Mario and Battletoads have never been more awesome.
"Hello, I'm Diabetus. I have diabetes. There is nothing you should know before viewing this channel."
Ben "Diabetus" Whitfield is a Let's Player — one of the first, in fact, originating from Something Awful. He's known for his Battletoads Let's Plays, which turned into a kind of motif for him, as well as a memetic run of Captain Novolin. He hails from Alabama (which he often makes jokes about it), is good friends with slowbeef, and has a pretty laid-back personality.
Aside from his own LPs, he's also known for being the co-founder of Retsupurae, along with slowbeef.
You can find his videos here
, here, and here.
Note: This page is for tropes pertaining to Diabetus's Let's Plays. Tropes pertaining to Retsupurae and Webcam Ward should go here.
Diabetus's Let's Plays provide examples of:
- Ancient Grome: In the Metroid Fusion LP, Diabetus mistakenly calls the Greek letters Alpha, Gamma, Zeta, and Omega as being part of the Latin alphabet.
- Angrish: During one of the cutbacks to his rematch with
Yakuza in Metroid Fusion. - Annoying Video Game Helper: During the Metroid Fusion LP, Diabetus and slowbeef quickly get irritated with Adam's constant briefings.Diabetus: (after one particularly bad example) You patronizing little ass! I know where to go! Shut up!
- Berserk Button: When The Runaway Guys had a Battletoads event during their thrown controllers panel and didn't tell Diabetus, Slowbeef and some of the crowd had to physically restrain him to keep him from storming the stage.
- Catchphrase: "Battletoads."
- An older one being "Watch out for that Beamos!"
- Chirping Crickets: Spliced in by Diabetus as reaction to a particularly bad joke told by slowbeef in the Metroid Fusion LP.
- Continuity Nod: MeccaPrime had previously done a 0% run of Metroid Fusion alongside Diabetus' LP of the game. Later, when Mecca did a 100% run LP of the game, Diabetus guest-hosted... for the video which featured the Yakuza fight, complete with a black-and-white cutaway of Diabetus' gibberish-filled rematch from his own LP.
- Couch Gag: Every video of his Super Mario Galaxy 2 LP begins with a "space/face" pun due to every video opening on said game's Faceship. His guests are usually not very impressed.
- Deadpan Snarker: If something manages to get Diabetus' voice to rise, something's going on.
- Deep South: His Alabama heritage is a recurring subject of jokes.
- Draconian Popsicle: In the Fusion LP, 'Ridley's' interjections always end with a mention of just how cold he is.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Inverted with the Parallel Worlds LP. As the LP goes on, Zomodok and Diabetus both get more antagonistic with each other. It's Played for Laughs, but still.
- Forced Meme: Betus keeps trying to make "cazh" (short for "casual") a thing, much to slowbeef's annoyance.
- Heroic BSoD: Done rather literally in the Metroid Fusion LP. After Diabetus forgets to save after defeating Yakuza and gets sent back before the boss fight, the video immediately cuts to a test pattern and ends.
- Hourglass Plot: The entirety of the Parallel Worlds LP. Zomodok goes through the motions of getting frustrated and driven into hysterics by the game's difficulty while Diabetus pokes fun at him for it. Then when Diabetus takes over as the player, Zomodok returns as a guest in one of the final videos reveling in Diabetus's frustration by poking fun at him for it.
- The Lancer: To slowbeef in their Retsupraes.
- Like an Old Married Couple: Slowbeef and Diabetus occasionally. Especially during the Fusion LP.
- Manipulative Editing: Plays this for laughs in some of his LPs.
- Man of a Thousand Voices: A recurring talent of his during commentary.
- Meaningful Name: Diabetus does, in fact, have diabetes.
- Not So Stoic: Diabetus losing composure is a rare thing to hear. Good examples are his participation in this race of Battletoads, and these videos of him playing a brutal romhack of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: The Captain Novolin LP has the three players pretending to know nothing about diabetes.
- Once an Episode: In his Super Mario Galaxy 2 LP, every episode opens with a face related pun.
- Percussive Maintenance: In Fusion, Diabetus compares shooting the malfunctioning atmospheric stabilizers in Sector One to thumping a television.
- Pungeon Master: Tends to crack puns at every opportunity to a point when characters from Super Mario Galaxy 2 start making them, he claims to have hacked the game to make it happen.
- Relax-o-Vision: Used during Diabetus's run of Parallel Worlds during a particular vexing point where a door doesn't open and traps him inside a room, forcing him to restart. But not before going on a seething tirade interspersed with this trope. Bonus points for using footage by the trope namer.
- Running Gag: Diabetus is often associated with Battletoads after he played the first game and Battlemaniacs.
- Shout-Out: The playlist for his Super Mario Galaxy 2 let's play is called The Hitchhiker's Guide to Super Mario Galaxy 2, and the LP itself is 42 videos long.
- Take Up My Sword: During his stint as fellow goon Zomodok's co-commentator for Let's Play Parallel Worlds (a stupidly hard romhack of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past), he takes over the entire Let's Play when Zomodok opts out of playing the rest of the second quest.
- Training Montage: In the final stage of Battletoads in Battlemaniacs, Diabetus tries to train for it by playing various other SNES games, like Super Mario World, Mega Man X, and Captain Novolin.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Zomodok and Diabetus in the Parallel Worlds LP. Amusingly, it didn't start that way as they were both fairly amiable with each other at the LP's beginning, with the difficulty of the hack slowly driving a stake between them.
