Luna Loud
Chance: 5% - The Loud House is still one of the biggest shows on Nickelodeon, having been in non-stop production since its' debut, and it's even getting a Live Action spinoff thanks to the success of that (awful) Christmas movie. New episodes are heavily promoted, and even if they've mostly stopped making merch for the show it is clearly going strong. In fact it's been confirmed for a seventh season. By the end of next year, The Loud House will take the spot of 2nd longest (episode count) Nicktoon, surpassing The Fairly Odd Parents and even RUGRATS. That's nothing to scoff at! If Nick Corporate played a more active role in the roster selection, we'd likely have even more reps for the show than we already have (we don't know what their problem with Lucy was). Some say that demand for a particular character is diluted, but it's clear that Luna is the most popular next choice, alongside Luan in second place. She's Chris Savino's favorite sister, and she gets a lot of development, which brings in a lot of fans. This show has basically everything, so why the low score?
I know people are tired of doom and gloom about the show in the main thread, but hear me out. In real estate, people say "Location! Location! Location!" as the fundamental rule. So with that in mind, I say this:
FAN DEMAND! FAN DEMAND! FAN DEMAND!
The game's roster going forward has been entirely driven by fan demand (along with a bit of developer's preference in Rocko's case), and the show's fanbase doesn't care for the 2010's of Nicktoons (with the exception of blue-haired gaming waifus, which get special privileges for some reason...). The Loud House, meanwhile, is often overlooked by the community, and sometimes seen as a punching bag even. Suggest a TLH rep for the game on the subreddit and watch those downvotes pour in! In fact Lincoln himself seems to be the least popular main in the game, according to a poll on the Discord server (Lucy fares a little better; I 100% guarantee that if Lincoln weren't in base game he'd never be in NASB ever unless Nick Corporate stepped in. And people who've never watched the show would immediately applaud the choice of passing over the """boring""" protagonist since he doesn't have an extremely obvious gimmick like his sisters do. But I'm getting a bit sidetracked. This is just to mention another disadvantage the show has). I understand that the shows you grew up with leave the biggest impact, most of my most wanted are 2000-2007 Nick characters. And true, Nick doesn't really have much in the way of appealing options for the 2010's, but I think TLH gets way more hate than it deserves.
Which brings us to the reason why I voted to rerate Luna: THE POLL! This poll was fantastic, but not for TLH. Luna was the highest rated character on the show, scoring at a whopping..... 105th... OUCH. That is not good, that's a LOT of competition you have to get through to even have a chance. Hell, WAFFLE WOMAN FROM REN AND STIMPY ranked higher than most of TLH's cast. In a fan-demand-based character selection, that's one of the worst situations to be in.
Alongside this, there's several other hurdles the show has to climb:
- The show lacks the meme power to make up for popularity/demand gaps. TLH never really broke into the meme crowd for whatever reason, and the bit that did take interest either made jokes about harems or jokes ****ting on the show.
- Lack of demand, TLH fans haven't really gathered together to support Luna or any of the others, contributing to the main problem.
- Smaller fambase - the show still has a dedicated fanbase, but the big crowd that used to really hype it up left the show a few seasons ago. So the fandom isn't what it used to be.
- The NASB fanbase has different priorities right now, from trying to get more franchises into the game, to second reps for other franchises (Danny Phantom, Jimmy Neutron, etc). The Loud House has two reps already, one of the only five shows in the game to have more than one, so a lot of people probably see it as enough for now.
- In a world where second chances don't exist, the Chris Savino controversy may be impacting fan demand, and doesn't have audience love for the show to make up for it that the controversial creator characters in the top 25 have (Catscratch Trio + 5 Butch Hartman characters).
- If the devs wanna go for a rock star character, they may go for Ember McLain instead, who is squarely in the Top 25.
So Luna has loads of advantages in her home series, but The Loud House as a whole is in an extremely tough spot for getting another rep at all. A small chance next game, but this game? It's looking extremely bleak...
Want: 85% - I love Luna, and while I got my two favorite Louds in the game already I would REALLY love to see her! (and I'd love to see another Loud House character in general). Granted, I do currently have even biger priorities (such as more reps for shows like Spongebob, Avatar, Danny Phantom (one of which is Ember McLain, who shares the rockstar niche, etc), Jimmy/Timmy, and many others). Still, I think Luna could bring a lot to the game! Having her set up amps and such on the stage and play loads of different instruments would make for an incredibly fun and unique moveset! Pair that up with a kickass concert stage (with plenty of cameos in the audience!) and you have a very worthwhile Universe Pack on your hands! Play it Loud, dudes!
Arnold
Chance: 40% - This is a passed-over protagonist I can see them going back for at some point! They did make the conscious decision to choose Helga instead for the base game, given she's a much more confrontational and scrappy character than the chill and pacifistic Arnold. Though despite being a very real show, Arnold DOES get violent a few times, knows karate, and has gotten involved in so many adventures that there's definitely a moveset you could craft from him. Even having him attack indirectly, there IS a place for him in this game! Unlike Eliza, there's a surprising amount of demand for Arnold, seeing as he typically polls well and placed in the Top 25 of the recent poll. Combine this with the devs preference for the 90's and I can see them potentially picking him if the DLC goes on long enough (though he may be out-prioritized by more Spongebob/Avatar/Danny Phantom picks, or much bigger requests like Jimmy, Timmy, and El Tigre). If not, he's an obvious pick for a sequel!
Want: 60% - Hey Arnold wasn't one of my top all-time Nicktoons but I still really enjoyed it as a kid! The writing was great and the characters were all very lovable! While Helga ended up getting more development and I ended up liking her a lot, I liked Arnold as well and I do think that the show's representation isn't complete without him! and like I mentioned, there's loads of things to pull a moveset from. Characters like Grandpa Phil, Harold, Stoop Kid, etc are funny but you already passed over Arnold once, no need to pull another Hugh. Craig Barlett also mentioned that Arnold and Helga canonically end up together, so seeing the two fight side by side would be adorable!
Nominations:
Shrek x All
Predictions:
El Tigre - 82.57% - Expecting a LOT of confident scores, given that he's filling in the demand gap Jenny left behind, along with polling well in general even before that!
Otis - 75.28% - Same as El Tigre, but filling in the Hugh demand gap instead!