saw, or i just don't remember anymore.

buuuuuuut if we're opening this up to just... pulling ideas from other people? then yeah, all the time, though that kind of goes without saying when you have a creative hobby. ...it's probably going to be hard to come up with examples of this since it's more ambiguous.

there's uhhhhhh... kuwana listens to nickelback which was a @/four-white-trees invention, wasn't it? (EDIT: and @/overdevelopedglasses!) (not tagging in this post so he doesn't feel obligated to read my big ass ask responses 💀) as of writing this, it's not posted but i did end up making kuwagami art based on a nickelback song so. yknow. there's that LMAO

for sawashiro and arakawa, i do sometimes go reference @/todayisafridaynight 's art to help me with my own. ("how did he draw this part of the suit? oh, like that huh? hmm" <- this kind of thing)

and um. i'm not trying to pander to you (at least not this time), but genuinely it's one of the few examples that come to mind at this moment. but when i was writing my first kuwagami fic, i could feel the influence of the ever-changing on my brain... was turning over some of your ideas there...

you remember this? (you even pointed it out in your comment on my fic, and i should've said something then, but whatever i'm saying it now)

that was absolutely because of this

(obligatory poke at anybody else reading this post that you can read passthroughtime's fic here.)

so, um. yeah. not really sure what else to add to that. pretty self evident i think. (i'm always talking about the ever-changing but i don't think i can overstate the impression it left on me at the time)

anyhow there aren't really any other examples off the top of my head! these are all recent examples so they're not so difficult to recall, but there are probably others i've forgotten...

[themintman]

ok I just started the new detective Pikachu and I can't fucking breathe cause my stupid little transgender brain has decided Tim is trans based on his goddamn HAIR EVOLUTION

YOUR TELLING ME THIS ISNT JUST THE REF PHOTO FOR MY FIEST MASC HAIRCUT I GAVE THE HAIRDRESSER WHN I CAME OUT VS WHAT SHE GAVE ME????