#because of all the nonsense happening in the world

[nerdylilpeebee]

No, I see it as extreme because it IS extreme. XD something that would have happened to you 2 generations ago has no bearing on the here and now. Nor does any speculation on the future.

No, women have rights in most of the world. I am 100% pro choice, but abortion is not a legal right. Should it be restricted? No, but you're not losing your rights just cuz it is.

Men's rights are constantly under doubt too. Men don't even have the right to bodily autonomy, let alone choosing whether or not to be a parent. XD Speculation on the future is irrelevant. Rando extremists on Twitter are not influencing politics to the point women will lose the right to vote. You do realize the right to vote is in the constitution, yes? You have any how hard that is to even ALTER, let alone remove a whole amendment? Amendment 15 ain't going anywhere just cuz some idiots on Twitter said women shouldn't vote.

Saying summer is hot and saying men are raised to think themselves superior are two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT STATEMENTS. One is a generalization of a group, the other is a statement about a time of year. Don't try to act like because one isn't a generalization, the other automatically is the same. If someone said "women are inferior beings" would you stop to consider they only mean some women? Didn't think so. Women in general are not oppressed just cuz afghan women are, and men in general are not raised to think themselves superior just cuz afghan men are. The extreme examples do not define the whole. So either stop generalizing, or stop complaining that people have an issue with your generalization.

Every culture doesn't, and most men do not think themselves superior to women. And yeah, it does tell me something. It tells me we have too many backwards pieces of shit in the government, and your sexist nonsense does nothing to combat that. We need unity, not idiots trying to act like all men are the enemy.

It's being discarded as an extreme example because it's not common. There are only a handful of countries women have no rights in. If you're presenting the extreme examples to try and disprove that men don't view themselves as superior, you are automatically proving yourself wrong. They are extreme because that is not the norm for most of the world. That is not suddenly irrelevant because you want it to be.

what baffles me is that he doesn't even realise how stupid his point is when talking about white supremacy. yes, we are all socialised under white supremacy. but some of us are socialised as the supreme, and others are socialised as the inferior. or is he really arguing that there is no substancial difference in growing up white vs. growing up Black??

yes, we are all socialised under patriarchy. BUT YOU WERE SOCIALISED AS THE PATRIARCH omg are you really that stupid or are you pretending

[velvet-vox]

Why King Candy has been so underrated and misunderstood for a long time (Still is, but to a lesser extent)

(All the images in this post come from the video linked below)

Hi everyone; so, usually, I'm not a trend chaser, in fact, I completely missed out on the hype of the Murder Drones finale by not releasing something for the occasion, as I have been very busy this past couple of months, and still am, but I've decided to make a special, out of program post just for my new current hyper fixation, that being King Candy from Wreck-It Ralph, who, for the past couple of weeks, has slowly risen up to become my third favourite Disney movie villain of all time.

And all of that, as some of you might have guessed, happened because I watched @king-crawler 's two hour long video essay on the character and the movie that he comes from.

Needless to say, just like many others before, it inspired me to add my own two cents to the conversation, and talk about some points that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else.

This is probably the only Wreck-It Ralph related analysis that I'm ever going to make.

I even thought about scrapping this whole analysis, because midway through development I thought that I was just spewing out nonsense, but I kept going because some of my points may give food for thought to someone who understood this character way better than me.

I may reblog some analysis/art posts of this character, but I'm not going to turn WIR into a staple of my blog; however, if I see a lot of people in the comments or the reblogs adding stuff or points to my arguments, I could always make a sequel post to this one.

But first, I need to get something out of the way immediately.

Spoilers below the cut if you never saw this movie, kind of important, as it is the movie's major plot twist:

King Candy is Turbo.

Who's Turbo? Watch the movie.

With all that said, enjoy the read, I'll now elaborate on the meaning of my title, also, here's the video in question; I highly encourage everyone to check it out, as it is a way better sequel to Wreck-It Ralph than the one who was lost in the depths of Lake Laogai:

Clarifications:

Wreck-It Ralph is an amazing movie, but one for which I've never had much to think about.

Don't get me wrong, I always considered it to be the smartest Disney movie ever made since my first watch, but I saw it for the first time relatively late, after I had consumed other Disney movies as childhood classics and other crossover movies featuring video game characters, so it never had neither a nostalgia nor hyper fixation factor as reasons as to why I should have put the story under a microscope after that.

Also, as Rando says at the beginning of their video, it is not a movie that blew me away after my first watch. Or the second. Or the third.

Why is this section important? It is important because these are my subjective opinions of the movie, which are unfortunately going to subtly influence what I'm about to say in one way or another, regardless of me trying to speak from a place of supposed "objectivity".

I'm really passionate about this world now thanks to Randomalistic, but you won't get the same vibe from this post as you would get from one made by long time fans of this movie.

Ok?

Good.

Next:

King Candy/Turbo has always been... in a weird spot for me.

Just like the movie where he comes from, I never really cared about Turbo until a month ago, despite always feeling like I should have loved him a lot more, especially since Deltarune chapter 2 released a while ago, and the character of Spamton G Spamton is someone for whom I have very strong feelings about; and Turbo, in a technical sense, is literally the spiritual predecessor of that guy (actually, Turbo is the spiritual predecessor of a lot of similar characters, he kinda was ahead of his time).

If I had made a Disney tier list for their movie villains, a completely subjective one for that matter, I would have put him in A tier, but thinking that he should have gone in B tier... while also feeling like neither were appropriate placements for him.

Randomalistic's video finally helped me fall in love with the character; so much in fact, that it got me thinking:

"Damn, if Turbo is actually this amazing of a villain, why was(is) he so underrated and overlooked by general audiences, when he admittedly is, in my opinion, one of the best Disney villains of all time? Frollo is by and large considered the best villain out of any Disney movie, and the HOND was nowhere near as successful as Wreck-It Ralph when it first released, so it can't just be a matter of first impressions (?). Maybe there are other factors, that stop audiences from recognizing Turbo as the Magnum Opus of villainy that he truly is..."

... And that's exactly what I'm going to discuss!

Let's get right into it.

The minor stuff.

First things first:

He's ugly. I'm sorry to all of the people who ironically and unironically simp for him, but that's a design only a mother could love.

On a serious note, KC and Turbo's designs always felt... not very eye-catching to me? (The bug form is excluded from this conversation)

I'm not saying these are bad designs, far from it; but each form has on them a certain amount of design decisions that, by the authors own decisions, make them unappealing to a viewer like me (I'm using myself as reference point because the topic that I'm talking about is inherently subjective).

Starting off with King Candy, is design has to balance a lot of different aspects simultaneously: it has to be eyecatching, so that the viewer can pay attention to him as an antagonist, and believable enough so that the watchers buy the fact that he is the King of Sugar Rush and not someone else, but it also has to be generic and fake enough so that it can later on add up to the fact this is just a performance, a facade, a ruse, a costume, and not the real character, it also needs to be friendly enough so that the audience can be manipulated together with Ralph into believing that he actually is a good guy;

I could go on and on listing off all the amazing things, that the King Candy facade pulls off simultaneously, but exactly because the design has to feel real and fake at the same time, it also, by proxy, ends up feeling weird, and that inexplicable sentiment can end up alienating the viewers who are watching the movie and the ones who have finished consuming it without thinking too deeply about what the meaning of the KC's facade actually was.

In the case of Turbo's design, all the people working behind the movie did such an amazing job making him look as scary, ugly, alien, and deranged as possible, all the while keeping him relatively PG friendly; the result clearly paid off, but Turbo's ugliness is not as slick as the likes of Ratigan's, nor is it as nightmarishly horrifying as the Other Mother's.

The most nightmare fuel qualities of Turbo's design are hidden out of plain sight, which is basically a recurring theme with his character.

To put it in a funny way, his looks neither end up in the conventionally attractive territory that most other Disney villains fall into, nor do they grab the attention of the Monster Fu###rs crowd.

I have zero things to say about the Cy-bug form, but I do have a section later on where I talk about that entire scene in and of itself.

All in all, it might just be me, but the first impressions of this character's design don't really do him any favours when it comes to his popularity.

I now love both designs, but before, they just didn't click with me, and I think some other people might understand what I'm talking about.

Admittedly, I could have explained this section better, but these were mostly my personal opinions and they are not really important in the grand scheme of things, unless somebody else agrees with me, in that case I'd have to take a closer look at the situation.

Second of all:

The marketing.

To be honest, I feel like what really elevated all of the most iconic Disney villains into pop culture status was a joint push from the company and the artists to include these characters into more stories and products.

Like, sorry to all of the Oogie Boogie fans, but that character is barely in his movie and doesn't do a lot, and he wouldn't be nearly as iconic as he is if Disney didn't use him again multiple times after his first debut.

And the same can honestly be said for all of Disney's most popular villains; they got used multiple times in multiple different projects, that either kept them mostly the same, changed them with some unique twists (that change in quality, but that's up to you), expanded on their preestablished characters, or put them into unique situations that showcased just how versatile they are.

Kingdom Hearts, The House Of Mouse and Descendants are very obvious examples of what I'm talking about, but even appearances in lesser known stories like Lady Tremaine in Cinderella 3, Captain Hook in Jake and the Neverland pirates, or the entirety of Disney Twisted Wonderland help solidify these characters as pop culture icons;

All except Frollo.

Frollo is the only one whose hype and cultural recognizability wasn't built up by the company or the media in which he was featured, but by the fans of the original movie.

And despite Disney almost never used that character ever again after his debut, he, his movie, and Hellfire still get a lot of prise and are talked about classics to this very day.

Because Frollo is just that freaking awesome.

Turbo, on the other hand... is barely in anything.

Let's get the most obvious stuff out of the way first: King Candy is a relatively new character, released in an era where Disney was slowly starting to integrate the new, corporate ideals that we see today.

All of the villains that I've mentioned previously already became tried and true successes by that point, so even if the company doesn't care about having good villains anymore they still use their likeability because it has already shown in the past to bring in audiences.

It's also the main reason as to why Mother Gothel is used so rarely: King Candy, as the last truly great Disney movie villain (excluding Tamatoa, who's barely used anyway, and movies not produced by their main animation studio), arrived at a point in time when the company wasn't pushing for their villains anymore, and instead actively sanitized some of them in their new stories (you know what I'm talking about); therefore, Turbo, being actually incredibly dark on second look, and with no actual intention of tuning him down like Jafar because he hadn't already reached the iconic status by that point, had no reason to make any big appearance ever again or be paraded around as much.

There are some more reasons as to why Turbo likely doesn't have more stuff dedicated to him, like the fact that he is technically 3 characters at the same time, but I don't want to prolong this section too much.

So instead, how about we take a look at some of his other appearances outside of Wreck-It Ralph?

Let's see...

He has various cards in Lorcana, which is his most recent appearance, mind you;

He became a playable character in the 7th season of Disney Speedstorm, a game where I was hoping he would be the main villain, due to a variety of reasons, but hey, that's perfectly fine;

And he was mentioned multiple times in Disney Heroes Battle Mode, a game where he hopefully is the secret main villain, as it would pay off a large amount of story and design decisions chosen for that game, but it's probably just wishful thinking and unless the game's plug is pulled, I doubt we'll see him anytime soon.

Ok, it's more than nothing, but it's also not that special if you ask me.

But hey! At least he got a boss fight in a Kingdom Hearts game! That's more than Randall can say! He was a major boss in Union Cross... the mobile game... that you can't play anymore... and since KH adheres strictly to its own canon most of the time, it also probably means that we'll never get to play through the storyline of the first WIR in any future mainline game, and we're more likely to see a world based around the second movie instead.......

Yeah.

That seems to be it, unless I'm missing something huge (feel free to let me know).

This section is important because Cruella De Vil became one of my favourite Disney villains of all time not after seeing her in the original movie, but after I saw her in 101 Dalmatian Street, a niche show that almost nobody knows; so other medium appearances are important to these characters popularity, especially when not all of these villains are Frollo.

ALSO, PLUS 1+, I was originally going to cut this point, but I decided to add it anyway: the Italian voice actor.

After recently rewatching this movie in English, (I'm Italian, we in Italy translate the movies to our language because it's easier than learning an entirely different language for them), I have to really admit that Alan Tudik's voice performance really does a lot of heavy lifting for the character's memorability.

This is not to say that the Italian voice dub sucks or that King Candy's Italian voice actor does a bad job, in fact, the voices are actually quite similar to each other, it's just that Alan's performance has that small edge of hidden bitterness that really brings the character together; though I do prefer Turbo's Italian voice for its twist reveal: the more raspy, heavy tone of the actor really highlights the vicious, alien nature of his character, as well as the sense of dread that Vanellope is feeling in this moment; I encourage you to give it a watch.

Again, this is extremely minor, and it really only affects me specifically, but don't worry, it's not going to have influence over the rest of this post.

These were just additional points and not the actual meat of my argument, so now I'll start discussing what I actually wanted to talk about from the very beginning:

Who is he?

I think that one of the main reasons as to why Turbo is so underrated is because we spend way less time than with most other Disney villains (before him) to know him as a person.

Think about it:

Most other Disney villains, or at least the most popular ones, all have moments where they are doing nothing to progress the plot, that are dedicated solely to get us to know them better.

Hades has several moments with his minions to show off his personality and anger, Jafar has silly little moments with Iago that show off his depravity, Maleficent has talks with her crow that make her more dynamic, Ursula has her introduction scene where she spies on Ariel and does nothing but talking, and Captain Hook... has 30% of his screen time dedicated to just that.

Heck, Hellfire, one of the most iconic sequences in all of Disney, is just a character set piece for Frollo, and it's arguably completely disposable, as it doesn't really do anything to progress the story, it just explores Frollo's character in deeper depth and that happens to make the big difference when it comes to him.

King Candy doesn't really have an obvious character centric moment, something easy for the audience to quickly latch onto: every time we see him, he is always doing something to push the plot forward.

Yeah, there's that small character interaction with the Donut cops when he gets glasses, and other small moments here and there, like the would you hit a guy with glasses joke, but nothing truly character-defying.

I also don't count King Candy's first scene as a character centric moment, as that's more of an introduction rather than an elaboration, but it is technically valid, even if it ultimately is just a facade that he puts up to serve his needs.

Speaking of which: the fact that most of what we see of Turbo throughout the story could be entirely fake is definitely something that I could use to make the argument in this section stronger, but I'd rather save it up for later.

Also, side note:

I think that the moment most dedicated to him only, to show off a different, "true" aspect of his personality, is when he is walking back and forth in the castle waiting for his cops to show up again.

This moment is so interesting on rewatch, as it is one of the few moments in the entire movie where I can safely say that Turbo is being 100% genuine and isn't putting up any facade whatsoever, as there really is no benefit to him appearing distressed in this situation.

In general, it's funny to think that Turbo's most genuine reactions are of fear.

Back to point one, do you wanna know why Maleficent was given a crow in Sleeping Beauty? The reason as to why was for her to have someone to bounce off, a way for the writers to showcase more facets of her character, and while Candy has Sour Bill, the movie never uses the relationship between the two to show off a different aspect of his character.

To be clear, I'm not saying that Turbo is a worse character than these other Disney villains, or that without these moments of calmness he doesn't work, one great example

Do you know that Calhoun in early development had a camouflage ability, meant to highlight how she hides her feelings but was scrapped because it made her harder to relate to? Well, let's just say that Turbo's entire character is a What If scenario where that idea actually went through.

It's a double edged sword: King Candy is so interesting because he is so mysterious and surprising all throughout the movie, but exactly because he has to be so mysterious, he is not a character as easy to understand as some of the other villains from the company; it's incredibly easy to miss out on just how cruel he is and the full scale of all the damage that he has done.

I, AM, .......the twist villain.

There's also something to be said about how popular to the conversation the twist that King Candy is Turbo became.

Everyone loves this reveal, am I right?

It may not be the best moment in the movie, but my god if it isn't hype, all thanks to the music, the lighting, the setup, yada yada yada....

But the identity reveal scene is to Candy what the Genocide Boss Fight is to Sans: it's the most impactful moment about his character, to the point where it becomes the entire baseline where most discussions are built around, which, more often than not, lead a lot of people to overlook other things about Turbo.

Let me explain: how many analysis videos have you seen where the person making it talks more about the setup and subtle hints present in King Candy's earlier scenes that slowly build up to the twist and less about the events happening in it?

The reveal is amazing, don't get me wrong, but if Rando's video didn't come along to dive deep into King Candy's earlier scenes with the twist already in mind, the true impact of what Candy had been doing throughout the entire movie up to this point would have been lost on me, and I can imagine someone else feeling the same, as me, casual enjoyer of WIR, have been conditioned to think of Candy more for his well planned out surprise, rather than for how that surprise makes the character more engaging (I hope this makes sense).

I also want to mention this video ranking all the different twist villains from Disney and Pixar where CellSpex says that the Turbo twist is useless, since the movie doesn't do much with it afterwards.

Now, aside from the fact that CellSpex is clearly in the wrong and she's missing the point, I think this lack of reconsideration highlights that casual viewers care more about the Turbo plot twist than they care about Turbo himself.

But honestly, I don't believe people focusing too much on the twist is that big of a problem, more so, the problem stems when you want to use the twist... to discuss something else.

Now, I think it's perfectly fine if you want to use Turbo to explain why other Disney twist villains don't work, but when the villains that King Candy is compared to the most are Hans, Yokai, and Bellwether, you kind of start to think that he is only the best of the worst, and not an actual amazing antagonist in his own right.

It may not be a message that was intended to be sent, but it is something that may subconsciously cling to someone's brain, especially when you consider that there might be a huge audience of people who watch these videos because they saw Hans in the title (wishing for the video to bash him), and have seen Frozen, Zootopia and Big Hero 6, but have never seen Wreck-It Ralph in their lives, and they get all their knowledge of Turbo from them.

It's exasperating, especially when King Candy has way more in common with renaissance Disney villains than contemporary ones.

Yes, through technicality, he is a twist villain, but he's more so a hybrid antagonist to be honest.

And even worse than people just grouping up Candy with a bunch of morons, as I've just discovered by reading a comment from this Turbo Tribute, is that some people apparently despise him for starting the Disney Twist villain trend: even if he's leagues better than his competition, the simple fact that you can attribute some of the blame for the fall of villainy onto him, is enough for someone to despise him.

King of the Cy-bugs (feat Rockotar):

Very recently, I've rewatched Rockotar's video analysis of the first Wreck-It Ralph, and when he arrived at the "Welcome, to the Boss Level!" scene, I decided to analyse all the possible reasons as to why he (and possibly many others, such as, admittedly, myself) wasn't as entranced by it as basically any other scene from the movie, who he had been praising non-stop up until this point.

And I think I understood why: aside from the fact that this scene is only a setup for Ralph's sacrifice (and I wished the actual boss fight to be longer and more creative), the Boss Fight is less of a climax for Ralph's journey and more so a character study for who Turbo/King Candy is.

In my opinion, this is the closest we ever get to a "villain at rest" moment with Turbo because in every other scene of the movie, King Candy is always doing something, he's always active and we never see him doing anything that doesn't coincide with his role.

And, paradoxically to what I've just said about this being a "villain at rest" moment, in this scene, he is still doing something and being active in the plot, only that this time, instead of advancing the story, he's holding it back from its conclusion.

This scene simplifies Turbo's character to his most bare bone essentials: he's a short-tempered jerk, a power hungry murderer, a virus; it's all pretty interesting stuff once you take a sweet moment to break it down.

However, there's a point that I briefly mentioned before that I want to bring up; this creature that we are laying your eyes upon, is now three different people all at once, King Candy (anxious, quiet and manipulative), Turbo (short-tempered, competitive and spiteful), and now this Cy-bug hybrid.

To reiterate what I've said before, if you don't think about it for long enough, you aren't going to understand who either character is exactly.

Because that's the big thing: all of his facades, implied development off screen and reactions are so well constructed that at certain points, it feels like we're following two different characters simultaneously, which fits perfectly with the narrative that so called "real" Turbo died and now he's no longer himself, but...

I'm scratching the bottom of the barrel to bring up other possible points as to why this character is so underrated, and the lack of a clear identity seems like a pretty obvious thing to me.

But that's only two out of the three characters I mentioned; we need to take a second look at the Cy-bug form, who, in many ways, is simultaneously the thesis and antithesis of his character.

In particular, there's one thing I want to consider:

There's this theory made by somebody else that says Turbo, upon getting eaten by the Cy-bug, didn't take over the animal's conscience and control his body, instead, upon eating King Candy, the Cy-bug took upon himself his mannerisms, meaning that, according to this theory, neither King Candy nor Turbo technically survived the encounter.

If we accept this theory as true, then that means that even during what is supposed to be a character study, the character that the movie is highlighting may also be just as fake as the act that was put up until this point, meaning that, in a sense, we never saw the real Turbo in the movie.

He was three people at once.

(Yes, I've been spamming this image everywhere, and I'll keep doing so because I can)

In Conclusion:

Turbo is, ironically and unironically, an incredibly subtle character, and that makes it extremely easy for a lot of people to overlook and miss out on the most subtle details and characteristics that make him truly exceptional;

Him being so deceptive and mysterious helps and hinders his popularity, as some either love the mystery surrounding him, others fail to get a good grasp on who he truly is and become disinterested.

He is, by design, a building block, a puzzle to be solved, a character to piece together, that makes him so much fun!

But also, if you aren't interested in putting the pieces together, then he may not be up everyone's alley.

I definitely feel like the best thing that Randomalistic did in her/their video on Wreck-It Ralph was create an easy jumping point for new fans/casual watchers of the movie to get insanely invested over the story and characters;

I'm sure it was incredibly easy for many other people like me to focus only on the most talked about aspect of Turbo, aka the plot twist, and overlook all the other things that were not as much in your face as that; I was blinded by the spotlight, and it made it hard to see the genius that was put everything else;

Now, thanks to Random highlighting King Candy's cruelty and repulsive behaviour, my favourite thing about Turbo is how he weaponized the "disability" of a child to marginalise and persecute her, discriminating her for it all of her life WHEN HE'S THE ONE WHO MADE HER "DISABLED" IN THE FIRST PLACE.

This man, is so HORRIBLE, and he deserves to be publicly exposed for all the heinous s##t that he did, not just for being the best of a bunch of villains who frankly he shouldn't even be attempted to be compared to.

Anyway, I hope someone had fun reading this. I definitely felt like I started to write this with some really good ideas that I wanted to share, but in the end, I feel like they weren't all that interesting to begin with.

Feel free to share your own opinions, and have a great day!

[mooifyourecows]

my mood has plummeted the past few days because of various anxiety reasons and so ive once again uninstalled twitter on my phone and i can already feel things getting Infinitely Better™️

[icewindandboringhorror]

Lineup of all of the characters that appear long enough to need a visual representation of them in the game lol

[solace-seekers]

screaming into the void <3

[nenilein]

Okay, lemme start to deconstruct this because MAN does this entire thread make me Angry

Yoggus, Fudoushi and Runelord

Yog, Yoggus and Yog-Sothos aren't characters, Yog, Yoggus and Yog-Sothos are forces of nature, and fighting them is portrayed as akin to fighting a natural disaster. They are not interesting in the slightest, and their mindless, animalistic nature more often than not leads to jokes about them, and the game making fun of how silly the stupid floating eyeballs making everyone go cuckoo are. In other words: They're EXACTLY the same as the corruptive forces in Puyo Puyo Tetris 1 and 2. The ONLY difference is that those two games had an actual human mind at the source of that corruption, while in Madou Saturn, there's only a big monster, followed by an even bigger monster, that can be defeated simply by beating down on it and that isn't treated as anything other than an excuse for the characters to prove how much they love being alive in this world, not an actual character. Yog-Sothos being insanely underutilized is actually a big reason Madou Saturn is so difficult to recommend to me personally. The actual overarching plot of Madou Saturn is aimless and boring AF as a result of Yog-Sothos just being an animalistic creature of chaos and destruction, rather than a character, what makes Madou Saturn good is all the small stuff that happens on the way to it! Incidentally, "Arle's Adventure" is a similar case to that, because due to the plot being cut down to size for unknown reasons, Diés is ALSO just an animalistic force of chaos with no actual motivation, except Arle's Adventure's narrative has almost NOTHING else in there that could make it interesting, so Diés irredeemable nature as a pure ball of bad makes the game even less noteworthy than it already is.

"Fudoushi", or, as he SHOULD be translated "Rot Mage" is just a glorified midboss. No character, no lore, no anything. It's just a creepy visual that's there to scare Arle in some ports of Madou 1. That's it. There's absolutely zero to it, hence why some ports (such as the SNES remake) actually TRY to make Rot Mage funny/redeemable to make him more interesting, which barely works. He's not even really a villain. He's an obstacle that was placed in the tower to make Arle's exam harder by her teacher. If you count this as a "final villain", then the friggin' Medal in Puyo 15th is an irredeemable villain too, for all the nonsense it pulls on the characters.

Runelord may be irredeemable. He's also very dead and has been so before the games ever started. He exists solely to add depth to Schezo's character and make the fact that Schezo is NOT irredeemable far more interesting, something the new games, ESPECIALLY Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop, play into hard. Runelord would be INSANELY less interesting/utilized by the fanbase if not for all the depth Schezo has.

But now every villain MUST be redeemed. Squares? Redeemed. Rafisol? Redeemed. Ecolo? Well more tamed but still!

Because these characters are actual characters and the writers are writing actual stories with them. If you want a character to be an actual character, giving them zero motivation simply is NOT an option, and when a character has a motivation, making them "irredeemable" is very, very difficult, because human beings do not work like that. Unless they're in very unhealthy IRL positions of power, which, in a setting like Puyo Puyo/Madou Monogatari… I wrote an entire MASTER'S THESIS about that exact theme, but that doesn't work there, because a major theme of this franchise overall is that it makes sure that unhealthy, unearned authority can ALWAYS be destroyed quickly by the effort of the people. A "villain" like that would not be around for long, because the cast would eliminate them or drive them into hiding ASAP. Why do I know this? Because we HAVE a villain like that! Thousand/Issen from Puyo Puyo Quest is EXACTLY that, an irredeemable, rich asshole in an insanely abusive position of power, who was quickly driven into hiding by the cast upon being found out. I hate it when people act like Sega is "Lazy" and "Can't write" that stuff. They can and they do, it just doesn't get attention because these characters are INHERENTLY less interesting, because their intruige lies in how they affect the rest of the world, not in themselves.

Then there is The Crimson Spirit. A sealed away spirit that possesses a child against his will, so he can kill another child. Afterwards, the formally possessed child still keeps the book, and while he's not stupid, he is riddled with insecurities, and given the book is compared to a security blanket in the next game, one can imagine he's being manipulated. In the japanese version of Tetris the spirit even insults him. This…finally, a pure evil villain again!

NO. IT NEVER WAS.

The crimson spirit was EXPLICITELY redeemable from the very start! Guys. You DID NOT "play" Fever 2. You played an incomplete patch of the Manzai Demos only, which are only a MINISCULE part of the game, that only holds, like, 5% of the game text, and is NOT why anyone in the Japanese fandom is interested in these characters.

Do I need to quote the entirety of the actual text of the Tome of Sealing, which the player immediately gets after beating Possessed Klug for the first time again? No? TOO BAD I'M DOING IT ANYWAY.

Do you see this? The Crimson Spirit was ALWAYS portrayed as a victim of racism. Not a "pure evil villain". In fact, reading them as this is such an INSANE misreading of the character, it can downright be said to actively destroy the entire narrative and mean you are siding with fictional racists! Please, cease!

But the writer of Quest and the Audio Dramas are doing their best to RUIN THIS! Turning the spirit from a mysterious threat to a forgettable pathetic loser! There's a reason I am so cherry picky with the Audio dramas, because they even try to tame Doppelganger Arle! And they just make everyone softer, there are very few I like.

WHAT??? HUUUUH?

You are displaying that you haven't actually listened to/read any of quest at all right now! The audio dramas constantly portray the crimson spirit as genuinely threatening and better at everything than the main characters! In the Super Sentai Parody, they outright smash Amitie, Raffina and Lidelle due to their own hubris of all wanting to be Red Rangers and are the unambigious victor of the battle, no questions asked! In the Tour Guide Drama Track, they chase Amitie and Lidelle's tour group away from the Arka ruins solely with their intimidating presence alone! In Quest Main story, they outright threaten to scatter the children across the dimensions (possibly getting them killed) and blow themself up WITH Klug when people get in their way, both times causing Rokia to remark how ruthless/threatening a character they are! The second time, Ms. Accord has to personally step in and help take them out, something she almost NEVER does! You simply do not know the content of what you are complaining about here, plain off! You are complaining about a fictional version of this stuff that DOESN'T exist anywhere but the depths of your brain!

And what in the HEL do you mean Doppelganger Arle is being "tamed" in the drama CDs?? She has 2 lines and they don't indicate ANY change in her personality! We don't see that she is still alive and has a HOME. This is the opposite of what you are complaining about! It means Sega is keeping an irredeemed antagonist around, NOT that she's been "tamed". In fact, in Quest, she is one of the few characters who hasn't had a SINGLE comedic storyline connected to her, unless you count the training manzai, which nobody counts. She is purely a force of intimidation (which is part of why she isn't really interesting and never has been, but I DIGRESS)

And Quest is a Gatcha Game. I will never count Gatcha games as canon to anything.

Then you are simply WRONG. Period. More people play Quest than ever listened to the audio dramas. More people play Quest then play the story modes in the mainline games! To ignore it is to SIMPLY IGNORE THE TEXT OF THE FRANCHISE. This is pure media illiteracy, and means that what you are complaining about is a version of the franchise that is purely made up of headcanons of yours, not the actual thing, which is actively poisonous to fandom dialogue and I SO wish you would stop. If you are not interested in the actual text of the franchise, then do not discuss it. Write fanfic instead. Nobody would take that away from you. Do not lie about what other writers did or did not write just because you maneuevered yourself into believing you read something that you didn't read. This sort of stuff pisses me as a writer off immensely, because it makes fandom discussion so much less vibrant and interesting and has no place in it.

Basically, instead of "What kind of threat is this? How will we beat it?" it becomes "Whats this guy's tragic backstory and how will they be redeemed?"

Oh, you mean like in 7, where defeating Ecolo required Amitie to find an escape route from the margin dimension to help Ringo, because otherwise she would have been killed in Ecolo's dimensional breakdown? Or in Tet2, where the characters actively have to play "hot potato" with Marle to wear her down before they can get through to her?

You act like it's "one or the other", which is a fundamental misunderstanding of how writing works! Kindly at least watch some goddamn Anime and actually analyze what is happening in it before you talk about this shit! Oh and Yog-Sothos, Rot Mage and Runelord all weren't defeated by going "What kind of threat is this? How will we beat it?" They were defeated by hitting them with bigger numbers. Which took less effort than ANY of the villains you complain about.

I want a new writer.

I want you to shut your mouth and respect people who actually write for a living. I was kind to you the last time we talked, but you just proved you have zero goodwill for other writers, only for yourself and your own fanfic, and it shows you are immature and not ready to be a writer yourself yet. You will never be ready until you can look at a text for what it is, not what your gut feelings are telling you it is based on vague second hand experiences you have with it.

It's still perfectly canon for me to see Strange Klug as pure evil due to the ambiguous cannonicity of the drama.

So, are you ignoring 95% of the text of Fever 2 as well then? Okay, cool, you are just wrong. Thank you for being so bad at media literacy and poisoning the fandom with that lack of insight. Thank you for making this fandom a worse place to discuss characters in. I am so fucking pissed.

I hate the idea of being the guy who makes someone say "he would not fucking say that" and I had a breakdown about that because of how I write The Crimson Spirit and how it contradicts the dramas and Quest!

So it's just you wanting your fanfic to be canon. I am so disappointed in you, you learned NOTHING from our talk back then. So close to blocking you on all my social media platforms too. This just makes me shake with anger. This is not how you treat a writer just because you want your goddamn fanfic to be canon.

In fact, I am shaking so hard right now that I am only responding to this initial post for the time being, rather than the rest of the asinine thread this created. I just can't. Why did you feel the need to backslide so hard into your stubbornness after the good talk we had?

I thought you had gotten better about this. The fact that you haven't makes me so damn sad.

By the way, the writer you are slandering here is Utako Yoshino. She has a name. And she is not subtle about the fact that she is scared of people like you, because they can ruin her entire livelihood with poorly thought-out flaming like this in an instance. She's posted about it. You are contributing to that very real anxiety.

Do better.

Be better.

I am getting sick of the redeemable/not really evil villains. Yes I do like them but there's just so many now! It was far more varied in Compile!

[Post this and I will reblog with my rant about this subject]

shit, sorry I didn't post earlier. Yap away. Or... yap eway...?

[flufflecat]

Can someone explain what the narrative stakes are even supposed to be anymore in jjk. All the characters are essentially guaranteed to die, the current cast is comprised almost entirely of characters who showed up 2/3rds into the story and we're supposed to care about them for some reason, and I do not even know what the threat is supposed to be anymore. The apocalypse? Destruction of an amorphous innocent society? Like has ANYTHING been shown of "here's the regular world that apparently needs to be saved" or are we just supposed to assume "this society is just Real Life+, so you're REQUIRED to care if some guy threatens to kill all humanity, because one of those humanities may be... a child" or something. Can you spare two seconds to show anything other than some magic randos fighting, or is it just a superhero story all the time now, minus the fun. Remember when yuuji had friends.

[anarkhebringer]

I woke up to this and am really thinking about this

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Sea Of Broken Glass

fantasy

two sisters who live on a floating village in a shallow ocean are exiled when one develops magic and can’t hide it like her sister does

they travel to the land, trying to survive searching for their mother who was exiled 20 years ago, through the wilderness and magical caves

crystal/mineral magic, magical creatures, sister relationships

[martialartslover7]

Right off the bat, thanks for the positive response.

And about that bit with Shikamaru, sure, you can say that this might potentially contradict all the lessons he learned, while avenging Asuma's passing, but I will say, after all this, even he may start asking a lot of questions about the legitimacy of ANYTHING he was being told from the ground up. Because, knowing that Hiruzen was such a useless piece of garbage for a human being, who practically enabled war crimes on the regular, never asking questions, and just letting Danzo have his way, all that "Will of Fire" nonsense may no longer bear any weight, because it's all build on lies, further spoonfed to people with no guiding principles of their own. All carefully constructed, so that, in the end, it only favors those, that are in-power, and not the ones a few levels lower. It's glorified dictatorship, with just a lot of make up on, to hide the ugly mug beneath it.

Like, something tells me, he always knew that in a way, he was always a lazy bum, but it leaves you asking, WHY that is. He might have been the first to see right through Hiruzen's bullshit, realizing, there is no pointing in risking your life for a state, that doesn't even know you exist, or care to know. Risking your life for your comrades, that's a different story, but by this point in time, after Pain's attack on the Leaf village, the ugly truth of who they were all following was slowly creeping its way to the surface.

Honestly, after learning this, I was half-expecting Naruto himself to develop in a more negative, but understandable direction, after the war, specifically during the Blank Period, because... You cannot tell me, the war didn't affect him in a negative way, there is just no way. Grasping more and more, how it must have felt for Sasuke to know, the most important people in his life, sacrificed themselves, only to be met with scorn and spite, having the village essentially piss on their families' grave. Especially bearing the knowledge that, a piece of trash like Danzo, essentially rendered the sacrifices of both his parents, and the deaths of all those, who were affected by his actions, the Uchiha clan included, completely meaningless. Making it seem as if their sacrifices meant nothing in the end. This HAS to break Naruto in a way, in a similar vein to what Sasuke had to go through, after Madara spilled the beans to him. Knowing that, these loving individuals, who would have continued to give their otherwise bleak, lonely world, more light, bit the dust, for freaking nothing.

If Naruto was actually peak, let's be real, the Blank Period should be renamed the "Revolution Period", where Naruto and Sakura band together, along with the Konoha 12, to publically pardon and relieve the Uchiha clan, working to get a memorial stone set up, with all the names of the Uchiha, down to the last freaking INFANT that was born and slain that fateful night, to be carved on there, along with a memorial statue of Itachi Uchiha. An everlasting reminder that: This should never happen again.

Only then. ONLY THEN. Will Sasuke be able to come home, and TRULY feel like, he came home. To give him the feeling that, this village, in spite of all its faults, is willing to show humility, especially under Kakashi's guidance. That, his clan, is finally being acknowledged. Along with the sacrifice of his brother. Naruto would openly welcome his brother-in-arms back, and all this, would be the ULTIMATE form of a love declaration on behalf of Sakura. It can also be seen as an apology letter from both Kakashi and Sakura, for not having trusted him at first (sorry, I am a SasuSaku loyalist, but don't worry, I more than sympathize with the hesitation to accept it, I have been there).

Happy End.

...unless, the Konoha elders don't plan on soiling the memorial stones.

Weird Wednesday Headcanon: Outside of Team 7, Neji, Shikamaru and Kiba sympathize the most with Sasuke's fall from grace after the Five Kage Summit.

Alright, this is another headcanon of mine that can be written off as "mental", but hear me out, this has so much potential.

I'd like to think that, outside of Team 7, Sasuke wasn't just closely acquainted with Naruto, Sakura or Kakashi, but also:

Neji (whom we even got a small teaser hint of a rivalry between him and Sasuke for, which sadly, never came to be, because Byakugan VS Sharingan is a question in the community, that truly needs answering)

Shikamaru (shogi rivals, nuff' said, the only guy, that managed to corner Shikamaru at his own game, I mean, Sasuke is meant to be a genius too, so, why not?)

Kiba (just being around him, Sasuke's IQ just automatically decreases, but in a fun way, like Renji and Uryu from Bleach, considering, Kiba had lived most of his life, surrounded by moody, dominating women, and he might be Sasuke's "stay-in wingman", when it comes to Sakura, or they would just talk about how tiring women can be, but they do manage to get best results out of you with their motivation, and he would be way easier to handle for Sasuke, because unlike Naruto, Kiba ain't braindead)

These are the three main players, but if you want, you can also put Choji and Rock Lee into the mix, considering that, later down the road, Sasuke's and Choji's daughter would end up becoming besties, and if Might Guy wouldn't survive the war, he and Lee can become the new Kakashi and Might Guy, the next generation, if you will. And this is ironic, because...

...just by coincidence, who else was sent to get Sasuke back, to prevent him from defecting to Orochimaru? Ah yes.

But now, I get to the meat and bones of this thread. And that being, the reason why I believe personally, it was a wasted opportunity to not give Sasuke more personal allies that sympathize with his actions, after he joined the Akatsuki.

Like, NO ONE can tell me, that the Uchiha weren't the only ones, who were under close observation within Konoha borders, by the elders. Sure, they were the biggest target, but it leaves you asking, especially in regards to those clans, who are either the strategist faction, or possess sensory type abilities: What about them? Wouldn't they suspect that something was going horribly wrong over there, at the Uchiha compound? Did absolutely NO ONE hear the screams, or blood splatters? I am just not sold on the idea that EVERYONE in Konoha blindly agreed to Tobirama's discriminatory policies, some had to know better than most. The select few, who weren't exactly fans of just distancing themselves from another clan, all because some frankly racist piece of garbage for a Hokage said so, along with the useless shitstains, that are the Konoha elders, especially Danzo.

And now, three people come to mind, where I truly felt like, they could have been there that night, when the Uchiha clan was being slaughtered, and they were either too late to stop it, or Itachi had knocked them out with his Genjutsu (which purposely contradicts Madara's propaganda about "no one in the village cared about the Uchiha, and only saw them as tools"). And ironically, they are probably the very select few of the adult shinobi, who weren't complete sub-human trash.

Hizashi Hyuga.

Shikaku Nara.

Tsume Inuzuka.

Just picture these three adults being the only ones, who caught on to what was happening, through not just the screams of terror, the smell of blood, or seeing through the walls with the Byakugan from Hizashi. But sadly, by the time they arrive, most of the Uchiha were already slaughtered. And right before they could even act to evacuate those, who may have survived, Itachi arrives, and knocks them clean out with his Tsukuyomi, not killing them, as their passing would just cause an uproar throughout the village, the following day.

And once Danzo learns, that three non-Uchiha, Leaf shinobi, were actually present that night, and they may or may not have caught a glimpse of who else was there that night, Hizashi, Shikaku and Tsume were forced to stay silent on the matter, as Danzo threatened them, through the lense of the ROOT Anbu:

"Dare to let a single word about last night's events slip, then your clans will be receiving severe repurcussions."

I mean, sure, it's kind of silly to try and silence three unrelated Leaf ninja into keeping silent, but considering how paranoid the elderly can be, especially Danzo, I wouldn't put it past him to actually go there.

And how convenient, because as the story progressed, two of these adults would wind up deceased. Shikaku died in the 4th Great Ninja war. One piece of the puzzle, gone.

Hizashi would actually be the first one to die, before all two of them, because the Hyuga clan was trying to mend their security blunder that one fateful night, when someone from Kumogakure tried to kidnap Hinata. But keeping in mind everything I just said, it just adds another layer to how corrupt this shinobi system truly is. Who is to say, Danzo basically bribed the Hyuga elders to sacrifice Hizashi, in place of Hiashi, because he couldn't possibly risk that one defiant Hyuga showing lip to the Hokage? Something to think about. Even if Hiruzen remains a useless piece of shit. You can never be TOO careful, right?

Tsume would probably be the only adult to keep on living, to tell the tale, and through her, does Kiba learn, how deep the rabbit hole with Danzo actually goes, and how Sasuke's hatred for the village MIGHT be """mildly""" justified. Especially if Neji and Shikamaru were to approach him about their own clan blunders, involving Danzo, right after his passing at the hands of Sasuke.

But especially Neji, man... If everything I said gets applied in practice, it would mean, outside of Naruto, he might also be considered worthy of facing Sasuke in battle, after the Five Kage Summit. Because, not only does he more than understand how it truly feels to lose family and loved ones, but also, how this entire shinobi system is essentially screwing over those, who were unfortunate enough to be born into families, that get treated like dirt by the government, that is supposed to protect them. Just imagine their exchange, while Kiba faces off against Jugo, and Shikamaru holds Suigetsu at bay.

"A slave to your own family... I really don't need another moral lecture from a man, who willingly decided to stick to his own kin, despite them viewing you as nothing short of cannonfodder. And yet, despite it all, you still side with them... Run, Neji. Run and hide with your insignificant existence weighing you down, before I tear you to pieces." --Sasuke

"No, Sasuke. You're wrong. If it's any consolation, I am more than able to sympathize with your current state of mind. As of recently, I had to learn the hard way, that you and I, at the end of the day, are not so different. Believe me, you're not the only one, who was royally screwed over by the same village that you once swore to protect. The only reason, why I am not defecting, is because I still have family left to protect... Which is something I cannot say on your behalf, as much as it saddens me to say this. You have every right to hate us. Especially considering, we believed the rumors first, leaving no room for you to speak up and defend yourself. I didn't come to lecture you. And I won't run... because I am going to make you listen." --Neji

Pretty epic, isn't it? I am sorry, Neji is just the GOAT to me, and anything to make him and Sasuke spiritual broskies, I am here for that. Just visualize how adrenaline-driven their encounter would end up being, if you add the Bankakyo Byakugan into the mix. This is how Neji's Bankakyo would look like (source by Aleister Brown):

And for context on what this eye gives Neji for busted abilities, which make him a more or less equal match to Sasuke, after he got Itachi's eyes implanted:

Left eye: Foresight (he can look 10 seconds into the future, to predict Sasuke's moves, before he could even pull them off)

Right eye: Timeskip (improves his Taijutsu, by basically freezing time all around himself, and teleporting, at anything his eyes can see for time)

And, to make it even, with the Bankakyo, you can even summon a chakra avatar, similar to the Susano'o called, Sarutakahiko, take a look:

And because it's me, this is the music that plays in my mind, every time I am trying to visualize their fight, with these conditions being met:

...and to end this thread on a more comical note, when I said, Sasuke's IQ lowers around Kiba, and I compared the two to Renji and Uryu, here is why. It's even more ironic when you consider, Uryu and Sasuke have the same seiyuu! Noriaki Sugiyama! Check it:

OK, OK, enough with that. Have a nice day.

Peace.

[dewitty1]

Saturday Six (Stuff)

Hi, hi I have done one of these in a while. Sorry. I just felt like I haven't had much to talk about, or I've been busy with the Farmer's Market. But here we go!

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

@astutesnow'gf has been here since the 6th. At first she was going to stay until the 12th (I thought), then I guess she told her mom the 17th so, yeah. No worries. I love having her her. Too bad our house is too small for it to be permanent. (´ ▽｀).。ｏ♡

I have started to do food blogging on on my Instagram! I've done two posts already, here, and here. Check them out if you'd like.“ψ(｀∇´)ψ

Business has been slowwww. Only one project last week. Not good.Σ(-᷅_-᷄๑)

My vegetable plants are looking good! Hopefully the veggies will be great!(❁´▽`❁)*✲ﾟ*

The kittehs are all doing well. Reggie out there catching rodents, thanks to our terrible neighbor. And Leeloo will already be a year old next month!₍˄ุ.͡˳̫.˄ุ₎ฅ˒˒

I fear it's going to be an interesting Father's day tomorrow what with two trans girls in attendance at a very misogynistic & homophobic man's house. I guess we'll see what happens. Oh, not to mention the terrible meal plan of: grocery store oven baked chicken, mom's Miracle Whip macaroni salad, possibly burnt air fried tator tots, & old, out of the freezer brownies with plain vanilla ice cream. Whoooo...(ᅌᴗᅌ* )

[hungersauce]

I just do not understand the prevalence of identity policing. I just do not. It reeks so badly of insecurity. An army of teenagers pretending to know more about the human brain than any scientist on earth and spouting transmed rhetoric in system paint is never going to fail to flabbergast me. The groups are so in-policing of themselves they fail to see that they're the only ones going around and doing the one thing they don't want done to them. It's so.

[cherrysnax]

the fear of being absolutely incomprehensible is a big one

[peridots-pixiwolf]

ah. seems the special interest i've now had for 23 months, the only one that still consumes a portion of my mind at all times, just turned six today, and not a single one of the several lists I have to keep track of such anniversaries bothered to warn me of this early enough that I could actually draw something for it in time

[someoneintheshadow456]

I don't know about South Korea, but the Japanese LGBT community has talked about how you can tell the difference between a protest sanctioned by the United States, and a homegrown LGBT movement. One of the tell-tale signs is the use of American jargon and the fact that their signs are in English at all.

It's very likely this is also the case here. South Korea has no history with the Jewish community or with the Arab world. It's very unlikely a homegrown South Korean LGBT movement would align itself with Palestine.

palestine signs at seoul pride

[ardynzunia]

Ruby, who is thirteen in any comic book verses and bitter as you would expect for being raised in a lab: “hey what if we just killed the guys trying to kill us.”