I fucking love stories where it never really feels like the main character(s) are threatened. where they’re never captured, humbled, tortured, nearly die, etc. mainstream writing advice says that this is a bad idea - that these characters are “Mary Sues” and that the audience will get bored or frustrated with them. so that’s why I like “bad writing” that deliberately or unintentionally ignores this advice. it’s incredibly rare to find, and it’s often notoriously bad or “cringe” but I love it

the thing is, I’ve been brought low and threatened and humbled my entire life and I’m sick of it, and I don’t want to watch it happen to anyone else. I want to see other people be empowered and make a difference in their world

unfortunately like I said above, these stories are incredibly rare. the Kino’s Journey anime (I’ve only seen the new one) is a good example with some exceptions, because the PoV character is almost always Kino and Kino always has a handle on things, even if it seems like she doesn’t

I also really liked the first season of the Overlord anime, where the PoV character is always empowered. but in the second season, it shifts away from that and starts focusing on Ainz’s cruelty and I hate that

then there’s Bofuri and Shangri-La Frontier where nobody can be meaningfully threatened because they take place in a video game

I could also mention a few different comics but they’re either very problematic in places or they’re notoriously bad to the point of being memes, so I won’t lol

@kasdeya I feel similarly, and it strongly plays into why so many of the Discworld novels work so well for me (that and competence being my favourite power fantasy).

@HauntedOwlbear okay this is the second time that someone has mentioned Discworld to me in reference to my weird preferences about storytelling lol. I might need give it a read

@kasdeya @HauntedOwlbear it's a reeeally good series, and if you're fond of empowerment and competence, you might like the books that have Susan, granddaughter of death, who features in Soul Music, Hogfather, and Thief of Time I don't remember if those books in particular fit, but Susan is a reliable rock

@OctaviaConAmore @HauntedOwlbear oohh - thank you! I really might give one of these a read. the name Thief of Time is jumping out to me because that sounds really cool lol

@kasdeya > then there’s Bofuri

Maple is also adorably and amusingly OP as far as that goes.