ConCrit With Cala: Part The First

Hi there, people. While I've said a load about Ryuu's characters and how much work they really need, I'd like to offer some constructive criticism to Lady-Zelda.

While I have corresponded with her, I really don't feel comfortable firing off an unsolicited email or six. Instead, I'm going to be doing a series of (probably rather long) articles covering some of her characters. These are gonna be strictly constructive criticism and nothing more. As in, "I'm going to be on my best behavior here." If you want crit mixed with me being a Giant. Gaping. Asshole, you're going to either need to read some of my older posts or wait a while.

Why am I doing this? Because I think a lot of her characters could be good. They don't (on the whole) seem to be ripped like Ryuu's and I'd really like to see them come into their own a bit more. At the moment it seems like they're just there to supplement Ryuu's characters (especially the female characters) and holy crap, there's so much wasted potential. It makes me a sad squiddy.

So I'm gonna start with a two part article on Cecil and Felix, focusing on what I can find of their backstories.

_{The Brothers in Question}

Cecil is Serenity's love interest from the LZ and/or Ryuu-created land of Archon, and is a blacksmith. Felix is Cecil's younger half-brother. This post is gonna focus on Cecil. Felix gets to go next because if I didn't break this up, this would go from being 'a pretty long post' to 'an irrationally massive post'.

A basic summary of Cecil's background in LZ's words:

A Hylian male named Cecil winds up being raised in a neighbouring kingdom - Archon - due to complications at a very young age. He lived as normally as possible under the care of his adopted Grandmother "Mother Goose", her assistant "Sister Goose" and eventual father figure, Hammer the Blacksmith. (Which is how he comes to be a Blacksmith himself. ^^)

I already mentioned to LZ via email that Sister Goose, Mother Goose and Hammer should be renamed. I still stand by that. 'Hammer' is a pretty cliché name for a blacksmith, really, and Mother/Sister Goose are, put bluntly, kinda silly.

There's lots of resources out there for names, like Behind The Name or BabyNames.com. I generally use Behind The Name, which even gives you the ability to search names by meaning if you want to find something based off a specific aspect of the character. Other than that, I've got no issues here.

 But years later he becomes prime suspect for a crime he didn't commit; the murder of Sister Goose and assault of Mother Goose. Hammer's intervention spares him from being arrested, but this forces him to become a fugitive and live under the shelter of a tranquil forest on the outskirts of Archon, said to be inhabited by Wood Sprites.

Here's where my more serious issues start. Not every character needs a tragic backstory, and off the top of my head, Serenity is the only one of LZ's characters who doesn't have one.

I mean, okay. Life's not all sunshine and rainbows. There's nothing wrong with a couple characters with a bit of a crappy background overcoming their problems or whatever.

But it's pretty easy to overdo it (I'm definitely guilty of having done this at times in my life). Think about people you actually know. Are their backgrounds all crap or all perfectly happy? Nah, I bet not. Everyone on the planet will have bright moments and some awful ones in their lives, really. Your characters are no different!

Also, it's stated that Mother Goose was assaulted. As in, not killed. Even if she was left incapacitated for a while, she's a witness and in the bit of information I can gather from Ryuu and LZ's postings, she isn't in a vegetative state or something else that would permanently prevent her from saying it's not him. So why would he be suspected, really?

As such, it probably would have made more sense to let them arrest him, figure this out, realize he didn't do it then let him go. Instead Hammer commits what may very well be an actual crime in preventing Cecil's arrest, then Cecil makes a break for it and makes himself look muy sospechosa. If you didn't do it and you have a witness who says you didn't or will be able to say you didn't at some point, why would you run?

Basically, I just can't buy into this. I'm willing and able to suspend disbelief but there's some holes here that really prevent that from happening. As a reader, I'd find it a lot more believable if she rewrote him as a guy with a normal background who got separated from his brother somehow.

After a bit of research, I found some background info on Serenity and Cecil's relationship in one of Ryuu's artist comments:

A bit from a scene my love and I were working through for the fun of it. But getting kidnapped by Marco's cousin Apollo, Renny was taken from Hyrule as well as Acro, but the two were separated.

Put as simply as I can, the 'kidnapped princess' thing is seriously overdone at this point. I know it says this was in progress, but please please please don't use it in any form of final draft. I'm on my tentacles begging here. I know LZ's capable of more than that and I would really hate to see her go this route. 

The assassin Alistair

I'm gonna stop right here for a second. This name and occupation combined with LZ's journal IMMEDIATELY brought to mind Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad from the Assassin's Creed series (unrelated note: LZ has good taste in games. AC's a fun series). The guy needs a new name ASAP. Because whether the similarity was intentional or not, it looks like a rip. And you don't want that.

wanted to have Acro made into a coat,

And we're gonna stop here again. My first thought was literally "whoa, Cruella de Ville lives in Hyrule now?". This is another unnecessary plot element. I mean, why would an assassin want to make a coat out of a Wolfos, especially one with hard to miss gold runes all over him like Acro? That's hardly subtle,and generally, assassins don't want to stand out in a crowd.

Between the name, vague 101 Dalmatians-esque motive and confusing aspect of an assassin wanting a coat with glowing yellow runes, I'd seriously just scrap this guy entirely. If he does play an important role in the plot, as I admittedly can't find enough information on him to figure this out, then he needs a renaming and a new motive.

which was what he mentioned before getting the pair in their own coaches on the trader's wagon chain. Renny's wagon was left behind in the forest while the rest drove off with Acro

Why would the princess be left behind while they went off to who knows where with what basically amounts to her pet dog? A girl, even if it isn't known she's the princess, could be ransomed. A dog is, as much as I hate to say it as a dog lover, not really going to be valued by anyone but his family. 

Serenity is clearly from a rich family, and logically they'd keep the rich girl nearby for ransom purposes. Isn't Acro supposed to be extremely intelligent? So why wouldn't he act like an ordinary dog in order to stay near her?

Renny was freed by a forest Sprite by the name of Amelia, but all she wanted was shiny treasure to take. Amelia wound up leading Renny to Archon, the closest kingdom.

I know this isn't written by LZ, but I have to ask... How long of a walk are we talking here? Serenity doesn't fight and only uses magic, as I understand it, so for her to just up and wander for six or seven miles is pretty unbelievable.

However, the Princess was still in hysterics as she desperately tries to find Acro.

Well, I guess it's not a super-huge distance. I say that as I don't think you can be hysterical for ten miles or something without needing a nap or two in there somewhere.

But if I'm wrong, consider how much energy crying uncontrollably takes out of you. And try to imagine taking a long walk through unfamiliar territory while crying your head off. That's really not possible without frequent breaks, especially if you have minimal experience with exploring unfamiliar territory. If we're talking miles, plural, this should probably be rewritten.

Coming across Hammer the blacksmith, he gets her to Mother Goose's house to rest - after assuring her that Acro had been rescued and is here.

So Mother Goose is in fact alive and well, Hammer hasn't been charged with anything and somehow the pooch just shows up here, basically?

Acro just magically appearing is a giant stroke of luck, as if the sprite bailing Serenity out wasn't enough of one already. The magically appearing Wolfos and especially the deus ex machina sprite have made it even harder for me to suspend disbelief here. 

My advice is to scrap the stuff with the sprite completely. Have Serenity bail herself out for a change!

And don't have Acro and Serenity get separated. If he's as intelligent as he's made out to be, there's no real reason why that would happen. Faking being a more or less run of the mill dog shouldn't be hard for him, right?

Once she bails herself and him out, maybe he could hunt for her or something while they wander off to Archon together, as her survival skills are probably going to be lacking. She's a princess who lives in a castle with cooks and the like, so hunting animals, cleaning them and cooking them to a degree where you won't get food poisoning are likely not gonna be strong skills of hers. At the very least he might be able to prevent her from getting botulism or something. 

That's it for part one. Hopefully it was somewhat helpful, and I'll be back for part the second soon enough.

Verchu, Justiis and Copious Amounts Of Squid Tears

Cala here. I'd rather be in my recently relocated pond because it's hotter (and more humid) than anything has a right to be. But no, I can't.

Because Ryuu's inability to come up with not-garbage names burns more than the heat. Between that and the aforementioned revolting temperatures, my pond was boiling. And as I don't feel like turning into a literal tasty snack? I decided it was time to crawl out of the water yet again.

So our subject today, as mentioned, is Ryuu's inability to name anything, anyone or anywhere. This has been covered before. Hell, he's done this so much we've had to cover it a couple of times.

But since those posts were made, there's been some names he's chosen that have set the bar at an all-time low. Even by his extremely low standards, these are just awful.

Not so long ago, I was reading the descriptions on some of his deviations then came to one that horrified me beyond speech. About Rabies. Rebé. Same thing. I'm pretty sure I've made my views on her clear before, so I won't restate those. But I thought the fact that she has the word 'angel' in her surname was bad enough, because really dude? That's cheese-tastic. But let's take a look and see, shall we?

[...]   But she knew she didn't have any way to impress him among the others, so she devised a plan to find where Sabé went with that man, knowing what them having a child could mean.    [...]   Sadly, the raid struck in Shantiosia. Houses and property were ablaze, homes searched and items stolen as they went through. One found the four-year-old Rebé, terrified of the events. Sabé and Justiis tried their best to keep their girl--

WHOA, HOLD THAT THOUGHT.

JUSTIIS?! ARE YOU YANKING ME?!

YEP, HER FATHER IS CALLED FUCKING JUSTIIS. WHY IN THE HELL WOULD YOU DO THAT?

“Okay, Cala,” you say. “He named a really minor character something absolutely idiotic. Don't we all do that at least once?” Well, yes, but if this was a one-off thing we wouldn't have two prior posts about Ryuu's lack of naming skills, now would we?

The problem here is that this is clearly not the only instance of this, nor is it confined only to minor characters. If you read the previous posts, you know that Ryo's already been covered. Sadly, we still have a load more where that came from.

Another major character of his with a pretty terrible name? Crosshair.

Whose full name is Samantha-Rei Nebulus Dark. No, that's not a joke and yes, that does sound like she should be the best friend of Enoby Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way from My Immortal.

The origin of the name in Ryuu's own words :

[…]  After some years, new inspiration struck me. Actually, it was thanks to ~furan-san's gallery. A picture of Rei Ayanami was on there. I hadn't a clue who she was, but I liked the style of suit.    […]   Liking the name (and Rei, Sailor Mars, being my favorite Sailor Scout when I was little) I added that to her, making her Samantha-Rei.   […]  Another innovation was made, however, using Perfect Dark's theme for Crosshair for a while. At the end of the mp3 track, a guy says "Goodnight Miss Dark". So, guess what was Crosshair's new last name? I then added her middle name "Nebulus" since she's in space all the time. "Samantha-Rei Nebulus Dark" was her final name.

…

I...

… Okay. Listen up, doods. Nebulus is not an actual scientific term. It's not even a word. I can't say for sure as I'm not Ryuu (thank fuck for that!), but the word he was probably looking for?

IS SPELLED NEBULOUS.

WHY DOESN'T ANYONE IN RYUU'S CIRCLE OF BS KNOW HOW TO USE SPELLCHECK?

… We'll come back to Ryuu making up words in a sec. Why? Well, I'm gonna dissect the full name, and we'll start with Samantha. In the journal linked, he says her name was originally 'Samantha Array'.

Which is clearly a ripoff of the name of the main protagonist in Metroid, Samus Aran.

Hate to break it to you, Ryuu, but we can still clearly tell you ripped off Samus's name. If you were really serious about putting work into her, you would've scrapped the first name. Completely. Find a name that suits her and isn't a ripoff. There's all kinds of sites you could use for that, like babynames.com or Behind the Name.

As for Rei...

NO. NO. BAD RYUU. BAD. She is not Japanese or of Japanese descent. She's not even a member of a culture that is more or less the equivalent to Japanese like... I dunno, the Shinigami in Bleach or the ninja of the village of Mizuho in Tales of Symphonia. Therefore, SHE SHOULDN'T HAVE A JAPANESE NAME.

After doing some research, it looks like there is a Japanese-named character in Metroid but if your character would be called Samantha Dark and is not multiracial? You probably shouldn't have a Japanese name in there. You can't just lift names, stick them in a culturally-inappropriate situation and expect people not to call you on it.

Don't even get me started on the double-barrelled first name. Unless you're just being mean to a character (and I'm sure this is a shock to Ryuu in all of his character-coddling glory, but some of us are), there is no need AT ALL for a double-barrelled first name.

I've already touched on Nebulus. But I'm probably going to have to say this anyway: Nebulus's not a word, which means it's definitely not a name. I know next to nothing about Metroid, but doing some research shows that most of the human characters in the series have Western names.A brief look at the human category on the Metroid Wikia shows that most people have names like Adam Malkovich, James Pierce, and Anthony Higgs. These are (at the bare minimum) fairly common Western names. You can't just pull something outta your ass and expect it to blend in, but you can definitely expect people to call you on it if it's that clear you haven't done the research.

So that just leaves us with Dark... I really shouldn't have to explain this but guys? That is an adjective. In the vast majority of cases, that is not a name. If no one else in your universe of choice has adjectives for names? Your character shouldn't have an adjective for a name. Also, I know nothing about Perfect Dark. But according to Martin Hollis, the original director of the series:

[...]The character Jo Dark owes something to Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita, and both strongly reference Jeanne d’Arc. Jo is iconic, heroic, independent, vulnerable and very damaged.[...]

And why was that picked? In part:

[…] ... Fourthly, Jeanne d’Arc is a strong female icon in history, vulnerable, feminine and yet capable of killing multitudes. [...]

I actually don't have a problem with this. It's an homage to a strong woman who defied convention and cultural norms and who actually existed (which makes it highly ironic that Ryuu ripped Joanna Dark's name for another one of his troupe of Sues). It is not a straight rip. That said, the name is still inappropriate for the Metroid-verse, and it's usually a pretty good idea to name according to the naming conventions of the universe, country and ethnic group your character belongs to.

But wait, there's more! While I was writing this, I was also talking to our Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, who dug up something interesting that details Crosshair's backstory a bit:

[...]    She was third in a family of five kids and both parents.     [...]     The eldest, Jacob, was dad's pride and joy as he did the things every boy dream of, being great at athletics and getting the high grades. The older sister, Meredith, was miss perfect, being an excellent cook, decorator and being beautiful. The twins, Anna and Jamie, were both the babies of the family, getting a lot of attention.    [...]

Let's ignore the sexism and 'WOMEN MUST ALWAYS BE PRETTY AND DOMESTICATED. AND MEN CANNOT BE FEMININE EVER' for a bit. As much as I'd like to dwell on that, that isn't what this post is about. My point is very simple:

IF YOUR CHARACTER HAS SIBLINGS CALLED JACOB, MEREDITH, ANNA AND JAMIE, YOUR CHARACTER WILL NOT HAVE A MARY SUE-CLASS YOONIQUE NAME. 

Seriously, the siblings' names actually seem to fit in pretty well with the pre-existing names. Crosshair's, however, does NOT. At all.

(Bonus fact: her Metroid-ripoff counterpart's name is Volvox. I MISREAD THAT AS VULVA TWICE, GUYS. Just a tip for character creators: Say the name aloud the way you want it pronounced. If it sounds like genitals, drugs or some heretofore undiscovered sex act, CHANGE THE NAME. I shouldn't have to explain this either, but clearly I DO.)

Things are gonna reach a new level of suck at this point, so a disclaimer. I'd suggest people with a low stupid tolerance look away now, because I'm not responsible for what happens to you if you don't.

See, Ryuu has a character called Envvi Skorm, which is a pretty damn awful name in and of itself. She is a ripoff of Veran from Zelda: Oracle of Ages who steals Ryo and tries to seduce him. Then fails, because he's so in wuv with his special sweetie schnookiewookums Queen Zelda. Which is, of course, nauseatingly Mary Sueish.

From the description on his sketch 'Envvi Skorm Redux [sic]':

A long time ago in the land of Termina, even before the age of Clocktown, the Ikana Kingdom ruled the land from the desert canyon province, Igos Du Ikana as the king. His wife and Queen of Ikana had one thing unfortunate in her life - being sister to a woman by the name of Maalis. Maalis made many attempts to kill her sister and try to become queen, herself. But all her efforts proved futile.

…

MAALIS. MAALIS. JUST... SERIOUSLY, RYUU? I DON'T... WHY!?

… Breathe, Cala. Breathe. Okay. Gonna start this off with saying A CHARACTER DOESN'T NEED TO BE ROYALTY TO BE INTERESTING, RYUU. Seriously, count how many high ranking nobles/royal characters he has. Now count how many of them are actually interesting. Clearly, he's missed the point completely.

And now... Maalis. If you don't get it? Say it aloud. Sounds like Malice, right? COULD YOU BE ANY MORE OBVIOUS, RYUU?

There's subtle symbolism and then there's beating you upside the head with it. This is definitely the latter.

Well,on with the show:

Maalis's daughter, Verchu, disliked how her mother was behaving. She learned of her mother's attempts of assassination, and instead of following her example, she attempted to bring peace to the two families.

… FUCKING VERCHU. THAT LOOKS LIKE SOME SORT OF MUTATED FUCKING POKEMON.

"What? Your Raichu was exposed to toxic motherfucking waste! Raichu is now evolving! Congratulations! Your Raichu evolved into Verchu! Watch out for the radioactive claws!”

But that isn't all of it. Oh no. Nonono. Did you really think I'd be nice enough to let it stop there? … Wait, you did? Well, that was silly of you. Flattering, but silly.

Maalis was enraged, when she found out, but did nothing for Verchu was pregnant. If her daughter was hopeless, then her grandchild would have to do... Verchu soon gave birth to a daughter. She was named Kyndnace. Maalis knew her time was now. She personally destroyed her own daughter and brought the grandchild Kyndnace into her own care. She didn't like the name of this new baby, so instead Maalis named her Envvi.

…... KYNDNACE. KYNDNA--- PLEASE KEEP HITTING ME UPSIDE THE HEAD WITH SHITTY, PAINFULLY OBVIOUS SYMBOLISM, RYUU. GO ON, I DON'T MIND. I ACTUALLY LOVE IT.

So, if you've missed why these names are so awful? Say 'em aloud.

That's right! HE CALLED THEM MALICE, ENVY, VIRTUE AND KINDNESS.

ERFVSREBVEFACHKDW!

I don't even need to explain why this is fucking dumb, do I? I don't think so. If you can't understand why this is fucking stupid, go punch yourself in the face as hard as you can. Sooner or later you'll either get it or black out.

 My final thought here, which has nothing to do with names but is also part of Envvi's backstory: 

[...]     Their efforts angered Igos, who was quick to discover who had done it, to the extent of banishing them from Ikana to the highest reaches of the SnowHead region, their punishment being to freeze to death.    [...]

If he's in the canyon, how the fuck is he supposed to enforce this judgment? How the hell is he supposed to stop them from wandering off to, like... Clock Town or Great Bay or something?

HE CAN'T. HE CAN'T UNLESS HE SACRIFICES A BUNCH OF HIS PEOPLE TO KEEP AN EYE ON THEM. … And knowing Ryuu, that's exactly what happened as he's shown signs of being a sadistic jerk. To the degree where I think he really needs to see a therapist.

There's logic, then there's Ryuu logic. And the latter scares the hell out of me.

Is This Some Conspiracy? Short answer is NO.

(I gotta stop listening to Pantera while I write. Whatever.)

This was quite a while ago, but you might remember how I said I'd seen some of LZ and Ryuu's characters on Tumblrs completely unrelated to our lovely little failblog.

Long story short? I was an idiot and didn't save the links. Imagine my surprise when an anonymous source stumbled on the Tumblrs in question, compiled the links for me and sent them on through my email (ryuusubmissions@yahoo.com, guys. Yep, it's time to shamelessly ask for submissions!) There's a couple I missed, too! So thank you for being super-awesome, kind anon.

EDIT (1 July 2012): I never really clarified what I meant by submissions, did I? I actually don't want evidence of him being a garden variety dicklizard and/or asscheese, as there's plenty of that out there. I want the big stuff! 

Got links to some of Ryuu's characters being posted on Mary-Sue blogs or Tumblrs that I missed? I want to see 'em! Screenshots of him being a douche on some forum or other? I wanna see 'em! Anything at all relating to his bigotry? Pass that shit on! There's gotta be stuff we're not aware of, and that's why I've got submissions open. ryuusubmissions@yahoo.com. Your identity stays completely anonymous! ... Gods, I sound like a used car salesquid.

I'm uploading these for the sake of posterity and because I'm frankly sick to shit of Ryuu acting like everyone who dislikes him is interconnected. I am not the submitter/reblogger/uploader, and I'm not aware of who is. I'd like to thank everyone who submitted/reblogged/uploaded them, though, because I've rarely seen anyone do anything but kiss ass.

Fuck Yeah Mary Sues - Maria (Cherry's mother)
Fuck Yeah Terrible OCs - Serenity
DreamsOfInfinite's reblog and criticism of Serenity
Fuck Yeah Terrible OCs - Ryo
DreamsOfInfinite's reblog and criticism of Ryo

 -----
 EDITED 19 JUNE 2012, screens supplied by Rinku:

GetOutOfHyrule (now removed)- Cecil
GetOutofHyrule (now removed) - Vassi

 -----
  EDITED 7 JULY, 2012; screens supplied by the same anon who gave me the other Tumblr links: 
DreamsOfInfinite's post on Child of the Triforce
Some followup, also from DreamsOfInfinite

This list is kind of subject to change whenever if new links are found and/or submitted, as I intend to use this as a resource bank of sorts. "Your one stop shop for calling Ryuu out on his BS", basically. Send the link on to whoever's protesting then move on.

(And if any existing links go dead it's probably because Ryuu cried. The people who run the FuckYeahMarySues and FuckYeahTerribleOCs tumblrs are much nicer than I would be, I swear.)

Ryo Genesis Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) A Good Artist

Hey! Cala again. I come bearing more Mystery Guest Snark from a friend of mine. Not Alethea this time. No, this is my friend Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. 

Like me, she's seen far too much of Ryuu's bullshit for her to take this lying down. So she asked if she could do some guest posts on some of his awful art. As I love giving my friends a platform to air their views on Ryuu (we actually originally began talking because of his crap) so he realizes this isn't just us, I asked around, no one I asked had an issue with it and so here we are. As such, I'm gonna go swimming again and let Enoby take it from here...

 

Hello everyone. I’ve been following this blog for quite some time, and having had my own personal experiences with Mr. Ryo, I’d like to make a few contributions myself. As it’d be a stupid idea to give my real identity away, my pseudonym for this blog is Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way (But sometimes my friends call me Enoby Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way or, for short, Enby Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way.) For my first post, I’d like to introduce you to a little girl known to the Anime community as Rei Ayanami.

(From what is possibly the most fucked up anime ever made.)

I’m not going to tell you Rei’s story. Why? Because I don’t know it. I don’t think anyone knows it. It keeps changing between the mangas, the anime series and the changes between the old and new movies fueled by death threats to the original creators because people were angry that the series ended with everyone turning into “orange juice.”

Like I said. Fucked up.

All I know is she’s quiet, she slaps Shinji in the face at some point, she never smiles (except those times she does smile) and there’s apparently a bunch of clones of her floating in a tank somewhere in the underground Nerv laboratories.

(They actually look super happier than the originals, which is funny since minutes later someone pushes a button and they’re all destroyed. Lol)

Oh, and at some point she gets her period, which is somehow very important.

(that was the face I made too… )

Now you’re all probably asking: What the hell does that have anything to do with Ryo? Well, let me now introduce you to his character, Crosshair.

(Hey, she looks kinda familiar…)

So this is Crosshair, who in this picture is, well…. A blatant rip off of Rei. The suit is almost exactly the same, the hair is exactly the same…. Yeah. Need I say more?

“But Enoby Dark’ness Demensia Ravin Whey!!” (yet another nickname) you yell at the screen. “She’s not an EXACT rip off. I mean, she has that eyepatch! Rei from Evangelion is NEVER seen with an ey—“

(Bam! Before you can even finish that statement.)

This is an official screencap from the actual animation, shortly after the attack of the first angel I do believe. So yeah. BLATANT rip off. Even the freakish anatomy is slightly similar: The original artists always gave the girls freakish proportions, AKA Pencil thin limbs, even smaller waists, etc., et. Ryo copied the waist and arms, but gave her giant hips, legs and (of course) boobs. Because we can’t have artwork of an ironing board, now, can we? Nooo, who wants a deep story of an average looking, not so averagly-fucked up little girl when you can replace all that creepy girl with a creepier story garbage with tits and ass?

But that’s not enough to declare a rip off, you say? What about the name, you say? Surely, Enubi Dark’ness dementioa rabin wayyy, surely he didn’t rip off the na---

(Bam! I do so love interrupting ye of little faith.)

So, like me, she has a ridiculous number of names (because hey, it’s just as in fashion as my leather corset. And my hot pink fishnets. And my pale skin and blood red lips and heavy eyeshadow and my tiny black tutu skirt that shows the bottoms of my butt and…) But look at her name real name:

Samantha Rei Nebulus Dark.

Because originality is soooo 2000-and-late. And everyone’s name HAS to have “Dark” tossed in somewhere. Like mine!

Okay, so, obviously Ryo is a fan of Evangelion and let some of his obsession with Rei seep into his own stories, right? I mean, who hasn’t done that every once in a while?

Wrong. Wrong!

In the description for his aforementioned drawing, “As you can see, she's inspired by Rei Ayanami from Evangelon. I've never once seen the show or game or whatever it is, but I've seen Rei before in Furan-San's gallery.” He saw fanart of Rei, really liked her appearance (Especially since the guy he’s talking about gave her tits bigger than Pam-An,) didn’t bother to actually WATCH the series and learn her story (which is a shame, it was really good, but all that “fighting angels” stuff might not sit well with him anyways, being a fundie Christian and whatnot.) and then blatantly rip off her appearance and name and come up with his own “original” character?

Yup! Pretty much!

This is a point about Ryo I must make: He’s very, very shallow. He sees characters (Rei, MegaMan X, Just about every fuckin’ Zelda character ever, ect ect) doesn’t bother with their actual stories, rips off their appearances and tweaks them slightly (adding boobs to just about every one of them, even the men) gives them a half-assed names (MegaMan X = Spyborg, Link in red tunic on steroids = Ryuu, Rei =…. Rei) and calls them his own original characters. Even Sonic recolors aren’t that bad, at least they don’t paste boobies everywhere.

Oh, and speaking of Sonic recolors? He did that too.

(And he pasted boobies on Charmy. So wrong on so many levels.)

Anyways, back to my point: Ryo is shallow as hell. He don’t want no fat chicks or ironing boards or even scrawny guys. No, everything has to either be straight out of a playboy magazine or jacked up on so many steroids even Ah-nold would tremble in fear at a bodybuilding competition. Not only that, but he doesn’t pay ANY attention to the characters personalities or backgrounds: It’s all looks. What does that say about Ryo? Well, basically, He’s all Tits or GTFO. I’m guessing he’s like this in real life too. Except he can’t conjure up big-breasted women with itty bitty waists and childbearing hips in the real world. Hence why he resorts to manipulating the girls in pictures he sees on the internet. And poor Rei was the target this time. He erased all her personality (believe it or not, she had one) and gave her a cookie-cutter, generic personality with a half-assed backstory. Speaking of which, let’s look at that, shall we?

Samantha Rei was born on the planet of Galaction, a rather famous place in that section of space. She was third in a family of five kids and both parents. Samantha Rei - who liked to just be called "Rei", for short - thought she wasn't any use to her parents. The eldest, Jacob, was dad's pride and joy as he did the things every boy dream of, being great at athletics and getting the high grades. The older sister, Meredith, was miss perfect, being an excellent cook, decorator and being beautiful. The twins, Anna and Jamie, were both the babies of the family, getting a lot of attention---

WOAH WOAH WOAH WOAH WOAH. Woah. Back up for a sec.

So the oldest boy in the family was Dad’s “pride and joy” because he got high grades and was good at sports while the oldest girl was praised for….. BEING PRETTY AND ABLE TO COOK.

This is another defining trait of Ryo: He relies strictly on gender roles for characters. That’s why his envisioning of his own Gary-Sue character is a borderline god with enough muscles to put Ah-nold to shame while his wife, Queen Zelda, is….. A hot chick with big boobs who does pretty much what she’s told. Because Men are the protectors (and rulers) of women, and the women….. do what they’re told to by their male masters—whoops, did I say masters? I meant husbands, their partners in holy matrimony and.. whatnot.

Nonetheless, little Meredith here is praised for being in a kitchen and making everything pretty because that’s what women do in Ryoland: No, their worth isn’t measured in being smart or physically fit (aside from the cosmetic appeal of a fit woman.) No, her worth is measured in how good a beef stroganoff they can make without messing up the kitchen or their nails, and despite nursing three babies along all day, cooking a giant meal for everyone and keeping the house clean still looking like a MILF and, if the man wants it, still putting out despite how exhausted she is.

This reliance on gender roles is also probably the reason why Ryo hates gay men, specifically. Simply put, a woman can be butch or manly and that’s okay with Ryo (as long as she still looks like a playboy play mate and, despite her attitude, still does whatever the fuck men tell her to do.) Men, however, are always muscly, tough, brute plow horses who don’t take shit from anyone, especially their naggy wives. Making a pie? That’s a woman’s job. Taking care of a man? That’s a woman’s job. Watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? That’s a woman’s job… er, show. (This is STRICTLY from his POV. MLP Is an AWESOME show. Jus’ sayin. Brohoof.) The point is, he can’t handle men acting like anything other than…. Men. This is just one of my numerous theories as to why he hates gay men, but is seemingly tolerant of lesbians (as long as they’re hot.)

Anyways, back to shitty writing.

She wasn't bad at anything she did, but she didn't excel like her older siblings did, but she wasn't the cute little girl that gave her the attention like the twins did.

… but she wasn’t the cute little girl that gave her the attention like the twins did?

Okay, this will be the ONLY time I will be pointing out grammar problems in his writing because if I keep going I’ll be here alllllllll fucking night. But yeah, that sentence was horribly thought out.

Moving on.

Rei wasn't considered as very pretty at all, being more solid in form and having thicker features like bigger bones, shoulders and lips. Eventually, she got tired of being shoved in the back. She was wanting to do something no one else in her family - other than her dad - had ever done... go into the Galacticon Republic Space Army.

At first, her parents were skeptical. Could Rei really handle that sort of environment. She may be a tom-boy, but she's still a girl. They were both shocked to hear Rei's response to that, and yet it made her father think - "So what?" Her mother thought that Rei was just asking for attention since this definitely was stirring up things. Eventually, she saw just how serious she was when she caught her daughter filling out an enrollment form. Shamelessly, Rei answered, "I can't go to the Army if I don't enroll, Mom. Even Jamie can tell you that."

The day came, Rei at 18 years old left the house when Sergent Fang, a war veteran, came to collect her to the recruit camp. Although her father believed she wouldn't last a month, Rei would be away for six years in the Military...

Again with the gender roles. So. Because Rei isn’t “pretty” because she’s got a more solid frame, she never got any attention. This, again, reflects Ryo’s perception of what is acceptable in a woman: Looks. Also, look at the parents reaction of little Rei’s desire to go into the military: “She may be a Tomboy (no – there, Ryo. It’s one word.) but she’s still a girl.”

“BUT SHE’S STILL A GIRL.”

Ryo. Look at footage of the ongoing (as far as I know) war in Afghanistan. What do you see? Soldiers. Notice anything? That’s right. Some of them are WOMEN. Women in the military isn’t a big deal nowadays. So why are Rei’s parents reacting like their daughter just robbed a bank or something? Why did Rei’s mother “Catch” her filling out an enrollment form, much like one would catch their child looking at midget scheiße porn? Why does a man, whose daughter’s words got him to seemingly rethink his stone-age ways, suddenly have very little faith in her?

Why is Ryo writing about it like it’s a huge, earth-shattering concept?

Because to him, it is.

Anyways, going on.

While she was there, Rei began to get changes in her life, both physical and mental. She took very good care of herself and paid attention well in her courses. She became very intelligent and found a very unique talent - her aiming was unlike anything Sergent Fang had ever seen in a new recruit. He decided she would specialize in firearms because unlike any other, she was deadly with one even in her first days of practice. But other things also took place, like her form finally began to fill out, as one would call her a late bloomer. She actually began to get the attention of the guys there. Another thing was her speed in learning and performance which led her to ascend in rank fairly quickly. At the end of six years, she had become one of five in the Elite SWAT Gold Bar division! When the wars got tough, they'd call on her for help.

So.. Rei “becomes” intelligent, (because we ALL know women aren’t born intelligent like men are, only when thrown into a male dominated camp can they “become” intelligent like them) does really good in her courses and has ungodly aim that even the war-vet Sergeant Halfassedname has never seen before, but the attention she gets from men is from….. HER FORM FILLING OUT.

I’m not going to rant on again about Ryo’s extremely shallow perspective of women, because again, I’ll be here all fucking night.

And a tough war did come... An event that would change Rei's life forever.

*shrieking roar*

 (Love how he adds his own sound effects to his writing. He should write his own theme song while he’s at it: Ryo, the amazing sexist.)

Draco.

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG DRACO’S IN THIS?!

--- Oh, not that Draco.

Damn. Way to rip off yet another established character’s name and get my hopes up at the same time. Dick.

Anyways, not going to get into the rest of the story. Pretty much, she’s no match for Draco and gets sliced to shit and brought back from the brink of death by some aliens who are geniuses with robotic medicine… And plastic surgery.

 (OMG SHE WAS MAULED TO PIECES THE HORROR I CAN'T EVEN LOOK AT IT)

That’s right: she still looks like a pinup model, even with her eye slashed out and her legs sliced off, because we can’t make her look like a scarred up freak with creepy android legs, now, can we? How will the preteens fap to that?

Also, after being mauled (and only having a scar on her eye to show it) she feels like she’s lost her life. Yes, that’s right, while most of us would be jumping around pretending to be fucking inspector Gadget, she mopes around that she’s an android because of her lost legs and an eye (and having some robotic parts make you a full-out android. Wikipedia, Ryo, it’s your best friend.) So basically, according to Ryo, the loss of her natural beauty makes a woman lose her sense of worth, and Rei, who was previously bent on just being a war hero and didn’t give a flying rats ass about her body, suddenly felt the same. So much so, that it was mentioned as a reason for revenge, even before he mentions the death of her fellow soldiers.

Here’s the ending to this craptacular story:

With her new robotic eye, she dubbed herself "Crosshair". And her sights were aimed at him... Draco.

You know.. just in case you forgot who “him” is, despite his name being mentioned in the sentence just before this one. Also, what does the eye have ANYTHING to do with crosshairs? Does her eye’s sight have a crosshair aiming system in it? This, my friends, is never answered. I guess he wanted a sniper-esque name for her, and couldn’t come up with anything more original than Crosshair. Well, at least he didn’t directly rip off a name of a previously-existing character he knew nothing about, right RED team sniper from TF2?

(Maybe he just doesn’t know his name…Ah well. Throw another shrimp on the barbie.)

Also, time for a little art criticism.

(Dat ass)

I…. had to think for a few hours about why the HELL she would be posed like that and making that face. I finally came to a conclusion: She MUST have been sniffing her own fart, and the photographer must have just caught her initial reaction to the smell.

Because yeah, real women don’t pose like that or make that face, especially at the same time.

But Ryo keeps commenting on how blocky and heavyset Rei is, but…. LOOK AT HER WAIST. Blocky, stocky, brute women don’t have a fucking 18” waist. So basically to Ryo, it’s okay to be a bigger, heavier girl…. So long as you still have a small waist and hip-bones that somehow still stick out. (Ryo, that doesn’t happen in even really skinny women. Maybe if she was anorexic. Srsly, anatomy dude, books about it aren’t very expensive.)

Also, as the more perceptive of you may have noticed already, you see that Metroid rip-off floating around her? Ryo insists it’s not a rip-off because Metroids are transparent and Volvox (yeah, that doesn’t sound like a part of female anatomy, not at all what are you talking about ah ha ha) isn’t. Because, unless it’s copied RIGHT DOWN TO THE T THAN IT’S TTLY ORIGINAL YOU GAIS!!!! Also, in this image, he ripped off the suit she’s wearing from Gaia online. GAIA ONLINE. And he doesn’t even TRY to cover this up, ladies and gentlemen. He flat-out says it. So not only can he not design his own characters, but he also has to rip off their clothes?

Apparently!

Anyways, I could rage about this for hours but I think I’ve hit every nail about this character straight on the head. Not bad for a first submission, methinks. A little unpolished, but eh, what can you do. I’m certainly not going to kill myself with a steak over it.

Mmmm… Steak….

Fangz for reading guys! This is Enguy Drks’nesss Denentia Rwavbin Wayyu, changin’ into a bat and flying away.

PS: For a full description of what I’m wearing, stay tuned! I’ll keep you updated on that every post I make, c-r-o-s-s my heart and hope to die!! <3 Fangz again!!!

Wherein Ryuu Fails Musical Instruments Forever

Hey, y'all. 'Sup.

This one's sort of an oldie (though really it looks indistinguishable from the new stuff he puts out), but still classic Ryuu. All the elements are there: shitty drawing, lined paper, more crap about his AU that no one really cares about, bland concept, and a crippling aversion to research. Say hello to Ryo's Panpipe.

Admittedly, I didn't identify the major problem with this pic right off the bat. I was distracted by the wobbly lines and the really horrible foreshortening that makes it look all squashed, and the fact that the whole thing is skewed sideways, like an elephant had parked its wrinkly pachyderm ass on top of it. But then, like that very same elephant had lifted its tail and aimed a steaming megaton of green, grassy feces right at the center of my hat, it hit me:

Ryuu put whistle mouthpieces on a fucking pan flute.

Really shitty ones, too. They're all stubby and kind of jut up higher than the rest of the flute, and the holes don't follow the cylindrical form of the tubes at all. They're just wobbly square things, floating there for no fucking reason. On a whistle, these mouthpieces would fail utterly and still show a ghastly amount of ignorance on Ryuu's part, but THIS IS A PAN FLUTE.

It isn't like this is some obscure thing. This is right after Spirit Tracks came out, which he owns and has played extensively. As a matter of fact, I highly suspect that the only reason he made this pic is because he'd gotten a copy of Spirit Tracks for Christmas a few months prior. Obviously Spirit Tracks doesn't own a fucking copyright on pan flutes, but considering Ryuu's track record of ripping off anything and everything that he happens to like at the moment, his insistence on making a +1 Ryuu version of everything good in a Zelda game, and the fact that he immediately lost interest in the flute right after he made it, I really wouldn't put it past him.

And yet he failed so UTTERLY at this that I don't even have words to express how baffled I am about it. This is like putting a trumpet mouthpiece on a saxophone. This is like playing a drum with chicken drumsticks. Does he really think that pan flutes work like that? Has he never seen one before, even in his childhood? I can't count the number of times I've passed up vendors selling cheap novelty shit, with heaping bowls of little cheapass yarn-covered pan flutes that barely work, and I grew up in some teeny-ass towns, so it's not like this is just a city thing.

And if, somehow, this was the case, if somehow he'd really never seen one IRL in his entire life, and SOMEHOW he'd never ever fucking actually looked at the top of the Spirit Flute while he was blowing into his DS, why didn't it occur to him to GOOGLE IT? It's not even hard to find; just type in 'pan flute' and you end up with literally millions of pictures of them, in all different sizes and shapes and styles and levels of complexity. There's info on how they work. There's info on how to make them.

There's really no excuse for this. Ryuu didn't care in the slightest about quality or accuracy. He simply pulled this shit out of his ass so that he could throw it down as fast as he could and minimize the wait for all the praise he'd get for his creative genius. And the sun rises in the east, the tide goes in, blah blah blah.

As an aside, I think it's kind of funny that there's notation written on it, like it was necessary for Ryuu to have the parts labelled in order to know how to play it. Imagine if the Ocarina of Time had all the buttons written on it, like some kind of cheap grade-school recorder.

I also think it's a little strange that he uses our version of a treble clef when Hyrule's clef symbol is quite different. Way to pay attention to the details, there, Ryuu baby.