#what if Wreck it Ralph had a good sequel

[biginkyboyo13]

Currently obsessed with the crackpot idea of a Wreck it Ralph sequel where somehow the original Turbo Time game actually was popular enough to get it's own line of games or something, and suddenly one day the arcade is upgraded or something because we've entered the era of Nostalgia and like, one of the new Turbo games is brought in.

It's like, also a Mario Kart clone, like Sugar Rush, and has a Punch out storyline where you play as Turbo obviously, and he has to defeat multiple racers to become the greatest racer ever and I'm kinda obsessed with it, bro is just a little guy in this world and he learns about what the old version of himself did and he's just absolutely mortified, but the others in his game probably vilify him for it.

Actually, this au sequels Vanellope would probably also hate him. Like, yeah, he's a different person, but PTSD is PTSD, Turbo literally tried to kill her and she wouldn't just move on from that immediately.

I'm going feral over this, it's stupid and I love it.

[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!

[deiranoid]

Dude I love Turbotastique's art so much I literally studied her artstyle to figure out how to draw Turbo's body proportions and expressions!

I would LOVE to hear more about your words of her comics!

I’D BE DELIGHTED. Sorry for the late response!

[ Be prepared for a huge ramble ]

Man where do I even begin… I think I’ve re-read her fan comics like 5 times now, Her work is a inspiration for me, it gives “be cringe but be free” vibes

Her artstyle is so pleasing for the eyes and I just LOVE IT SO MUCH‼️‼️and I also used it to learn how to draw Turbo better!! High fiveeee 😝‼️

I love how the way she draws him changed over time, making him uglier and showing more wrinkles and such.. (as a Turbo liker at least 😭😭😭😭)

Also for anyone reading this it must be said that if you check her introduction for “nice” Turbo… I bet you’d get jumpscared.

Well she… she kinda made nice turbo have a bit of a crush on Vanellope in the beginning.. yikeeess.. I gaslit myself into thinking she made nice turbo younger at first.. 😟

BUT HALT!! She then just changed it because she believed “nice” Turbo would be more of a father figure than that…. THANK GOODNESS. I think we can all agree this was for the best.

She also made me want to explore the world of Wreck it Ralph so much more.. this is a me thing I believe but I really liked the Turbo having a fling with Miss Pacman thing like yeah of course Turbo would pull something like that, I totally believe it

(Also.. they’re really cute to me..)

I also liked Turbo and Felix’s dynamic with Turbo being extremely annoying and jealous when Felix didn’t pay attention to him… someone has issues!!!

You can really tell Turbotastique shipped Hammertastic LMAO

She also made me really like the twins, rip the twins fr (cause let’s be honest, they probably died because this was the first time a arcade game had gone through that and they probably didn’t know what to do)

Her last comic was Wir 2 related (to my misfortune im sorry i cant stand the fact that THAT movie is the sequel) she said she was working on a huge comic but she said that 5 years ago so.. I just hope she’s doing alright and I hope she knows that her work is very inspiring ❤️

Anyway I could go on and on but this is getting too long LMAO THAAAAANK YOUUU FOR THE ASK‼️

[thatonelesbianfander]

Rewriting Bad Cinema: Ralph Breaks the Internet (WIR 2)

Okay, so I’m bored and have no idea what to post and I’ve had this idea in my head for a while so welcome to a new series thingy I’m going to do on my account called “Rewriting Bad Cinema” where I go and rewrite bad movies and sequels to something better.

Disclaimer: This is just for fun and not to be taken seriously, this is just my what if takes on how to change a piece of media. Please do not take any of what I say seriously. :)

Warning: This post contains spoilers for both Wreck It Ralph 1 and Ralph Breaks the Internet. If you would like to experience any of these movies yourself without spoilers, please go watch them and then come back here!

For this first installment of Rewriting Bad Media, we are going to be taking a look at Wreck It Ralph 2!

More under cut

For Rewriting Bad Cinema, we're first going to establish the movie's plot, establish its problems that make it bad, and then come up with a way to rewrite the movie that remedies most of the problems as best as possible including removal of some elements, restructuring of the plot, and adding to it.

What's the original plot of the movie?

Wreck It Ralph 2 is a 2018 film released by Disney. In WIR 2, the steering wheel for Sugar Rush is broken in an accident after Vanellope goes against the player’s controls and drives on a bonus track Ralph constructed for her. Litwak attempts to fix the game but is unsuccessful and ends up breaking the steering wheel even more, and after the search for a replacement wheel is unsuccessful, Litwak unplugs the game. This causes all the Sugar Rush citizens to become homeless. This causes Ralph and Vanellope to hatch a plan to go to the internet and find a new steering wheel before Sugar Rush is taken out of the arcade for good. Hijinks and brand placement happens and in the end, Sugar Rush is repaired, the citizens are no longer homeless, and Vanellope ends up staying in a new game on the internet called Slaughter Race.

What are the main problems?

Wreck It Ralph 2 is majorly considered a bad film because of:

Too many brands: WIR 2 is mostly criticized on how often it focuses on brands and cameos. In the first movie, most brands and IPs such as Sonic, Mario, Pac-Man, etc, were placed there as tributes to gaming and the culture that surrounds it. Most of the brands were limited to gaming brands, which made it feel more thought out and less like a cash grab. The brands also had an impact on the movie and its plot and world building. In WIR 2, there is no limitation on the brands represented. The movie includes a whole mess of brands from social media platforms to stuff from the Disney company. This made these additions feel soulless and worthless. The brands also had little impact on the plot and its world building, making them feel more worthless.

Mischaracterization of Characters: WIR 2 is often criticized for how much it mischaracterizes Ralph and Vanellope. For Ralph, it mischaracterizes him into a needy, insecure guy even after he completed a character arc for the same thing in the first movie. For Vanellope, it mischaracterizes her into a selfish person and makes her act a lot like the first movie's villain, Turbo.

No Mention of Past Events: WIR 2 is often criticized for how it just ignores a lot about the original movie. There are barely any mentions of the first movie at all, not even the original villain, Turbo, is mentioned. The only thing that is mentioned is the medal that Vanellope made Ralph in the first movie.

No Use of Other Characters: WIR 2 is also criticized for how little it uses any of the characters from the first movie with Ralph and Vanellope being the only two who are focused on throughout the entire movie. Felix and Calhoun, the other two MAIN characters from WIR 1 seem to have a B-plot in the first part of the movie, but are eventually totally forgotten about and their plot wraps up entirely in the background.

My proposal for a rewrite

Wreck it Ralph 2, in my opinion, is not really a needed sequel. I believe this because of how well the first movie wraps up any lose ends with its ending. However, if I were to write a sequel to Wreck It Ralph, this is most likely how I would handle it.

Removals and Restructuring

First of all, let's just get rid of the internet world entirely. The internet world as a concept was pretty cool, but in execution, there's not really a good way to have the internet world and not have a lot of the brands without it being really confusing. The internet will still be a thing as it seems like a really natural way for the movie's plot to go, but the internet world will not play a factor into the movie's plot.

One thing I kind of liked from the original WIR 2 was the beginning segment before any of the main plot gets started. If you ignore the small bits of mischaracterization from Ralph and Vanellope, it's a nice little opener and establishes what the two have been up to since the first movie pretty well. So, we are going to be bringing that segment with us to the rewrite with a few writing tweaks to recharacterize Ralph and Vanellope into how they were at the end of the movie. Let's also add Felix and Calhoun into this segment to catch up with how they've been doing since the first movie. This slice of life segment will help establish our characters as well as establishing the world for any new viewers who may have not seen the first movie.

Main Plot Proposal

Since we've gotten rid of the entire internet world which was the main premise of the film, the plot is going to need an entire overhaul. So, first, let's change the main focus of the film. In the original Wreck It Ralph 1, Ralph's struggle with his identity and self worth was the main focus of the film and that carries over to the second film with the sequel focusing more on Ralph than Vanellope. For the rewrite, the story is going to be focusing on Vanellope and diving into her character more. For the rewrite, I think it would be interesting to dive into Turbo and the effects his actions have on the cast specifically Vanellope. This would let the movie have a nice message about coming to terms with your trauma and not letting it control you. The catalyst for this? Bringing back Turbo.

Hear me out. The movie opens. It's been about five-ish years since the events of the first, and Vanellope has a problem. Even after everything has been reset and she finally has her life together, she just can't seem to move on from the trauma that Turbo/King Candy has caused her over the 15 years of his reign. She seems to flinch at the mere mention of his name and gets uncomfortable and upset when confronted with anything that resembles him. Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun try to help her with it in their own ways, but since she's a kid, Vanellope doesn't really have the tools required for dealing with her feelings. The day the movie opens up, Ralph, Calhoun, Felix, and Vanellope are all hanging out around the arcade to try to help Vanellope feel better. The four are all hanging out in the power strip when people start gathering around an outlet, finding that a new game is being plugged in. The four go over to investigate, and find that the new game being plugged in is Turbotime Remastered.

Turbotime Remastered Backstory and Aftermath of the Plugging In

Around a decade and a half after Turbotime was released a remastered version of it was created with upgraded graphics, more tracks, a bigger cast of playable characters, and more. Mr. Litwak, being a big fan of the original Turbotime, always dreamed of being able to buy the remaster for the arcade and after not being able to afford it for so long, he has finally managed to safe up enough funds to buy the cabinet. The day the cabinet arrived, Litwak immediately had it plugged in, placing the console right next to Sugar Rush. Meanwhile, in the power strip, all hell has broken loose. Everyone is freaking out about the game being plugged in, especially Vanellope, who is just unconsolable. Before anyone can process anything, a group of people step out into the power strip. In the front center of this group stands Turbo, however, this Turbo is much different from how everyone remembers him. Instead of being this evil asshole, this Turbo is chipper and kind. Turbo excitedly introduces his friends to the power strip, walking to every single person, and eventually getting to the main four. Turbo tries to introduce himself to the four but Vanellope starts freaking out, causing Calhoun and Ralph to get defensive. Felix manages to deescalate the situation before it gets too out of hand and awkwardly apologizes and excuses the group. The group discusses the situation in secret with Vanellope being silent the whole time. They don't really have the time to process anything however, as the arcade is about to open, causing them to all have to go their separate ways.

That day after the arcade closes, Vanellope leaves her game to meet up with the others and ends up bumping into Turbo again. Vanellope starts to freak out again but Turbo doesn't really seem fazed. He helps Vanellope up and introduces himself again. Vanellope introduces herself to Turbo and the two get to talking a little. Vanellope finds out that Turbo has no recollection of any of the events from the years past, no recollection of the Road Blasters event, no recollection of his takeover of Sugar Rush, no recollection of the race and CyBug takeover, nothing. Eventually, Turbo and Vanellope end up going their separate ways with Vanellope going off and joining her group while Turbo heads to explore the arcade with his group.

Plot Throughout the Movie

Throughout the movie, Vanellope and Turbo start talking and hanging out more, eventually forming somewhat of a friendship. Throughout their time together, Vanellope starts telling Turbo about her past experiences with him but doesn't tell him he was the one who caused everything. Turbo responds to this very supportingly, telling her that it wasn't her fault that any of that happened to her. Throughout the rest of the plot, Vanellope ends up refinding herself and starts to move on from her trauma.

B-Plot Revisions

Another thing I really liked from the original Wreck It Ralph 2 was the little snippets of the B-plot with Felix, Calhoun, and the Sugar Rush racers. I'm a sucker for unconventional found family, so I love the small snippets of the B-plot in WIR 2, so I want to carry it over to the rewrite. Now, Turbo being back isn't only going to really affect Vanellope, but it's also going to affect the other Sugar Rush racers as his actions majorly affected them as well. So, for the B-plot, Felix and Calhoun would act as adoptive parents to the Sugar Rush racers, helping them conquer their fears and move on. This plot would happen over the span of the movie and finish before the ending climax in a few shorter scenes. The B-plot would probably get as much screen time as WIR 1's B-plot.

As for Ralph, he would act as Vanellope's support/wingman throughout the movie and a mediator between her and Turbo while she interacts with him and his group. The movie wouldn't focus on him as much as Vanellope since his character arc has mostly concluded nicely in the first movie but he would still get a decent amount of screen time since his relationship with Vanellope is an important part of both his and Vanellope's characters.

Story Additions: Lore of Turbotime Remastered

Turbotime Remastered consists of 6 total characters all complete with a special gimmick that would give each character an advantage and disadvantage in a race. Of course, there's Turbo. He acts as a kind of leader of the group. His gimmick is bug themed and would give him the advantage of being speedy and the disadvantage of not being very durable. Then, there would be Avery, the moral support of the group. Avery would have a land animal gimmick, which would give her the advantage of stealth, but the disadvantage of slower recovery. The next character would be Rocket, the brains of the group. Rocket would have a robot gimmick which would give him the advantage of being very durable but the disadvantage of being the slowest. The next character would be Ivy, the healer of the group. Ivy would have a plant gimmick which would give her the advantage of quick recovery, but the disadvantage of not being very stealthy. The next character would be Quinn, the wildcard of the group. Quinn would have a clown gimmick which would give her the advantage of evading, but the disadvantage of unpredictablilty. The last character would be Deino, the brawn of the group. Deino would have a dinosaur gimmick which would give him the advantage of strength but the disadvantage of speed.

Another addition to Turbo Remastered are the new racing tracks, each being themed to a certain character. For Turbo's map, his would be an updated version of his original map with more variety and turns added to the donut. Avery's map would follow her animal theme and consist of four different quarters each themed to a major habitat that animals live in. Rocket's map would be machine themed, featuring a bunch of robots and machines. Ivy's map would be plant themed, featuring a bunch of different plants. Quinn's map would be circus themed, featuring a three section race through a circus performance. Deino's map would be dinosaur themed, featuring a sectioned race where each section takes place in a period of dinosaur time. These tracks would act as the character's home and place of residence.

In the coded backstory, Turbo met his friends while adventuring and the six ended up forming a somewhat family type of bond with each other. The group all has there counter opposites, with Turbo countering Rocket, and Avery countering Ivy and Deino. Quinn, being the wildcard, would be the odd one out, not having any counters to anyone. Despite their differences, the six all have sincere friendships with each other.

Ending of Wreck It Ralph 2 Rewrite

There are multiple ways for this ending to go. One way is to give new Turbo all the memories of old Turbo and causing Turbo to go mad and try to take over the arcade. This would split off into two possible endings of Turbo either being totally defeated like before and Turbotime Remastered being unplugged, or Turbo being redeemed and making up for all his past mistakes. I'm not going to be going down that route however, as I feel like both endings would be a little too cliche and predictable. The unplugging ending would also probably get rid of a lot of character development that the movie had built up. So, instead, let's do an ending like this:

After Turbo, Vanellope, and Ralph are done hanging out for the day, Turbo is confronted by Avery. Avery spills the beans on how everything Vanellope has been telling Turbo about is about him and starts manipulating him into believing that Vanellope hates him. This makes Turbo angry since he was starting to believe he and Vanellope were friends, and he agrees to help Avery and the others get "revenge". After the arcade closes, the Turbotime Racers invade and take over Sugar Rush, leading the Sugar Rush Racers to have to defeat the Turbotime Racers with the help of Felix, Calhoun, and Ralph before the arcade opens or they will have both Turbotime Remastered and Sugar Rush unplugged.

In the final confrontation, Turbo and Vanellope meet face to face. Vanellope ends up confessing to Turbo that yes, she was scared of him at first but now she's ready to accept that he isn't the same person anymore, and his past actions don't have to affect her anymore. Turbo and Vanellope make up, causing Avery to lash out, leading to a final showdown of some sorts and Avery's redemption. In the end, Avery admits she was jealous of how close Turbo and Vanellope were getting and she was scared of being abandoned. Avery's redeemed and everything goes back to normal.

Story Conclusion

In the end, Vanellope realizes her feelings about the past don't have to define her and she's able to move on and heal from her trauma and live her life free of fear, Turbo doesn't gain any of old Turbo's memories, he realizes that he is a different person from old Turbo and movs on to create his own identity, separate from his old self, The Sugar Rush Racers are adopted by Calhoun and Felix and get over their fears, Ralph continues to be supportive of Vanellope, and The Turbotime Racers learn to not be easily jealous. In the end, Turbotime Remastered stays plugged in, and Turbo and Vanellope's friendship goes back to normal.

TL;DR of the Rewrite's Plot

The trauma from Turbo/King Candy's actions have heavily affected Vanellope to the point its difficult for her to move past it, but when a remaster of Turbo's game, Turbotime, is plugged in, Vanellope is forced to come to terms with her trauma and reconcile her feelings about it with the man behind it all.

Conclusion

Okay, that's all! This was a long one, so if you made it all the way here, thanks for reading! I'm probably not going to do anything with this since this was just a fun little writing exercise, but if you would like to make it into a fanfiction of some sorts or something then feel free to take this idea and credit me! I'm most likely going to do more of these so look out for that! Anyway, thanks again for reading and have a nice day :)

[beeebird]

Uncleared bug

（Wreck-It Ralph AU）(What follows is a super long introduction…) (To put it simply, this is a story about a ghost.)

_________________________________________

(Background Premise)

In the years following the events of Sugar Rush (the plot of the movie), word that Turbo had survived the previous accident and had been lurking in Sugar Rush quickly spread to Game Central Station. The characters are shocked that Turbo survived, and glad that he is now dead. ... But is he?

Game companies never miss a good opportunity to continue making money. Of course, they had no idea that their character would murder another character. ... In short, a new TurboTime series of games has been launched. Cutting-edge 3D technology, a sequel to an old game - a well-run arcade has no reason not to buy this new arcade. So a brand new TurboTime game was plugged in.

New Turbo, and the twins, Drift, and Set arrive at Game Central Station. (There are other roles, if needed).

On the surface, at least, their appearance is very different from the appearance in the old series of TurboTime. And in character... well, Turbo is still the same cocky, attention-obsessed, over-conquering, annoying guy. The characters in the arcade game hid from the new series their previous accidents due to the old Turbo. And at the same time try to be friendly to them in the new series. But the previous accident had left a bad impression of Turbo in their minds. Naturally, the new Turbo was not welcomed by Game Central Station. (The twins, on the other hand, are constantly being looked at in the "poor guy" way, which is strange to them.)

Unaware of the tragic events that had taken place in the arcade, New Turbo assumed that the characters were simply rejecting him because he was the new guy. So he was determined to prove himself. Well, if you want to prove yourself worthy of affection. The easiest way is to challenge someone to prove themselves better - and that person is Vanellope. (" I must be a better driver than a little girl!" He said so at the time). It's a pretty embarrassing situation.

But all in all, Vanellope is friendly because "well, it wasn't the new guy who made the mistake, so maybe he's a good guy?" The idea agreed to the friendly match.

The day of the race went well. Turbo doesn't mind being stared at by candy residents. All he cares about now is the next game.

Start the engine and hit the gas as hard as you can. Turn the wheel, don't be pulled by centrifugal force... Pay attention. It's just a simple friendly match with a little girl from the candy world. Turbo thought. Until their go-kart made it all the way to Rainbow Cave (if that's what you can call it). As he rushed out of the tunnel, Turbo suddenly felt a strong sense of dizziness, and it seemed that he saw some red and white figure. Although he quickly shook off this sudden discomfort, he was thus overtaken by Vanellope.

Even if the game ends in a draw. Turbo still felt bad, physically and psychologically. His head has been aching ever since he felt a sudden dizziness at the mouth of the tunnel, like something was... Pull his code. "Maybe it's just the bright colors of the candy world that make me dizzy," he thought. So Turbo found an excuse to go back to his game and rest.

Back in his lounge, Turbo felt restless. Yes - that was a "draw," but it still pissed him off. He should be better than all the racers, not some "draw". Even more unbearable than the frustration of failure (which he thought he was) was the growing headache, the tearing of the code in his body that challenged his endurance all the time. "damnit, I really need to calm down and rest right now..." 'he thought.

In the bathroom, the cold water on the face temporarily relieved the headache. But a ringing in his ears put Turbo back into a trance. He's in a weird state today. What's going on? He held the edge of the sink trembling, trying to suppress the queasy feeling in his throat. Then he looked up ——

... Suddenly, the red-and-white figure he had seen vaguely as he walked through the tunnel appeared in the bathroom mirror. "Do you want to win?" The figure whispered. In a trance,

Turbo thought he must be crazy.

[randomalistic]

first off. i can't believe that i already followed you- your spam blog -and didn't know.

second. i literally just had a dream shere i was rambling to someone about turbo using stuff from your essay. apparently it rewired my brain so hard it, and you, manifested in my dreams lol (i even made a bad joke that "you can say he's Turbo-tastic!" hah)

and congratulations on making such great work of art that is the essay, you can feel and hear the love(and hyperfixation) poured into it.

i do wonder tho, what was the hardest part when making it?

I’m so glad you enjoyed it yay :)❤️ and also recognized me from my sneo blog LOL

I feel that so horrendously much. I legit had a dream a few nights ago about someone APPROACHING ME cuz they recognized my voice from the essay (girl get an ego check) but they then said “dude it’s so obvious you’re into him” or something. And I was like. 🧍‍♀️Well you don’t have to say it out loud

Anyways you’re not the only one cuz the video haunts me too. even after its birth.

The hardest part?? Oh Man. Can I say Everything.

There were a few stretches that were REALLY TOUGH. short answer: Entire first half of the video. Also the longer parts like the Manipulation section, Turbo reveal section, and the Cybug King Candy section. I had a lot to say for these and it was tricky to condense it into something Comprehensible

Long answer:

I completely overhauled the entire first half of the video (EVERYTHING before the kart breaking scene) because I wasn’t satisfied with the writing/delivery etc. (Which was a good choice because my arguments were pretty half baked before) but oh my god that was like a week and a half of 7 hour recording and rewriting sessions it was brutal. Especially annoying because those arguments were super old and I was getting sick of thinking about them. So instead I used them as a backbone to structure better arguments and revamp the script so that kept me from going insane. However it was also really fun because I got to see my old ass arguments finally be explained to their fullest capacity. And also I got to write shit like ☝️🤓Excuse me sir your turbo is showing..

The biggest issue with this being my first ever video essay and it taking so goddamn long: you could SEE my writing/editing/voicing skills improve over the span of the video itself. Which is really cool improvement wise but REALLY . REALLY BAD CONSISTENCY WISE. Like the first half of the video is the part people are gonna see first. It SETS EXPECTATIONS. IT HAS TO BE PEAK

I think I re-edited the synopsis upwards of 5-6 times. Which makes sense as that was like the first thing I started the project with but ouhvhhhgghghr. Making a section from scratch is WAY easier than going back and having to redo something

Early on I cut out an entire fully edited/scripted/recorded 3 minute section of me talking about Megamind and its sequel because I realized. This is pointless and everyone has TALKED ABOUT MEGAMIND BEFORE AND THIS HAS NOTHIBG TO DO WITH WRECK IT RALPH. There were a lot of scrapped ideas

Audio was also really challenging, just entirely. Making sure the levels were consistent (I had absolutely zero voice volume normalization I did it all manually 😭 I’m gonna have to figure out how to do that) Also just the concept of recording my voice and having to speak out loud in a space was Real Bad for my anxiety but You Do it Scared. Had to wait until I was home alone or like 99% sure I was alone before I could say anything without worrying. Also training my voice to sound engaging and consistent was so hard and it took maybe 6 months for me to get it down. Also I had no fucking idea where to record, like at first I was recording in a CLOSET (and later under a piano??) and then I was wondering why my lines sounded so weird. Then I realized I could just Record in a room and it would sound JUST FINE. So basically uhhh every single part was the hardest part. But it was worth it and very fun I think 🫶

[dozzlegramcracker]

After watching Randomalistic's video, i think it's time

I want to take a moment to say that the video @randomalistic posted about Turbo/King Candy on Youtube (Go check them out they're very cool and awesome artist) is so GOOD that I decided to make my own analysis. Not on Turbo but what COULD have been. And why Ralph Breaks The Internet is a steaming garbage fire of a movie and how they could've made it so so much better.

With THAT, lets get into the analysis.

We all know how Wreck-It-Ralph ends, Turbo ends up burning in the Cola mountain, fueled by his cybug urge to 'go into the light'. Then we never see him again, assuming he's dead. Cause Sonic Says: "You die outside your game, you don't regenerate! Game over :D"

Since Turbo has no game to go back to and being fused with a cybug that isn't in its core game, he would die, right? WRONG

My theory that the creators/writers didn't bank on is that Turbo had fused his code into Sugar Rush, making him King Candy, or else he wouldn't have been able to make such a good disguise. His code is quite literally forced into the game now and you can't tell me during his first time in that game, he didn't fall off the track a couple times because the track in Turbo Time was A CIRCLE. So how would he regenerate? Sure, Vanellope regained her original place in the game, practically kicking out the coding of 'King Candy' but he had enough time to regenerate while they walked to the track and rebuilt the finish line since Sugar Rush is a relatively new arcade game so it would load quicker than a 30y old arcade game.

The cybug coding would be gone because it got burned in the Cola Mountain but King Candy's code (which should still be connected to the game) aka Turbo's code is fused into the system. He would respawn as King Candy but as Vanellope crosses the finish line, he would turn back into his Turbo sprite. Leaving him back where he started, abandoned, without a game to call his own. Wouldn't that fuel his revenge story EVEN MORE? That story, of a twist villain coming back from the dead to finish the job is a much MUCH more interesting concept than Ralph going through a character arc he ALREADY went through, acting like the first movie doesn't even exist for a shitty cash grab and branding movie that feels closer to the 2012 movie 'Foodfight!' that they only finished for the money than an ACTUAL SEQUEL.

Why it sucks.

Ralph Breaks The Internet is such a needless cash grab that I hate and it is such a dumpster fire of a movie. I was so excited for a sequel until I watched the movie. Yes. All the way through.

It begins pretty standard. Vanellope and Ralph hanging out like the genuine friends they are that we saw at the end of the first movie. Some unsavory jokes but that's to be expected for a kids/family movie. Then they talk about Tron. Loved that game as a kid. However, they mention it having a virus. This already causes a roadblock in the movie. If Tron has a virus, is it going to get unplugged? Why hasn't it already been unplugged like in the first movie? Is it a Monday since the guy who takes out the arcade games comes on Fridays or that guy somehow sick? Then they don't even get into how they get out of the frozen Tron game. Back to the task at hand, Vanellope mentions the purpose of their existence. Then says something about 'wanting/wondering if they're is more to this than just this' which is exactly the lesson Ralph learned in the first one. Same for the extreme twist villain that was Turbo. Ralph wanted to be more than a bad guy, Turbo wanted power and attention. So now..Vanellope wants more out of her game too? Does the first movie just..NOT EXIST?? Or mean anything to the current story? Then, they plug in the wifi. Oh boy, this is where it gets terrible. Thanks for the explanation, Sonic. Glad to see you get at least 7 more seconds of screen time than the first movie. Skipping ahead, Ralph makes Vanellope a new track, she goes off programming, and the girl who is playing breaks the steering wheel. Now everyone in Sugar Rush is homeless. Guess instead of putting that handy orange paper on the screen, Litwak has decided to give no warning to the customers and the game characters! It's like he's trying to kill them.

Back on track, They find the wheel on ebay but it's 200 USD which honestly makes sense since it's a game part from a now old racing game. Litwak says 'that's more than this game makes in a year'. Doing the math, we can estimate this game costs a quarter. 25 cents per game. Depending on the skill of the player, they can luck out and win or need to put in another quarter to revive so lets say each player does this once. 50 cents per game then. Litwaks is open from sunrise to nine, at least that's what I recall from the first movie I might be off. I won't explain the logistics of it but .25 x 365 = 91 and some change. .50 x 365 = around 186. Removing some days and estimating how many people would play Sugar Rush in a day (sometimes involving two players) that would come to... more than 200 USD. I estimated at least 5 players playing a day and removed all holidays which comes to 250 working days. .50 x 5 = 2.50 and 2.50 x 250 = 625. So Litwak would absolutely have enough to pay for that wheel unless the shipping is 400 USD too. I hate math, can you tell how invested I am? But lets brush past that, it's a kids movie. Nobody is gonna look into THAT hard. Nobody except for me. End the day, Vanellope is on top of Ralphs building and - OH OH OH NOW HE PUTS THE ORANGE PAPER ON IT. OKAY. whatever. Ralph is a bit inconsiderate here, bragging about her not needing to do anything anymore even though he makes a good point about her complaining earlier. This is where it starts. Ralph gets insecure. Again. Alright lets skip forward and get to the meat of this story!! Felix is now an alcoholic father of fifteen, Ralph gets more clingy and needy, and then Vanellope and Ralph embark on a quest to find her game part. Back to reality, you seriously cannot tell me they did this in one night. Wouldn't Ralph's game go out of commission as well for a little while? Considering in the first movie, he's disappeared and the game almost gets unplugged - did I mention that in this universe the first movie doesn't exist? Anyway. Instant shameless branding. Snapchat and oh- is that AMAZON? One of the largest companies IN THE WORLD? Fandango is here too?? ITS ALMOST LIKE THEY'RE SPONSORING THE MOVIE.. as they travel through the internet we get a whole look at all the brands in this movie that may or may not be referenced in the future and I do not have the mental capacity to name all of them.

They find the steering wheel, bid an insane amount because apparently video games characters do not understand the concept of money even through Ralph has a tab at Tapper's, they cannot pay for it. They find Spamley and go to his 'website' and also meet Gort. One of the better characters, I find him hilarious. They figure out that a guy in Des Moines, IA (hey im from iowa!! and spamley pronounced it wrong) is willing to pay 40,000 USD for a racers car, this racer, girlboss awesome female character, Shanks. Yes that was sarcasm, the only woman empowerment character I need is Vanellope. Blah blah blah, youtube stuff etc etc. I'm TIRED of relaying this movie's events. Point blank period, Disney advertises itself and other brands to the MAX especially when they get farther into the movie. At the end, Vanellope decides to stay in Slaughter Race which would get her original game UNPLUGGED again because now there is only EIGHT in the roster which would be considered..oh what.. A GLITCH? OR VIRUS? Vanellope can be gone from her game for forever but Ralph can't be gone for one day? They're both core parts of their games, Vanellope is on the side of the console, which is a point they made IN THE FIRST MOVIE. DID. I. MENTION. THE FIRST MOVIE. DOESN'T EXIST HERE? What they did is make a more modern and terrible version of the first movie. Except it has less rules and completely disregards the rules set up in Wreck-It-Ralph. Now onto -

What Disney could have done with Turbo

Disney is no stranger to twist villains. They've even had some returning villains. Jafar, Yzma, Ratcliffe, Shere Khan, etc. Which is what they should've done with Turbo. One of Disney's (in my opinion) BEST twist villains and they killed him in the first movie! I could explain on and on about how good of a villain Turbo is but Randomalistic's video explains it better than I ever could. Back to my earlier point, he should've still been linked to Sugar Rush's code because even though he technically died, he would just respawn since he hard-wired his code into the system. Giving him ample time to hide out for the next six years (Ralph Breaks The Internet is staged 6 years into the future). He could have come back but they just didn't think about it that way. The movie that shall no longer be named had 10 million more on its budget and they spent it on branding. While the original movie created something that is very dear to my heart and even though it caused me some nightmares, it got me back into older arcade games and is one of the reasons I still really love them today. Centipede is my favorite arcade game! Turbo/King Candy was THE villain in my book. He's manipulative (x16), he's rude, he jumps to conclusions, he is downright evil to a degree that he tries to take over the entire arcade and infect the other characters. Wanting to do anything in the process to reach this goal, even if he has to kill Ralph and Vanellope to get to it. He is unapologetically a villain. I just wish they did more with him. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thank you for reading. I tend to get a bit carried away, especially with one of my most cherished movies. Go check out Randomalistic! They provide insight on Turbo I didn't mention and give a unique perspective. They also worked over the course of a YEAR on that video!! Show some support ! I'm A Sad Weeb and this has been my analysis/rant ^_^

[legendary-defender-of-fandoms]

You want to know the worst thing about Ralph Breaks the Internet?

It wasn’t the already-dated Internet jokes & references - we all knew going in that stuff was never going to work.

It wasn’t the new characters - honestly, they’re all fine (except maybe Double Dan - Alfred Molina deserves better!).

It wasn’t the exclusion of Felix & Calhoun (my delusional ass is still waiting for a short film about the two raising the Sugar Rush racers.)

It wasn’t even the thousands of details they ignored, retconned, or forgot from the original Wreck-it Ralph (Fix-it Felix Jr. was THIRTY years old when Ralph met Vanellope, Vanellope ABDICATED HER THRONE in favor of a constitutional democracy so everyone in Sugar Rush would have a say in how the game was run, Sugar Rush was a two-seater racing game, etc.)

No, the absolute, positively, undeniably worst thing Ralph Breaks the Internet did was tarnish & distort Ralph so thoroughly it made us all question if the original movie was even that good to begin with.

Everything else in Ralph Breaks the Internet could be forgiven or overlooked. But what they did to Ralph is just baffling. He was never going to be mistaken for a Rhodes scholar in the first movie, but he WAS smarter than the doofus who couldn’t even name a graduation cap in the sequel.

Wasn’t he?

And he wasn’t a gross slob by choice - he HATED living in the dump (I believe his exact words were “NOT cool! Unhygienic, and lonely! And boring.”) but he was kind of stuck there because the game literally left him nowhere else to stay. That’s why in the epilogue he decided to finally make something of his situation by building himself a proper shack instead of just camping on the bricks.

Wasn’t it?

And Ralph had many flaws in the first film - he had a short temper, he was a little clumsy, he broke things by accident just because he was a little too strong or things weren’t made for someone with his physical abilities in mind, he was stubborn, he had a one-track mind and couldn’t be deterred from his short-term goals no matter the long-term consequences. But the one thing he WASN’T was insecure. He knew his own strengths & weaknesses, and he wasn’t trying to change himself to win anyone’s approval. He was just trying to find VALIDATION, a way to satisfy the small-minded Nicelanders and prove to them (and himself) that he had value as he was.

Wasn’t he?

I’m terrified to rewatch the original movie now because I’m afraid the Wreck-it Ralph in my head is based on lies & fanfics, and the real Wreck-it Ralph was ALWAYS some insecure doofus with no accountability or self reflection.

And you know the absolutely insane part? Disney is doing their absolute darndest to pretend Ralph doesn’t exist. AND HE’S THE TITLE CHARACTER OF HIS OWN IP!!!!! There’s a new chapter book series about Vanellope & some of the Sugar Rush Racers getting stuck in a little girl’s tablet, and Ralph’s ONLY appearance so far is a line-drop in the first book when Vanellope says she left him sleeping in Game Central Station while all the consoles were unplugged for a remodeling of Litwak’s Arcade. WHAT THE FUCK?!?! Remember how EVERYONE in the first movie lost their shit at the possibility of their game being unplugged, treating it like an Apocalypse? Remember how even the sequel did a halfway decent job reminding folks that having a game unplugged was a Big Deal? Now everyone’s just chill axing on vacation in Game Central Station (which is NOT BIG ENOUGH to hold every single game character - it could barely fit the Sugar Rush citizens when they got unplugged) and Ralph is snoozing in a corner while his daughter is accidentally whisked away to some girl’s tablet.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!

The Wreck-it Ralph from the first movie wouldn’t be asleep in a corner when he could be spending time with Vanellope. And THAT man would go through Hell & high water to find her! While Vanellope & her gang are helping Molly (the kid with the tablet) learn about friendship & camping or whatever, Ralph should be an absolute MENACE online, tearing through every website, personal device, and Cloud account looking for his little girl!

Right? Wrong?

Did we all delude ourselves into thinking Ralph was deeper than he was intended to be? Or does Disney just hate Wreck-it Ralph now? And if it’s the latter, why? WHY do they hate him? Why do they want US to not care about him? Is it because he’s the last of the Lasseter projects? Did John C. Reilly and Bob Iger have some sort of falling-out? Did the FANBASE do something to put Disney staff off from ever wanting to do anything with Wreck-it Ralph ever again?

I think I could move on if I knew for certain whether Disney actively sabotaged Wreck-it Ralph with his sequel & subsequent exclusions from merchandise & multi-IP projects, or if I was just crazy for ever liking this character or his movie to begin with. It’s the not knowing that kills me.

[beebfreeb]

hiii ive never interacted w you other than rbing sometimes but i just wanted to let you know that theres something ab the wir takeover of your blog ive genuinely loved. like i watched you get into it and then it just slowly took over your blog as you made it your own n like what youre posting now is almost in the territory of unrecognizable from the source material and i just think thats fun :) youre taking the world and characters from the movie and twisting it and adding onto it n idk, its special to me. its your wreck it ralph now. its filling the good sequel shaped space in my heart but way more creative n out there than disney would ever create

I'm glad you're having fun! A lot of people have unfollowed me LOL. I am easily delighted by characters made for a specific purpose and their relationships to that. I like playing toys with the setting and characters because there is a lot of questions that are never explored due to the scope of the movie.

What if the arcade had a GameCube in it for hosting Super Smash Bros. tournaments?

[deuterosapiens]

Took my niece to see Moana 2. Had a bit of a different time of it than I had expected. First, yeah, the fact that this one was originally intended to be a Disney+ series before being expanded into a full film is kinda obvious given how the movie is structured, and how large the main cast is, and all that jazz.

The short version of my opinion of the first movie is that I find Maui a fairly annoying character, and that I consider the best moments to be those which don't really include him. The Call of the Ancestors where Moana reunites with her grandmother is a beautiful scene, and I genuinely consider the ending with Te Fiti to be one of the most gorgeous moments in Disney animated history (I'm a sucker for the image of a very large monster backgrounding a very small figure, especially one that's being tamed by it: consider Kong with the little girl from Godzilla versus Kong; or anything related to The Last Guardian). But, Maui being basically just animated Dwayne Johnson makes him kind of boring to me (I've seen him play this exact character so, so many times over the years), and is the reason I have very leveled opinions of it.

Honestly, this one's more of the same, but as we by now know, I love monsters. There are more monsters this time, and I love them very much. I'm also a bat guy. Love bats, they're like giant flying sky puppers. There are plenty of bats, thanks to new villainess Matangi having a bit of a bat theme that would probably make her a modern Bruce Wayne's secret crush. Okay, she's not really a villain: she'd actually just got a bit of a brooding theme going on from being imprisoned in a giant clam (makes sense in context).

Kele the Farmer is so, so much a relatable character and I appreciate his crankiness. A character like this would typically get annoying quickly, but his absolute commitment to not being involved with any of the singing is a mood I can respect.

As a Disney sequel, it's better than Ralph Wrecks the Internet and Frozen II. Not as good as say (wait... what's a genuinely good Disney sequel...? Toy Story and Inside Out have good sequels, but they are Pixar... Mulan II is complete trash... Tangled got a series but not a true sequel and I guess... huh. Okay, the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean are fun... Are there any animated sequels to non-Pixar Disney movies I actually like...? I'll have to think about this...)- moving on.

Stand-out musical number goes to "Get Lost", and any of the Ancestors' Maori songs which I don't understand but love the feel of anyway. In terms of soundtrack, this one's a bit weaker than the first movie. I guess I like "Beyond" more than "How Far I'll Go," but they're kind of the same sort of song anyway.

Is it better than the first movie? No, but it does still look absolutely gorgeous, which is a win for the animators slaving away to please the Mouse God.

[make-it-mavis]

Hey! I've got some more questions! I'm on a roll lol! Thank you so so much for answering the last one!

This ones more of a what if. But I just got to randomly thinking, what if Litwak kept Turbotime instead of scraping it for parts, and then he went "you know what? This game was a real gem of its time, let's see if I can get it fixed and back up and running." And the game ended up working just fine and he put it BACK in the arcade years later? I read somewhere that if a game cabinet ends up getting plugged back in the characters within it respawn. But they don't remember anything about their lives before getting unplugged. So if it were to happen, Turbo wouldn't remember committing any of his grisly crimes, or even Mavis. Also I wonder how the arcade as a whole would take to the most feared criminal in their history literally coming back from the dead. I just was curious about your outlook. :)

This next question is about Mavis, you kind of alluded in Tightrope that Mavis was presumed dead like Turbo in that conversation with Felix and Ralph. So did she fake her own death to be able to go with him to take over Sugarush? If she did, how did she pull that off?

Thats all I got for today, I'm sorry for the long winded questions! I get to thinking sometimes, then I fall right down into a rabbit hole. I know that the chances of Turbotime ever getting plugged in again are absolutely zero. Litwak more than likely had it scrapped for parts, or just downright had it taken to the junkyard to rot. Which is so heartbreaking to even think about. But I just want him back man! He was such an excellent and formidable villain. Probably the very last great Disney villain, especially in recent years. Their writing has just been so lazy and lackluster recently. Disappointing. (*cough cough*, that sorry excuse of a sequel that is just downright insulting to the first wreck it Ralph movie). He was hands down one of the best parts of the first movie. And of course it doesn't help that I have it down bad for him now thanks to you!! I was terrified of him as a kid, but you somehow managed to make me have the hots for him?! Like HOW?! Thank you for tolerating my rambling lol. It's so good to hear from you again!:)

First off, I will say again, every time I can make someone hot for that little grey bean I gain a year on my life

ANYWAY

1. Huh! I never actually considered that as a possibility. I guess somehow it didn't occur to me to think about how a game being plugged back in would work, but it happens in RBTI. PERSONALLY... I feel like there would not be any reset on the characters' minds, especially if they weren't in the game when it happened. If we're assuming the cabinets have memory storage, unplugging them wouldn't erase that. But maybe having the game boot up again would physically summon Turbo back into Turbo Time, and he'd have a lot to answer for. Unless the actual game's memory unit was replaced, I don't think the characters would have any reason to forget, but even if it was, I think the game would spawn new versions of the characters. So there would be a New Turbo strutting around, but the Old Turbo would still be alive and hiding. Which would do great for his psyche I'm sure.

2. Yup, after Sugar Rush was plugged in and the plan to usurp the throne was concocted, Mavis knew that in order to live her life as Pyrite unquestioned, the arcade would have to believe she was dead. I never fully figured out how she would go about faking her death though. She definitely would not have stuck around long enough after to see Felix mourn.

Thank you for the asks and little thought exercises! Always fun to muse

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Ugh...

Here we go again with this... Something something, "It's not my fault Disney is making these sequels! I avoided their latest original movies because they sucked! I shouldn't be to blame for that!"

A) These Disney Animation and Pixar sequels were likely always going to be made regardless of how the recent original movies performed financially. In the biz, if a movie makes a shit-ton of money, it's likely getting a sequel. It ain't 1997 anymore.

B) There is no blame or punishment, per se... The system in the world of mainstream American feature animation is working as intended. It's capitalism 101. It sucks, yes, but that's how it is. The performance of one movie dramatically affects the slate, or even the studio's survival. Must we dredge up what happened to Blue Sky after The Walt Disney Company bought them and their first movie released by them lost money at the box office? Better yet, all the times Disney Animation faced shutdown for many decades.

C) What if... Hear me out... These sequels are all pretty good? Better than the recent original stuff, even? Impossible! Something can be a critically-acclaimed audience favorite, and you'd still have gaggles of people online insisting the thing in question is garbage. Just look at TURNING RED, for example. It's all fuckin' subjective at the end of the day.

D) It's never gonna be good enough anyways, so why bother? I don't think I can name a *single* Disney animated movie where almost everyone was on the same page, praising it... Since THE LION KING? The latter-years Renaissance movies all had their detractors, as did the early 2000s movies, as did all the "Revival" movies (why don't they do 2D anymore? Because a lot of people avoided PRINCESS AND THE FROG and WINNIE THE POOH). I remember there were at least a few people who didn't like TANGLED, WRECK-IT RALPH, etc. etc. Were very vocal about that or didn't think they were "Disney enough" or whatever. Hell, even LION KING used to get flack for the KIMBA similarities. Plenty of the now-beloved films overseen by Walt Disney himself were largely greeted with mixed or negative reviews upon initial release. It'll never be perfect, it's just the nature of the beast. How the movies live on, is the more important part. Not the opinions of self-appointed "experts" on the Internet. Again, it's all personal preference.

The thing is, the movies Disney chooses to make is kind out of our control. No one should be obliged to pay for a product so that you get the next one like it ("vote with your wallet!"), but unfortunately, that's how the biz works. If you're not game on the latest films from the studio, you're also not to blame for what they do next, but they're gonna do what they're gonna do. That's just that about that. Hell, the thing can be a big success... And they'll still do the opposite of what people want! Off the top of my head, not an animated movie, but WORLD WAR Z 2 not moving forward despite how well the first one did. Again, it sucks. But... If WDAS ever got to a point where they were making things that I just did not want to see whatsoever? Then I'd go watch something else. It's ultimately the higher-ups' decisions that are at fault.

Very rarely are financial failures looked at logically, very rarely do executives ever try to pick up the pieces from there. Instead it's "never make this kind of thing again" or "shut this place down". It happened to Blue Sky. It happened at DreamWorks, projects cancelled (B.O.O., MONKEYS OF MUMBAI, etc.), staff laid off, a whole animation unit closed down (Pacific Data Images), etc. Disney Animation threw 2D features out twice, cancelled many movies, laid off tons of people multiple times, they faced complete shutdown multiple times. Animated movies are expensive and require lots of people and resources, they're fragile as is. COVID-19 really cut into their box office, and it doesn't help that going to the movies costs a fortune.

I'm not saying this is all a good, it's not. I've just made peace with it, and can only hope films keep getting made, staff still have work and roofs to keep over their heads, and maybe... Just maybe, I'll like the movies, too?

Anyways, I hope I like MOANA 2. I'm curious to see what the director and writers and artists and musical talents all bring to this world that was created by the first film.

[ithoughtitdbefunny]

Vanellope Von Schweetz: A Character Rant

[Note: This rant will focus on the presence of Vanellope in Disney Dreamlight Valley, the good and the bad. I make these criticisms in the most respectful way possible, so please keep an open mind. And if you disagree with some of my opinions, I'd love to hear why! I can't shut up about this game lol.]

Wreck It Ralph characters have been anticipated since the furniture and clothing for the series showed up in Dreamlight Valley. But upon Vanellope's entrance, I can't help but feel offset by what feels like a change in personality for her.

Among film critics, it was pretty blatant that Ralph Wrecks the Internet was a synonymously frustrating sequel to the first of the Wreck it Ralph films. The blatant advertising and cash-grabbed inserts had made the characters severely lose their charm. Personally when I think about Vanellope and Ralph, I'm reminded of the amount of heart and creativity written in their initial premiere. The arcade-world and how it was presented, the clash of video game characters, the sympathy it made us feel for antagonists- it was a great movie with well written characters and the first Disney twist-villain I had ever witnessed as a child. All around- great!

My problem with using the sequel-written version of Vanellope is that she no longer comes off as a spunky kid with his ambitions and a mischievous demeanor- she feels like a character that thinks she's too good to be in Dreamlight Valley. Now, let me explain.

[I will use the disclaimer that I have not been on many quests or had many conversations with her. Simply because I don't feel motivated to.]

Sequel-vanellope has already spent time in Slaughter Race, a game she fought hard to get programmed into and play freely, leaving Sugar Rush behind. This new game she's in has very clearly provided everything she'd want. So why is she here?

To help promote the new photo-sharing system. Now I won't offend the writers by saying that was a bad idea, because I actually like it. But rather than having Vanellope STAY,

I think Ralph deserves a chance. Especially after coping with his best friend having moved on. I think it would have been far better to have Ralph stay in Dreamlight Valley to expand his horizons and to really drive home what makes the Valley so special. There's so much potential!! I could list what types of friendships and rivalries I think he would have around the village but I'd be getting off track.

TLDR: It's a little out of character for Vanellope to move from Slaughter Race to Dreamlight Valley. Ralph should have taken her place to make new friends and we would help him cope with her having moved from the arcade

[2dents]

20 Questions for fic Writers!

Okay so, I was tagged by @outtoshatter and I'm just going to take a swing at this. Here we go.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Currently 22.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

202,411.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I mainly write for Dungeons and Daddies, Nark specifically. But I also have a couple in there for the Teen Wolf Sterek fandom.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

But You Have Heard of Me [ Teen Wolf, M, Wc: 82,014] (my baby!) The Taste of Perfume [DnDads, M, Wc: 58,717] (wip) Sudoku [DnDads, G, Wc: 5,226] Uno Attack [Dndads, G, Wc: 5,717] A Consuming Faith [Dndads, E, Wc: 33,963] (My baby wip! I'm aiming for another 80k with this one.)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Absolutely I do! If someone takes the time out of their day to not only read my silly little stories, but also comment on them, I will absolutely reply! Unless they're mean I guess? I haven't had any mean/rude comments yet so knock on wood. lol

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I love angst. I write it into a lot of things. But as far as endings go... hmm. Well I guess that title would currently go to one of my drabbles, A Done Deal [DnDads, G, Wc: 100] but without giving away spoilers one of my wips is going to take that title as soon as I get around to writting it lol.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Oh, But You Have Heard of Me [ Teen Wolf, M, Wc: 82,014]. My baby~! Happy ending and maybe one day it will have a happy sequel.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I feel like I'm going to jinx myself by saying no. I haven't recieved any rude or hateful comments on any of my fics. Not even when I posted on LJ.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I am not confident when it comes to writing smut. I used to write a lot of it back on LJ. Now I just Fade To Black, but I do have plans to maybe write some for a wip. But idk we will see when we get there.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Nope! I wrote a fusion fic, But You Have Heard of Me [ Teen Wolf, M, Wc: 82,014] but no crossovers.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I am aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I had I believe 2 fics translated on LJ, but not on Ao3

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Hahaha, yes! On LJ my irl bestie and I wrote a fic together! It was very cute, we each did a chapter following one half of the ships pov. I'd love to do it again some day it was super fun! What I really wanna do is get a bunch of different writers involved in doing a collaboration where the characters are stuck waking up in different timelines, so each chapter could be a different one-shot by a different author but they all connect. I think it would be fun.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

Sora/Riku. I don't write for this ship but I will fight god about them. I've been obsessed with them since I was 12 and played Kingdom Hearts. I have fics I've been re-reading for alkjsdflks way too long omg. When I played Kh3 and Riku showed up I screamed so loud it scared my partner. You can pry them from my cold dead fingers okay.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Hahaha, I just recently posted this fic to my Ao3. A Divine Move [Teen Wolf, M, 8,676] Stiles is a horror game character (based off games like Until Dawn and The Blair Witch Project) and Derek is from a dating sim (Based off Hunnypop lol) It was going to get an E rating cause I had some absolutely slasher ideas for Stiles game and the plot was loosely adapted from Wreck-It-Ralph. So, maybe one day I'll get the inspiration back, but as of now it's just not there.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I have been told I have a very clear writing voice and that I'm very good at setting a scene and showing it to the reader. I think my main strength is my humor. lol I find myself very funny.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

A lack of confidence alksdfjalksd. I get so anxious trying to make sure that the movie in my head is being translated into word correctly that I sometimes over do things. Also I have the absolute worst grammar, and spelling omg.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

If I don't speak the language enough to be confident that I'm using the words correctly I just do the "They said in language" kinda thing.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Okay, lmao. Okay okay. It was for the Gorillaz back when Demon Days had just come out.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

My two babies that I'm the most proud of are

But You Have Heard of Me [ Teen Wolf, M, Wc: 82,014]

I spent a year writting it and I made several friends because of it. It is my baby and I love it. I re-read it and still laugh at it.

A Consuming Faith [Dndads, E, Wc: 33,963]

I have been putting so much work into this fic and it's really pushing me as a writer. I have been obsessed with cult and demons since I was young, probably too young lol, so this is just basically 3 of my hyper-fixations coming together in a fun way. I have big plans for this fic and I'm very excited about it. I've been working on it for 7 months now, and I'm really hoping I can finish it before the end of the year.

Thanks for the tag! I'm going to tag some people and maybe they'll play along too, no pressure though and I have no clue what I'm doing so sorry if you didn't want to be tagged. @evanesdust @nottoolateforthegame @siogosho @missanniewhimsy @calamity-unlocked

[100-yardstare]

I am finally done with Normal 2!! I started the original Normal in 2015 after seeing the movie for the first time, and I loved it so much! Can't believe out of all the fandoms I've ever been in, the POM movie was the one that got me writing a 119k+ fic and an entire sequel. The only other fic I wrote a novel length fic for was for Wreck-it Ralph.

Felt like writing a bit about my process behind the scenes as a way to send it off officially:

I love writing first person, especially self inserts. I can picture myself in situations very easily and my emotions tend to spill out with the perspective.

After reading my fics over a few times and reading some of my reader commentary, I've been told that my insert is "loud" and one time was told I was "obnoxious" and "mean", but tbh viewing the fic by taking a step back and re-reading made me realize this is my loud inner voice and may be attributed to my ADHD!!

Speaking of self discovery, my statements in the fic such as not being able to sweat, fainting, feeling like I might piss myself, etc were supposed to be just funny statements, but in conjunction with my discussion of my inserts "illness" I was actually writing about my dysautonomia before I actually knew what it was! I was diagnosed January 2023, so it's kinda interesting seeing my writing reflect my disability.

I am unashamed of the fact that I wrote Dailey as being a messy relationship that grew and had its ups and downs. I like angst in my ships anyway, so this one was no exception even being a self insert. Dave is a bad guy, and Kailey is, well... me, totally not perfect, weird, working with a bad guy as if she has no choice. They both did really crappy stuff, and THAT'S THE POINT!! I actually wrote a sequel because I knew the ship had a whole lot more to go development wise.

While the first fic generalized a commentary on what it meant to be "normal", when I wrote the sequel I wanted to touch base on different aspects of society, what is normalized, and what it considers beautiful. I write this in outside characters other than my insert, but it manifests in my inserts "turning into a monster" story arc. I am often alienated from being beautiful (how I dress, whether I wear makeup or not), how I behave (my ADHD, my introverted-ness, my emotional disregulation, etc.) my sexuality (I am asexual not interested in sexual relationships), and my physical disability (incapable of keeping up with what is expected of me in jobs, obligations, etc.). In the end the hope is to allow my true self to shine, hence breaking the "curse" of the Medusa Serum in the end.

In extension, my alienation and turning into a monster arc emphasized my negative emotions as being made an outsider or not deemed good enough by society, and how that brings out the worst part of you. I had this resolved by working through this in a relationship because I believe the foundation of mental well being is being part of a community or sharing your burdens with others.

When I decided to make the characters that were turned into monsters with the influence of the QCUs, I was watching Dragon Ball at the same time, and thought the scenes where Goku gets shot and just goes "Oww, that hurts!" without being hurt, was hilarious and ended up putting that trait in my fic.

I probably have a lot more facts in my head that I am not remembering at this moment but here are some of my thought processes for now! I am very thankful for all the support I had writing this fic. Dave and Kailey's story is over from a writing standpoint but I def see there being a lot of open story ideas/extras that I would love to talk about so if anyone is ever interested please shoot me an ask!

[monkey-network]

Good Stuff: Megamind 2

I remember many moons ago that I reviewed Dreamworks's Megamind in all its brilliance. I remember around that same time spitballing about a sequel. Cut to 2 years ago where they announced one and my optimism was in it. I wasn't expecting much, I had simple expectations of this since Dreamworks never slacked when it came to their sequels, you know? Now we're here... and it's like how am I meant to feel? Should I feel grateful for this sudden monkey's paw, this baboon's dishwater soaked digits for giving us this take on Megamind? [sigh] I don't want to be too sour about this though.

Still better than what Wreck-it Ralph fans got, I guess

Now I'm not bothered by them making a film that's essentially a backdoor pilot to the TV series, nor that the original cast's been replaced, introducing new characters, and that the series itself isn't theatrical tier animation wise. That has always been an acceptable given with Dreamworks shows vs movies. What bothers me is that the new "film" couldn't have the same quality as before. Like this is unprecedented, where a sequel doesn't get the same stellar animation as before but is basically just episode 0 of the TV show. This never happened before, The Croods, Trolls, and Boss Baby never got downgraded to direct-to-DVD status with their sequels's animation looking worse than the fucking Paw Patrol movies. We JUST got Puss in Boots: The Last Wish couple years ago, so can you imagine how this kinda bothers me? I'm cool with it not having the same great writing and worldbuilding as the OG film, but this felt like the biggest disservice to any Megamind fan, heck any animation fan in general.

Presentation was the ONE thing this should have had

But I've been sour enough, is the film/show actually worth it story and character wise? Dear lord, it's corny. It makes 60s Batman feel like a Christopher Nolan production. The characters you know are basically the only reason to watch this as none of the new ideas given are compelling enough that makes this feel justified. It's nice getting a series about heroes and villains, and Megamind himself is the most enjoyable part about all this, but it's like even I can't sift out the hidden gem this could have with what I've seen. It's like kids will enjoy this as is like the other Dreamworks shows, but it's hard imagining any older fan of the original movie being ecstatic enough to even bother past the film. I'm sorry, it's overall serviceable but I can't offer any silver lining that can prove this was worth it.

Again, I can't even be mad. I'm used to this pain.

I don't know what else to say. Do I just lie to you all and say this wasn't a massive disappointment? This hasn't soured my feelings for Dreamworks, I'm still a believer given they aren't exactly the studio I go to for long running streaks of quality compared to others. It's not like Megamind was the biggest thing in my life, that goes to Shrek and Bluey, but I kinda wanted... more from this? This just barely does anything for me. I'm gonna watch a couple more episodes and honestly not look back when this weekend's over. What sucks the most is that this isn't the first time a sequel animation has made me feel this way, but this is a newfound low for me.

I give Arzette: Jewel of Faramore a 9 out of 10. Just a fantastic blast from the past.

Megamind 2 gets a 2 out of 5. Fucking fiasco.