#//there's a big bad evil lion villain with no personality

[tragicbeauty1991]

So I know I’m extremely late to the party, but I FINALLY got around to watching Wish now that it’s up on Disney+ and…I genuinely don’t understand why it got so much hate?? Sure, maybe it wasn’t on par with things like The Lion King or Frozen in terms of the lasting effect it’ll have on pop culture but it was still a good, fun film with original characters and plot and catchy songs. While I can see where some of the complaints are coming from, I feel like ultimately most of them blow the issues out of proportion. As for my personal thoughts on the film…

- The songs were good overall. Maybe not as memorable as some of my favorite ‘90s Disney jams, but topping Phil Collins and Elton John is admittedly hard to do. Ariana DeBose and Chris Pine were great, though. I honestly had no idea Chris Pine could sing so well. “At All Costs” was by far my favorite song of the entire film. I would have loved to see it as a love duet rather than singing to the wishes but regardless, it’s beautiful. “This is the Thanks I Get” got a lot of flak, but honestly, I thought it was catchy and fun—rather reminiscent of Gaston’s pub song about himself.

- Speaking of Magnifico… More backstory, please! I would love for a sequel to do what they did with Frozen and explain all the things that were not fully developed in the first film. I want to know details on what happened to Magnifico’s family… But man, oh man… Was I EVER happy to get a “real villain” again with more of a classic Disney feel—dramatic, over the top, a little unhinged…and just FUN. I think the reason so many people seem to be having a problem with him is that they don’t quite know how to categorize him, though, before his ultimate downward spiral after being possessed by the book. (I think after that point, no one would argue about him being a villain.) But before…while he’s definitely narcissistic and has a temper…he’s not straight-up evil. There’s a big difference in being a bit of a jerk and being someone who makes you legitimately fear for your life. In fact, we have several heroic characters in the Disney canon who at least start out their story in a similar vein. Prince Naveen, Peter Pan, and Emperor Kuzco, for example, are all full of themselves and entitled…but they ultimately choose to do the right thing when it comes down to people they care about. That is to say, Magnifico’s less than ideal character traits we see early on in the film shouldn’t automatically qualify him as a villain. He could frankly go either way. And then when he does “go dark” it’s ONE stupid decision on his part (going for the book) that ruins any chance he had of being like the aforementioned characters. Personally, I like the complexity…and the tragedy of what it means for Queen Amaya. Which reminds me…

- Yes, a villain power couple would have been fun. But honestly, I think I like this better. Partly because of the angst potential here. For all his faults, Amaya DOES genuinely love him, and watching him slowly lose his mind and himself to the power-hungry monster he becomes has to be absolutely heartbreaking for her. Also…maybe it’s just because I identify with Amaya here. I have been in a bad relationship where I did truly love the other person and thought they loved me…but ultimately, they seemed to love themselves more. And I made excuse after excuse for his behavior for a long time because I couldn’t see what he was doing to me…didn’t want to see it…because I loved him. People say Amaya had to have known sooner that something rotten was going on but I don’t know that she ever allowed herself to think anything other than the best of him. Amaya has a good heart…and sometimes those people see the best in others even when it isn’t there. What I really would have loved is to have Amaya and Magnifico sing a short reprise of “At All Costs” in which Amaya is asking, “Really? You’ll hoard all these wishes for your own selfish reasons even at the cost of losing your people’s love? Of losing me?” And Magnifico is just…stoically resolute. That would have hurt but it would have been so good!

- Similarly, I don’t get the complaint about Star. I wouldn’t mind seeing Star Boy like he was in the concept art and having a romance with Asha. But also…Star is ADORABLE, okay?? He may not speak but he has so much personality. Makes me think of like…Pascal in Tangled or even Tinkerbell.

- I know a lot of people complained about there being too many references to other Disney films but this just seems like a silly argument to me. Disney has always liked to leave little Easter eggs in their films and have some fun with crossovers. I am thinking of the Genie imitating Pinocchio and pulling Sebastian out of nowhere in Aladdin. Hidden characters in the background of other films like Flynn and Rapunzel showing up in Arendelle. Hidden Mickeys. And of course shows that were all about a Disney multi-verse that sort of pokes fun at itself like Once Upon a Time, House of Mouse, and even Ralph Breaks the Internet. With this being a special anniversary film, of course we ought to expect more nods to other films and Disney animation history. I thought it was cute. Especially Magnifico’s jab at Asha’s little moving drawing. (“Is that a talent?”) Made me literally laugh out loud.

- I think the one complaint I do agree with at least in part is the, “But Magnifico was right, though??” Some dreams shouldn’t come true. Especially if it’s a wish you’re making when you’re 18. There are definitely things I wished for at 18 that I am glad I did not get in hindsight. Sometimes what we wish for isn’t what’s best for us or others. And while Asha’s wishes are selfless and for others…she seems to assume that everyone else will also have equally harmless, selfless wishes. It’s sweet but perhaps a bit naive. Also…Asha has good intentions but it is rather funny and frustrating as the adult to watch this teenager come in and try to upset the whole system thinking she knows better than the person who has been running the kingdom for years. That said… Asha isn’t totally wrong either. The wishes do ultimately belong to the people who made them and it’s better even if it’s painful to have a dream in your heart than to be lacking purpose. It may be easier to forget the wishes entirely but certainly not healthier. Ironically, if only these two could have worked together, they actually would have made a great team.

Overall, I liked the film. And I think if I was still a child myself, I would have enjoyed it even more.

#wish #disney wish #wish 2023 #wish asha #princess asha #king magnifico #queen amaya #ariana debose #chris pine #Disney

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Maybe it is not because of cgi movies but because how bad written the characters especially the villains. So far the only villain I can think fits is Mother Gothel because of how well-written her character is despite lacking of powers and a twisted version of her helps. Although they did take inspiration from CGI movies like Big Hero 6 for that chapter 6 plot and even took some TV shows like Lion Guard which it revealed to have lion guards in Leona's hometown.

[Referencing this post!]

As I mentioned in the original post, yes; TWST does take inspiration from and make reference to many Disney properties regardless of artistic medium. This extends to their animated and live action films and shows, as well as musical productions (the whole plot line with Rollo having a little brother that was led astray by sin comes from an obscure Hunchback of Notre Dame German musical) and more. It’s just that TWST has yet to introduce characters in their own universe explicitly twisted from characters in the 3D era, whether villains or not.

Seeing as the big “sell” of Twisted Wonderland is its villain-based characters, I can see why one might think poor quality of the original (3D) Disney characters would be a factor in preventing them from being successfully adapted. However, I personally don’t think this is a huge consideration since that would imply Disney’s old villains are all written significantly well when some are simply generically evil or not that interesting (though this will vary depending on who you ask). Besides, it would also discount the fact that no matter how low quality or boring the original villain was, they can always be “dressed up” and given a more interesting story and character by the TWST team; they are not 100% beholden to the mold the original Disney character set.

I definitely agree that many of the more recent villains aren’t the… strongest… (if we had a villain at all, that is). Mother Gothel is the only one that immediately sticks out in my mind as a great villain from the 3D era. (She’s so uniquely wicked in how she gaslights and manipulates Rapunzel.) However, we don’t know if the people on the TWST team also hold this same opinion of disliking the 3D era and letting that actively influence their design direction for the game. It’s very hard to discern what the overall sentiment is since we don’t often hear from the TWST devs and just make assumptions of what the popular opinion is based on what we hear from our own social circles.

With the deliberate 3-4 years of staying with 2D animated characters (+ the G7 being some of the most iconic Disney villains) and now the Platinum Suit line now making references to the classics, I really think nostalgia is the main motivator rather than TWST (or Disney) questioning the quality of their 3D stories and characters. If anything, they (Disney, that is) seem pretty eager to stroke their own egos about mega box office and merchandising hits 😂 Frozen, anyone?

#twst #twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #Mother Gothel #notes from the writing raven #Tangled #Frozen #Rapunzel

[themattress]

Disney TVA Finale Ranking

For every Disney TVA series that features continuous plot/character development.

13. The Ghost and Molly McGee - ???: It doesn’t exist yet, so it ranks last at the moment.

12. Milo Murphy's Law - Sphere and Loathing in Outer Space: Milo Murphy’s Law is a depressing failed experiment of a series. For its first season, it was a spiritual successor to its creators previous show, the episodic hit Phineas & Ferb, but with more of an overarching narrative that was incredibly silly but also had some legitimate heart to it. But that arc’s finale ended up being the second season’s premiere, where the main cast of Phineas & Ferb crossed over and totally stole the spotlight from the characters we’d actually been following. From that point on, the “Phineas & Ferb effect” never went away, leading to a jumbled mess of a second season arc involving aliens and relationship drama and Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz annoyingly inserted in at every turn that concluded in this underwhelming finale that was so clearly not intended to be the series finale when it was made. There’s no real closure nor satisfaction to anything, leaving viewers nothing but the show’s wasted potential to dwell on.

11. The Lion Guard - Return to the Pride Lands: After the final battle, we had two more episodes left in this series and they just feel so bland and perfunctory. There’s no real conflict left, no character arcs still in need of concluding, it really just boils down to connecting fully to The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride and explaining why we never saw nor heard of Kion during the events of that movie. I forgot this finale almost as soon as I saw it; that’s how weak it is. 

10. Star vs. The Forces of Evil - Cleaved: Perhaps the most notorious of the finales on this list, “Cleaved” and the three episodes leading into it really feel like watching a train that had so much momentum behind it derail, crash, explode and burn. Everything from the pointlessly disjointed story, underwhelming endgame threat, out-of-nowhere character turns, waste of important characters, failure to connect enough to the show’s past, brushing aside the horrific implications of destroying magic, and the resolution that puts the show’s freshly hooked-up main ship above everything else come together to create a woefully unsatisfying conclusion. But hey, at least it is a firm conclusion, and one I’ll always remember for just how bad it is.

9. Big Hero 6 the Series - The Mascot Upshot: While this show got screwed over by executives big-time and this short, silly story being the finale is emblematic of that fact, it does accomplish exactly what it needed to: wrapping up all lingering story threads (the Noodle Burger Gang, the unexpected bond Hiro developed with Momakase, and eliminating the last trace of Obake’s evil from San Fransokyo) and leaving things on a feel-good note.

8. Wander Over Yonder - The End of the Galaxy: This is the most standard kind of “good” finale that a series could ask for when prematurely cut short. It’s got the highest stakes to date, the biggest personal conflicts for the protagonists to deal with, the main villain at their diabolical best, and an ending where the status quo is retained while also leaving a clear path forward for new developments which fans can imagine for themselves. It’s a shame that the series couldn’t continue beyond this point as was planned, but what we got was still solid.

7. Sofia the First - Forever Royal: The plot of this finale is very weak. The whole Mystic Isles / Protector Sofia / Wicked Nine story arc felt half-baked to start with, and not enough had been done with Prisma / Vor to feel like her / their status as the Final Boss was earned. However, the characters make up for this. Given that Sofia the First has mostly been episodic throughout its run, you don’t quite realize how much Sofia and her family have grown until you reach the end. The things they accomplish along with the new things revealed about them elevate this finale beyond its flimsy story, with special mention going to my boy Cedric. Once you reach the end credits, you definitely feel like this show wrapped up very nicely.

6. Elena of Avalor - Coronation Day: While this finale has something of a rocky start, partially owing to the (presumably network-induced) wasted potential in how this final season’s arc progressed, once Elena and Ash Delgado have gotten trapped in the Spirit World and Esteban aligned himself with the Four Shades, things pick up and the quality stays high to the very end. The character development is on point, especially for protagonist Elena and antagonist Esteban, and the Four Shades end up selling the apocalyptic threat they pose, especially Cahu the Time Shade who gets away with some of the most horrific shit ever put on a show that airs on Disney Junior. And the ending where Elena is officially crowned Queen of Avalor is just perfect, capped off by a delightful surprise guest star appearance.

5. DuckTales - The Last Adventure: While it’s disappointing that Huey’s arc peters out halfway through in favor of Webby, some long-hanging elements are paid off in a shockingly underwhelming way, and this already long finale honestly needed even more time to fully flesh things out (ex: the resolution to the battle against the Phantom Blot, which as stands is totally off-screen), it’s counter-balanced by so much strong material and a shining heart, with the finale doing a fantastic job at tying the series together as a single, grand, three-act story.

4. Tangled the Series - Plus Est En Vous: There is very little to complain about with this finale. We get the full-on Sun and Moon-powered battle between Rapunzel and Cassandra that the series was building to, perfect cappers for the redemption arcs of Varian and King Edmund, the Big Bad Zhan Tiri having the last of her backstory filled in and then becoming an active threat in her demonic form, Eugene and the other side characters banding together to buy time for Corona’s survival, and Rapunzel getting to save the day alongside Cassandra to the point where she’s the one who cuts her own hair this time. The biggest quibble would have to be Cassandra’s turnaround and departure feeling rushed, but otherwise this was an above average conclusion to an above average TV show based on/continuing a movie.

3. The Owl House - Watching and Dreaming: Starting in “Thanks to Them” and continuing in “For the Future” before concluding in “Watching and Dreaming”, The Owl House’s finale really pulls out all the stops and makes the most of Disney having cut the series short. Every character gets their time to shine and wrap up their arcs in a satisfying way, every core theme of the show is driven home beautifully, and the action and animation is at its peak. Yes, there are problems due to the aforementioned executive meddling from Disney, particularly in how some questions are raised but either never fully answered or answered in too rushed a way to be impactful, but on the whole Dana Terrace and her crew pulled off an excellent ending. 

2. Amphibia - The Hardest Thing: Starting in “The Beginning of the End” and continuing in “All In” before concluding in “The Hardest Thing”, this was a finale that I doubt anyone expected to be as amazing as it was. Amphibia started out as just a cute, fun little show about a teenage girl trapped in a world full of talking frogs, and concludes in the most epic, intriguing, philosophical and heartfelt way a story can possibly conclude in. I could bring up nitpicks like the Final Boss battle being ridiculously quick and perfunctory, or how Sasha’s conclusion is marred by her backstory episode getting left on the cutting room floor, but these things feel insignificant when compared to just how good and fulfilling the finale is overall.

1. Gravity Falls - Weirdmageddon: This three-part conclusion (or four-part, depending on which way you’re viewing it) is often cited as one of the best finales to any television show, animated or otherwise, and it’s not hard to see why. Everything just feels like it’s coming together here, everything the show has ever been and was always building to. It’s exciting, it’s funny, it’s scary, it’s thought-provoking, and by God is it emotional. The final end credits are some of the best, most downright perfect I have ever seen, making you really feel the worthiness of the experience that was this show. It’s certainly not being topped anytime soon.

#Disney #Ending #Finale #Opinion #Comparison

[quidfree]

have you every watched voltron or she-ra? if not, highly rec!! she-ra's amazing ( in my humble opinion ) voltron is uhh the start was great bUT GIANT ROBOT CATS THAT TURN INTO A GIANT ROBOT HUMAN

hi anon- i’ve watched both, actually, though not all the way through- thoughts below the cut just because i can feel this will be long despite my best efforts. def agree on voltron but cannot say i think shera is great haha

let’s start w voltron bc it’s the og. i watched it when it was first coming out and yeah- received w great enthusiasm. keith, unsurprisingly, was my guy. allura was probably my second favourite character. love the space lion robots of it all. really enjoyed the alien fantasy drama. was extremely on-board with unlikely teammates saving the galaxy and secret galra heritage and shiro’s war ptsd and all that. i think the early seasons had a good balance of drama and comedy, too.

definitely went downhill fast, and i didn’t watch past the season where lotor first starts playing a big role in the show, in part because i could Feel the bad prince zuko arc they were going to do and absolutely did not have the time for it (cannot believe they had him and allura be a thing…. and then she dies at the end of the show). basically just got frustrated by the way the characters were handled after a certain point, the tone was a mixed bag and the plot got messy. i was lucky bc keith was one of the people who got the most consistent/thorough focus and development, but the sidelining of certain charas and the weird dvp of others was just annoying. plus the ‘funny’ episodes… no. love shiro getting gay married tho good for him #lovewins.

shera…. hm. to give it some credit: i do enjoy the silly retro cartoon energy of it (the Names!!), i think the core 3’s friendship is good throughout, and naturally i think adora and catra’s relationship is compelling, fucked up and endearing. also there were def points where (like w voltron) the smaller-scale conflicts were pretty engaging to me, esp in the way they managed to overlap them w personal struggles- adora vs the horde, glimmer’s family drama… and mermista is an icon throughout love her energy.

now for my overview of the show… season one was promising for me but the like Positivity of it all just doesn’t speak to me- it’s Very power of friendship sparkles somehow. yeah theres darkness but i feel like it always gets mishandled. the villains in shera are sooo inconsistently framed as big menacing evil or harmless funny guys & i hate it- for eg why set up shadowweaver as this military evil child abuser for the early seasons and then make her a snarky teammate by the end?? it has ambitions of doing moral greyness but it’s mostly just badly executed for me… and that extends to catra fyi, for as much as i love her. shes easily my fav character but shes not very well-written. let’s not even start on hordak and his whole mess of a plot.

on that note both shows have a weird relationship w their genocide plots also. if you want to have genocide in your fun lil show you still need to take it seriously and there are ways to do it- think of avatar or of full metal alchemist, idk. making the big bad someone who wipes out planets and civilisations to raise stakes without ever considering the ramifications / while giving them easy redemption arcs is so lazy.

both theme songs absolutely slap though.

#qui parle #qui repond #anon #voltron #shera #ooh the high school flashbacks of it all….

[apolloadama]

i have a very dear friend who is 72 who i read books with and we meet once a week to zoom. she's going through a tough time and we were talking about disney movies -- i am a big disney movie nerd, even going back to the ones released when she was a child -- but she hasn't seen more than two or three when they were in theaters in the '50s and '60s. so we decided to do a series of double features, the pairs picked by me.

tonight we started with snow white and the seven dwarfs (1937) and the little mermaid (1989).

i felt like the pairing of the movie that started it all with the movie that kicked off the disney renaissance was appropriate. there's also a fairly stark contrast to the fairly passive snow white, waiting for the prince to come save her (and industriously working hard at domestic labor so as to be able to have a roof over her head--remember this was made in the 1930s!) with ariel, who saves the prince, makes her own choices in the movie (even if they are bad ones), and ultimately works with the prince to save the ocean (world?) from bigger stakes than just her own life and romance--stopping the evil sea witch/queen ursula, who was clearly a menace to all merkind.

my friend had vague memories of snow white when it was apparently rereleased in a local theater in the 1950s, but she had never seen the little mermaid. she didn't grow up with fairy tales so she didn't even know the original story. i asked her what she thought would happen as the movie was unfolding. she immediately at the beginning thought ariel would come around to realizing "there's no place like home" and meet some nice young merman. even at the middle of the movie she thought this is what would happen--that ariel would end up in the ocean. only after the big scene at the end when triton is watching ariel watch eric did she go--oh, he's going to let her go! and then said "i realize why so many kids like this movie."

ariel's story, while still a disney princess romance, is about not feeling like you fit in, finding a world where you thrive and are happy, struggling to keep it, and then making peace with your parent(s) as he accepts you've grown and must lead your own life.

the other things i noticed while watching this double feature:

the animation is remarkably similar looking even though 50 years have passed -- my friend commented on this

it was at first unsettling getting used to the animals talking in the little mermaid after having watched snow white, even though i grew up with TLM as my fav and must have watched it hundreds of times

another parallel between the movies is these are the two where the villain turns herself into another person to deceive our heroes -- i don't think that happens in the other main disney movies (maleficent turning into a dragon is not for deceit)

very unfortunately my friend dozed off during poor unfortunate souls. i explained what he had happened to her but i needn't have, sebastian and flounder explain it to scuttle shortly after--i hadn't noticed before that the movie does that. good for kids who couldn't quite follow the lyrics of the song and need the rules spelled out clearly for them.

my friend got such a kick out of the lyrics of les poissons, rightly so

our next double feature takes us into the animal kingdom -- the jungle book (1967) followed by the lion king (1994)

#thoughts about snow white and the little mermaid #tp #disney blogging

[sxrrandomfanfics]

Got any favorite Villains out there? OC Villains are included.

Oh boy, I'm not too big of a fan of villains. Their actions tend to squick me out. Lemme see what I can think of...

Amount of series - 13 Amount of characters - 18

Cree (Kids Next Door) - I don't like it when sisters fight because there is not enough healthy sibling representation between two or more sisters in media, but dang if Cree and Abigale's relationship doesn't hit me in the feels everytime. Dr. Doofenshmirtz (Phineas and Ferb) - Technically a villain. He's a great dad though. And hilarious with the overly tragic backstory. He looses to a platypus in a fedora every single day of the summer. Before going to teach some science class. I love how he evolved. Boxman (OK K.O.) - Doesn't understand organics, so he makes robots who see him as a father figure. Loves evil just to be evil, which is a breath of fresh air. Charles (No Evil) - THIS BOYO. This child. He has been given the power of the Jaguar of Shadows, Tezcatlipoca, and he has no idea how to use it. He was thinking what he was doing was justified and then when the main characters capture him. Zira (Lion King II: Simba's Pride) - This woman is fantastic. Will not give up her ideals when her life is on the line. She's a great use of the "Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss is just being mean" and manipulation. And she has a better villain song than Mother Gothel. Caligosto Loboto (Psychonauts) - I love tragic villains. Caligosto is one of them. I'm not as into him as some of the other fans, but a Dentist/Brain surgeon/mercenary who got a lobotomy because he used to be psychic is just such a great character to bounce with the other characters in the series. I like his interactions with Sasha especially. N (Pokemon) - May have been my first villain crush. I was 10 at the time. Didn't get a lot of the nuance, just liked the pretty boy. Now I see him and think LAYERS. Lusamine (Pokemon) - Listen my mom is pretty cool. She doesn't really force me to do things. So seeing mom's in media that do just unnerves me in all the best ways. Guzma (Pokemon) - It's MA BOY. He loves bugs and reminds me of my friends. Plus I love Team Skull in general. Myotismon (Digimon) - I think of just Myotismon's first arc was him at his best. He literally murders Digimon and people for kicks and is such a big threat to Gatomon that when she defeats him it's SO well deserved. Ennard (FNaF Sister Location) - Ennard was such an unnerving villain. Oooo... such shivers. Dr. Starline (Sonic IDW Comics) - This platypus with too much ego is just an amazingly horrid person. He's such a dumb smart person. And mean. Like with Surge and Kitsunami. Nothing King (Centaurworld) - What a creature. What a pathetic wet beast. What a simp. Haunting Lullaby and scary strength, this Minotaur who refused his own Centaur nature corrupted himself, leaving the only out through death. Incredible. GLaDOS (Portal) - Snarky, motherly, downright funny. And a great singer to boot! Cha-cha (Umbrella Academy) - While I would rather she be dead over her partner, Cha-cha was fun to have on the villains against the Umbrella Academy, particularly, Number 5.

Nelly (Whatever Happened to Shadowy Figure) - A person who you think is a victim, a little gal, then turns out to still want the villainous ideas of power and harm, just is pushed down by others to not do it her way. Delightful in the manipulation of reader's feeling bad for her only for me to bet she's not going to be as bad but still bad. Victoria Warsh - Strawberry Milk has talked about her in a Discord server we share and her story is delightfully twisted.

[REDACTED] - OH BOY LEMME DESCRIBE HIM. This fallen prince of once positive feelings has turned into a monster that causes so much distress for the people that knew him. An older brother watched him become a monster and now longs to become a monster as well to be reunited with his little brother, unaware that the little brother has long since nursed all of his love into hatred for his eldest brother. A general is trying to keep the land safe but unknowingly falling into every idea this little prince has created. A youngest brother once close to him now fears his older and middle brothers for what the middle brother has done. A "replacement" brother and his guard who have NO idea of the mania that the middle brother created. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH AND I CAN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT HIM.

[pridelanders]

//Oh good instead of making fun of that ‘fan-written’ Season 4 Lion Guard fanseries I can talk about how funny it is that somebody ‘leaked’ the scripts up on the subreddit and is refusing to take them down unless the directors pay them $100 dollars

#ooc. #//yall its a preschool show about baby animal superheroes chill out #//but yeah I try and let people have their fun. Its not hurting anyone else. Cringe culture is dead etc etc #//...but #//it's called 'The Drama King' and no one seems to listen when I try and explain that's an extremely silly and unserious title #//like it literally sounds like its about a gay rewrite of Mean Girls....(note to self. gay rewrite of Mean Girls) #//and the 'script' that got 'leaked' is allegedly not finished but what's there is...bad #//as far as I can tell Beshte is in it but has no lines (which I could have predicted tbf) #//there's a sequence where Makini instructs Rani to pee on a flower as a pregnancy test #//the whole drama in the third act revolves around Kion and Fuli getting caught in a 'tornado' and doing that trope where it looks like -> #//->they're kissing and Rani sees it and instead of being reasonable throws a tantrum about it because women are emotional I guess #//and yes that is the only narrative function of the 'tornado' #//the Pridelands and the tree of life are like a minute's distance away #//there's a big bad evil lion villain with no personality #//who can also roar and he and Vitani have a roar-off and he kills her #//I didn't like her either but Yikes #//then Rafiki tells Kion this and his ONLY reaction is 'Woah guess I'm leader of the Lion Guard again' #//and Kopa shows up. but doesn't really have much of an impact other than 'woah we're long lost twin brothers' #//like its not explained or dwelt upon and it doesn't cause tension between them or their family #//and to be fair I've seen this plotpoint done well in other fanfics #//and then Kion painstakingly makes every member of the Night Pride and Kopa new members of the Lion Guard #//so there's like 12 of them #//I really wish we could all just let Kopa die in both sense #//like its a complete fanfiction that doesn't make it more 'resonating' or 'realistic' just because its dark #//...anyway I think I just needed to get that off my chest #//because obviously I'm not going to comment this somewhere they can see it. What am I? An asshole?

[forcebewitht]

Force's Disney Geek Master Theory: Why Twisted Wonderland Is Called Twisted Wonderland

We have all grown to know and love various Disney characters over the years, correct? Yet, I believe a lot of us can argue that not many characters have the same effect on us even as adults today as the Villains do within their respective movies. In the game Disney: Twisted Wonderland as we all know and love, the select boys to Overblot are supposed to have the "souls" of their Villain counterparts, right? But...why is it called "Twisted" Wonderland, then? The truth may lie within something that has been right in front of us all along, my friends: the meaning of a mirror. Ready to buckle in for this one? If so, then here we go!

We have seen all of these guys share character traits, looks, etc with their Disney counterparts, correct? Well, what if I were to tell you that things in terms of the "main" guys that we are supposed to pay attention to aren't exactly what they seem? This could be analyzed in a few different ways, honestly, yet the most prominent way is this: the differences in their personalities- they are reversed. Let us take this bit by bit, shall we?

Ah, yes. The Queen Of Hearts. The ranting, raging, bundle of red, black, and gold we all know and love. (or else heads would roll, I'm sure) One of the things that everybody knows about her is that she's extremely hellbent on the crazy rules that she makes up and is prone to anger honestly very easily. Yeah, you can connect that to Riddle- but think about it for a second. While that rage and the rule thing is still there, it isn't as prominent with him as it was with her, is it? With the Queen of Hearts, her whole "issue" was that she wished to make everybody listen to her and follow her every command- but Riddle was essentially always following the rules of another- not his own. This seemed to make Riddle a little more calm most of the time in terms of how he handled and oversaw things. It wasn't until he actually Overblotted that the "listen to me and only me" thing came out- buuuuuuttttttt I'll get to that part in a bit.

Next: Leona and Scar. While we honestly didn't get to see a lot of what went on behind the scenes in the Outlands in terms of how Scar even met the hyenas to begin with at all, one thing can honestly be said- Scar worked very hard to get where he was. I mean, it's not like you can get an entire pack of rabid, hungry hyenas onto your side in the course of a single day, or maybe even a week (especially as a lion, no less). No, something to that extreme takes careful planning, wording, and stringing along to ensure that nothing goes wrong along the way. The way Scar spoke to Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed made it seem as though he had known them for a looooonngggg time before this- that's where that behind the scenes planning comes in. And then...you have Leona. Leona, from what we can tell in Chapter 2, planned the idea for the "endgame" alright- but he didn't actually act upon any of the plan for himself. Ruggie did. Even in the Lion King, we see that Scar had no problems whatsoever getting his paws dirty a little within his own scheme to take his "rightful place" at the head of Pride Rock- but Leona quite honestly did not a thing once Ruggie was in motion. See where this is starting to head?

Azul and Ursula. Ursula, the Disney baddie queen of my heart Ursula, the Sea Witch. She was known all around the ocean floor for helping out poor little merfolk in secret, wasn't she? Yet, nobody ever really seemed to catch wind of the whole "her turning those who didn't quite fit the bill into polyps" thing, did they? That was one of the things that made her such a honest threat to Ariel herself- because Ursula was cunning. She did things behind the scenes, and sure- we could catch onto it out in the audience (annnddd maybe Sebastian and Flounder as well), but nobody else really seemed to, right? Azul is the complete opposite in this standpoint. He instills direct fear into his "workers" and those even beyond and within his dorm. Like- basically most knew that this dude was bad news to begin with. Azul, mostly, seemed to hide his cunning facade behind a fake yet still seemingly "soft and genuine" smile and act. But all in all, he didn't really attempt to "hide" anything- hell, he even proclaimed his entire plan of what everyone with those things on their heads were gonna do for him in the open! At least when Ursula sang as Vanessa, she was in an almost perfectly enclosed room with nobody else around.

Jamil and Jafar. This comparison here, given what occurs in the movie Aladdin, is honestly one of the biggest possible indicators of this reoccuring theme I shall clarify in a bit. Jafar, while being sneaky, was known for being a more "out there" Disney Villain in terms of his personality alongside that of his partner Iago in the film. He would smile in a sinister way, he would crack jokes out in the open, and let us not forget his crazed yet oddly interesting laughter. Jamil? He's the exact opposite. Given his past and what he has had to dealt with growing up with Kalim, he is much more reserved and barely releases a chuckle or cracks a smile at all. His personality is a lot more repressed than that of Jafar himself throughout the film. Jamil has been so used to having to hold himself back thanks to his parents in favor of Kalim's family, he doesn't seem to know how to "let go" whatsoever. Yet Jafar, while still maintaining that sneaky side of him as well, has no problems whatsoever letting a little hang loose whenever he so chooses to.

Vil and the Evil Queen. This one honestly may be a bit more self explanatory than the others- but the difference between these two is their expressions of themselves. The Evil Queen was the very first animated counted Disney Villain within Disney's history- yet, she barely had any lines throughout the film at all. Her ranges of expression were almost little to none thanks to the era in which the movie was released in- but she always looked like she was pissed, huh? Vil is the exact opposite of her in this sense. He is able to fully express himself through his various facial expressions, theatrical abilities, musical experiences, fashion style, and even how he behaves. Vil is able to do so much more than the Evil Queen did or could do within that time period, that it's almost a little staggering if you fully picture it.

Idia and Hades. Now, now. We haven't honestly seen too much of the flaming blue boy yet in TWST, but one thing is apparent here right off the bat- in terms of his personality? He is the exact opposite of Hades. Idia is much like Jamil but to a more "geek" degree- he's extremely introverted, shy, a bit snippy, yet mainly keeps to himself and his gaming tech. Hades is most often renowned as the Disney Villain with the most personality- and the best humor. Hades has no problem whatsoever being "out there" with his crazy puns, sassy remarks, anger, and even mocking behavior. I mean, please, guys- I haven't been this choked up since I got a hunk of moussaka caught in my throat!

Finally, Malleus and Maleficent. Ooooohoooooooo boy. We have to count out the live action movie Maleficent for this one (sorry horned queen fans). One thing that basically everybody even with their toe in the water in that of Disney movies kind of knows this fact- Maleficent is c r u el. She's got a bizarre set of dark powers and an even blacker heart than that. Hell, we basically had to "soften her up" a little bit in Maleficent thanks to just how seemingly irredeemable her character is in that of Sleeping Beauty. I mean, c'mon now- cursing an infant? And we get no explanation for that in the original? C'mon, now. Anyways, Malleus? As we all can tell by now, this dude is the compleeettteeeeeee opposite. Sure, he has those repressed bits here and there too, but it is evident that this dude has a heart crying out for the MC and it is big, bold, and golden to the core once you look past how he looks. He sent the MC a card for winter break, for crying out loud. Yeah, let me know the next time you see Maleficent do that smh.

Now, I have avoided using a certain word up until this point to see if anybody could catch on to what exactly is happening here. Did you figure it out? Reverse. The boys that either have Overblotted already or intend to Overblot soon stop holding out on us, Chapter 6 have had the exact opposite personalities compared to that of their Villain counterpart- until one prime point in their "character arcs". Their Overblot.

Riddle wished to have all bow before him and obey his rules.

Leona led his entire dorm into ruin and nearly sanded away the entire school in the process.

Azul let himself finally free of his personal shackles entirely and "took what was his".

Jamil finally let himself go and opened up more in his personality, almost seeming to be driven insane in the process.

Vil wanted to become the most beautiful one of all and would kill anyone within the way of that goal without any hesitation whatsoever.

The moment that the boys' Overblotted, that was the exact moment when the "soul" of their Disney Villain counterpart took control. Keeping that idea in mind, that should mean that this will happen in the upcoming chapters and their Overblots:

Idia will show off all of the personality, powers, and intelligence that he has been keeping down within this introverted self of his.

Malleus will become so broken by being left out and alone in the cold for the final time that he will turn into a completely cruel Fae and possibly nearly kill either the MC or the representation of Prince Philip within that Chapter in the process.

(Hello, my dear Readers! Guess who is trying to get back into her bigger pieces of writing? This gal right here~ feel free to drop a comment and tell me what you think of this theory- I'd love to hear your thoughts! 💕)

#twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #disney #twistedwonderland #force talks #twst #force gushes #twisted wonderland theory #twst theory #disney villains #malleus draconia #idia shroud #vil schoenheit #jamil viper #azul ashengrotto #leona kingscholar #riddle rosehearts #maleficent #disney hades #evil queen #disney jafar #ursula #disney scar #queen of hearts

[aiweirdness]

New Disney villains

Earlier I tried an experiment where I tried to get the GPT-3 neural nets, trained on a huge collection of internet text, to generate new Disney princesses. From just two example wiki entries, I got incorrect reimaginings of existing princesses (Snow White apparently has a magic wand, a fake shoe, and a stolen chicken), and brand new princesses (Banks Afloat, pirate of a swamp in a suburb of Buffalo). The princesses were, in general, extremely powerful. So for balance I decided to see what the villains would look like.

I summarized Disney Wiki articles for Ursula (occupation: sea witch) and Scar (occupation: lion), then asked GPT-3 to fill in the next entries.

DaVinci, by far the largest of the GPT-3 variants, tended to complete the list with real Disney villains, but do it somewhat incorrectly. Apparently Gaston is now a chef.

Name: Jafar Occupation: Ruler of Agrabah Powers and abilities: Ordinary magic, Killing by staring, Induce Fear into others, Shrinking (and later restoring people to normal size) Likes: Evil, snakes, power, being high and mighty, getting rid of meddling fools, starting fights, manipulating others, treasure, exploiting blind trust, parading around in his cool suit, smooth jazz, winning, looking at himself in the mirror Dislikes: Willful insubordination, lamp oil (although his men practically bathe in the stuff), being taken for a fool, that song "A Whole New World", magic carpet rides, shady deals that go sour, not getting proper respect

Name: Cruella De Vil Occupation: High-class fashion designer Powers and abilities: Ordinary witchcraft Likes: Red, black, white, length-changing, scary things/concepts, classical paintings, dogs, white animals, money, cruelty/cruelty against kindness/animals, dingo-didi-dango, Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, not getting proper respect, brief moments of calm, Johnny Cash, her car (the black Cadillac) Dislikes: Any kind of dog, snakes, rabbits, bad publicity, good publicity, common or poor people in general, feeling unnoticed, hearing her own name, poor sales, Chihuahuas, spinach, playing the clarinet, Dr. Facilier, being double-crossed, losing to the heroes, having a cold, tight clothes, the sound "eeh-eeh!", her accountant

Name: Gaston Occupation: Chef Powers and abilities: Utter confidence, presence, charm Likes: Acceptance, feeling dashing and irresistible, being respected, apple turnovers, wooing ladies, Lillian, making and eating food, fame, lavishing praise on himself Dislikes: Insults, being ignored, being used like a tool, people who disagree with his ideas

On the other end of the GPT-3 size spectrum we have Ada, who completed the list of Disney villains not with existing villains but with its own original characters. Some of them are quite powerful indeed. I do have questions about some of their abilities though.

Name: Cowhell Occupation: Ice Dragon, Bleaths and Dinchyshire Powers and abilities: Second-hand telepathy, magic resistance, control over unknown monsters, and magic control (for high enchantment) Likes: Power, water vapors, fun, flying, cheerleading, thlynde, eatin eels Dislikes: Red wine, sunbathing, fairies, excessive negative thoughts, fighting, crazy gladiators, having to dress strictly in sasquatch fashions

Name: Another Advertisement: Personality: One of OsFreeNs Giants? Powers (best): Dry swimming, Breakthrough, Healing, some form of phoenix fly-speedy or a/the flying material or a/the magic element Dislikes: Solids with bad Prawn factor, Fishn in cages, anger and constant noise in the room

Name: Glaucous (Captain) Dislikes: Methinks those cows will go fast enough regardless of this poor storm! Paraphernalia: Large voids, severed heads, eyeball beast Likes: "Combat" (including using his magic remotely), toying with more obscure topics, asking complicated questions, judging people by their actions (except the rational type), so much time with his children, brag-good and evil characters

Name: McGilling / Maridly (Meredith) Occupation: Hersey mermaid Powers and abilities: Missimension, super strength (albeit in the form of the Moon), healing, survival of the fittest nature, how to be an attribute of water Dislikes: Power plant, those who mess with her due to her powerful mermaid magic (and inner strength), the rule of Mrs. Fairfax, power/control over water

Name: Kal Occupation: Nunchuck. Paraphernalia: Infusion of Mud, Large, Small Cumulus Needle, Additional Cape (designed by Ursula), Hood (as she is a witch), Cloak (as an elf), Glasses (as an elf), Semblance Powered by Cakes Dislikes: Hiders, plants

Name: Hildave Occupation: Lady Python Powers and abilities: Terraforming, turning others children into lizards, healing, conversation, age bending, telepathy Likes: Her clothes, other people, talking, age bending, eating, talking, animals Dislikes: Narcissist, having enemies, talking bad of others

Name: Unicorn Occupation: Unknown Powers and abilities: Another personality, can transform into a variety of different species, transport and carry airbags (union van). A practical genius, investigator extraordinaire, and gifted poolroom rapper. Dislikes: Losing one's purse, judges, corrupt corporations, depravity, cruelty, anonymity, aggression, TV, exhaustion, work reduction, dinosaurs, anything that goes the opposite direction

If you detect a slight sea-witch theme, I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Unsure whether Ursula and Scar were two random villains or part of a trend, the characters on average seemed to split the difference and come up with characters who were animals (preferably sea animals) with witchy powers. This was the most evident in the middle-sized GPT-3 variants, Curie and Babbage, who seemed to be big enough to detect a trend, yet not big enough to be accurate about existing villains. Become an AI Weirdness supporter for bonus results from Curie and Babbage - or become a free subscriber to get new AI Weirdness posts in your mailbox.

#neural networks #gpt-3 #disney villains #disney characters #age bending sounds hardcore #i have questions about the moon-form super strength #and about solids with bad Prawn factor

[a-crimson-lion]

The Past Is Present (In All The Wrong Ways…)

So I saw that @elflynns-horde-of-stuff wanted to talk about BNHA 319, and I was going to send her and ask, but then I let my thoughts go on too long, so… everyone gets this gigantic brain dump. Enjoy :D

[Fair warning: no immediate Bakubashing, but it does come in later. I’m not joking, if you don’t like that, AVOID it. Please. Thank you.]

Now there’s a LOT to unpack with this chapter, and I might not be able to put all of it in words, so let me try and boil it down to what I believe is the core issue:

People are recognizing Midoriya’s bulls*** without recognizing Bakugo’s bulls***.

[TL;DR at the very end, just so you know.]

Which, let me be clear, is completely fair. I like Midoriya as a character, he’s obviously one of my favorites, but hoo BOY am I sick and tired of the s*** he has to go through and the s*** he’s pulling! I understand he’s going through a lot of stress right now and he doesn’t want anyone else to get hurt, but from a completely professional standpoint, that is LITERALLY THE JOB. His other friends are literally HEROES (in training) that have also been through their fair share of UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONAL BULLS*** BECAUSE OF SHONEN LOGIC, so realistically trying to protect them, while noble, does kinda come off as insulting. And I get the whole savior complex thing, because the whole “its my responsibility, let me handle it” isn’t entirely irrational on its own.

The previous holders of OFA more or less signed up for the responsibility.

Nana Shimura signed up for the responsibility, not her family.

Toshinori Yagi signed up for the responsibility, not his friends and (found) family.

Izuku Midoriya signed up for the responsibility, not his mom, not his friends.

...except AFO isn’t just targeting OFA, though that is a big priority on his to-do list.

Except AFO, as a villain, isn’t just OFA’s responsibility.

Except even if innocent people can’t and shouldn’t be brought in the crossfire, Midoriya’s friends aren’t civilians. A good bulk of Midoriya’s allies aren’t civilians. They’re heroes. They signed up for this. Maybe not taking on an ancient evil like AFO, but hey, most villains nowadays AREN’T a part of the standard deal.

The thing about a savior complex is that you often have a blindside.

And from a more personal perspective, I’m not a big fan of the whole “protagonist repeats history” kinda deal, especially with the way BNHA framed itself as a sort of “next-gen” shonen which was supposed to be kinda sorta different. And the thing is, we already have several examples of the same story with the previous OFA holders, especially Nana and Toshinori, which we’ve seen in glimpses on several occasions.

Internally, it does make sense for Midoriya to be repeating the mistakes of his predecessors. Personally, I think it would make more sense if Midoriya’s inferiority complex manifested in a different way (and maybe show us the dangers of that heroic isolation through Nana and Toshinori in more fleshed out flashbacks so that part doesn’t get completely left out). But that’s not what we’re talking about here.

Now, with all my grievances of Midoriya settled… Bakugo.

Before I go to deep into AntiBaku mode, let me just say right now: I kinda get what he was going for.

He’s not being an arrogant loudmouth like usual because he’s letting his ego talk; he’s doing it because that’s what’s familiar to him AND to Midoriya. Midoriya is used to Bakugo when he acts like that, he hasn’t shown any serious signs of not being receptive to Bakugo when he’s like that (at least not recently), so Bakugo uses that in the hopes that maybe that familiarity will get Midoriya to stop and think. It’s worked before, right?

And in all fairness, maybe those insults are trying to get to Midoriya, too. He’s not thinking of OFA as some grand blessing, he’s not trying to be another All Might (the manga went as far to show us how much Izuku does NOT look like a traditional hero right now), so maybe Midoriya will stop and try to reason with his friends, and maybe come to reason with himself as well.

...or he’ll think Baku is full of s*** trying to set him off and just keep moving along, both out of annoyance and thinking Bakugo doesn’t really understand.

(This is where trying to understand Bakugo ends by the way.)

Because all of the above is assuming that Bakugo is approaching normal circumstances. Which he’s not.

Midoriya is tired, both mentally and physically. Midoriya has a very, VERY bad person trying to cut him off from everything, and everyone, and it’s working. Midoriya is under the impression that if he doesn’t keep moving, if he doesn’t try to fix this mess that HE signed up for, people that don’t deserve to get hurt are going to get hurt.

All Might is one of those people. His friends and classmates are some of those people. BAKUGO is one of those people.

And right now, all Bakugo is doing is getting in close proximity, doing what he usually does. He’s not changing his approach to throw Midoriya off, because he’s not that kinda person. He’s trying to talk Izuku down because that is his usual approach, and it’s worked before. Even if Midoriya ultimately contradicted his words, he’s always at least acknowledged Bakugo and what he’s had to say. So Bakugo’s trying to get him to realize how it looks from his perspective: Midoriya is getting a big head, he’s not ready for this responsibility, he’s not supposed to be this way.

...but that’s not what Midoriya’s hearing.

Right now, if I had to guess, the only thing Midoriya is processing right now is that he’s not enough. All Bakugo’s taunts are doing is inflaming his inferiority complex, reminding him that he’s not doing enough. He’s not a “Majesty… successor of One For All” because he’s NOT focusing on the clout, and from Midoriya’s perspective, he’s been doing a s*** job of helping people after the Nagant fiasco and with tracking down AFO and Shigaraki in general. He’s not an “All Might wannabe” because All Might can’t help right now, and even if he could, he’d be doing a lot better in Izuku’s eyes, because even if Toshinori Yagi was human, painfully so, All Might was always, ALWAYS, the #1 Hero for a reason.

...and how can Midoriya live up to that? What has he done to live up to that, to live up to ANYTHING, really?

Midoriya isn’t focusing on how much he’s done. He’s focusing on how much he hasn’t done.

“I can still move…” ...becuase I haven’t moved enough. Because I haven’t done enough.

With that said, time to switch topics: Bakugo’s understanding of the situation, while more extensive than anyone else, is also limited in its own right. I have problems with him claiming he knows All Might and Midoriya better than anyone else because of the sequence of events leading up to that are, realistically speaking (shocking, I know), completely contrived (aftermath of the Battle Trial, DvK2, subsequent invitation to secret OFA meetings). But that’s also because really, there’s a lack of complete awareness on Bakugo’s part, which isn’t expected, but still important.

Neither Bakugo nor Midoriya (nor the readers/viewers, really) know the full extent of All Might’s history as Toshinori Yagi. Midoriya probably knows a lot more of it than Bakugo does from a purely personal perspective, but that’s still not much, so Bakugo’s claim of knowing All Might is kinda :/ Then what about Izuku? Well…

Bakugo is willing to acknowledge that he bullied Midoriya. Bakugo is willing to acknowledge that Midoriya’s sense of self-worth is non-existent. But has Bakugo ever really acknowledged the impact he personally had on the latter?

Bakugo has been willing to see that the way he treated Midoriya was unjust, I won’t deny that. But as of now, we have yet to see Bakugo properly, explicitly realize that HE is the major contributor to Midoriya’s lack of self-worth. As far as Bakugo’s concerned, this is just another thing that Midoriya’s been doing since he was a kid. Except the fact that it’s not. Midoriya’s selflessness was always there.

...his lack of self-preservation came later.

And that’s the crux of the issue, really (finally, no more babbling): Bakugo is trying to tell Midoriya that he isn’t enough, but Midoriya is used to that. He grew up with it, heard it on repeat, internalized it. Not just from Bakugo, even if he was at some point a major contributor. And that’s Midoriya’s driving force: he’s not enough, he needs to do more, he can’t stop. There’s logic in Bakugo’s approach, but first off, it’s f***ing stupid logic, and second, logic doesn’t translate well to emotion. Even if Bakugo is doing what he’s doing with Izuku’s well-being in mind, he’s completely missing the point and kinda coming off as a dick, both externally and from a meta standpoint.

Izuku Midoriya doesn’t need Katsuki Bakugo trying to talk him down. He’s used to that.

Izuku Midoriya needs someone to tell him he’s done enough, plain and simple. No backhanded compliments, no workaround taunts. He needs someone like All Might- no, someone like Toshinori Yagi. He needs someone who is willing to tell him, in no uncertain terms, that he is enough, that he’s done enough.

More than enough people have already acknowledged Katsuki Bakugo.

Not enough people have truly acknowledged Izuku Midoriya.

TL;DR: Midoriya needs help, but the way Bakugo is going about it could actually backfire and feels shortsighted.

-Crimson Lion (9 July 2021)

#anti bakugo #anti bakugou #kinda #just to be safe #meta #long post #rant #vent #not putting it in the main tag #but this is about midoriya and bakugo just so y'all know #and obviously this is about ch 319 #just putting it like this so people aren't completely in the dark if they're reading the tags #Word Count: 1633 #incoherent rambling #i think i forgot some of the other stuff i wanted to say #i did say more than enough tbf #...intentions aside #i still don't get why people are more focused on bakugo's issues more than midoriya's #with midoriya we see he's going down the deep end and we automatically recognize it for what it is #but with bakugo people come up with every justification under the sun because 'no he's not being an asshole. he has a reason!' #izuku has his reasons too. they don't mean s***. he's being self-destructive. his reasons be damned. #same goes for baku continuing to act like it hasn't already been a year. i don't care about his reasons or what he thinks he knows. #he's still acting like an ass. he's still trying to be an alpha male. he's still demeaning izuku (intentionally or otherwise) and has yet t #properly acknowledge the part he played in making izuku feel worthless. #no amount of reason covers for destroying someone's self-worth. it's still wrong. #...a'ight i'm done. #wonder how things are gonna go on from here. there isn't a guarantee for the story's direction. #...not sure whether to be curious or terrified. i'll be both. #again there's more i can say but i already used up most of the tags lol #might make another post but that's honestly a coin flip. still a possibility though.

[aquaburst3]

So...Twisted Wonderland is finally getting an western release. Welcome English newcomers to the trash bin that I've been a part of for the past couple years! 🥳 Here are some general things to keep in mind, and I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum...

What's Twisted Wonderland? What's it about?

Twisted Wonderland is a Disney mobile rhythmic app. Best way to describe it is that it's like a better written Descendants if it was an isekai aimed at teens/adults.

The game is about Yuu/the self insert player character being isekai'd to another world and is forced to attend an all-boys magical college (high school) likely somewhere in fantasy Europe if the official terms are anything to go by, fighting off rampaging housewardens (dorm leaders) and trying to find a way home.

What is the deal with the characters? Are they hot anime versions of the classic Disney villains?

No. They're more like official OCs inspired by Disney characters with their own distinct goals, backgrounds and personalities. For example, Jamil is inspired by Jafar, but also has similar personality traits as Jasmine and the Genie. To avoid going into spoiler territory, let's just say that his background is a lot different than Jafar's and will make you cry. Same goes for all of the other ones. You can't say that Vil is exactly like the Evil Queen without having a huge misunderstanding of his character.

(On a fandom level, this allows a lot of freedom for fans to create their own OCs twisted from different characters. I've seen fan OCs based on Frollo, Hans, Kaa and plenty more.)

Do the Disney villains exist in this universe?

Yes, they do in their original form. Ursula is still fat. Scar still is a lion. The Evil Queen and Maleficent are as hot as ever. (Oh, what? My bisexual ass finds them hot.) They're just considered dead historical figures in universe...outside of Hades, who is a god, obviously. All of the dorms in the game are honoured after some of the notable classic ones like Jafar, Scar, and Maleficent. These guys are known as The Great Seven. However the game calls them different things like "The King of Beasts" and "The Witch of Thorns." (Likely to avoid copyright, but even that's a theory.) Other Disney heroes are said to exist like Ariel and Aladdin.

Is the white haired guy from Scarabia anime Iago?

No. He's inspired by (or "twisted) from the Sultan and Aladdin, especially his "Prince Ali" persona. There are no canon characters twisted from Iago in the game at the moment. To be fair, this is a pretty common misconception for anyone joining the fandom for the first time. Any pre English release fans who say otherwise is lying.

Who is that wolf guy based on?

No idea. My own personal fan theory is that Jack's twisted from the wolves that attacked Belle or from "The Big Bad Wolf". But again, those are theories. The game honestly never gives any hints.

Is this an otome (dating sim)?

No. All of the canon relationships in the game are platonic. The game sometimes has some flirty character lines and the odd scene that could be seen as romantic if you squint, but that's the extent of it. However, there are a lot of fanworks that have pairings and self insert romances if that's what you're looking for.

What gender is the player character?

Yuu's gender neutral. That's because Yuu represents...well, you, the player. They're whatever gender you identify as. Girl, boy, non binary, etc. If you don't like going the self insert route, you can imagine your OC in Yuu's place, which is something plenty people already do this fandom. Myself included. These can be whatever gender you want too. Same goes for race, sexuality, and everything else. Yuu is a complete blank slate, after all.

What the hell is a "Yuusona"?

These are just OCs that people have created which take the spot of the player character in fan works. People in this fandom can get quite creative with these. I've seen fics crossed over with various different fandoms like Harry Potter, Demon Slayer and My Hero Academia on AO3. (Never personally read any of these, especailly the Harry Potter ones for personal reasons, but they're out there.) Some in the fandom also have Yuusonas are at least party inspired by various different Disney characters like John Silver, Elsa and Merida. Others are just OCs who are normal people tossed into that world and forced to survive. These are shipped with canon characters, but not always.

Anything that irks you about the game?

To be honest, I never played the game itself, so I have no idea about that. But strictly on a writing/character level from what I've seen in the fan translations...

Yuu is a non-entity who is more of a vessel to see the various events of the story than an actual character. They have zero personality outside of saying a sassy one liner once in awhile. They have no background, goals or an actual presence in the story. You could replace them with a sexy lamp and it wouldn't make little difference outside of one arc! They're so bad that they're one of my go-to examples of how NOT to write a protagonist outside of Bella from Twilight. Makes it easy to make Yuusonas, but not very good on a writing level.

Certain arcs have writing issues like wonky pacing, not diving into characters' backstories enough, certain characters not developing enough, etc. (I can't get into specifics without saying spoilers.)

Yuu's friendship with Malleus could be a lot more fleshed out.

Some of the worldbuilding could've been done better. As is, it suffers in the same way that Bright does where it just seems like our exact real world with a few fantasy elements slapped on top. It would be better if it seemed like a fantasy world with some modern elements instead. Hardly any of the world building that is there is ever once explained, even something as simple as what country NRC is in. (Still think The Owl House and Amphibia are FAR better in this area.)

There are also various inaccuracies with character names (like Kalim's completely bullshit explanation about how his last name works or several of the official names being flat out being spelled wrong), Rook talking like a French weeaboo (which as someone who knows French always annoyed me) or some problematic shit (like the whole Fairy Gala event). Hopefully some of this will be corrected when the game gets an international release, but I'm not holding my breath for that either.

Outside of that, not too much outside of maybe writing a couple of the characters differently if I was in charge the project. While the game has writing issues, nothing's perfect. It's still a fun time to play.

How do I play the game?

Now that the game is gonna be launched in the US and Canada, download it from the Google Play Store or the Apple Store after January 20th. If you're outside of the US and Canada? You'll either have to wait until it comes out in your territory or try a VPN. In the meantime, there are fan subbed versions of all of the episodes over on YouTube by Shel_bb.

Will the game ever be released outside of the US, Canada and Japan?

My own theory is that Disney is using the US and Canada to test run how successful it is outside of Japan. Other mobile games flopped internationally and were forced to shut down those servers. Disney games have flopped in the past. (Epic Mickey Two, anyone?) Disney doesn't seem like a company that wants to take that gamble and is playing it safe like this. If all goes well, then it'll get an international release (and a dub at that same time). If not, then... 🤷‍

Is the game dubbed into English?

At the moment, no. But given how the game is gonna get an anime in the near future and other similar mobile games like Genshin Impact have one, it's gonna get one sooner or later. (Betting that Alex Hirsch is gonna play Grim.)

That's all I can think of at the moment. If any of this interests you, jump down this rabbit hole. Because the game is pretty fun, especially for fellow Disney fans.

#twisted wonderland #aqua rambles

[blueberry-sunshines]

Small Surpises— Big Brother Shiro x Little Sister Reader

Summary:

You are Shiro's younger sister waiting on him to return from a mission while you reminisce about your life with your big brother which then gets interrupted when he brings you back an unexpected surprise...

Word Count: ~2K

Childhood memories | Brotherly Love

Requested by: @white_skittle on Wattpad

{Your POV}

Honestly, you had never really thought that it would be so boring to be in a half-castle half-spaceship until you were actually in one. It sounds crazy to even think you'd be in one let alone that one exists! One moment you were on earth with Keith trying to figure out these weird radio signals and then the next your brother who'd been missing for a year had crash landed onto earth in an alien pod! And just when you didn't think anything could get any crazier, you found a giant blue lion that whisked you all away into space! That was just the beginning of all the adventures you'd have traveling the universe with your new found family. But as of now, the only thing you could do is wait around the Castle of Lions until the Paladins are back from their mission. To keep your mind off of your boredom and anxiety you tried your best to distract yourself with useless things like wondering the castle and getting lost in your own thoughts.

You were significantly younger than your brother, Shiro. While he was 25, you were only a teenager. You two were always rather close despite your age difference. Shiro was always so cool, you and all of your friends thought he was the most amazing person in the whole world. And if you were being honest with yourself, he still was. I mean, being the paladin of the Black Lion and the leader of Voltron was the coolest thing you could think of! As kids you and Shiro loved playing together, you would play with his soldiers and planes or he'd play dolls with you. You two would spend hours playing little games like hide and seek or just playing pretend.

You would be the princess and Shiro would always be the courageous knight there to protect and save you from evil villains and mystical dragons. Using sticks and pool noodles as swords he would slay any foes that even dared to hurt his little sister. Shiro has always been your hero in more ways than you'd ever realize.

"Fear not, Princess (Y/N)!" He would cry, holding his makeshift sword in the air. "I will slay this dragon to protect you and your kingdom from his evil!" He would then jab at one of your stuffed animals or sometimes even trees, pretending they were the villain.

     As you got older, you two were still super close. Shiro was then entering his teens, going to the Galaxy Garrison to be a pilot. He was so smart and so talented and all you ever wanted to do was impress him. When you didn't think he could get any cooler he always did. But even though he was at the Garrison, he still had never let you down. You have many memories of Shiro picking you up after school and taking you out to your favorite diner. Sitting in a booth across from each other he would ask you about your day while drinking a milkshake in his bright orange Cadet uniform.

"You look silly in your uniform, Takashi." Little you giggled in your memory. You could still see Shiro's face as he pulled away from his Oreo milkshake's straw, as well as the smile that formed on his face as he let out a small chuckle.

"I guess I do look kind of silly, huh?" He agreed, setting down his milkshake softly.

These couple times a week visits made it feel like Shiro had never really left at all. Soon you were able to transfer into the Garrison Cadet program and next thing you remember is staying up late into the night studying with Shiro and practicing your techniques. Shiro was the star of the Garrison and he still remained the star of your life. Sure you had made many friends, but Shiro was still your best friend above all else. You still remember when Shiro had introduced you to Keith and how you two got off to a rocky start. But eventually, it didn't feel like it was just you and Shiro against the world anymore. Soon you had a new honorary brother in Keith. You would all ride around together on Hoverbikes and Landspeeders and you even would take Keith for milkshakes at your diner.

"Hah!" You beamed triumphantly as you swung to a halt on your hoverbike. You looked behind you now as your brother came up to a stop behind you. You laughed triumphantly as you had just beaten Shiro to your designated finish line. "I told you I could beat you!"

"I never doubted you for a second." Shiro told you proudly as he whipped the sweat from his forehead.

You looked now on the other side of you over the edge of the large cliff next to you. "So can I learn the dive now?" You blurted out quickly.

Shiro laughed warmly, "Absolutely not." He said quickly and gave you a teasing smile. "Not until I'm sure you and Keith are both ready." He explained, watching you pout in amusement.

As you were entering your teenage years and Shiro was leaving his, you two had somehow managed to grow even closer. He had come out to you over the course of your time at the Garrison. You still remember him gushing to you all about his, then crush, Adam. You were there for him when coming to terms with his feelings and there when he brought Adam home to your parents for the first time. In return he was always there for you, helping you when you were sick, giving you advice when you were down in the dumps, and he helped you through your first ever breakup.

Time was flying by so quickly and soon, you were an accomplished pilot just like your big brother, and Shiro had asked Adam to marry him. Life was just the way you liked it and you didn't think anything could ruin your wonderful relationship with Shiro. If none of the petty sibling fights you got into or even any of the serious ones could have ruined it, you didn't know what could. But, you could never forget Kerberos...

"We're back!!!" You heard a voice shout from a room over. It was the cherry voice of Lance McClain exclaiming their arrival in the castle. You began running back down the corridor to return to the lounge where you heard the voices coming from.

"Hey, (Y/N)!" Hunk smiled seeing you enter the room. You saw Lance, Pidge, Hunk, Keith, and Allura all standing in the room.

"How did it go out there today?" You asked them all, subconsciously looking around for your brother. The Paladins went to a freed planet to collect some tech that was needed to help the fight against the Galra.

"We collected all the samples we needed." Pidge told you before gesturing behind her, "Coran and Shiro are unloading as we speak." She was unusually smiley, but you brushed it off as her just being happy to have new tech to work with. You were about to leave to go find Shiro when,

"(Y/N)," Keith said your name now, walking over to you, also dawning a small smile. "There's also something we brought back for you, too."

"Hey!" You heard Lance complain, "I wanted to be the one to tell (Y/N)!"

"Too bad." Keith smirked at him and the two began a small, signature squabble as they walked past towards the direction of the showers.

You looked over at Pidge and Hunk now curiously, "What are they talking about?" You asked them, furrowing your brow in thought trying to guess what on earth they could have brought you. You heard them both giggle as they refused to give you any clue before heading towards the showers as well. Your last hope was Allura.

She just looked as confused as you, "I do wonder what they had brought you as well." She said warmly before following you towards the other door the four Paladins had come from originally. As you and Allura made your way down the hallway she tried to offer you ideas as to what they could've brought you, but half the things she said you had no idea what she was talking about.

Once you reached the hangar where the Paladins had come from, you sprinted towards the Black Lion. Coran was placing small metal crates onto a floating cart and Shiro was helping him.

"Shiro, Hey!" You yelled as you got closer, Allura still following suit.

"(Y/N)!" Shiro called your name happily placing down a crate and turning towards you. You laughed as you ran into his arms, you felt him stumble a bit upon impact and you heard him chuckle.

"You really missed me that much?" He teased you as he gave you a tight squeeze before putting you back safely balanced onto your feet.

"Always do." You smiled up at him affectionately. You then cut right to the chase, "Keith said you guys brought me something!"

Shiro raised an eyebrow at you, "He did, did he?" You nodded in response and he let out another laugh. "Alright, you got me." He admitted humbly.

"Is it another crystal?" You asked excitedly. Shiro had brought you small trinkets before from the missions you didn't get to go on. The Paladins often needed your help, but sometimes when there wasn't any risk you'd just stay behind.

"It's better than that." He said mysteriously as he lead you back towards his lion.

"Is it a bigger crystal?" You asked which earned you a laugh in return.

"No... now stop guessing!" He shook his head in amusement. "Wait here, I'll be right back." Shiro instructed you, turning snd disappearing into the lion.

You looked back over to where Allura and Coran were conversing about something while you waited. Once your brother reemerged from Black, he was holding a small box that had some kind of cloth or blanket sticking out from it. You stared at the box in pure curiosity as Shiro grew closer.

"Keep your voice down," he advised as the contents of the box were nearly in full sight. "You don't want to startle him."

You were still not understanding what this could be but now you were thinking it may be alive. Despite not knowing, you listened to your brother and kept quiet. Shiro held the box further down and you saw him.

      You had to hold in a squeal as you saw what Shiro had brought you. It was a small light gray ball of fluff. The creature had long droopy ears, four legs with five tiny toes on his paws. It had four small horns above his closed eyes, a pink nose and cute little pouting mouth. His chest and his face were white and he was all curled up in his long, white, fluffy tail. He sort of reminded you of a chinchilla but much more alien like.

        Gasping you looked back up to Shiro, "No way..." you breathed out finally. Shiro had a large smile on his face.

        "Do you like him?" He asked now, "His breed is concerned to be a loyal partner on Ormaphu. He's a traditional Ormanphian pet called a Bentorm."

         "Shiro I love him!" You gushed looking back down as your sweet, little baby Bentorm.

          "I'm glad, I thought you would."

      When you were kids, you would always beg your parents for a pet but they never let you or Shiro get anything besides fish. Your new Bentorm was the most amazing pet you could think of! Your attention was turned back to the box when you heard him let out a soft yawn as he stretched and uncurled himself. You let out a soft aww, as he sat upright and looked up at you with big, black eyes. He looked as if he was smiling as he looked up at you, he began making a sweet chirping noise and you looked up at Shiro in amazement.

        "You can pick him up." Shiro told you softly, smile still prominent on his face. You reached down and picked him up softly from his tummy, under his arms. You pulled him close to your chest and he quickly snuggled into you, smile on his cute, Bentorm face.

         "From what his breeder told me, they don't get much bigger and they love riding on their owners shoulders as they get older."

       "Allura!" You exclaimed, "Look what Shiro brought me!!"

       

        Allura came over then, in the same awe that you were upon seeing him for the first time. "Is that a Bentorm?" Allura asked looking up at Shiro.

      Shiro nodded and moved the box onto his hip you free one of his hands to pet the Bentorms head.

       "What are you gonna call him?" Shiro asked looking back up to you.

         "Hmmm, I'm not sure..."

_________________

Hi everyone! Thanks for reading this Brother Shiro one shot! It wasn't super long but I think it's pretty cute. Shiro would be the best big brother and I hope I captured that!

Have a great day! Keep requesting please!

#big brother shiro #shiro voltron #shiro x reader #shiro x sister reader #vld shiro #shiro vld #voltron shiro #takashi shirogane #voltron one shot #voltron x reader

[beanswrites]

Ranking all Disney men based on how good of a guy they actually are Pt.1

Welcome, fellow Disney lovers! Today I'm gonna be ranking all (okay, fine, most popular) Disney/Pixar/Marvel men based on how good of a guy they actually are and whether I like them or not.

This chart will probably have 3-4 parts, just and only because Tumblr won't let me post more than 10 pics. All of the guy will be rated by their looks and their personality. I will also do the Disney girls later, so stay tuned for that and enjoy!

Part 2

40. Gaston, from "Beauty and The Beast"

On the absolute rock bottom of this 40-spots long list, we have this.. I don't even want to call him a man. You know it's bad when there's literal animated talking animals on this list and a human is still on the bottom. I hate everything about him, and I can't even name one good thing about him.

Looks: -4/10. One word: N O. I get that he's supposed to be attractive, but.. It's everything other than attractive

Personality: 1/10 He's LITERATELY a villain, but hey, at least he has a personality. Yeah, he's a sexist jerk, but for a character it's better to have a horrible personality than no personality, and that's why I gave him a 1/10 and not -1000.

Overall score: -1.5/10

39. Mufasa, from "The Lion King"

I recently heard that some people simp for him and I'm trying to understand that-

But like I can't

I mean.. I guess he's hot, for a lion??

Just.. Lions are probably not my thing.

Looks: 1/10 I can't really see it. I'm not really into dad lions who had a tragic death. No shame on people who like him tho!

Personality: 1/10 He wasn't around for much of the movie, and even when he was his personality was still pretty bland. I think he was too strict on Simba, and overall, not the man for me.

Overall score: 1/10

38. Prince Hans of The Southern Isles, from "Frozen"

Let me introduce you to the winner of Disney's "I'm a villain but I have an innocent look" award. This man doesn't deserve to be named after the absolute legend that Hans Christian Andersen was. Even before the big plot twist (which made me want to punch him in the face) he was still kinda creepy and just.. off.

Looks: 3/10 If you overlook his godawful personality and greed for power, he's kinda ok looking. If he wasn't, you know, evil, and he shaved whatever it is that's growing out of the sides of his face, he would be kinda cute. But, alas, he's not.

Personality: -1/10 You know how Disney villains are always evil, but you still end up loving them for their sass? Well, Hans isn't like that. He's the villain you hate with your entire being, because he deceived you and made you like him at first.

Overall score: 1/10

37. Simba, from "The Lion King"

Again, lions are not for me.

Simba's cute (definitely way cuter than Mufasa, at least) and he has that playful personality, but he's very tragically still a lion. If he was an actual human, than we could talk.

Looks: 2/10 He's a very cute lion. The kind of lion I would pet like a cat, but not the kind of a lion I would date. DON'T date lions, kids.

Personality: 2/10 Still kinda bland, but that's probably because I don't really like "The Lion King" at all. It's okay, not that bad, but also not that good.

Overall score: 2/10

36. John Smith, from "Pocahontas"

I get that this dude over here was supposed to be like a "dreamboat" and get basically everyone swooning over him, but at this point I'm wondering did the animators hate him so much that they decided to go in a completely different direction

John Smith was SO annoying and it's kinda hard to like him when in real life he was a pedo because he was like 27 and Pocahontas was THIRTEEN :/

Looks: 2/10 This man looks like a hybrid of handsome squidward and Ken from Barbie. The only thing that's saving him from a solid 1 is his blue eyes.

Personality: 2/10 I really don't remember anything from this movie because I haven't watched it in forever, but the only thing I do remember is that he was an absolute douche and my girl Pocahontas should have chosen the other guy. I'm glad she left him in the second part.

Overall score: 2/10

35. King Triton, from "The Little Mermaid"

Look- It's not like I hate him, it's just that he's a Disney dad. And not even the "i'm gonna steal your dad" kind of Disney dad, just like.. A dad. Not really much to rate here, but here I go anyway.

Looks: 1/10 For an older sea god, I think he's pretty okay, but still. Not really the most attractive. A real good guy tho!

Personality: 3/10 He acts.. like a dad. Strict, wants to protect his daughters, determined, classic dad. Thumbs up for being a good single dad to his 7 daughters!

Overall score: 2/10

34. Prince Florian, from "Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs"

Tbh, I lived most of my life thinking that he doesn't have a name, or that it's just "Prince". Apparently, Florian is an actual name.

imagine carrying a kid in you for 9 months just to name it Florian-

I recently read an article that described that apparently he was super hard to animate and that's why he only appears twice in the movie, doesn't have any text except the song in the beginning, and is the blandest character Disney ever made.

Looks: 3/10 He looks like Liza Minelli. I gave him a 3/10 just because in the re-draw he does look fine. He's not ugly, people, just not my type. But I have seen some fanarts where he looks really good!

Personality: 2/10 Yeahhh, I maybe kinda forgot to mention that in some theories Florian is 31, and Snow White is 14... That theory wasn't confirmed, so believe what you want. All in all, still pretty bad.

Overall score: 2.5/10

33. Prince Charming, from "Cinderella"

OMFG

YOU KNOW WHAT I JUST REALIZED??

PRINCE CHARMING LOOKS KIND OF LIKE DAICHI SAWAMURA

..

it's the hair and the eyes combo

Anyway

THIS GUY HAS A REAL NAME TOO

His name is Henry Charming. In the first movie, he was kind of really boring and bland. If he was an ice cream flavour, he would be vanilla. But luckily, we've seen some real character developments in the next two movies, so that's great.

Looks: 4/10 IDK OKAY?? I am so confused, bc I simp for Daichi HARD but I don't simp for my guy Henry over here. Still, a lot better than some other princes, in my opinion at least.

Personality: 3/10 Even tho there was a lot of character development in the second and the third movie, he was really just blank in the first movie. Altogether, I have to give him a 3.

Overall score: 3.5/10

32. Buzz Lightyear, from "Toy Story"

Even tho I LOVED "Toy Story" all my life, I just never really found anyone attractive. Buzz is a great guy, and I shipped him with Jesy all my childhood, but simply not for me.

Looks: 1/10 Nope. I'm really sorry, but I just really don't think that he's cute.

Personality: 6/10 Can be annoying sometimes, but nevertheless a great guy toy, and a good friend.

Overall score: 3.5/10

31. Robin Hood, from "Robin Hood"

In the most respectful way possible, this is one FINE fox. Yeah, I mean sure, he is a fox, but COME ON. Look at him!

Looks: 3/10 He's about as fine as foxes go. I mean.. There's another fox a bit finer, but we'll talk about that later.

Personality: 6/10 It's not really his looks, it's his personality that makes him hot. He's kind, selfless, funny, clever.. All in all, a great guy!

Overall score: 4.5/10

--

That would be all for this one, everyone! Now that I'm proofreading this, I'm realizing that I might have been a litleee too harsh on these guys. But, this is the first part out of four, which means it only gets better than this. Part two coming soon! Follow me to find out who's on top, and for other rankings!

#disney #disney pixar #pixar movies #marvel #ranking #ratings #ranked #disney men #gaston #mufasa #prince hans #simba #prince florian #john smith #king triton #prince charming #buzz lightyear #robin hood #beauty and the beast #the lion king #frozen #pocahontas #the little mermaid #snow white and the 7 dwarfs #cinderella #toy story #mcu #marvel mcu

[hafanforever]

It’s Good to Be Bad

I’ve described in previous analyses that I have a strong affinity for villains in fiction, including those by Disney. But like any fan of Disney, there are villains that I love and ones that I deeply detest with every bone in my body. So for my last analysis of the year, I will discuss my five most favorite and five least favorite Disney animated villains, though I also want to list a couple of other characters as honorable mentions to explain why I like or hate them.

The reasons I have for liking my favorite villains are simple, if not somewhat shallow, because I don’t exactly have deep reasons for liking them. Regardless of how evil, sadistic, cruel, and ruthless they are, I like them primarily because they are funny or charismatic. But it’s so much easier for me to list why I hate my least favorite villains, which is largely attributed the kinds of traits they display (most of which I cannot stand in people), their motives for being evil, and how they carry out their evil deeds while showing their evil natures.

This essay has turned into a longer one than I anticipated, so I am adding the “Keep reading” feature. Before I begin, I want to thank my dear buddy and soul sis @minervadeannabond for coming up with this title. Here is yet again another analysis of mine for you to enjoy, sis! 😁😄😉❤️

Most Favorites

Scar - Since The Lion King was the very first Disney film I ever saw in theaters as a child, and the first one I remember well from my childhood, many of my favorites Disney things come from it, including Scar being my #1 favorite Disney villain. Yes, he is a sadistic, tyrannical, narcissistic, cold-blooded murderer, but I think it is because of his cunning, smooth, elegant, charismatic nature and how pivotal he is to the story, particularly with how much he turns out to be a dark reflection of Simba, is why I love him so much. Furthermore, his song “Be Prepared” is my favorite villain song and among my favorite Disney songs of all, further showing how much The Lion King has given me Disney favorites since I was a child. 😁

Hades - Another one I remember well from my childhood, Hades is undoubtedly one of the funniest villains from the Disney animated canon. Although he is as cruel, evil, ruthless, and sadistic as any Disney villain, Hades is also so fast-talking, sleazy, sarcastic, cheeky, and hilarious that it makes it hard for me to take him seriously as a menacing villain. And while he constantly goes into fiery rages and blows his hot-headed top when furious, these help make Hades far more a comical, rather than scary, figure. Heck, when I was a kid, I always laughed, rather than got scared, whenever he unleashed one of his temper tantrums (except when he blows up at Meg with “I OWN YOU!!!”). And James Woods’s performance, especially since he ad-libbed many lines, helps make Hades such an unforgettable and memorable, if not lovable, character. So yeah, Hades’s wisecracking, talkative personality made him a memorable villain for me as a child, and I’ve loved him for it ever since. 😆😂

Ursula - Much like Hades, Ursula is sleazy, scheming, and cunning, yet wisecracking and comical at the same time. Besides her dry sense of humor, Ursula’s eccentricity, flamboyance, and elegance have always been the traits that drew me to her, and Pat Carrolll’s performance of the character is pure excellence. 😉

Maleficent - Despite being an incarnation of pure evil, including with her self-proclaimed title as The Mistress of All Evil, to me, Maleficent is by far the coolest, most badass Disney animated villain of all! 😆👍🏻 Yes, she curses Aurora with no true motive whatsoever, and she’s sadistic, ruthless, blasphemous, and murderous, but her display of her ill temper and dark magic just makes her totally awesome, most especially when she zaps her minions for their stupidity and incompetence upon learning they were only looking for a baby during their 16-year search for Aurora. 😁

Ratigan - Again, Disney has an evil, murderous, sadistic villain in Ratigan, but I love him because he is very collected, calculating, sophisticated, and charismatic, not to mention Vincent Price delivers such a great vocal performance as the character. 😉 What I also love about Ratigan is the moment when he undergoes what is known as a villainous breakdown, which is when a villain snaps and goes utterly crazy. During the film, Ratigan has some moments of losing his cool, but just as quickly manages to become calm and regain his composure. However, upon seeing Basil and Olivia escape from him inside Big Ben, along with Basil having having foiled his earlier scheme to kill the queen and take over England, Ratigan finally snaps, turning from a formal, sophisticated, composed rat to a highly feral, aggressive, savage one. It is the moment when Ratigan reveals the monster within and looks like a true rat, with an aggressive expression, hunched back, elongated claws, and running on all fours. The fact that Ratigan’s breakdown juxtaposes what kind of rat he was for the majority of the film is why his villainous breakdown is my favorite of any Disney villain.

Most Hated

Gaston - I have stated this before in “Bride and Prejudice”, but I pick Gaston as my #1 choice as my least favorite Disney animated villain. And it’s not just because of his extreme vanity, egotism, chauvinism, and arrogance, which are the very traits I hate in people, but because of his inferior, sexist, misogynistic views of women. Gaston is THE walking definition of toxic masculinity, the fictional example of the worst kind of man, the epitome of what men should NEVER be! 😡😡😡 He thinks men are the superior gender and that women are inferior to men, with their only purposes being to serve men and be their sex objects. And since I am a feminist who believes in gender equality, I dislike men who have low, sexist opinions of women, and Gaston fits the profile of what I think is the worst example of such a man. I could go on and on explaining just why I loathe this monster of a man with all my heart, but you can just read the aforementioned analysis to find out more.

Lady Tremaine - If it weren’t for Gaston being my #1 pick because of his extreme sexism and misogyny, I would pick Lady Tremaine. She comes such a close second because her motivations for abusing, oppressing, and being so cruel to Cinderella are petty and stupid, ESPECIALLY because Cinderella never even did anything to deserve such treatment from her in the first place! 😠😡 Lady Tremaine hates Cinderella and is very jealous of her purely because Cinderella so much better-looking and kinder than her own daughters and herself. So they abuse her and make her their servant to make her miserable and unattractive so that they can look better than her instead. Additionally, Lady Tremaine has a deep-rooted obsession to be above Cinderella at all costs that she resorts to lying, manipulation, trickery, and cheating in order to stay above. I particularly loathe it when she manipulates her daughters into tearing up Cinderella’s dress just so that she can appear fair and keep her word regarding her side of the bargain (she says ”if you can find something suitable to wear”, and once it’s wrecked, it’s no longer suitable) while simultaneously making sure she doesn’t have to keep her promise since she never wants Cinderella to go in the first place. All that being said, do these sound like justifiable excuses for hating a completely innocent woman? I DON’T THINK SO!!! 😡😡😡

Claude Frollo - Now if weren’t for BOTH Gaston and Lady Tremaine coming first, Claude Frollo would come on top as well! 😡😡😡 Frollo is without a doubt in my mind the most evil villain in the Disney animated canon. Unlike most Disney villains, he is COMPLETELY devoid of any likable or redeemable traits, making me have nothing but feelings of pure hatred for him. Ruthless, cruel, blasphemous, racist, and evil to his core, Frollo holds a deep-seated hatred for the gypsies and seeks to eradicate them from Paris, making him not only murderous, but genocidal, especially since he seeks to kill them simply out of his own racism, supremacy, and superiority. Throughout the years in his quest to eliminate the gypsies, Frollo murders Quasimodo’s mother by violently kicking her, causing her to fall and hit her head on the stone steps of Notre Dame, then tries to burn Esmeralda at the stake, declaring that she must be killed because she has been practicing witchcraft. After killing the mother, Frollo even attempts to drown baby Quasimodo simply because of his deformity. What makes Frollo even more evil besides doing his deeds is that he is a judge with control over the city, yet he proves himself to be corrupt and hypocritical by violating the laws to accomplish his dark, sinister deeds. Perhaps what makes Frollo the most evil villain of all is that he is in complete denial about how evil he really is. He has a delusional belief that he is a good, religious man doing God’s work by trying to purge the world of evil, when all he really does is twist his “faith” and hypocritically use it for his own evil purposes. What’s worse is that Frollo never once takes an ounce of responsibility for his crimes; he makes excuses to justify his actions, painting himself as guiltless and his victims as the only ones at fault. So with Frollo being such a blasphemous, hypocritical, racist, genocidal, murderous, corrupt judge who never believes he is doing anything wrong and always lays blame on the victims of his misdeeds, I can’t say there is a single thing about him that I like, and I’m happy he met his death in a fiery blaze! 😡🔥

Mother Gothel - A character I see as being an amalgam of Gaston, Lady Tremaine, and Frollo, the reasons why I hate all three of these villains are also found in Gothel: vanity, narcissism, oppression, mental abuse, trickery, manipulation, dishonesty, hypocrisy, and flat-out cruelty. First of all, Gothel’s vanity, narcissism, and obsession with her own beauty makes her extremely insufferable and annoying, not to mention the fact that she hoarded the flower to herself for hundreds of years just to stay alive shows how incredibly selfish and possessive she is. And due to her selfishness, she kidnaps Rapunzel, hides her in a tower, lies to her about the outside world, and continually mentally abuses, manipulates, oppresses, mocks, and belittles her just to ensure that Rapunzel will never leave the tower and the flower’s magic in her hair will keep her (Gothel) alive and young forever. On par with her narcissism, Gothel is shown to be a very spoiled, childish, immature woman who seeks to always have things her way and throws tantrums or other emotional outbursts when she doesn’t get her way or what she wants, especially the very moment she wants it. Furthermore, Gothel possesses a martyr, or victim, complex, which is shown perfectly when victimizes herself and places all the blame on Rapunzel whenever any sort of conflict befalls their lives and relationship, especially when they argue. So with all these flaws in mind, like Gaston, Lady Tremaine, and Frollo, I can’t find any good reason to like Gothel at all. “Mother Knows Best”? More like “Gothel Knows Worst”! 😠😡 

Governor Ratcliffe - I said above that I hate Gaston because of his bigoted, low views of women, and prejudice is the main reason why I hate Governor Ratcliffe. However, his prejudice is in the form of racism, the kind of bigotry that I hate the most. Ratcliffe displays this attitude towards the Native Americans, considering them savages and seeing himself as better than them all because of his race, which makes him a white supremacist. Besides his supremacy and superiority regarding his race, Ratcliffe is intensely greedy and selfish since he wants to keep any riches found for himself and believes that the Virginia land and anything he finds on it is his for the taking. In relation to his bigotry, he is also quite delusional and self-righteous, which makes him believe that any theory he has is right and he refuses to believe otherwise or listen to reason. For example, Ratcliffe dismisses Wiggins’ correct assumptions on why the Indians attacked the settlers and John’s claim that there is no gold in the lands after Pocahontas tells him this. The hatred I hold for Ratcliffe is significantly less than the other four listed here, but the reasons I gave are virtually like those I gave for Frollo, so I’m confident with Ratcliffe and his place on my list.

Bonus Mentions

Hans - Hans is a villain that I place in the middle between my most loved and most hated villains, because I love him for WHAT he is as a villain while I simultaneously hate him for WHO he is as a character. I have said it to friends and some of my other analyses before, but one of the reasons why I love Frozen is because it took many of the traditional fairy tale elements and tropes used in their preceding films, and turned them upside down. So rather than having another prince as the heroic male lead in this film, Frozen twisted that trope around by making him the villain instead. And when Hans finally reveals his true nature, you realize that he has fooled not only Anna and the other characters who interacted with him, but first-time viewers as well! So while I love Hans for being a villain who keeps his true nature under wraps for the majority of the film and almost gets away with his crimes because of it, I also hate him because of how cold, cruel, callous, ruthless, and sadistic he really is. When he reveals his true nature and explains his plan to Anna, he mocks her intelligence, naïveté, and desperation for love while explaining just how easy it was for him to deceive and manipulate her into being a pawn in his plan to take over Arendelle. Throughout the whole scene, Hans smiles wickedly and sadistically, clearly showing the delight he is getting from tormenting Anna and watching her suffer while he explains his scheme and extinguishes all light sources to accelerate her death. It’s also easy to see his sadism when he announces his plan to murder Elsa, and that he will get even greater joy out of carrying out the act itself (which we see when Hans smiles widely while swinging his sword over Elsa’s head as he tries to kill her on the fjord).

Chi-Fu - While he is not a true villain, and not even evil at all, Chi-Fu is a very detestable character, one whose guts I hate completely because he has the same traits that make me hate Gaston: arrogance, conceit, egotism, bigotry, superiority, and misogyny. Prejudice against women is a main theme in Mulan, and Chi-Fu is the one man whose prejudiced opinions never change. While Shang and Mulan’s fellow soldiers initially hold views that women are beneath men, they learn to change them after Mulan proves herself a capable warrior in the army (even after her disguise is revealed), most especially when she helps save China from Shan Yu’s reign of terror. Despite the majority of his bigotry being aimed at women, Chi-Fu is also detestable because he shows it towards nearly everyone else, except the Emperor. As the second-in-command to the Emperor, Chi-Fu sees himself superior to almost everyone else around him, which enhances his pompous, elitist, arrogant attitude. Because of all these antagonistic traits, I loathe Chi-Fu while I don’t hate Shan Yu at all, even though the latter is truly pure evil and genocidal! 😠😡 It just goes to show that some people who are neither necessarily good nor bad can be even more contemptible that the most malevolent, murderous people.

#Miscellaneous Disney #Disney #Disney Villains #Disney Villain #villains #villain #Scar #Hades #Ursula #Ratigan #Maleficent #Gaston #Lady Tremaine #Claude Frollo #Mother Gothel #Governor Ratcliffe #Hans #Chi-Fu #favorites #most favorites #least favorites #my stuff #mine

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

Do you any suggestion for Super Sentai?plz

*cracks knuckles*

Well first off, if anyone wanting to get into Super Sentai watched Power Rangers growing up, I’d check out the series whatever season you watched was adapted from to see how things went there in comparison to how they were in the United States. So if you grew up with the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, watch Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger. If you don’t know what the Sentai the season you grew up with is called, I’d check out RangerWiki, which provides a lot of information on both franchises.

I’d also recommend checking out a few episodes of the very first Super Sentai entry, Himitsu Sentai Gorenger. Not all 84 episodes, mind you, but I’d just watch a few to see where Super Sentai got its roots from, because the team football attack gets referenced a lot further down the line. Yes, you read that correctly.

But for individual seasons for beginners, it’s harder for me to answer. Super Sentai has varied aesthetically and tonally across its 45 year run. Some shows are dark and gritty, while others are light-hearted and goofy. Some shows have a vehicle motif, while others use animals for a motif. So the seasons I’m going to talk about will cover all kinds of tones and themes across the years. I also haven’t seen every single entry, so these are the ones I’ve seen that I recommend for beginners.

Denshi Sentai Denziman (1980-1981, 51 Episodes)

Centuries ago, the evil Vader Clan conquered and decimated the Denzi Civilization. In the modern day, the talking dog IC awoke from his slumber when the Vader Clan began their invasion of Earth. So IC recruits five people to become the Denzimen to defend their planet and stop the Vader Clan once and for all.

The first three seasons of Super Sentai were very experimental, but Denziman was where Toei started to get an identity for Sentai down. Not only would the black visors and sculpted mouthpieces become a staple for Sentai’s (and by extension, Power Rangers) suit designs, but this was also the first season to really start a few Sentai traditions. It was the first season to have female villains, the first to use a transformation device for the heroes, the first time the monsters grew to fight the team’s giant robot.

The Denzimen, while not really going through any character development, are still very likable characters, especially Denzi Blue/Daigoro (played by legendary tokusatsu actor Kenji Ohba). The villains are also a lot of fun, a real improvement from the first three villain groups, who were all basically Earth-based terrorist organizations and/or death cults. The Vader Clan is full of villains who are just as entertaining to watch as the heroes, especially Queen Hedrian, played by the late Machiko Soga, who would later go on to play Witch Bandora, the character Rita Repulsa is adapted from in Power Rangers. There’s not that much of an ongoing for most of the series, and it can get pretty goofy at times, but it’s still a really good show.

Choushinsei Flashman (1986-1987, 50 Episodes). 

Five infants are abducted by the Reconstructive Experiment Empire Mess to use as test subjects for experimentation, but are saved by benevolent aliens from the Flash Solar System. They all spend the next twenty years in the system developing their combat skills and special powers until they decide to head back to Earth to fight Mess themselves as the Flashmen, despite the warnings of their alien caretakers.

The 1980s are usually referred to by fans as Super Sentai’s golden age, with a string of great seasons thanks to famed writer Hirohisa Soda. Flashman is no exception. While Denziman tended to have more stand-alone episodes, Flashman is more story-driven. Later on, there’s a really dark plot twist that I don’t want to give away. Admittedly, some of the special effects can be dated to showcase the Flashmen’s powers in addition to stock footage being reused a lot, but the action and camerawork are still fast-paced and rarely do the fight scenes get boring.

The villains are the kind you love to hate, and their actors all give great performances, especially the late Unsho Ishizuka (the Japanese voice of Professor Oak) as Great Emperor La Deus. This is easily one of the darker Super Sentai entries, but if you don’t mind that, I highly recommend it.

Choujuu Sentai Liveman (1988-1989 49 Episodes). 

At an academy for the finest minds in the world, three of the students feel their talents are being wasted on designing a satellite to conduct scientific research. They soon join up with Great Professor Bias, leader of the Armed Brain Army Volt, who takes them all under his wing as his students and generals. Before they leave, they kill two students, leaving their three friends traumatized. Two years later, Volt begins its plan to conquer Earth, but the three friends of the two victims developed their own technology to fight them as the Livemen in the two years since they last saw their former classmates. Bias’ students have developed their own abilities through mutating their bodies, starting a conflict between some of the most intelligent youths in the world while figuring out what Bias’ evil plan is...

Some Sentai fans consider this to be even darker than Flashman at times due to the themes discussed. Unlike earlier seasons, the heroes have a more personal connection to the villains, and act as foils to them in terms of morality. The show also has some surprisingly deep themes at times, deconstructing the harsh standards the Japanese have for education and the effects they can have on people. Seriously, the main villain, Great Professor Bias, sets up a competition for his generals as a way to advance his plans, treating it like a high academic honor. 

This series also has some amazing special effects for the time. This was the first Sentai series to have an animal motif, so they go all out by using one of the most complicated models for his giant robotic lion, a stunning innovation for special effects. It was also the first series to introduce the gimmick of combining two robots, which is a genius marketing tactic when you think about it, motivating kids to buy both robots to combine them. Even putting those technical aspects aside, this is still one of the most iconic Super Sentai seasons, and a must-watch for beginners.

Choujin Sentai Jetman (1991-1992, 51 Episodes)

An elite soldier is chosen for a top-secret military project meant to turn him into the leader of a team of supersoldiers called the Jetmen. After he gets his powers, the satellite base is attacked by the Dimensional War Party Vyram. Not only are the four remaining “Birdonic Waves” meant to empower the rest of the Jetmen scattered across Earth, powering four civilians instead, but the soldier’s fiance is killed in the process. So he has to recruit the rest of the Jetmen and form a competent team to stop the Vyram from conquering their dimension.

A lot of Precure fans view Heartcatch as the best series in the entire franchise, and many Sentai fans view Jetman the same way. It was a huge success in ratings and toy sales, which actually helped to save Super Sentai from cancellation after the disastrous sales and ratings of the previous series, Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman. It also had some elements that made it stand out from earlier Sentai seasons. While I’ve talked about how Marinette was forced to become Guardian against her will while the show doesn’t acknowledge it, this show actually does point out that almost the entire team is a group of civilians with no combat experience. Earlier episodes are not only spent assembling the team, but also training them to better fight the Vyram and pilot their giant robot.

The series introduced a love triangle for three of the Jetmen, and while controversial among fans, was very popular with Japanese mothers, who were rumored to find Gai/Black Condor very attractive and begged Toei to not kill him off. The love triangle, while arguably one of the weakest parts of this show (but still better written than the Love Square), was part of the main theme of the team being more conflicted, showing they weren’t all best friends all the time.

This extended to the Vyram, who also tended to fight with each other over their plans to conquer the Earth. Sure, there was the occasional villain in earlier seasons who tried to overthrow the big bad, but this was the first time we had a whole group of villains trying to one-up each other. The best way to describe the Vyram is if the cast of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia were supervillains who were still competent at their jobs.

The series is also incredibly dark, and is often seen as the darkest Sentai has ever gotten. There’s a lot more violence and blood than usual, and a lot more onscreen deaths that aren’t just limited to the villains. Humans are actively killed or hurt in the crossfire, and it shows just how painful this war is. And because of all of that and many other reasons, this is seen as the peak of Super Sentai. If you have to watch a single Sentai series, watch Jetman.

Ninja Sentai Kakuranger (1994-1995, 53 Episodes)

During Japan’s Sengoku Era, a team of five ninja sealed away the leader of an army of Youkai, rendering their kind powerless. In the present day, one of the few surviving Youkai tricks two bikers, who are actually descendants of two of the ninja in the past, into undoing the seal and giving all of the Youkai their powers back. Another descendant of the ninja recruits them into taking on the legacy of their ancestors to fight the Youkai, becoming the Kakurangers.

The 1990s were when Super Sentai was starting to delve more into fantasy elements rather than just science-fiction, and also started to take on a more light-hearted tone. Kakuranger is no exception. It’s a lot more goofy than the other entries, even using comic book-style graphics during its fight scenes. There’s also a narrator who appears to explain the history of the Youkai of the week, a detail I really like. While this show is still unashamedly goofy, it still gets more serious in the second half, but never loses its comedic moments entirely.

Like with Jetman, Kakuranger shows the reality of drafting two civilians to fight a war against the supernatural, with only one of the first three Kakurangers knowing how to fight. That Kakuranger in question, Tsuruhime/Ninja White, is easily one of the best Sentai heroines of all time. Not only was the first female and non-Red to lead a Sentai team, but she was only fifteen years old while the other Kakurangers were in their twenties. Marinette could learn a lot from her, and no, that’s not an insult. Tsuruhime is a complete badass, and a team-up with Ladybug would be the coolest thing ever.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, watch Kakuranger.

Kyukyu Sentai GoGoV (1999-2000, 50 Episodes)

The demonic children of the Grand Witch Grandiene begin causing natural disasters to bring destruction to Earth in order to revive their mother. In response, five rescue workers who also happen to be siblings are recruited by their estranged father to become a team dedicated to saving lives from the Psyma Family’s actions.

Did anyone ever watch Rescue Heroes as a kid? Imagine that show, but with the intensity turned up to eleven. This show is epic, with amazing action and some of the coolest giant robots in Sentai history. One of their robots is a giant train armed to the teeth with guns. Even putting aside the action, this show does a great job at highlighting all the dedication rescue workers have to their jobs by showing a lot of rescue scenes in addition to having GoGoV fight the Psyma. It even teaches the audience about firefighters from Japan’s Edo Period. There’s really not a lot of shows that explain what rescue workers were like in the past, which shows just how invested this show is in teaching people about rescue workers.

While this wasn’t the first Sentai series to feature a team of siblings (the first being the aforementioned Fiveman), I think it managed to capture the dynamic best. Family is a key theme of the series, with the healthy relationship between GoGoV contrasting with the more toxic environment the Psyma Family has.

This is easily one of the most action-packed Sentai series ever made. It is literally Fire Force twenty years before that anime premiered, and it is AWESOME.

Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger (2004-2005, 50 Episodes)

In the not-too-distant future (Next Sunday, A.D.), the universe has come together to the point where Earth has made contact with several intelligent alien civilizations. However, intergalactic arms dealer Agent Abrella starts to help out the extraterrestrial criminals on Earth, called Alienizers, by providing technology and giant robots to them because he enjoys profiting from crime, and dreams of a world without the police. In response the organization Special Police Dekaranger, or S.P.D., brings together a team of officers to apprehend the Alienizers.

You want to see space cops doing space cop stuff? Then this is the show for you. Admittedly, this isn’t the most story-driven show, but is instead carried by its characters, who go through a lot of development. The Dekarangers have one of the best team dynamics in Sentai history. All of them are very likable characters, and it’s a lot of fun to see them interact. But the best character in the show goes to the Dekarangers’ boss, Doggie Kruger/Dekamaster, a dog alien who becomes a Dekaranger himself, labeling himself The Watchdog of Hell. That has to be the coolest title any superhero has ever had. Dekamaster is another one of the greatest Super Sentai characters ever, taking down a hundred goons in his first battle by himself.

I haven’t even gotten to Agent Abrella, one of the coolest Sentai villains of all time. He’s obsessed with profit and chaos, and he’s easily one of the most sadistic main villains compared to his predecessors. He isn’t some evil emperor who wants to rule the world. He just wants to raise hell and make a quick buck from it. He’s also voiced by Ryusei Nakao, the Japanese voice of Frieza from Dragon Ball Z. That’s another appeal of Sentai, the voice talent. A lot of big-name voice actors have voiced characters, like Mao Ichimichi and Kotono Mitsuishi. Hell, the currently ongoing Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger has Yuki Kaji of Attack on Titan fame voicing one of the main characters.

Dekaranger is easily one of the most popular Sentai seasons out there, as it has a lot of additional material. Not only did the Dekarangers get a theatrically released film like many other seasons before it, they teamed up with two separate Sentai teams, some of them cameoed in the anniversary series Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, they got a reunion movie ten years after its finale, four of the Dekarangers guest starred in another Sentai series two years after that, Uchu Sentai Kyuranger, which served as a prologue to a team-up with another Toei hero, Uchuu Kenji Gavan, and then that led into the Dekarangers cameoing in another Kyuranger movie meant to be an epilogue to that series.

Yeah, this is why I haven’t talked about the Sentai movies in this post. You don’t have to watch any of these unless you really enjoy Dekaranger, which you should at least check out. It’s slow at times, but it’s still a lot of fun.

Engine Sentai Go-Onger (2008-2009, 50 Episodes)

The Banki Clan Gaiark have traveled from their home dimension of Machine World and chosen Earth as their new home, but they have to pollute the planet to serve as an ideal living space for their kind. In response, sentient animal-themed vehicles called the Engines choose five humans to partner up with, the five humans in question becoming the Go-Ongers.

Unlike most of the shows I talked about, Go-Onger is incredibly goofy, and I love it. The characters are all incredibly likable, both the Go-Ongers and the Engines. While Sentai had touched upon the idea of treating the mecha as sentient beings, this was one of the earliest series to actually have their partners talk, leading to some interesting character dynamics. The villains are also really fun to watch. While they’re about as competent as Team Rocket at times, there are moments where you actually feel bad for them, especially towards the end of the series.

It’s also really funny. Granted, comedy is subjective, so you may not find the same things as funny, but there are a lot of funny moments in this show, all helped by the actors giving amazing performances. Go-Onger can get extremely wacky at times, like in Episode 31. I’m not going to say what happens, you should watch it for yourself.

What makes the humor really work unlike the last attempt at a comedy-focused Sentai, Carranger, it didn’t really feel mean-spirited by portraying the heroes as idiots by claiming to be “parodying” Sentai. Yes, the Go-Ongers can be dumb at times, but they still take their jobs seriously when they’re not goofing around. There’s not really much I can say about Go-Onger other than it being a bunch of dumb fun. If you’re in the mood to start off with something more light-hearted, I’d check it out.

Samurai Sentai Shinkenger (2009-2010, 49 Episodes)

For centuries, generations of samurai have waged a war against a race of demons from the underworld called the Gedoshu. After their leader was temporarily sealed away for several years, the Gedoshu begin another invasion of the surface while trying to flood the Sanzu River, which grows through human misery. In response, the current generation of samurai, the Shiba Clan, assemble to fight the Gedoshu as the Shinkengers.

This was actually one of the first Sentai seasons I ever watched, as my first Power Rangers season was Samurai. And yeah, while Samurai is a really bad adaptation, I’m here to judge Shinkenger on its own. Admittedly, there are a lot of qualities that can be chalked up to cultural differences, like the whole honor code samurai have and certain plotlines you’d see in a jidaigeki film. The Shinkengers themselves are all very likable characters, and you can really relate to their struggles of being forced into this war (again, handled a lot better than what’s going on with Marinette). All of them have different responses to their situation. Some of them dedicate themselves to wholeheartedly following their lord (Takeru/Shinken Red) or being more vocal in their hatred of their duties.

The villains are also really interesting. Sure, the big bad is pretty boring, but the side villains are just so twisted they really steal the show. Takeru/ShinkenRed gets a rival who serves as a perfect foil to him, representing the idea of why one fights. Even the concept of the Gedoushu is pretty terrifying. Demons from another world hellbent on causing misery to flood our world with their water, which I must point out, is deadly to humans. They’re not my favorite villain group, but they’re a close second.

There’s also some clever plot twists that happen late into the series that I don’t want to give away. Sure, you might have a hard time getting used to the Japanese culture at first, but Shinkenger is still a great series.

Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger (2011-2012, 51 Episodes)

The Zangyack Empire invades Earth and because of their army reaching across the universe, they become the greatest threat the planet has ever had. In response, the previous thirty-four Sentai teams unite to fight them. They succeed, but the attack they used to wipe out the battle fleet stripped them of their powers. A few years later, a group of space pirates come to Earth in search of “The Greatest Treasure in the Universe”. While the pirates couldn’t care less about stopping the Zangyack, they still have to deal with them while searching for the treasure, which is somehow connected to the previous thirty-four Sentai teams. Also, the pirates form their own Sentai team, the thirty-fifth Sentai team in particular, the Gokaigers, who have the ability to TRANSFORM INTO ANY OF THE PREVIOUS SENTAI TEAMS.

For Super Sentai’s 35th anniversary, Toei wanted to go big this time. While the previous two anniversary seasons only had movies that paid tribute to Sentai as a whole, this was the first season where the anniversary aspect was in the premise alone. 

The interesting thing is that the series was changed last-minute, and it was totally for the better. See, in March of 2011, Japan’s Tohoku Region was devastated by an earthquake registering at a 9.1 on the Richter scale. To this day, it was the largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan’s history, and that’s not even getting into the tsunami it caused the same day. What does this have to do with Gokaiger? In response to the tragedy, several tokusatsu stars including Super Sentai alumni took to social media to encourage kids to stay positive, and even asked some of Gokaiger’s showrunners if they could reprise their roles in an episode. Originally, there were going to be some cameos from past Sentai heroes, but it would only be limited to the ones whose powers would upgrade the Gokaigers’ giant robot. After this, there were a lot more cameos from Sentai alumni in the latter half of the series. Out of Gokaiger’s 51 episodes, 24 of them were tributes to past seasons. And that’s not even getting into all of the cameos in the movies too.

This was another one of the first Sentai seasons I ever saw, and it really helped me get into the franchise as a whole. It manages to explain things to people who haven’t seen certain seasons, while paying tributes to said seasons and making clever homages older fans will understand. Admittedly, the show does spoil the endings of the older seasons like Liveman and Jetman, so keep that in mind before starting this one.

Even outside of the tributes, the Gokaigers are some of the most memorable characters Super Sentai’s had in recent years. While they aren’t exactly evil, they start off not really interested in protecting Earth and care more about getting the Greatest Treasure in the Universe. The only reason they fight the Zangyack in the first episode was because their lunch was interrupted. A team of anti-heroes in Super Sentai hasn’t really been done before. Even then, there’s an interesting dynamic where some of the Gokaigers have more of a moral conscience than the others. And as the series goes on, they start to care more about protecting the Earth, even if they don’t admit it.

It’s just a really good show, and even if it isn’t your first, I’d check it out.

Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger (2013-2014, 48 Episodes)

When the alien entity known as Deboss invades Earth during the prehistoric era, another bird-like alien named Torin empowers several dinosaurs into the mighty Zyudenryu to fight off the invading force. After a brutal final battle, Deboss was sealed away, but his army of followers was still growing. In response, Torin started to recruit several humans throughout time into the modern day to become the Kyoryugers.

While Gokaiger was the first Sentai I ever watched, Kyoryuger was the first Sentai I watched every week as it aired, so it has a special place in my heart despite its middling reputation. Yeah, Kyoryuger has been criticized for starting the trend of Red Senshi stealing all the screentime, and while that can easily be applied to later entries like Shuriken Sentai Ninninger and Kishiryu Sentai Ryusoulger (the latter basically made Red and Gold the only ones to pilot the giant robots while the others watched), I don’t think it's as bad as everyone says it is.

There is just an amazing cast of characters here. It’s the first Sentai to be composed of ten rangers (while Dekaranger also had ten, three of them were just one-offs), and it does a really good job at balancing them all out. Yes, Daigo/Kyoryu Red does get a handful of power-ups and can be the focus at times, but the other characters all have their own distinct personalities and are just a blast to watch. I’d honestly recommend watching a few episodes of this show to get an idea on how to do an ensemble cast. If I end up doing the whole “tokusatsu has better toy tie-ins than Miraculous” thing, expect me to talk about how Kyoryuger introduces its new characters and giant robots.

And then there’s the soundtrack. Oh my God, the soundtrack. Sentai tends to have banger songs for their seasons, and Kyoryuger is no exception. “Vamola! Kyoryuger”, “Solid Bullet”, “Kyoryu Gold! Iza!”, “Yuuki Bakuretsu”, “Chou Shinka! Kyoryu Beat”, “Houkou! Bragigas”, and “Senkou no Brave”. So many of these songs are incredibly catchy, and I haven’t listed all of them. The show has a bit of a music motif, so it makes sense for there to be a lot of insert songs.

The one major flaw I have to point out is that you kind of have to watch the theatrical movie (which is only slightly longer than an average episode), in order to understand some of the plotpoints for the season’s endgame, but other than that, it’s still a really good season to start off on.

Mashin Sentai Kiramager (2020-2021, 45 Episodes)

The Dark Empire Yodonheim attacks the planet Crystalia, with the king’s brother betraying him and siding with the enemy. The kingdom’s princess is sent to Earth to recruit five warriors to fight the Empire. The chosen five all possess “Kiramental”, a way of weaponizing their imagination, which they use to defend the Earth’s radiance.

Precure fans might remember this being the season where Cure Star met the Red to promote the latter’s season (actually referring to Cure Star as his sempai), and I can kind of see why. A lot of fans have jokingly compared this season to Precure because of the gemstone motif and focus on creativity, with Juru/Kiramai Red acting like a Pink Cure according to some of the comments I’ve seen in Sentai discussion forums.

This is the most recent season to finish as of this post, and it’s already gotten a lot of praise in terms of writing, characters, story, and managing all of these during the COVID-19 Pandemic and having to adapt to losing five episodes in the process. The characters are very likable, the Red is one of the better ones in recent years with him being more timid compared to the more hotheaded ones, and the villains are also amazing, and some of the best in recent years. Episodes can range from funny to tragic to just plain awesome in terms of writing, with seemingly innocent filler episodes being the source of major bombshells and plot twists. 

Honestly, there’s not much I can really say about this show other than check it out for yourself.

But these are just my recommendations. If you do some research and see a season you like, I’d go for it. If anyone else wants me to do these for Kamen Rider and Ultraman, I’d be happy to.

Sorry this took so long.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #not miraculous ladybug #super sentai

[since-it-must-be-so]

Choujin X: Chapter 1

So I'm really excited to read more of Sui Ishida's newest manga, and I'm arriving just in time for the front seats! I don't want to let this pass without writing down my thoughts on the first chapter and possibly look at it in the future as the story progresses. You can read it here:

Having said that, please note there will be spoilers ahead!

Tomato Girl

The chapter starts with this cute little girl with that native(?) farmer-like hat, who supposedly grows big fruits (it's huge in Japan, look it up!). I think she will also be a main character since she's the first person we see. From this point I'll call her Tomato Girl. She is obviously from a rural area and is a farmer. We see her motivation is money (and that big dog... which, I think we will see in the future lol). She also wants to marry a "handsome goldilocks hubbie", lol. Wonder if this means she's going to be a love interest of the other cast? She also wants to have 9 kids. Naki and Miza, is that you?! Lol. So here, we have a girl with lofty aspirations! We shall see if any of this will happen or if it will change or if she's lying!

Also an observation - Tomato Girl is also close with her granddad, since she said she's going to the contest in lieu of her granddad (whose back was hurt). She obviously has this strong personality, standing up to the creepy bad guy, who was going to hit the old lady.

Bad Guy

The Bad Guy (since this guy doesn't have a name yet) is obviously a terrorist-for-hire. Also seems to be obsessed with beauty and elegance. I would guess his power lies in blowing things up?

I think, though, that Tomato Girl is a choujin herself, considering she didn't immediately get blown away. Plus, Bad Guy was on fire, and so was she. So, it doesn't necessarily mean Tomato Girl is already dead. She also seems to be reaching out to the Bad Guy as that scene ends.

It's later revealed that despite the plane crash, there were 200 survivors. Hmmmmmmm. Maybe they were turned into choujins?Only the hull was burned but the frame wasn't.

Tokio Kurohara and Azuma Higashi

Yes, the MC! He's notices the plane catching fire. Then, for some reason, Tokio's teacher (Ms. Bazonkas) has a weird voluptuous design. BUT, I think there's something afoot there. She might actually also be a choujin. Possibly a mentor role for Tokio? She seems to be very knowledgeable.

Anyway, going back to Tokio. He's introduced as a sixteen-year-old high school sophomore from Tsuru High. Like any high school kid, he finds studying math to be useless. We're also shown that lives in a district which has destroyed buildings. Possibly dystopian future?

We next find a girl getting harassed by a Mohawk guy and his 2 honchos. Tokio calls for someone, turns out to be Azuma. I just thought it's funny how he called for Azuma, he sounds like a police officer. Haha. But right after, Azuma is introduced, flying from a building.. a very dramatic, heroic entrance. He kinda looks like a hybrid of Haise and Armin from AOT for me. Haha. He's so cute and tiny but he's strong and is apparently the town hero. He breaks the arm of the thug, which Tokio thinks is going too far.

The girl seems to be a pretty girl, and I think she will play a role later on. She's a lot older than them, since she said she's going to an interview. She will possibly a love interest or a villain, but I think more of the latter. I just read CSM so I'm wary of pretty girls lol. Anyway, I think there's something there to link her with Azuma, considering, Azuma introduces both Azuma and Tokio but she only seems to thank or acknowledge Azuma. Tokio even says "don't mention it" even if the girl didn't even thank him, lol.

Azuma and Tokio talk about the plane crash, and it's revealed that choujins seem to abuse their power, and that the attack is kinda normal. We look at their hometown which is really wrecked. Buildings are dilapitated in an abnormal manner -- one building looks like it was done in with a circular force... They live in Yamato Prefecture which is described as an ordinary, self-governed prefecture with some areas partially destroyed. Wonder what self-governed means, but my guess is that it's kinda like a state and the national government is different altogether.

Roly-Poly

Well I never really thought of pill bugs or rolly pollies until I read this. Azuma talks about how roly polies roll around in dry areas and when they find a damp rock, they hide under it. He questions if the roly polies like damp places. And Azuma wonders if choujins are anything like roly-polies. Tokio is confused, so am I. I'm not going to make solid convictions what he means by it, but I think... what Azuma is driving at is that, roly polies and choujins DON'T like damp places. I don't know, I have no reason for this, it's just a guess. We'll see what Azuma means eventually. Haha.

It also appears that choujins are generally bad guys, since Azuma wonders why they don't use their power for good. Maybe something about being a choujin corrupts? Just a guess based on the succeeding events.

They end their conversation with Azuma thinking if he can help with the plane crash. Tokio comments, "seems noble of you" and Azuma says, "it's just a habit". Wonder if Tokio finds Azuma pretentious or if he's genuinely impressed. Azuma's answer is also quite concerning, "just a habit", a question arises if he's sincere in helping in the first place.

The Mohawk Guy

So this guy is supposed to be a funny, evil villain, now bent on exacting revenge from Azuma. Then, a guy (possibly gay guy because he is wearing a lipstick?) with a briefcase offers him an injection.

Tokio's Family

So Tokio has a bigger sister and a dad who seems to be very quiet. Not sure if that's their dad though, it wasn't clear. It's possible they don't have parents anymore and that guy is just an associate. Anyway, it appears that the sister pays Tokio's tuition and she's the breadwinner.

Tokio and his sister talk about Azuma. Azuma is apparently very smart, very athletic (proficient in judo and karate), girls love him, and that his dad is a big shot in the police. The sister questions why Tokio is so proud, and Tokio funnily admits that it's because he feels popular because Azuma is popular. A leech!

Vulture

I just finished re-reading Tokyo Ghoul and :re, and I was blown away by Ishida's art and story. To say I love Kaneki is an understatement. I think I'm going to love Tokio too! I also want to discuss the cover.

So it appears that the cover is the Tokio with an image of a vulture. Tokio is naked and it feels like the vulture is seducing him. From here, I get the vibe that Tokio might be corrupted by the power. "It's something of an affliction" is a dead giveaway. It feels like becoming a choujin or superhuman also corrupts, in a way?

Also since, there seems to be a commentary on the negative view on vultures being scavengers or "steals prey". (Though TBH I always thought vultures wait around for the predator to finish eating and then it eats the scraps??)

On the other hand, Azuma, Tokio's best friend who's mighty strong and brave (almost to a fault), is viewed as a lion by his peers. Also, an uncanny observation is the when Tokio cries about while sitting on the floor, above him is a hyena. Hyenas are known to prey on the carcasses of lions' prey.

It's almost uncanny when Tokio himself says, "I can be a lion too". But Azuma makes Tokio feel better by telling him that buzzards can fly higher than any bird -- telling Tokio to focus on the strength

But even if Tokio admires Azuma, Tokio thinks of telling Azuma when he's going too far. I think this comes from a place of concern. But maybe secretly he's also jealous?

Tokio also even tells Azuma that maybe they should hold hands so Tokio can be more like Azuma, implying that Tokio wants to be like Azuma.

Praying Mantis

Just before Flexi Choujin attacks, Tokio mentions that he bought an insect guidebook and was about to say a factoid about praying mantis near water. I wonder what Tokio was about to say? A search on the internet about praying mantis and water shows this disgusting video of a parasite exiting the praying mantis leaving the mantis to die. Ew. Let's see if this is the factoid Tokio was thinking of. If so, who's the mantis and who's the parasite? Is it Azuma and Tokio, respectively? Hmm. Also, love the insect symbolism. Throwback to Kaneki's centipede!

Flexi Choujin Attack (Johnny Kiyoshi Takeyama)

Mohawk Guy, now a choujin, is a flexi monster who's now more resistant to hits. He attacks Azuma indiscriminately with his new powers. He also kinda goes crazy... His subordinates fear his super violent side, begging him to go back to his "kinda naughty mama boy self", but he ends up snapping their heads off.

For some reason 2 injections fly up into the air?! Maybe someone tossed it. Because as Tokio brought Azuma to the water and brought him back out, he sees the 2 injections. Azuma wants to use it on himself.

Tokio hesitates to have Azuma use it but Azuma insists. Tokio remembers how Azuma saved him from bullies as a kid, and they agreed that Tokio will help Azuma beat the bad guys... Tokio gets the other injection and points to himself. Azuma says Tokio can't but Tokio insists because he feels that it's the only way to stay friends with Azuma. They also promise each other that they will have no regrets over this. This is kinda alarming for me!! Let's see what it will mean in the future.

But instead of both of them transforming into a powerful choujin, only Tokio transforms into one. He looks like a vulture, very beast-like. Looks even like Kaneki's Centipede! I think the other injection might have resulted in a bad/weak power, or maybe it's empty, or maybe Tokio didn't inject Azuma? But I doubt the last one. Anyway, Tokio's choujin look is amazing!

Can't help but feel this scene is related to the praying mantis thing... Maybe my hunch is correct? The parasite exits the mantis when near water, which is why Tokio manages to muster up some courage on his own?

We'll see!! I'm really excited to see this develop. It will be the first manga I will be able to see from the start to finish!

#choujin x #tokiokurohara #azumahigashi #sui ishida #tokio kurohara #azuma higashi #ishida sui #choujinx #superhuman x #superhumanx #bestial choujin #bestialchoujin #flexichoujin #flexi choujin #chojin x #chojinx