2. Bernadette (Colosseum Storyarc)
I realized that my last post may not have been in the correct format, so allow me to make an actual vote, to be sure it will be counted.
In my opinion, Bernadette's is the only story that still resembles its original form. Brion, you put on a hell of a comic, but stop trying to be M. Night Shyamalan. Some really unnecessary plot twists have put me off from a lot of the comic, and (as might have come across in my original "vote") made me hate Maytag as a character, if not as a person, altogether.
You thought May was a spunky nympho jester with an adorably shy streak out of costume?
Nope! She's an emotionally stunted (possibly aspergers-suffering) master manipulator with such great acting ability that even the guy who's whole thing is seeing people's faults couldn't tell. Or maybe not, because those don't sound like positive traits, so she totally does have feelings even though even she just said she didn't and there was a flashback to show it and everything!
You thought that this was a fantasy story, with swords and sorcery...maybe even monsters?
Too bad! Have some nanobots!
You thought that Suspiria had a tragic backstory and was getting just revenge?
Nope! She's a delusional lunatic, and she didn't even actually manage to kill the person she was out to get revenge on!
Meanwhile, Bernadette has accomplished her goal of finding her father. Her actions were in accordance with her nature to help her father. She's shown that she continues to be an ethical and moral person in the face of adversity...flawed, human, but principled. All the people around her that ought to care still show every sign of caring, and the people we aren't supposed to like are being horrible. No sudden genre shifts (or rather, unaffected by the sudden genre shift), and no one has suddenly had the entire nature, personality, and motivations of their character turned on its head.
In other words...it's the one story arc still untainted. As long as Brion doesn't decide to needlessly complicate things for the sake of fake added "drama", I still hold out for the Bern arc ending as strong as it started. Past shifts in tone have made me leery of Crest's arc, but it's mostly because of what's happened to Suspiria. I wouldn't mind seeing where Crest's story goes, I just don't have as much trust in how it will turn out, when it already seems to be setting up for another shitty plot twist roller coaster. Then there's Maytag... She used to be my favourite character, and now I hate her. One of my closest friends who started reading the same time as I did stopped because of her sudden transformation into, as he put it, "the textbook definition of a psychopath"...and honestly, he wasn't wrong. If Maytag were a real person, everything we know about her would make a strong case Cleckleyan psychopathy. I mean no disrespect for the author, but I would just as soon if the story never returned to her. If she and the nanobots were just written out and made noncanon, like Zeist from the lore of Highlander.
Actually, I take back what I said about no more Shyamalan plot twists. The best thing that could happen to this comic is a Shyamalan plot twist. Let's put them all back in the castle, and just say the last few chapters have been more illusions and drug-induced dreams. Maytag isn't really a psychopath. Suspiria isn't really a delusional, murderous hell-beast. The comic isn't really a super-post-apocalyptic sci-fi story. It was all just a trick. Can we do that?
Yes, I could say all this in the Brion Makes Excuses For Why Your Criticism Is Invalid thread, but I feel like the reasoning behind my vote needs to be understood, beyond just "They must like action", or "They like Bern more". The fact is, Bern's not even my favourite character. Crest is. However, at this point, the whole comic seems to have devolved to where it becomes not a choice of what I'd like most, but what I'd dislike the least.
tl;dr: Don't go back to the other characters until your ready to fix the problems with their arcs.