#original: evil genius

[spaceferren-comics]

World Domination! One step at a time! With the main villain, Proffessor Heinous Mutiny!

-Typhon. Art by Limenaut

[prosebushpatch]

Okay so I recently, finally, watched Wish and I have some thoughts. Overall, not as bad as everyone makes it out to be, but still has a lot of fundamental story problems and I've got to get them off of my chest. I'll mostly be focused on Magnifico because I think his motivations and arc largely represent the problem with the overall theme.

Okay so my biggest problem with Magnifico is his motivation. His tragic backstory. How on earth does he go from losing his whole family to thinking, the only way he can prevent that from happening again is to grant wishes? The logic doesn't track. It almost makes sense in his creating a kingdom where he protects everyone and "doesn't even charge rent," but it does not make sense with his wish granting. Having a great need to be control to make sure he doesn't lose anyone ever again can be a compelling motivation for a villain, where we see lines crossed that don't justify the intent, but in the movie, he's too self-absorbed to seem to have any actual care for the people of Rosas.

I think if the motivation was changed to something like Magnifico had once been a bright-eyed, enthusiastic wish granter who blindly believed all wishes were good but learned the hard way that that wasn't true could have been a better fit for the overall goal of the movie. Imagine that he granted a wish for a wicked person who used that wish to hurt others, or if Magnifico granted a wish but that wish ended up ruining the person's life because what they wanted wasn't what they needed (i.e. Remember The Princess and the Frog? Dig a little deeper) and that person could have went after Magnifico and blamed him for their troubles (harkening back to We Don't Talk about Bruno). This would be an understandable tragic backstory for Magnifico, and better explain why he's so careful about the wishes he grants. And, perhaps the reason he keeps the wishes he doesn't want to grant is to keep the people in his kingdom docile. No one will be angry with him for not granting their wishes if he makes them forget them and lose that drive and motivation, which makes more sense than the unexplained hording them like he does in the movie? Why does he keep them in the movie other than admiring the wishes? It doesn't make sense to me.

This would give Asha more of a reason to oppose him, if it's shown how his desire to not get hurt or to inadvertently cause hurt turned into a paranoia where he drains people of wishes to fly or play music that inspires others. And, as a side note, we need to see more of how Rosas is a kingdom of people who lack drive and motivation, where only those younger than 18 have that special part of them that inspires them to chase after a dream (something that Astor Rhymemaster touched on). Because that's the point of wishes, right? That's the point of the entire Disney canon. A dream is a wish your heart makes. That star can only get you so far, it takes hard work and determination. It's wanting something better in life, it's dreaming of leaving behind all you know to chase after a tangible light. It's finding a new dream, it's finding a new wish as you grow and learn about yourself and the world.

I don't think the movie Wish understood what makes wishes so important in Disney stories. You know what wishes do? They ignite change. It's not about getting what you want, it's about finding the courage to chase after something better. Ariel wants to be where the people are, but really she wants to be somewhere where others are willing to understand her and in the end, she finds that and makes amends with her father, who finally is willing to see her for who she is. Rapunzel wants to see the lights, and that desire pushes her to leave a tower she's been trapped in her whole life, learning that the world is not as cruel and cold as her abusive mother told her. Cinderella wants to go to the ball, to dance with people who treat her as a person and not a servant of cinders and ash. That wish is granted by a fairy godmother and gives her a hope that is worth fighting for, a hope that helps her reclaim what is rightfully hers; a glass slipper that fits only her and the love that comes with it.

Wishes inspire change. The movie should have been about that. Magnifico could have been right, that some wishes inspire negative change that can drag down multiple people. The kingdom of Rosas could have been so placid because change is scary. Maybe Magnifico could have convinced people, after taking their wish, that it wasn't worth it. Maybe the wish ceremonies could have changed so it wasn't portrayed as some sort of lottery everyone looks forward to, but Magnifico would grant wishes on the spot if he decided they were good and worthwhile, and he would lock away the wishes that would cause trouble and tribulations. 18 year olds could be enthusiastic to give him their wishes, thinking they were surely good and worth granting, only to forget their wish and be told that their wish would have only brought about their unhappiness, this would have justified a more solemn tone in the kingdom, setting up a world where people are mostly downtrodden, thinking their wishes are bad and pointless and they're better off without them. Imagine Cinderella or Rapunzel being told their wishes weren't good, reinforcing all the things their abusive families tell them, taking away that hope and courage to find something better for themselves.

Here's where the true conflict could come in. Asha could be onto this from the beginning, and her opening song could have been about this concern that the people who didn't get their wishes granted aren't willing to try at all. (Because, after all, why doesn't Sabino play music at all? Having that taken from him would take so much joy and creative expression from his life!) But why does Asha know something is amiss?

Simon.

Imagine that Magnifico has a strict rule not to ever share your wish with another person because then it wouldn't come true. It makes sense with our own superstitions, and then makes it so that no one knows anyone else's wishes. Maybe your best friend changes so drastically after giving up their wish, but you believe, like everyone else, that their wish would have only caused suffering. What can you do about it? Well what if Simon told Asha about his wish? What if Asha knew his wish wasn't dangerous and couldn't imagine a way that it could go wrong? That would give her a reason to doubt Magnifico and put more emphasis on how Simon has lost his drive like all the other adults in the kingdom. And it can also emphasize in the end that sharing your wishes and dreams with others can be a powerful thing. Just the act of sharing your dreams can inspire others to go after their own, and they can give you the encouragement to chase your wish too. Wishes inspire change, love gives you the courage to make it happen.

Imagine if the star boy used to be a human, who wished to help others and lost his humanity to do it. Imagine his wish confirms Magnifico's belief, that wishes cause suffering because star boy lost his tether to earth and is separated from the people he loves. Imagine how he foils Asha who also wants to grant everyone's wishes. Imagine him ensuring she doesn't make the same mistake he did while she gives him a reason to change again, to anchor himself to humanity again because he loves her enough not to leave for forever.

Imagine the movie confirming that, yes, change is scary. Chasing your dreams won't always make things better. You might fail more than you succeed and some wishes cannot coincide with each other, leading to grief and strife. But some wishes are worth it. Sometimes, chasing after something better and failing is worth leaving a worse situation. Sometimes taking that chance is worth it, and, like in all fairy tales, if you are kind and generous and act with love, that will make all the difference in the end.

Also, I know everyone wished for a Magnifico and Amaya evil power couple, but imagine if Magnifico was truly in love with Amaya, as he is in the movie, but that love is eventually his undoing. Like Amaya leaps in front of Asha, and Magnifico stops or redirects his attack because she's the one thing he loves more than himself and that is the weakness that Asha and co can take advantage of. Imagine Amaya keeping Magnifico in the mirror and he gets to dote on her from his imprisonment for forever. I'm just saying. At least 30 sickos like me would be into that. Imagine the depth it would give to the themes of love and change and wishing and how acts of love make all the difference.

Alright, I'll get off my soap box. I just really wish Wish could have been stronger because these fairy tales Disney is famous for matter. They really do. But the movie feels too stale and shallow and too much of a cash grab that knows the outline of a disney musical, but is unable to understand the heart of why they work.

[diddybu]

silly duo

[maybeitsalivescribbles]

VH - Lost Soul

(tw: it’s backstory time for Vampire Hero, and it isn’t very nice. Lots and lots of torture mentions.)

Vampire Hero was in hell, although not for the reasons Villain thought.

According to his watch, he’d been trapped in this maze for hours. Amid the many gifts his vampire nature had given him, a sense of direction wasn’t among them. He’d tried to punch the walls, but that would have taken too long to burst through them. They were even thicker than the skull that had thought of such a stupid thing to build. What he could do was leaving a dent to make sure that yes, he’d been there before. He had his phone on him, but there was no wifi, so no way to use his GPS. He had very little battery left anyhow– he had emptied most of it to send his wife pictures of bats on his way, which was as far as he was concerned a very good and judicious use of it. All of that was already a bore, but to make the game even funnier, the labyrinth was full of traps.

Full of pathetic traps. The ground collapsed under his feet, rocks were falling on him, all of that accomplishing nothing – but it was annoying enough that it disrupted his concentration, preventing him to find a way out. That was not the main problem, though. There were screens everywhere, too high to reach, and Villain. Never. Stopped. Talking.

“What is good and evil ? Do you know for sure what the limit is ? Good is supposed to follow the law, but is the law always good ? Isn’t it pride to do what feels right ? You think you want to stop me, but aren’t you being selfish by doing what you want ?”

She’d kept going like that for hours now. Nails on a blackboard would have sounded nicer. Not only the words were as hollow as a dead snail, but the inflection of that pompous voice was unbearable. Vampire Hero was seriously tempted to hit his head against the wall to stop hearing anything, but that didn’t seem like it’d work in the long term.

At his limit, he stepped up, his lips pinched, and finally yelled back:

“Four words. Grow the fuck up.”

“That’s all you have to say ? You’re not much for philosophy.”

“You call that philosophy ? I hate to break it to you, but knowing that good and bad are social constructs is not some kind of genius insight. All I see is a kid yelling at me that she’s very smart. You don’t give a crap about all of this. You just want to prove to yourself how very superior you are.”

“Do you think you’re better than me ?”

“The bar is low.”

“Oh, because you’re good now ?”

Vampire Hero stopped dead in his tracks:

“Even before, I was better than you."

He raised his arms and bared his teeth, his voice loud:

"You think that you’re bad ? You’ve got nothing on me ! I lured people and made them dance with me over broken glass. I had them rot blindfolded in animal cages for days until they had to lick their own blood. I had cozy nights with them having a friendly little chat in the living room while I was drinking from a corpse, and they knew that if they broke they were next. I made them starve and eat their loved ones. And I loved it ! I loved all of it ! I loved the light dying in their eyes. I thought I was clever ! I am half the reasons you’re shaking at night !”

“Zdiiiiiiiingbonnng,” made the rock on Hero’s head. He sighed in exasperation and stopped talking, wiping gravel from his hair.

“I know about you.” said Villain. “The hero agency’s lackey. Aren’t you ashamed ? You were a great prince, once.”

“Actually, I never was really tall.”

“Go ahead, hide yourself behind this kind of childish retorts. But admit it: you’ve sunk low. You arrest people who weren’t caught like you and you bring them to the authority, like a good dog. Has it ever occurred to you how much of a failure you’ve become ?”

“No.”

“Then why did you stop ?”

“If I tell you the story, will you finally shut up ?”

“Perhaps.”

“Worth it.”

Vampire Hero jumped over a couple of spikes, groaned when he realized that his jeans had a new hole, and said:

“Once upon a time, asshole, I was living happily in my castle all alone. I was rich, I was immortal, I had everything I wanted, and what I wanted was a lot of toys.”

He glanced around him, noticed nothing that indicated he was on the right path, and sighed.

“By toys I mean humans, of course. I chose among the prettiest, kindest, bravest, and I tortured them to death. I hurt them until they didn't have anything to break. I was good at it. I experimented things that would give you and all of you so-called Supervillains nightmares for years. But, you know. Decade after decade, still doing the same thing – I was getting bored. I felt empt- aw man, a dead end again ?”

He turned on his heels, swearing. That was obviously the wrong way to solve his problem. The walls were smooth and impossible to climb, so it had to be arranged. He caught a rock and throw it against the hard surface with a little more strength than necessary.

“Well, anyway. I heard there was a great conqueror who wanted the world. I made my first travel since decades, by curiosity. I wanted to see by myself who could challenge me.”

“And you fought him and you lost ?”

“I told you to shut up. I met her, and not long after I was her lucky, lucky husband. I never had her ambition, but of course I supported her. She encouraged my own little hobby in return, so I became her special torturer. My life was even more perfect, and there was this void inside me, and I hated it, and I didn't understand it. And what happened happened. I tortured the wrong person.”

“Define wrong ?”

“It was the daughter of a vampire hunter.”

“A poor choice.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. The guy was really good at his job. He was already pissed off because of the world-conquering plan, but after I did that, well, he cursed my wife and I – oh, enough with this.”

Punctured by rock impacts, the wall in front of him wasn’t so smooth anymore. Vampire Hero took a run-up, jumped and landed on the top of it. He had a nice view on the labyrinth now. For the first time, he took the right direction.

“ That’s cheating,” complained Villain.

“I don’t care.”

“What then ?”

“What then ? I had a bad century. The hunter couldn't kill me, so he drank my blood to prolong his own life and tortured me. He got good at it, too. I felt what I’d made the others feel, but only at first – after ninety years it was back to nothing. I was 300 years old and reality was fading. I was a leech. I hadn’t made a thing for myself.”

“You mean you went soft because of a little torturing?”

“No. I got old. When you have a couple of centuries, this torture-people-to-death shit doesn’t have the same kind of kick anymore. You try to get creative, but it doesn’t help. You feel nothing. So there’s nothing else you can do but stop. And speaking of stopping, it’s your turn.”

Vampire Hero was now at the center of the labyrinth. He jumped to a silver door, decided he was too done with the whole thing to use the knob, and broke it open.

Villain turned towards him, a small smile on her face, and opened her arms in a welcome gesture:

“Behold, vampire ! This room have been made of silver walls and floor. You won’t be able to enter without squirming in agony and -

Vampire Hero stepped in. Villain braced herself for his cries of pain, but there was none. He still looked bored out of his mind. There was a long silence.

“That’s – that’s not possible.”

Hero laughed. A slow, sinister laugh that made Villain’s eyes open wide.

“What are you ?” she whispered. “You can’t be a vampire. You should be crawling on the ground.”

“Don’t you listen ? I told you I’ve been tortured for decades. You know what an immortal body does when it regenerates back for the hundredth time ?"

He pointed to himself. There was a subtle change in his appearance. He still looked like his unimpressed self, but his usual lightness was replaced by something much darker. It was his eyes. Staring into them was like gazing into some horrible, nameless abyss. There was nothing human about them. They could only belong to some ghastly creature who'd lived centuries, not particularly nice ones.

Vampire Hero chuckled, and Villain shuddered.

"It gets tougher," he only said. "I’ve lost touch and taste. I feel nothing. Nor warmth or cold, and certainly not pain. My body is cut from the outside world. There's not much that feels real to me. You know what it is?”

He walked towards Villain, who took a step back and said:

“I hope you realize you’re monologuing yourself.”

“Habits die hard. I want to go back tonight and kiss my wife on the top of her head, just in the middle. It’s our habit. That’s all that matters. If I have to be on this side to support her, so be it. I don’t care about evil or good, and it won’t prevent me to eat your vocal chords if you’re off again. So, are you going to keep talking or finally shut the hell up ?”

“You know what, I think I’m good.”

*

Vampire Hero is a recurring character. His job is to troll current villains. Check the Vampire Hero Masterlist or Tag for more snippets with him.

Or back to Hero x Villain Masterlist.

[weitooinlovewiththeuntamed]

Nie Huaisang is the character ever because he worked for more than a decade on a masterplan, SUCCEEDED and never once did he succumb to the urge to take credit or make a speech

[zombiyh]

sorry for my lack of content im kinda having an art crisis or whatever but here's moushley cuz she's cute ^^

og moushley by agrimmora on twit

[rainc0at]

wanting to rewatch gone girl and dying inside at the cover image BEN AFFLECK YOU ARE SO UGLY

[willow-boop]

"Entering my laboratory uninvited? That is a mistake you won't live to regret."

Mad Scientist Dr. Ari Sokolov

Cyberlife engineer and infamous aritificer with an insatiable thrust for knowledge and immortality.

Enter their domain at your own risk.

Background by samuelinkilainen light novel backgrounds

[theadhddragon]

I think I might be coming a little obsessed with Ghilan'nain, I'm starting to think she's the reason for everything at this rate

BUT

Hear me out okay?

What if Ghilan'nain made humans?

We've got evidence of at least one laboratory where she's developed a system for combining lifeforms into one. She has slaves leaving her service everyday to join Solas, every one of them a loss to her power. So what does she do to replace these elves? Make a new race that only serves her. What if she made a new race from merging the dwarven and elven peoples? Dwarven durability, with the height and magical ability of the elves.

Also, humans arrived in Thedas from the north, as did the Qunari - another race Ghilan'nain definitely made. Throw in the Executors from across the sea smelling like her lab, seems like our mad scientist goddess liked to experiment overseas, who knows what other races might lie beyond Thedas that Ghilan'nain created?

[coffeetaviart]

Dr. Waft concept art, Dr. waft is a character id love to make a game for as a spiritual successor to Wario World if I ever get the chance. He lives on a planet made of trash where he creates powerful machines & sells knockoffs of his own designs to rich buyers on Earth.

[riverdale-retread]

So Jellybean engineered this 'run in' with her brother, for one . And for another, she knows Jughead Jones' parenting technique, which is that nobody is ever allowed to say a harsh word to Jellybean Jones for some reason. She even asks the "Am I in trouble?" in a baby voice that she never uses at any other time, and Jughead just doesn't pick upon the mockery of it!

[sarcophagid]

girl who tf did your hair

[virlandil]

As a first step to conquer the world... I made a music video!

So watch it if you dare! 😎

[aerithisms]

i just can't believe they made me cry so much over the most inevitable character death ever like this is a character death i knew about before i knew literally anything else about final fantasy and they still made me bawl like a small child

[nefariux]

Sketch of Delerium because he's my new favourite babygirl

[gizmo02]

Witch type of villain would you be?

Dr. Sebastian Dartman

Not to say that the typical "mad scientist" type sounds rather cliché at this point, but if you are a educated scholar, experienced explorer or just a lover of math and science in general, wouldn't you also have a burning desire to "teach" the population of this world to finally know its rightful purpose.But in order to inform these primitive minded peasants to finally crawl out from there caves to reach for the stars (his words, not mine),

the era of upgrades

must be established, like it or not.Being a specialist in bionics, surgery and computer technology, Sebastian is a futurist who truly believes that if mankind are to change for the greater good, cybernetic enhancements are to be highly mandatory.

Monica Wix

Once upon a time, there was a young driven sociologist, a real A+ student already in the age of 3, a girl who really wanted to give what everyone needed.But ales, she did not achieved mush in return and decided to step it up and finally feel true satisfaction in how mush cash she manage to earn as a pro

arms dealer.

'

Never give people what they want, give them what they diverse!

' is her personnel slogan that could mean how well and thoughtful she cares about others, or what she inevitable are going to punish those who dare stand in her way towards her ultimate reward

: EVERYTHING!

Redrick Von Orme

A passionate castle designer, a sole monarch both loved and feared by his own subjects and a slick hunter who cant resist a real challenge.As intimidating as he look, Redrick does have a soft spot for the finer things in life, like medieval weapons, food, Shakespeare plays, and how to capture beasts as well as the most dangerous pray of them all:

Man

!If you have the guts and will to join his hunting pack, you better prove to have a warriors spirit and good combat skills or else you might at least have the honer to be fed you to his distinguished pets.

Julius Stonehenge

A aristocrat from a long line of commanders (and witch hunters), founded his own mercenary company in high believes bring order and protection, as long as they pay well.Julius has seen it all, done it all. '

We came, we saw, we conquered!'

He secretly love to say after a victory, with would say say that his Caesar - like pride has proven the better of him and now want to finish what the Roman general started.

He love to collect weapons and technology to boost his arsenal, but as far as he experience, there are a few

supernatural

thing here in the world that ether need to be controlled or deposed of, all to make sure the enemies doesn't get the upper hand before he does.                    

  Characters (c) ME