Stolas biggest crime is being the writers pet and therefore, annoying to watch for most (slander by serenityacrosstown)
Long ass fucking rant ahead.
All his character has is trauma, and being a dick that's excused by his trauma. All he does is cry and be horny. Most people don't want to see stories where characters are constantly victimized by everyone around them and are always in the right.
The problem with him is not that he is immoral. All characters in helluva are immoral, but not many are excused anywhere near as much as stolas.
Guys, it's okay that he is a neglectful father because his wife is abusive! Somehow, that stops him from giving a shit about his daughter and makes him sexually harrass people in front of her and make promises he can't keep!
Guys, it's okay that he is a bad person because he was an isolated rich kid with not many friends!
Guys, it's okay that he cheated because his wife is the worst person on earth and a flat 2d depiction of a villain! Now you don't have to think! We made it as black and white as possible. Now it has no nuance, and you know for sure he is in the right!
Guys, it's okay that he essentially harrased and coerced blitz because he is a closeted gay man! He is only 36teen he doesn't know any better! The well-educated prince doesn't know what sexual harrasment or rape is! Dont mention that his father bought a blitz as a child slave for them to be childhood friend a for a day.
He can do no wrong in the narrative. The writers will write a million excuses for him. They even have a mouthpiece moment for the writers in sinsmass where they bring a parallel to stella literally named Karen, that is humiliated and physically assaulted for fun, and a parallel to stolas living happily with his lover so the writers can shove stolitz down our throats.
They try so hard to make us like stolas. They literally give all the characters lobotomies in mastermind so they can have this whole forced plan so stolas can save Blitz life, which made no sense. Blitz just had the crystal registered for a month now, and Andrealphus had no proof of blitz using the book. Stolas could have just said that blitz didn't rape him and asmodeous could have confirmed the crystal being given by him. Blitz has no reason to hire another assasin while being an assasin, they even point it out, but everyone ignores it??? He didn't have to ruin his life, but they needed a plot to happen, so they gave it no thought. It was the most forced episode ever.
You can't force your audience to like a character. You have to be okay with your audience, not thinking that your favorite character is always right in every situation. If everyone who disagrees with stolas is framed as the worst person in hell (despite being bad in hell, supposedly being a good thing) and everyone who likes him is a good person, thats just a Mary sue character.
People constantly call out blitz, he is told to apologize to stolas and let him go, something that stolas isn't told about octavia. He is told that she will understand, like she is misunderstanding him instead of being fed up with his broken promises and him fucking up and apologizing only to do it again. Even when he doubts 6 prove to him he is in the right somehow, and everyone who disagrees with him is always turned into babbling idiot lobotomites, so they can't meaningfully call him out.
If you favor a character in a story, that will make the audience dislike them. You have to be okay with your character sometimes being in the wrong.
Fuck, they made octavia ableist so she doesn't actually call him out for being a shit person who doesn't actually want to change.
Stolas is like a bojack horseman if bojack was constantly treated as being in the right and his victims were made out to be abusers. Even when bojack was a victim, his abuser wasn't a flat one-note abuser, she has a nerrative purpose and a fleshed out backstory. Vivziepop says she takes a lot of inspiration from bojack, but I fail to see it. She even said that stella was inspired by Beatrice, which is a crazy statement to make about such a well written character. Apparently, Beatrice is also a victim of abuse and the narrative of the abuse cycle in families completley flew over her head.
Which is what annoys me about stella. She has no narrative purpose. What does her abuse say about the story or about the world? Nothing, it doesn't even say anything about stolas because the writers can't actually write an abuse victim. No, a rape victim wouldn't stand four feet away from their rapist publicly bragging that they raped them while looking mildly annoyed. We don't actually get to see him being affected by the physical abuse either. It's just there to make stella comically evil instead of making stolas a realistic depiction of a domestic abuse victim. It's just there, so the writers can excuse the cheating, which didn't even need excusing, instead of actually affecting stolas somehow.
It's shown in one scene and never brought up again, which just makes the story make less sense. If stella is so out and proud physically abusive twoards stolas so frequently, how come octavia thought that everything was fine before stolas cheated? Apparently, she always abused him physically, but octavia somehow didn't ever see it for 17 years? As someone who has lived with people like this and knew many people in similar situations, it's pretty much impossible for the kids to not notice physical abuse between parents, I'm sure it has happened but stella is obviously not shown to be smart enough to do it privately or hide it well. So it just feels like the writers just thought about it last second. That's something which, as someone who is also a victim of a female abuser, I find very gross. Don't write about serious real-world problems like that if you won't give a fuck. Even Valentino was a better writen villain, at least ageldust is affected by the abuse afterwards and doesn't immediately forget it.
Its not that I don't think that stella should be abusive, but it shouldn't be a last-minute decision, there should be research done on it and it shouldn't be used as an excuse for stolas to straight up be sexually coercing blitz. What does your domestic abuse situation have to do with you sexually harrasing people?
You don't need to excuse shit either. He is a demon. You didn't have to do all that to ruin your story. You can have favorites, but we as the audience shouldn't know, or at least, it shouldn't be so obvious you technically mess up your story to let us know.
The worst part is that the fans eat it up. It's like they think he is a real person and not a written character, and he did all that by choice and not because he was badly written to. "Guys, he gave his life to save blitz!" Yeah, because the writers wanted him to skip being called out for being a sex pest, so they made him a hero in the most convoluted way possible. You can't use the nerrative to defend the nerrative. The writing is shit.
TLDR: stolas is favored by the writers to a degree that ruins the character and the story. He is just the male version of a Mary Sue, and no one likes to see that in a show for grown adults.