I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry.
I can't find any other words to explain how I feel, I truly am sorry.
While it is true that there are irl problems that I have which have led me to dropping this, that doesn't erase the fact I'm dropping this.
If I had to list any major issues it would be a little line I got from my psychologist just a day ago.
It treated about "Must" and "Wants"
About how I do what I must do and nothing else.
And that got me thinking.
What do I want to do?
But that didn't led me to anything, and I realized that in my unending quest for the "Musts" I've never even realized what do I like.
This hit my in my core.
And I've reread my story another time.
And I saw that it was slowly becoming a list of "Musts" instead of what I want to write.
The character must be like this, his reaction needs to be this, he would do this and if doesn't then it's bad writing, then the romance needs to have this components...
Yeah.
Another thing that I can say is how the story was weird. More on that at the end after I stop bombing you with ideas.
Since I'm dropping this and I'm not coming back unless I reboot it with new ideas and new MC and new problems, I'm letting you all know the story I had planned. Or well, the scraps of it.
So, in his quest for making the world a better place he would think "Oh but hegemony of the world by the Spartans wouldn't really be good." Which would make him think of a united countries type of empire. And this would lead him to using the summon mechanic to bring forth some subordinates to place in this countries.
Actually, I planned to make him test it with The Major first, we would see a little flashback of his lasts moments during Hellsing (When he talks with Integra) and then the feeling of being pulled offered a new life, which he takes.
The Major was the perfect subject for this experiment. Let's look at it from the MC's perspective.
He's going to summon something. This could go either good or bad.
In the case it goes good, then the summoned being can be used, so he has to be useful from the start; The Major is a political mastermind, genius strategist, cunning adversary for Alucard... He's useful for conquer.
In the case it goes bad, then the MC could kill him without any worries, because he's as useful as he's evil, possible more evil. Millennium organization was made because the author wanted to set a bad guy so bad we won't have a shred of pity for him.
He meets the MC in the dwarven house and the MC would consider him useful for his plan of world domination/peace(Actually, I was about to make a scene where The Major is considered useless by the MC and kills him, but that was unlikely.)
After the first minutes, he would then summon another characters for another city.
From 3 to 6 would be summoned. 2 for each city for now. Sparta, Delos and Athens. This is to make the MC focus more on magic and finding out what Nyx did to him. Yes, he was going to find out. No, this doesn't make him as strong as Nyx. Yes, Nyx wanted him to find out. No, he wasn't going to kill Nyx for this.
Anyways the summoned characters would've been: The Major, Erza, Delta. Yoriichi, Shikanoko, and Gauche were still being decided. Shikanoko was probably going to be assimilated by Delta, though.
The Major would have stayed with our MC, both because he wanted political advise (Even after summoning Lelouch. Because even with his experience and memories, the details will vary across thousands of years in history.) and because he wanted to see how loyal were his summons. This would be where the Affection bar comes in, which is more than an affection bar, if you want to nitpick.
If MC decided to bring Yoriichi, he would have gone with either of the two who would've gone to Delos and Athens, probably to keep an eye on Delta, if he didn't, Erza would have assimilated him.
Women aren't seen great in a Greek world, so Erza would've gone to Delos where the oracle, arguably the most important seer in both GOW and Greek mythology stays, is a woman so the misogyny isn't as big there. Still, the excuse was going to be that since there were many more monsters in the world than there were in normal mythology, the law was made in a might makes right order. Which, obviously, Erza thrives on.
So does Delta, but we won't go there yet.
In the case Yoriichi was brought with Erza, the both of them would start their own subplot in the city, discovering traces of Castor and Pollux, the God of War's machinations, etc. They would bond over in this Sensei-Disciple double dynamic where Erza would teach him some magic things and Yoriichi would teach her about the sword.
I feel that Yoriichi is better with the sword because of his natural talent and his universe of origin that is based around swords. Not only that but the existence of the selfless state, the transparent world, breathing techinques... With time, Erza would even create the basics for a breathing style and Yoriichi would create magic for daily uses. That would go better with his personality instead of battle-focused magic.
In the case Erza had gone with Delta, Erza would find Delta cute and with time build a older-younger sister dynamic between the two. I was thinking that Erza would find inspiration in Delta to fight in a more savage way while Delta would start developing a sense of wrong and right beyond hunter and prey.
In the case Delta had stayed with the MC, Delta would get some character growth by the MC that I hadn't decided yet (Probably the same as she would had with Erza though in a different way and manner). He would keep her as an enforcer of some kind.
The Major wouldn't get too much development... I was thinking that later in the story he would be killed in the eventual coup de etat, not by some angry mob but because the MC thinks that he has outlasted his uses and is annoyingly dangerous to be kept alive. His death would be used as a spark to light the gunpowder of the rebellion.
I would write the Major to be this character that you like by instinct and you dislike his villainous activities, but the sheer charisma that this man had brought you into the character so badly. And then he dies in this bitter moment where a part of you says that it's good that he finally got what he deserved (Well, he probably deserved a worse death) and another would think that he's a character you liked so oh no.
In this scenario, Athens would attack or try to attack Sparta (Depending on whether MC was going to put someone in Athens or not enough people were avaliable. I would figure out). Erza and Yoriichi/Delta had already gone up the ranks in Delos, so they would have this moment where they decide to fight the Athenians and ally themselves with Sparta.
And then one of two things would happen. Either the Major fully dies, or he goes to the underworld as a soul. In the first case, we would see what happens if a summoned character dies (Hadn't figured out the specifics for this yet). In the second case we would see the Major be judged by the three kings and fight for sometime (Mind you, I was planning to make the MC give him some minor magic teachings.), before being turned into a hellspawn by Hades and used in some sort of final war at the end of the series.
This is just a little of what I had planned, and just for some summons, since any other character could have appeared. Kuroka, Melascula, Malenia, Boromir, Kimlee (FMA:B), Kenshiro, Beru, Tanya (Youjo Senki), Geralt... There were a lot of characters here. Of course, not only would they be in some three major cities. But in the underworld, in Olympia, in the realm of the death, in the realm of dreams, in tartarus, etc.
Each character to their own place, their adecuate place too, since you wouldn't send someone like Kuroka and Tanya to Tartarus; Beru and Kenshiro to the realm of dreams.
Anyways, I feel like we now need to talk about the gods.
Dionysus would be the first to appear. Mostly because he was just passing by and he saw the changes of Sparta and said ¨Wouldn't it be cool if I was there?¨. And yeah, he went there. This is completely accurate Dionysus behaviour btw and you cannot convince me otherwise.
He would meet the MC, he would definitely realize he's a son of zeus, and he would also notice that he had been marked by Nyx.
MC and Dionysus would be friends with some time, having this bro dynamic between the two. Dionysus would be the guy I use to introduce the larger concept of gods into the series. The ¨Good guys¨ would be him, Demeter, Hestia, Artemis, and Apollo (Maybe).
The "Maybe Good guys" would be Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite, and some others that wouldn't really matter. This faction would act as a neutral per say. Of course, there was eventually going to be some plot twist about how Athena was pulling strings.
The "Bad guys" would be Ares, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Thanatos, Morpheus(He would be the guy that makes you think he's good, then betrays you), Charon and some others.
The plan for Apollo was to be the god of Light-- He is the god of light, but I meant it in a primordial level, that he became one with his concept so much that he had become Half-Primordial. That's why we never see him but is everpresent in the game. This was also a sub plot for Artemis, that she missed her brother so much she became one with her concept too, making her the primordial of the hunt.
But Apollo and Artemis were both tempted by Hera, because Hera is an easy villain to make.
Our MC, either enraged because of what happened with Artemis and deciding that things needed to change around since Zeus wasn't punishing Hera, would start plotting the murder of Zeus. Or downfall, or something like that.
Not in the "Murderous Revenge" that Kratos did, bringing down all of Olympus and Greece with him. But in the "Fair Judgement" where he would convince the good gods, some neutral gods and maybe even some bad gods to dethrone Zeus. It would be this cool scene where he's not deciding to kill Zeus for his own revenge, but also for the revenge of all the shit Zeus pulled in the mythology.
A full on war would start. Zeus's nation (Yes, Zeus has a nation, in the game files for GOW 2 we see a brand of soldier with an eagle in his shield, and when Kratos is killed by him we see this type of soldier here too.) would defend his god so Greece would start fighting too.
It would be this big war where certain characters like Perseus, Theseus, the Last Spartan (We would have gone into details with him), and other greek gods would appear. I would also take this chance to kill Jason, in a painful way too.
Anyways, depending on whether Pandora's box had been opened or not, Zeus would go out with or without a fight.
At this point, the Mc is strong enough to confront him one on one, but this is a war all of the olympians should have, so they do a team up. Mc would also take this chance to kill some bad gods in the crossfire, like Ares or Athena, depending on who's alive by this point.
After the fight, a decision must be made: Who will rule as king of gods?
The answer is: None.
Because having a king of gods didn't turn out well the first time, it won't turn out good the next.
But a lot of gods died, how are they going to be replaced?
With the summons of the MC.
Some of the summons who would have appeared in the story would have gone to Olympus after the battle. Yoriichi or Erza could have taken Athena's place as the God(Goddess) of Justice, war, heroism, military victory, etc... Delta could have taken some of Ares's names, like God(Goddess) of War, courage, civil orders and maybe Violence. But with a nice touch, like defensive violence or something.
Actually, here's a fun fact: When I made my silly little gacha, I put in the items a gender bending card (It was going to be a mechanic, but I decided for the card). It was supposed to be a joke but then I thought of characters like Astolfo and Link. And it wasn't a joke anymore.
So, let's say we have Astolfo as a girl in the story. Aphrodite would have definitely needed to die to make way for the best girl.
As a wise man once said Sometimes it takes a real man to be best girl
I'm looking at the gacha pool right now and seeing some character that could have gotten gender bended just because. Like Ogata from Golden Kamui, or Escanor from 7DS, or maybe even a Coyote Stark.(Although first would have come assimilation.)
We have sidelined though, but with this little joke I can talk now about romance.
It was definitely going to be a Harem. Even thought I myself told that both Harem and Not Harem had a point to make. Let me argue.
- First: I have never written a Harem, and I write for new things, to see new things, things that could never happen in the real world (At least close enough where I can see them)
- Two: It was a Greek World, MC was son of Zeus, the conditions couldn't get better. There was going to be a joke where the MC was going to say who his dad is, someone with knowledge of Zeus's love life was going to say "Ah, makes sense." This someone could've been, I don't know, Kuroka for example. Girl Astolfo, Tohru, or someone else.
- Three: Hornyness. Yeah, I'm not denying that.
- Four: It's a multiverse with infinite possibilities, infinite people who would have accepted sharing the MC. There was always going to be a "What if...?" (This is kinda of a weak argument, but my point is there)
As for romances... Meh, I had time to think about that. Erza would have been one, Delta is a maybe. Some women would have been summoned and not romanced at all just to make a point that not every girl was going to be seduced. Mosquito Girl might have been used like this.
For romances in the Greek world, I think it would have been a few, mainly Lahkesis and Atropos. Yeah surprise. Did you guys know that Lahkesis was infatuated by Kratos during the novel? Like, the sisters were watching him and the only reason he got so far in the first place was because Lahkesis argued against killing him every time he succeeded in doing something.
Atropos would have fallen after Lahkesis, she already had strong feeling for the MC all he had to was to transform them into positive ones.
Of course, this would have happened manyyy chapters away. These two would have been the FML that you get attached with time. (Well, which isn't. But I mean that in they would have started strong and slowly build up reputation.)
The other two picks would have been Persephone and Erinys. Hades's wife and Thanatos's daughter.
Persephone because Hades sucks ass and Erinys because I like her monster form.
Yeah, that's it. I mostly thought about this two since the Mc was definitely going to contend against Hades and Thanatos. Why not go full into hater mode, then?
For the Harem lovers: You would have won.
For the Harem Haters: I trust that you guys would have the trust to allow me to write up a good harem. I didn't want to make a Catch them all type of harem. If I wanted to do so then I would have written something in DxD or Shinmai Maou or Isekai Smartphone. Or a crossove with some Hentai anime or harem anime. I wanted to write a more human take on multiple relationships at one. Not that I would have made a bad ending with MC's partners eventually leaving him or something like that. But I would have written problems, solutions, understandings, conclusions, and made the journey through my story worth it.
Dionysus and the god gang would have given their opinion about the Harem too.
Dionysus would say dumb shit about Harems that the MC would refuse with something like "Every Olympian knows what happens when you spread your love life too thin, I myself am a product of that" (Talking about Zeus)
Or "This isn't the whim of a pervert who got godly powers by his father, this is the planned thoughts of a guy who wants the best he can give for his lovers." And probably a joke at the end of the dialogue like "...who is also a pervert."
Demeter and Hestia, as the Goddesses without drama in the pantheon would give their council and opinions. Artemis would have reasonable questions and Apollo (Who either found a way to communicate through light or this event happens before he becomes light) would also give council as the guy with shitty relationship problems.
In case there was No Harem, Demeter and Hestia would be slightly surprised, but happy to see the rare event of an Olympian with one lover. Dionysus would joke until he actually gets a little serious and congratulates the MC for finding the perfect partner. Apollo and Artemis wouldn't have strong opinions here (Artemis would, but I haven't thought too much about it)
Damn, I'm good at this.
Well, I'm running out of things to talk about. I think that the only things left are...
1: Nyx's mark was something for the other primordials to see, like a vouch of confidence.
2: The Mc's past was that his mother was part of the Harem of a guy who saw his partners as objects, leaving the mom(Mothers) without support and eventually hopeless(See? I would have given reasons as to why the MC would have a harem or why wouldn't he want a Harem.) I was basing the dad from those braindead Mc's that only think with their dick and grab every girl to put them into his harem.
Sidenote: The Novel/Manwha (READ THE NOVEL, THE MANWHA SUCKS (Well, the start isn't that bad, but then they erase entire Arcs from the Manwha. Not silly arcs but really important arcs.)) FFF-classTrashero has a good take on this. The First hero did this and that ended up badly for him, it's kinda of a pivotal plot point so I won't spoil you, but read the novel, it's pretty good.
I love the character growth in this novel, the MC goes through good changes. And his first wife is a fun character too.
3: Some explanation for power levels and systems would be how certain powers are interconnected by a "Core". Let's say: Will. Will is a common source of powers in fiction. In Baki, Musashi Miyamoto can cut through things with will only. In Jojo's someone with a strong will can manifest a Stand. In One Piece Haki is directly related with will. Some works also use will to manipulate their life force, which in turn leads to ki/chi manipulation, etc.
Anyways, I don't know what else to say now...
I'll go to sleep and wake up to read Naruto.
No, wait, actually. I should read something new.
Lately I've been reading a lot of Image Comics old stuff. I can't say I've like Youngblood, and the WW2 trio, but I've liked Spawn, and The Darkness.
Maybe I'll capitalize on that. Maybe I should try another stuff for a while, to get my head cleared off.
As for how I said in the beginning about this story being weird. It was because that while it should be about god of war, it really isn't about god of war.
It uses too much things that exist around God of War. Like Apollo, and Artemis, and Dionysus, and the primordials... Basically, it capitalizes on the scraps of it while not sustaining any of its original form.
You could make this an original, standalone fanfic and it wouldn't be exactly strange. You'd have to change a lot of things but Greek fanfics aren't exactly something strange.
Have you ever heard someone talk about the MCU vs Marvel comics? And how the MCU doesn't use the original characters beyond the basics. Yeah, this is it.
I was watching an Ultron Infodump (That's literally the name of the video, made by a yt named Pastra) and he defined MCU Ultron as an:
"...OC with a comic book name slapped on them [...] He's still an evil robot, He still wants to kill humanity, He still creates the vision, and he's still a dark mirror of his creator. That is about all the similarities I can think of. He has a different personality, his reasoning for creating Vision and their relationship is entirely different. He's pretty much a new guy with the fundamental elements of Ultron..."
(He's not bashing Ultron btw, after this he literally says that this Ultron is a pretty cool character either way, don't go hate him.)
And I felt that this applies to this book. It uses the basics that make GOW a story, but it doesn't use anything that makes God Of War, well, God Of War.
And I didn't like this.
It bit me every time I thought about it, to the point that writing this last chapters has become hard. I mean, look at it. The Wizard had one and one only appearance, the steampunker didn't appear at all, the princess and the kingdom remained completely unexplored, and that's just only for Terraria. In other words, you could say that my motivation has died.
I've already said that I'm not coming back to this fic. So I'm not going to say that there's a chance to pick this back up again. Because there isn't any. Even if I create another God Of War fic (Which I probably won't), it will be more alike GOW.
And I think this is it. I've truly ran out of things to talk about. So I'm going to copy-paste Author Notes that I've have occurred to me while writing but they didn't exactly align with any chapters I was writing.
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***A/N: My gacha is NOT(kinda) a Deus Ex Machina***
That little bit about the ¨The pulls are slightly determined by the users actions¨ was something I got to make the gacha feel a little bit more in line with the story. What I did was introduce something to the story and then throw a gacha pull in the list for that.
Like plants stuff. Oh, you like farming? Here's a farm. It might not come out until 90 chapters after, but here it is.
***A/N: I kinda want to write a loser character.***
This is something I realized while figuring out how I like my writing.
Either a loser character or someone with many many flaws that get slightly better just for the flaw to get a new dimensionality(Is that the word? Maybe ¨aspect¨ would be better.) and send him back 2 steps.
Someone like Asa Mitaka. I mean, where else would you find a character that screams into her pillow wanting to die? Where else would you find a character that gets overwhelmed by the expectations of others, then she consoles(Read: Lies to) herself saying that she doesn't care about them? Where else would you find a character so relatable?
But most people wouldn't appreciate that type of character, they don't go to fanfics wanting to see someone lame becoming someone great(Or a little less lame-er). They want to see someone great becoming the peak of humanity above all the little people.
Actually, most people overall don't like reading about this loser characters. That's probably why I saw a lot of posts in social media saying how CSM 2 was getting ruined when it came out.
Sure, those characters can be a bother, but the fact that someone wrote them, spent even just a fraction of a moment thinking about the dialogues, the actions, the thoughts... I don't know, makes them worth it.
Also, I think that if I were to write that character, most reviews would be ¨This is just the Author's self insert of his time in highschool/college/life, don't read it¨ Even if I say that the character was going to get better at every chance I had. And he did got better, improved as a person, etc, etc.
I was reading this comic with a "Loser" MC and at the A/N after one issue, the author says that some people told him that the MC could be a self insert for them, and Idk, I guess it bothered me.
But if someone makes a self-insert gary stu, people would complain too, so at the end you can't please everyone.
***A/N: Making titles is a bother sometimes.***
Like, I can just think about something and put it on there, but it feels unremarkable.
I want to make a book where the chapter titles are a song or something. If a characters dies in this chapter? Boys don't cry. A goodbye or the series end? Time to pretend. The climax of a long battle? Libera Me from hell.
I won't, because it sounds dumb now that I imagine it. But maybe something a little lesser? Like sneaking a random manga/novel/anime recommendation in the author's note?
[A/N: So I'm a spider, so what?] Maybe something like that. (Well, that's not exactly unpopular, but meh)
***A/N: Let's go further than the loser.***
I want to make a lot of characters.
A loving one, a pure one, an evil one, a psychopathic one, a sociopathic one, a heroic one, a suicidal one, a depressed one, a sick one, a mentally overwhelmed one...
Of course, not now, I'd have to learn about those characters, and probably make them the MC or related to him. Although they could end up as self inserts if I'm not careful.
I've read some advices, and most seemed to say that self inserts are common up to a certain point. That it's inevitable for an author to drop a little bit of themselves into one of their characters, the same way a child resembles their parent. Of course, that child will only resemble their parent if they hate them, but the point still stands.
Maybe the point is still to love the characters, but to hate them too. The same way your body treats your mind. Oh, you hurt yourself? Let me heal that for you, but then the next day, Would you look at the time? It's time to decompose the shit out of myself and make you feel bad for it.
What a great metaphor I just used.
***A/N: I want to make self inserts.***
Not that I want to self insert myself into a story. This comes from my pettiness more than anything, really.
Because sometimes I read a fanfic and see people complaining in the comments like ¨This is just this guy's self insert. He just does what he wants, gets what he wants, romances the girls he likes, etc, etc.¨ and I'm like ¨Ok, and?¨
My point is that it sounds dumb to complain about self inserts unless they get so obvious it gets predictable, bad, and/or ruin the story(A rule that most of the complains that I see don't follow). Like, Idk, the Velma series everyone forgot about until I mentioned it. Or those fanfics where the author has the need to explain how his MC is the most virile human alive, not in Yujiro Hanma way, but in a loser way that overcompensates for his actions.
Which brings me back to the title of this A/N, I want to make a real-true-super self insert. One that not only does everything that I would/want to do(Basic level stuff), but reflects me, not as an author nor as a person, but a haunting reminder of the notion that I am, that I represent in my day to day, or that someone around me is (At the very least).
Something on the level of Dostoevsky naming his worst character after himself. Jane Austen naming her best character after herself. Or again Dostoevsky, naming his innocent/all loving character after his dead son. Shakespeare writing Hamlet's tragedies from his own personal life. And let's not even begin to mention Dante, the original fanfic writer/vergil lover.
***A/N:I really love niche media.***
Not liking something ancient, but niche media, things that you really wouldn't know if they existed unless something really specific happens.
Like, I ask people for niche media and I hear Hollow knight, Guilty Gear, Dead cells, Re:Life... Things that while not fully mainstream (Even if Hollow Knight moved some leaves with the Silksong announcement recently, relative to when I'm writing this), have sold millions of copies or created incredible amounts of money.
When I mean Niche media maybe I really refer to Hidden media. Let's use the word ¨Unofficial media.¨ There's a special connection that you can make with the author but don't really feel in more official work. In this unofficial media, there's just one person or a small team working for little to no money and often, not even views.
It's just people uploading their ideas without any fear of moderators, supervisors, judgements, deadlines, fan expectations... just people who give their all and do a little take on a certain subject. Doing their story the way they wanted it.
Don't get me wrong, it's great to see a really well drawn panel in Vagabond or Berserk, it's great to read a good plot in Monster or Vinland Saga, and it's great to see awesome fights in Record Of Ragnarok or Dragon Ball. But there's something special when a story/art you find in a forgotten corner of the internet suddenly pops off inside you and you get addicted to it.
A good example would be (Early) Mob Psycho and One Punch Man, those webcomics take skill, but if you want to be a little harsh, the drawings are kinda like doodles. And that's fine. That doesn't make it worse, that makes it all the better when an incredible scene is done with those attributes.
To this day, I still remember the feeling I got when I saw Saitama pull up to monster Garou in the webcomic, it was so silly, dumb, but the (un)clearness and connection you get from the art style makes it an amazing fight that I never thought I could see with(Once again, I'm not saying its a bad artstyle) such a way of drawing.
Consistently professional artwork just doesn't hit the same.
Maybe that wasn't a great comparison, hmm...
What about Shibatarian? It's a 30 chapters unpopular manga. You can read it and maybe you'll get my point. If you don't, then just take this as me liking indie stuff.
TLDR: Water normally vs Water at 3am.
Actually, let me tell you a story. The other day I was going around the manga page I use(I don't name drop because too much traffic will make it change url.) and I saw this old manga called ¨My Alcoholic Escape From Reality.¨
It's not a philosophical manga, don't go in expecting something like Homunculus, it's just a mangaka telling her realistic experience with alcohol, self doubt, shame, and a little bit of autobiographical content.
You can have it as a personal example of what I'm talking about.
***A/N: I kinda want to make ambiguous characters.***
One that when I kill it, it doesn't bring full satisfaction to the reader.
Let me start this note by the opposite point. I can easily make make villains annoying and hateful like Joffrey with enough time, like, introduce him early in the story, being the most pathetic and bothersome thing to ever exist, and then killing him off in a swift manner, with the satisfaction coming after.
But that would be boing, and I shouldn't make every villain Joffrey, because eventually they would become either boring or one-dimensional cartoonish villains since they didn't have time to develop. Neither can I make the MC go batshit insane on him because of this.
From what I understand, villains should go like this: Introduce villain -> Give them motivation -> Flesh out their character -> Hero defeats villain.
Obviously it's interchangeable and some parts can be ignored or not fully done for the sake of mystery, but that's the standard I understand.
With all of this in mind, what's the fastest way to make a villain evil? Make the people not seem him as humans.
So, by making your character simple and dirty, you can make people easily hate them. Actually, fuck characters, people have done this IRL.
During a history class, I read a book that said a lot of shit about communism and anti-communism(THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE, I'M NOT GETTING POLITICAL, PLEASE JUST FLOOD THIS PARAGRAPH WITH COMMUNIST MEMES THAT ARE BASED AROUND THE WORD ¨US/OUR¨.)
I'm sure everyone knows about what America said about communism ¨Communists Eat Children because they're so poor they can't afford food¨.
They dehumanize something in order for people to easily hate them. It's been done a lot of other times in history, and the opposite too, humanizing bad people and hiding their flaws to make them appear as better persons, that's what they did with Gandhi's sexual life.
Anyways, I went sideways, my point is that I can't just make a character, make him kill a puppy, make him see the MC, make him complain to his father: ¨Daddy dearest this peasant is looking at me wrongly¨, and immediately after the MC speedblitzes all of his guards, kills his dad and family, then tortures him for a whole chapter.
Actually, that's what Chinese ¨Young Master¨ stories do, well, that plus enslaving(Every sense of the word) the women of the family, sisters, mothers, aunts...
Ew.
That's why the one-dimensional villains we see in various media have only three modes:
-Generic evil laugh while explaining the bad things he's going to do.
-Pleading for mercy after getting his ass beat.
-Not reflecting in his actions and going back to try to kill the MC just for the cycle to repeat.
And, well, this commits the greatest sin in all of fiction: It's annoying.
***A/N: Rant about something only slightly related.***
Y'know, the bad thing about everything I just said is that I can perfectly do it and people would still appreciate it.
Have you ever read a bully revenge manhwa?(I don't remember the specific pronunciation, but I'm referring to the Korean type of comics.) Literally any bully revenge manhwa follows what I said earlier.
Where the bullied guy, who for some reason gets hated on by everybody(He's poor, he's ugly, he's dumb, blah blah.) gets the most fucked up shit done to him and he cries before snapping and killing all of his bullies in the most gruesome manner.
I can name any character out of the top of my head with more personality than these manhwa bullies.
These stories are all ¨Deep and relatable¨ for some reason, most of the comments say that. And I know that most of the people who comment are idiots who don't have personality beyond the internet, and the people with actual human opinions are mostly silent because they don't entertain this sort of media.
But this bullies are all over the top and we are supposed to care for when they die.
It's not normal for an entire friend group to be extremely obsessed with one kid and torture him like they're a mafia squad, It's not normal for this people to be the most popular ones in school, It's not normal for this bullied kid to suddenly snap after all of the gruesome acts (Snapping it's understandable, but why is it always after so much bullshit? Why is not at the start when they left you trapped in the bathroom for a whole day, but it's at the end when they burn down your entire house? And I'm not even kidding I read one with a red-haired MC where they did that(I think, they all get so interchangable at one point.))
Bullies are kids who pick on other kids, not absolute paragons of evil who keep their victims alive to inflict more pain in them. That's not a bully, that's the fucking Joker.
To this day, I still have to find a bully revenge manhua with normal bully shit like beating people up because he's an asshole and not because he's utterly obsessed with the MC, being hated on by everyone from his school because he's an asshole who picks on other kids, Taking the MC's money, making him do his homework, humilliating him in public, etc.
It gets boring after a while (Like 3 chapters). In the same way that a character who's all sunshine, hope, and goody too shoes is annoying, a character made to be purely evil is even worse.
Because you don't need justifications to be good, of course, there's people without justification to be evil, but that's not exactly the law, or how a human character should be written. And I know that Webnovel readers don't read before ranting in one paragraph, so let me be even more clear for people who don't have reading comprehension: Anything can be a justification. Is it necessary for it to be a good one? No. But it's one, which it's better than none.
Even just one line of saying he's a psychopath is better than nothing (Rather overdone, and mostly done in the wrong way, but better than nothing).
Doom Slayer, for example, through out most of his history he has been seen to enjoy killing and slaughter(At least before Doom Eternal and the image of his wife and child), did he need a motivation beyond revenge on his pet? NO. Is slaughtering the entirety of hell for your pet a good motivation? It's arguable. But my point its that the fact that he had a motivation its way more than anything I can say for this bullies of manwha.
Of course, he also has a sense of justice as seen in his backstory where he punched a superior officer for ordering him to shoot unarmed civilians, but once again, no justification to be good.
Let's take a really good example of "Justified evil." In the long list of ¨Did nothing wrong¨ we have a lot of character like Itachi, Daenerys Targaryen, Light Yagami, Eren, Ozymandias, and many others. (Actually, comment a ¨Did nothing wrong¨ character, I want to see how far can we get)
But we will now talk about the original did nothing wrong: Griffith.
Did he have a reason to do all that? He did, and it was such a solid reason that he still gets debated on whether he did something good or bad.
He takes the did nothing wrong to another level. And when we see him succeed and make life for everyone in his country better, we ask ourselves ¨Maybe he had a point?¨.
Anyways, my point is that those revenge manhwa all follow the same plot, it isn't satisfying when they get what they deserve because it's a character made exactly for that point.
I've talked about the over the top bullying but not about over the top revenge.
Even the punisher treats his victims better. When the MC gets his hands on the bullies the story becomes a saw fanfic that a 9 year old wrote. And I'm supposed to feel relieved that they get the fanfic treatment.
It's not that I dislike violence. But the way those manhua try to justify the MC with the most childish of excuses and call his acts righteous revenge is disgusting.
The Punisher, using the example I've already mentioned, he kills without remorse or mercy. He's an insane war veteran that should get therapy. Not a hero, never in his story he gets called a hero, never does the story try to call him a hero, he himself would deny the people calling him hero.
But those series make the bully scum of the earth so everything done to them it's justified. And at this point I'm repeating myself, so let me just end by saying that I have not mentioned a single name in this rant.
I have not mentioned a specific bully manhua, yet I know that you have been thinking of one. That's because all of them follow the same pattern of setting up a bad guy, make it clear that he's a bad guy with an act of extreme violence and cruelty, then have the MC kill him with gruesome methods.
Shit, it's even a subgenre with it's own variations too. Like the manga with the same plot, except the bullied kid dies and the mom takes revenge.
Anyway, bully revenge manhua=bad.
I've written this rant because it bothers me that there's such a big community for this. Like, I know you can like what you want, and I shouldn't be judgefull, but this is another level of self-pity that I don't want to discover.
***Random notes:***
-Narcissus is so real for that. Not the shit she pulled with women, but his death.
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So that's about it.
What a rant. I think I did this so much because I re-read one work like this to find out why did my past self hate them so much and I saw most of the comments being like "Ah yes, my therapy."
This ended up being more than 7000 words. (~7200 words, actually. Around that. Because every writing app tells me a different set of words)
If there's anything I'm proud of then there's my tumblr account and how much I write.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter (Please read this in your mind with Audible Quotation Marks) and bye bye.
WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT.
Improv writing.
I was just about to post this. And I open Inkstone. And I see all of the comments and shiiiiiit. I see so many comments saying "pls continue this" and it makes my heart rush and I can feel the blood going to my face.
I'm still posting this (I mean, you're reading it.) BUT I SWEAR I WILL MAKE ANOTHER GACHA FIC.
Different from this one, and using another gacha, and probably without world changing stuff. BUT I WILL MAKE ANOTHER. WAIT FOR ME PEOPLE. READ ANOTHER COOL FICS IN THE MEANWHILE, OR NOT ONLY FICS, READ COOL WORKS FROM ANYWHERE AND EVERYWHERE.
DON'T JUDGE FROM WHERE IT COMES EITHER. YOU CAN GO READ IN WATPADD FOR ALL ANYONE CARES ABOUT, DON'T BE LIKE ME FROM 3 YEARS AGO. DO WHAT YOU WANT.
AND I'LL TRY TO ANSWER ALL OF THE COMMENTS I GOT AND WILL GET FOR AT LEAST A WEEK
I WILL BE BACK.
*GOTG OUTRO*