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randomstranger24 · 2 months

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I’m certain a lot of people think I’m some deranged lunatic and will be skeptical and or just won’t believe anything I have to say. I totally get it and if it were me on the other end, I think I’d draw the same conclusion as well. It’s more than reasonable, but I promise there is a much bigger picture and I think you deserve to at least know another perspective.

Not sure where to begin. I’ll start off first by saying I won’t be referring to anyone’s names or occupations to conceal anyone’s identity including my own.

I owe a big apology not just to the BoC fans, but also to Mike and Marcus, not that they would even give a shit, but if so, I’m sure they’d hate my guts. Yes, I am the original creator of the “Thrift Store Tape" and no, I am of no relation to the brothers, (no surprise there). I do feel spiritually connected to their music though if that’s of any consequence? (no surprise there either) I’m sure they’ll never see this, but I realize I could be viewed as an untalented hack and a giant piece of shit. This, I understand and I accept it. I never had bad intentions, I promise that, but it’s like they always say, “The road to Hell is paved with good ones”.

Here’s how this entire thing got started. Regardless of what anyone might assume, I never in a million years set out to intentionally deceive people into believing this was some long lost BoC record. Hear me out and let me explain from the beginning.

For years prior to all of this, I have been experimenting with recording my musical creations onto VHS and cassette tapes in attempts to capture those warm fuzzy lofi aesthetics, but Sometimes the final product is actually disappointing because you’d be surprised how good VHS tapes actually hold sound. So, fast forward 2018, one of my housemates at the time, who was actually the one who helped manage a Red White And Blue thrift store. This was the catalyst of what sparked this idea in my head after my housemate mentioned all the blank VHS tapes that were being donated.

I Purchased a whole bin of tapes and started dubbing my music, (both old and new) onto the donated VHS tapes to send back to the thrift stores to be re-donated in efforts of someone finding them. Kind of like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it out to sea in hopes someone finds it. I would donate several of these VHS tapes and would leave my dubbed mixes over top of older shitty movies. I had the idea of rummaging through and curating all of my “Old Tunes” sound-alikes and Vaporwave tracks or anything sounding adjacent and placing them on several tapes.

I probably dubbed well over a hundred tapes over the years since 2018, both used and blanks

I ended up donating most of them to several different thrift stores. Mostly old generic shitty “dollar-bin” movies that nobody really wants and generic kids cartoons. I would never destroy a collectible VHS or anything of value, so no worries there, but I doubt anyone will ever find the ones sent out and even if they do, they’ll most likely throw it away or something. I have a few tapes that escaped that were made with music that accidentally got deleted years ago and I would pay top dollar to get back, but that’s another story for another day.

Anyway, So, my other friend (Not housemate), who, (we’ll just say, is an independent filmmaker of sorts) had the idea which kind of spawned from mine to do a found-footage VHS horror film project also known as “Analog Horror” or the genre at least. Now, keep in mind, this is the spring of 2020 during the height of the pandemic lockdown. So, time is all we had.

I had the idea of using an ARG for people to solve to lead them down a “Rabbit Hole” as part of an interactive movie project. It would start off pleasant and would progressively get more sinister and darker and even more disturbing the further down you went. My main intention and goal was to hopefully have this project be the subject of topic on a big name youtube channel like “Nexpo”. I figured the music and aesthetic would all be “Old Tunes- BoC-inspired” and would give it a more suitable twist. I figured any fans that would ever come across it would take notice instantly that it was “BoC-inspired” or at least the music. I also figured the BoC cover tracks would add a few disturbing layers to the mystique of this “Rabbit Hole” mystery. especially since we wanted to catch those "Backrooms" "Liminal Space" vibes.

I’m sure folks will be skeptical and that’s okay, but just hear me out on this and yes, I’d be thinking the same way too, so I certainly do understand any skepticism.

Originally, the inspiration for the name “Strange Soup” Mixtape was used in the original upload in efforts to connect ties to this twisted bizarrely disturbing video titled “Blank Room Soup (Dark Web Video)”.

Now, you can do a google search about this video. It was a strange mysterious viral sensation for quite a few years after emerging on 4chan and has been a part of other “Rabbit Holes”. We ended up deleting the original video so that another one could be uploaded in place of it.

The idea was to incorporate it as part of this story, but we needed to scratch other ideas altogether because the numbers did not properly equate to the letters we needed to start the ARG and time was running out. We also needed the upload date to fall in line with the project. The creation of these ARG’s are not easy to create. Believe me when I tell you. I’m just some uneducated moron, so figuring this stuff out took trial and error. Even with the help of my friend.

Now, if all would have gone as planned, we would have opened another account uploading another tape in connection with the thrift store tape. We were in search of materials to craft out costumes like the one’s seen in the “Blank Room Soup” video and wanted to utilize the office space at my friend's school.

Originally, this is how this should have all played out in order for this horror project to have worked. We needed The first video to be uploaded at a certain date in order to maintain validity for the ARG storyline so it could be incorporated into the film project. The goal from the start was never to deceive people into believing this was a “long-lost BoC record”. I’ll explain more below.

The next step, after a week or two, was to have all of us post the link to the video in “thrift store finds facebook groups” in order to drum up the mystery. He and I shared the link on a few of the forums online such as Reddit and so on. The forums had absolutely nothing to do with music or ARG’s. Just thrift store finds and VHS collector’s groups. We wanted to build the mystery up and clue people in eventually. The original video sat on youtube for quite some time. It had like maybe 60-75 views after a month. That view count just stayed stagnant. Then one day in, I think late March out of nowhere, I got the messages in the comments. They were friendly at first with some people just mentioning it was “Boards of Canada”. I thought to myself, “Oh shit, they found the video”. Soon the view count just kept on climbing and Soon enough some folks started becoming hostile. I convinced my housemate to make a response video explaining everything. We all thought this was the best course of action because of how unbiased he’ll be for the simple fact, he has no idea who BoC is (Well, he does now lol) and he is not a musician, like, at all haha.

Me and my filmmaker friend were excited at first that at least we had an audience now and could run with it. So I figured the response video my housemate put out would quell any outrage and save our project in order to move forward but, boy, was I dead wrong.

The views kept climbing up and the comments kept coming. People were becoming hostile and outraged. Things got way too real and I started to panic slightly. I have a bad anxiety disorder and it triggered it for sure. I just had all these thoughts like, “What if I get sued by the band?” I had nightmares of the brothers coming after me and them telling me how much of a piece of shit I am.

BoC fans are some of the craftiest people you’ll ever come across, lemme tell ya lol.

They had somehow figured out the metadata from the original deleted video that was uploaded months prior. After it was confirmed and revealed to me they could dig this info up, I was in a full blown panic attack. I started hyperventilating. I messaged my buddy and told him what was up. He was against it at first, but I told him, “hey I have to delete this whole channel, they’re going to find out where I live next and who I am!” I just had the worst thoughts imaginable.

So, I hit the “Killswitch” button and within minutes it all vanished like a bad dream. I was genuinely worried at first that I could potentially face legal backlash, but my friend explained to me that I wasn't out there putting any BoC label on it or even labeling the tracks and attempting to make any money from it.

Some time had passed and the dust settled a little bit. I was kind of shocked to see people had ripped the original audio from the video and were sharing it to facebook and reddit and soon uploaded to Youtube. The “Dan Fingerman” channel was the first to reupload as I read through the comments and to my surprise they were all mostly positive. Some people thought for sure the music was BoC and others were skeptical, but most of them didn’t believe for a second, but yet still they kept talking about how much they enjoyed it. Even “David Firth” the creator of “Salad Fingers” left a comment at some point stating he liked the music, but didn’t care for the BS backstory. I was so happy that this music that had been sitting around for years on end had finally found a home somewhere.

This music is only meant for a small niche audience. Most folks will not appreciate it. I think where I really fucked up, was becoming addicted to the excitement of seeing people enjoy the music that I had accumulated over a decade. Believe me when I tell you, there is more where that all came from. It is ridiculous the hundreds of unfinished or hidden tracks I have stored on several harddrives, VHS and cassette tapes, but I am happy to finally put it all to bed today.

Here’s where I need to really step up and take accountability for my ignorance and selfishness.

Again, I was truly happy that people were actually enjoying the music so I did a foolish thing and ran with it like an idiot. All the hate and backlash that I will receive after all of this is all well deserved. Yes, I’m a giant loser, I'm an idiot, a talentless hack with no life. I’ll take the “L”. I just wanted to purge the last of this music and put an end to all of it once and for all. I think this was much needed and I can now move on with my life and stop obsessing over creating music that sounds like BoC. I can go back to writing and producing dark progressive black and death metal like I once used to lol.

The day I discovered BoC’s music is the day it changed my life forever and how I saw the world through a new lens. I became obsessed with wanting to replicate their sound. I think it is more than relevant to talk about it to help illustrate my madness.

Growing up in my teen years I was an extreme metal fanatic. I listened to a lot of black and death metal bands and played in many metal bands as a guitarist. My biggest influences were bands like Slayer, Immortal, Death, Opeth, Dimmu Borgir, Gorgoroth, Deicide, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest. You name it, If it was extreme, I was probably into them. I wanted nothing to do with any music that wasn’t extreme metal. I was very narrow-minded back then. That’s not to say I’m no longer a fan of metal, I’m just not as closed off as I used to be.

As the years went on, I would watch my favorite front men from the most prolific metal bands give interviews and mention their musical influences and would always be blown away by how far away from metal their influences actually were. One of them would mention Radiohead in multiple interviews and naturally I got curious and started trying out “Radiohead" and soon fell in love with Thom Yorke’s experimentations. I think this is where my taste began to shift. I started getting into the “chill trip-hop’ genres and bands like Portishead, producers like DJ Shadow, Flying Lotus, and J Dilla. So pretty much the recipe for being receptive to BoC was already in the making.

Eventually I stopped playing in bands after I learned how to play every instrument: Bass, Piano, drums and so on. It just got too hectic with everyone’s schedules to keep the dedication. I wanted so badly to learn how to write, record, and produce my own music. At the time I had a friend who used “Frooty Loops” to make Industrial beats, but that was about it and he would never teach me how to use the program. I wanted so badly to make my own black metal album and perform and record all the instruments as well as sing vocals.

“Opeth’s” front man Mikael Akerfeldt influenced me in other directions from the metal genre and

I eventually outgrew those desires and over time I became more interested in collecting vintage things like vhs camcorders, tape players, and record players. This really set the stage for me. Some years later, I was surfing Youtube in 2008 in search of videos on the drug `DMT" and a slideshow video of psychedelic imagery started playing and that’s when I was introduced to BoC's "Roygbiv" for the first time. As I was listening, it was like something inside of me was born. I’ll never forget that day.

Now, I grew up in the 80’s and I distinctly remember “PBS” and the shows that would air back then like Reading Rainbow and Sesame Street. As I’m listening to Roygbiv, I was in this state of disbelief. How did they manage to pull that off? These sounds of rich warm vintage analog tones of the mid 70’s TV bumpers on public broadcasting networks. It took me right back to my childhood and unlocked this part of me that had been missing my entire life. I had shivers down my spine. From that moment, I instantly fell in love. I just had to find out who the creator of this music was. I did some digging and one comment read the band name and I sought out more of their music. The next track I listened to was “Bocuma" and it buried into my soul even deeper. I had both tracks on repeat all day. It took me back to the simple days of my childhood of the early 80’s. I just had to find out what software they were using. I wanted to learn how one could possibly recreate something of the past with such an unreal haunting aesthetic.

I eventually found out this music was released in 1998 and that, of itself blew my mind as well.

I was so certain the music was from the present day using “present-day-computer-technology”.

Eventually, I got my hands on a computer and started to dabble in music production and also learned how to convert analog to digital and vise/versa. I had read on multiple forums and interviews of how they could achieve their signature sound and naturally I followed.

I would damage and degrade tapes to record on them and I had some incredible results and as mentioned before, a lot of disappointment because VHS has such a good HIFI sound. Almost better than any digital.

I would fall asleep and dream of melodies and try to figure them out. It got to a point where it plagued everything I did musically. Everything I would make would always end up sounding similar to their music. This is why I am happy today, to purge the last of it and move on with my life.

Am I mentally ill? Perhaps? Am I a lunatic? Far from it, but I needed to get all this out of my system. I am sorry for everything and I hope you can just enjoy the music for what it is. It was never about clout or recognition. I'm not here to profit financially. All I ever wanted was it all to find a home. Thank you so much for even listening and giving it the time. I owe so much to them. They opened my eyes to a whole other artistic realm. Special thanks and gratitude all goes to the brothers for all the inspiration over the many years. Thank you Mike and Marcus. Your music has settled deep within my heart and I will take it to the grave. Thank you so much and Thank all of you for all your kind words that I probably don’t deserve. Thank you for taking the time to read. I am so grateful.

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afatlotofchance · 10 months

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7 deadly sins: All about gluttony (1)

I have been talking around with other fellow members of the kink community about the seven deadly sins – and of course, our favorite sin of all, gluttony. The seven deadly sins have always been an obsession of mine for quite some times, leading me to extensively study them. And since I am trying to get back into the kink wagon I thought – why not actually make a full, extensive, detailed but still general enough expose about gluttony, to understand what this sin truly is, where it came from and what it truly entails?

If you do not like this kind of religious-social-historical-academical posts, you are free to scroll pass. If you are not part of our kinks, and merely want to inform yourself about the sin of gluttony, feel free to join in! Or to be clearer…

WARNING: This is not a kink post, but if you find yourself discovering this place, know that it is a kink blog, and this is why I will include some kink references inside the text. But don’t worry, reading this text won’t make you a “perv”. And if you’re here for just pure kink, well sorry, here we do non-kink stuff too. Enjoy

I) What is gluttony?

For many people, gluttony is just “Eating too much.” For them, that’s it, and this is why gluttony is the least intimidating, frightening or important of the seven deadly sins. To take back a very recent topic, this idea of gluttony being about just over-eating and “being a fatass” popped its head back up when the indie cartoon-webseries “Helluva Boss” revealed its design for Beelzebub, the demon of gluttony, centered around alcohol, candy and honey rather than just obesity and slobs everywhere. Many people were confused or complained as to why gluttony wasn’t properly depicted – when in fact it was!

Being while eating too much IS gluttony, gluttony isn’t JUST eating too much. Like the “all thumbs are fingers but not all fingers are thumbs” saying. To explain what gluttony truly is I will point out something that was repeated through two works exploring the seven deadly sins: Niven and Pournelle’s Inferno, and C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape. In both works of fiction, among the sinners of gluttony, can be found the very opposite of over-eaters. On one side, a strict and austere old woman who eats very little and keeps complaining about every kind of food she meets, on the other a fitness nut and health-obsessed gym-trainer who was constantly on a diet. These sinners surprise as they do not seem to be gluttonous, and yet they are by the original and essential definition of the sin… because they are obsessed with food. They let food dictate their life, and to take back a famous saying of the Bible, they allow their belly to become their God. Dante described the seven deadly sins are corrupted, misguided or exaggerated forms of love – unhealthy love. And gluttony is an unhealthy, excessive or corrupted love for food. A love turned into obsession – and while this obsessive love can manifest in uncontrolled cravings and overeating, such an obsession can be equally found among picky eaters who develop extremely specific and limiting eating habit, or in fitness gurus who are obsessed with measuring every portion of what they eat and keep calculating their calories intake to the day.

Gluttony is about making food, and the act of eating, more than what it is and more than what it is supposed to be. As the common saying goes, you eat to live – you do not live to eat.

Mind you, these interpretations are actually quite recent and prevalent of the modern days (20th century and onward), in older times the limiting and restricting food obsessions would have been seen as being actually GOOD by the religion – and we’ll talk about that later – but these examples serve to get my point across. Gluttony is much more than just eating too much, it is a fascinating world of nuances that I invite you to explore with me.

II) The types of gluttony

To quote Queen Bee-lzeebub’s catchphrase in Helluva Boss, “I am what you want… No what you need.” This is true for gluttony, as much as it is true for most of the seven deadly sins. The deadly sins are about people living in their personal wants, in the excess, in the superfluous – not actually taking care of what they truly need, in their body or in their mind. Getting money to live is normal, because it is what you need to survive in a society – but hoarding and accumulating enormous amounts of money you will never spend becomes is not needed, because it delves into the realm of the obsession and the excessive. The same way, to eat in itself is not something evil – because we need to eat to live, it is part of the very workings of nature. Gluttony is specifically about when we eat when we do not need it, about eating for oneself and for personal whims and desires, not out of hunger or nutrition. All the deadly sins are born from pride, and all the deadly sins are a form of selfishness.

Mind you, this idea comes as a double-edged blade. On one side, this concept is good and “positive” because it enforced before its time a message we truly need to hear and live by today – in our society of pollution, massive waste, over-production and over-consumption, we have forgotten that sometimes we need to restrict ourselves to what we just need, that our “wants” are supposed to be secondary before what is actually needed to live and survive, that a whim is not a need, that simplicity is a way to survive… It all makes sense when you consider the time, society and situation the sin of gluttony was created: a world where food was scarce and not cheap, a world where famines came regularly, a world where a lot of toil and hard work was needed to obtain your meal… On the other side, this concept is also “negative” and quite bad – especially in the way the Church used it. Because while it is true that our needs should come before our wants, Christianity (especially Catholicism) went many times to the extreme of this idea, by denying, rejecting or demonizing the concept of want and of personal pleasure. Take the sin of lust for example: in the “extreme-practical” mindset of religion, sex is only good if it is used for marital duties and to procreate. By logic, all sex that does not give birth, all sex that is not with a husband or a wife, all sex that is done merely for its pleasure, for itself, for oneself, becomes “evil” and “sinful”. We know today that sex is a natural thing and that there is no shame in having recreational and non-reproductive sex – but the Church for centuries put in people’s head the idea that not-needed sex was evil, and that wanting to have sex was devilish. All of this to say, when it comes to Christianity’s appreciation of sin, there’s always good parts that are timeless, and there’s always bad parts that are outdated.

So – gluttony is eating out of want, not out of need. Of course we fall back on the “overeating” aspect, but you might be surprise to learn it is much more nuanced than that. Saint Thomas of Aquinas, one of the great authorities on the seven deadly sins, specified and clarified the use of five different types of gluttony – five different means by which one stops merely eating and starts committing the sin of gluttony. They go by the Latin names: Praepropere, laute, nimis, ardenter, studiose. (Thomas actually updated/rewrote a very similar classification that had been done by Gregory the Great, the Pope that finalized the list of the seven deadly sins as we know them today)

The “overeating” part of gluttony everybody knows today is the nimis gluttony: being a glutton by eating more food than what we need. This is the glutton that eats more than what he needs to satisfy his hunger, that eats more than what he needs to feel full – it is the glutton that keeps eating not because he is hungry, not because he still has room in his stomach, but because he likes the tastes, because he wants to eat, and this goes into the most sickening part of over-eating and binge-eating, as the person will make themselves nauseous or damage their internal organs just to keep eating.

Opposed to the “quantity” is the “quality”, and this is the laute gluttony. Here the excess isn’t in the amount of food ingested, but in the quality researched: this type of glutton will only ask for the best, the most refined, the rarest and most delicious thing. In the practical world of Christianity, people should be able to satisfy themselves with what they have, they should be able to find pleasure in small, humble and simple things, they should never forget that no matter how unappealing or lowly a meal is, if it is nourishing and will help you live/grow/survive, you should appreciate it. But the laute glutton only lives for a world of extravagance, luxury and refined tastes – this glutton cannot stand lower food, cannot satisfy himself with an humble meal, and will only require the best. This was seen as sinful by the Church because it was tied to the topic of “waste”, which was one of the most defining problems of gluttony: the laute gluttony is a waste of time, effort and money in the search of the rarest, most luxurious, tastiest food. People who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for a meal at a luxury restaurant could have used this same money for something more useful – like helping the poor, or maybe giving it to hungry children to let them buy a decent meal. But no, they preferred to spend it all on their personal whim to taste something good. This concept of waste was also what damned the nimis gluttony, because the over-eating glutton will take on his plate, on his table, in his kitchen more than what he can actually ingurgitate, and so his meals will always end up with a big amount of leftovers, and he won’t be able to finish properly his meal where everything is half-bitten, and he will let good food spoil and rot because he didn’t have time to cook it with the rest… In medieval times where, as I said previously, famines were common place, such a food waste was seen as a very foolish and indecent crime.

The laute gluttony is often confused and mixed with the studiose gluttony, which is also a sin of luxury, but instead of the quality of the food, it lies with the obsession of how the food is prepared. The studiose glutton will seek all sorts of sauces and spices to go along with his food, and obsess about specific ways of the food being cut, or served, or cooked. For religion it was foolish to spend an enormous amount of time, attention and energy in the cooking of a meal when it could be done very easily and simply. We would call them today fussy eaters or picky eaters – the kind of people who will throw away a perfectly good dish just because it isn’t prepared as they are accustomed to. Churchmen had especially a big problem with things such as sauces and spices, which were the actual true reason the studiose gluttony even exist – for the religion, food exists as a gift from God. Vegetables and meats and other kind of foods exist naturally and freely in the world because the world was designed so it could be self-sustainable and we would not starve if treating well the nature around us. A fruit or a fish was in itself designed by God/nature to feed us, and to be enough to satisfy us – and so when the Church saw people obsessing about spices and sauces, not being satisfied with the simple taste of foods but always wanting additional flavors, and mixed combinations, and refusing to just eat plain greens or a simple cooked meat because they wanted something else to go alongside it, they saw this as an ungrateful move, as a form of “culinary vanity” obsessing over the appearances and superficial flavors rather than the true essence or quality of the dish.

Finally, gluttony is about a lack of self-control, or a lack of complete control. The virtue opposite to gluttony is temperance – which is the ability of control oneself, to regulate one’s desires, to only do what is needed to be done and no more, to not enter into excess or frenzy. As a result, the last two forms of gluttony are those that break temperance: praepropere, eating before time, and ardenter, eating too voraciously. The latter was about people eating in a frenzy, eating too voraciously and wildly, like animals, with no matters and no patience – about people eating with such an intensity, such a passion, such a pleasure it becomes indecent and disturbing. In fact, it was one of the common criticism of gluttony: that it made a man more like a beast than anything. Gluttony made the man like a pig, as he devoured everything sloppily ; gluttony made a man like a bear, as he stuffed his face, ready to endanger himself for sweet treats and attacking anyone that tried to deprive him of his food ; gluttony made a man like a wolf as he voraciously attacked his food and couldn’t wait for his next meal, jumping on any morsel before his eyes. Which ties into the praepropere gluttony – for the Church, having a regulate daily routine was VERY important, and thus there were fixed meals, fixed hours, fixe times for eating. It was how things worked in the Middle Ages, and being unable to wait for the next meal to come, snacking between meals, was seen as a form of gluttony.

It might seem quite harmless for you today, but you have to understand something from back then: the importance of meals. Meals weren’t just a time for eating, in medieval and pre-medieval times. A meal was seen as a moment of communion and gathering for a community: be it a monastery or an army or a family, everything gathered around the same table, and ate the same food, and the rite of the meal united, strengthen and bonded humans together over a common event. Meals were one of the very basis of sociability – which is why great holidays and big celebrations and grand festivals had huge banquets and large meals. Because a meal was the defining unit of social relationships – to eat all alone, not waiting for the others, not waiting for the commonly agreed and shared ritual, was seen as a truly selfish and antisocial behavior. In fact this was yet again one of the other “poisons” of gluttony in people’s mind: the glutton was perceived as the very embodiment of antisociability, as the glutton only thought about himself and his needs, out of utter selfishness ; the glutton never shared anything, the glutton never gave, only taking and consuming ; the glutton was paranoid, constantly living in fear of others taking what is his or eating what he wants – and even worse, the glutton even goes to commit theft and depriving others of their food, just to satisfy his own cravings and appetite. The sin of gluttony was, back then, breaking all social conventions and norms to live in a purely individualistic universe.

More to come in a second post! I ended up realizing that talking about everything I knew about gluttony might make this post much too bloated, so I decided to cut it into slices. Patience and temperance is the key, isn’t it?

#gluttony #seven deadly sins #the sin of gluttony #christian theology #christianity #vices

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arinaco · 1 year

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Romelle: her story in the past and in the present. Part I

Translated and edited by @ Nadezhda932

Link to the part II.

I. Introduction

Hello again. The fandom has been sleeping in suspended animation for a long time, and so have we, but it suddenly turned out that enough information and thoughts had accumulated about Romelle to talk about her not only as a cunning and dodgy liar.

The trends of our time are such that it is no longer enough for a villain to be just a villain. This doesn’t work with an older audience, the level of average education already makes it clear that a person isn’t born bad by default. It isn’t for nothing that films about villains began to appear here and there, although this is done primarily because of the crisis of ideas, and the desire of large companies to rape existing franchises.

Therefore, we begin to wonder: why Romelle hated Lotor so much? How many lies are in her truth and truth in her lies? Is it just her brother?

But we’ll begin to approach that question from afar.

We'll start from the beginning - with GoLion and DOTU.

The thing is, the VLD writers didn't reinvent the wheel. When they got into the revival of the saga, they took all the old stuff, including the comics, and worked it through, pulling out whatever was useful. Characters, their past, their characters, plot ideas and conflicts. Those who have been familiar with the fandom for a long time have probably watched VLD and constantly had the feeling that they had met this or that twist.

And Romelle, as a character, isn’t something new, she’s a construct assembled from what has already been, simply reworked to fit new realities.

Unfortunately, I’m not an ardent fandom fan, and have not watched every series without exception that was drawn or bought. I will be working with the franchise's progenitors and building my conclusions on that basis. GoLion or Voltron 1.0 is a relatively serious space opera with a lot of violence and a clear ending. Yes, there is an ending: the villains die, and Altea celebrates the victory. The story doesn’t imply any continuation of the saga, at least with the same antagonists.

Moreover, this series was mostly filler. One series - one adventure that didn’t have a significant impact on further events. There is a normal plot, but there’s very little of it, and I’ll raise this topic later.

DOTU. Voltron… 1.5? I don't even know if I can give this piece number 2. The fact is that when American businessmen bought the rights to the GoLion anime series, it turned out that they didn’t have a Japanese translator. Perhaps in those days such a direction was extremely rare, or perhaps the services of a specialist cost huge money.

As a result, the scriptwriters had to turn on the fantasy and, based on the visuals, come up with lines for the characters themselves. Sometimes they couldn’t compose anything, and then the audience got the opportunity to admire how the characters move their lips in absolute silence.

As a person who made a comparison of certain episodes, I can say that they didn’t always succeed in getting closer to the original. Especially when you consider that the target audience of the cartoon was children.

They bought a series with a lot of death and violence in order to show it with a PG rating.

How did it end? The fact that a huge number of humorous and stupid phrases appeared where they never existed. Also, the showrunners tried to cut out all the excessive cruelty from the series, which didn’t always benefit the story line. In general, it turns out that VLD’s S8 repeated the fate of the entire GoLion series. And this isn’t a unique case, but a glorious WEP tradition.

For example, Prince Sincline in GoLion (Lotor) isn’t a comedic villain, and not a stupid boy, but a real sadist. Moreover, he’s over a hundred years old, which brings his obsession with 16-year-old Farla (Allura) under a criminal article on the seduction of minors – fortunately, at least it doesn’t make him a pedophile.

In addition, there’s a difference in the endings. In GoLion, the main villains die, and the story ends there. There’s not even a lovestory of Alura and Keith, because the maximum that a simple samurai (paladin) can count on is a perfumed handkerchief thrown by a beautiful hime (princess).

DOTU, on the other hand, was developed immediately with an eye on sequels, so the death of the main villains was removed, but over time, a bunch of episodes were added, introducing new characters like Queen Merla. As a result, the DOTU series consisted of 72 episodes (season 1 "GoLion" + season 3 with Merla). I won’t take into account the anime that was retroactively attributed to Voltron as season 2, Romelle isn’t there anyway.

And with such knowledge, we approach the description of the prototype of the character. I’ll describe the biographies of Princess Romelle and Princess Amue in parallel, so that you can see both the similarities and the differences. II. Plot basis

So, we have a planet related to Arus/Altea. It isn’t specified what kind of people live there, but it’s possible that the Alteans once colonized it.

In DOTU, the planet is referred to as Pollux, the sinister twin of Arus.

In GoLlion, the planet is called Hercules... and described as a cosmic body with a special orbit, which approaches Altea once every 18-20 years. No malice, negativity, etc.

In DOTU, Coran tells that the first king of Arus had two sons, a bad one and a good one. And when their parent died, the bad son thought only of the inheritance, he was exiled to Pollux for his disrespect. And since then, the descendants of the brothers have been at enmity with each other.

In GoLion, the accents are placed differently. The king of Altea really had two sons, but the division was not between good and evil, but between the elder and the younger. And it was said that the youngest son had such an intolerable character that the crowned father couldn’t stand it and expelled the child to Hercules. And since then, the family of the youngest son has harbored a grudge and attacks Altea every time the planets approach each other.

In DOTU Romelle's ancestor is presented as greedy and "bad", in GoLion - only as a person with a violent temper and resentment towards relatives for expulsion. But in both cases, he gets to rule a whole planet, which is clearly not enough for him.

And this discrepancy will occur several more times.

during Lotor/Sincline's arrival on Pollux/Hercules. Meeting the dear guest at the gangway, Koba will say that he’s concerned about the issue of dividing Arus, and Hercules – that the Heraclians are ready to fight even tomorrow, but for now he must send Altea a challenge to fight (well, how can you attack without warning? This is unethical).

at a closed military council, where Koba will declare that he doesn’t want to share Arus with the Drules, and Hercules - that they planned to betray the Galra from the very beginning, but first they need to avenge Altea for the offense.

and in the person of Bandor / Alor, who in DOTU tells his sister that Lotor promised him his own palace, and in GoLion he rejoices at the opportunity to fly to war on the same ship with such a great warrior as Sincline.

This view of American screenwriters is quite predictable, but still has a fundamental difference from the original. After all, the royal family of Pollux eventually becomes an ally of the paladins and acts on the side of good heroes. And it turns out that all the statements about what a bad planet Pollux is just dissolve in the further plot. There’s also a theory that the legendary brothers were King Alfor/Raimon and King Coba/Hercules, but no matter how much I looked through both versions of the series, I didn’t find such information. Coran refers to very old times, especially since in GoLion the planets intersect only once every two decades.

So what about Romelle herself?

Everything is very interesting. The fact is that she’s one of the rarest characters in the series who has a personal development story arc.

Yes. The secondary character had something that most protagonists didn't have.

For example, male characters - paladins - had no development at all. Because GoLion and DOTU are filler series, and as a result, their characters are static. As they were in the beginning, so they remain in the end. Even the age has not changed.

Farla was a little more fortunate, because her desire to become a pilot got her a small development arc, which was completely cut in DOTU, where Allura was turned into a plot device. By the end of the series, she’s still the same sweet, kind 16-year-old girl, somewhere naive, somewhere principled, but if you mix the episodes, you can hardly determine their order in the series.

But with Romelle's prototype, it's not like that. She has a plot. She has development.

Her path is the transformation from a classical damsel in distress into a Valkyrie, storming the main stronghold of the antagonists together with her soldiers.

Allura from the 80s can only turn green with envy. Against the background of Princess Romelle, she looks bypassed in terms of scenario.

Moreover, since Romelle's story arc begins in episode 17 and ends in episode 52, it turns out that her story arc moves the story of the entire series. Almost all episodes between episodes with Romelle are fillers. Her plot has a clear narrative line, and the plot of the series clings to this line, turning from a collection of fillers into a whole story at the intersections.

And suddenly it turns out that Romelle/Amue was an important character for the old Voltron. More important than the main characters.

But let's move on to the description of events. III. Personal arc

1. Alliance with galra and captivity

So, episode 17.

The king of the planet Hercules (nameless, and therefore I will call him by the name of the planet) comes to Lord Daibazaal to bow and offers to capture Altea together. Well, or Coba from the planet Pollux comes to Zarkon, as you prefer.

He wants to turn his eldest son Samson (in DOTU - Avok) into a robeast and claims that since his son is the greatest of warriors, he will surely be stronger than Voltron and be able to defeat it.

The plan looks as reliable as a Swiss watch, and at this point I want to give Coba/Hercules a goblet with the words "Father of the Year" written on it. But further in the series, it’s still specified that the transformation was considered reversible, and in GoLion, before his death, Samson will indeed return to his human form.

During the battle with Voltron, Avok/Samson will even speak intelligibly, which means the presence of reason and consciousness. I think the very opportunity to fight a legendary and invincible opponent seemed seductive to the guy. His people were clearly obsessed with military prowess; it wasn’t for nothing that they were drawn wearing ancient Roman helmets and tunics.

Lotor/Sincline is outraged by this speech. Some petty king has declared that his son is the best of warriors, and this clearly hurts the vanity of a Drule/Galra prince. He jumps up and expresses doubt about Avok/Samson's ability to defeat Voltron, to which Zarkon/Daibazaal offers to test the volunteer in the arena.

In DOTU, Lotor agrees and with a grin tells Avok that he will certainly not stand against the monster, and Sincline in GoLion promises to cut off his head if the prince loses.

Avok/Samson, confident in his abilities, readily accepts the challenge. There definitely was the reason why the guy was named after a mythical hero who suffered because of his own pride. He also considered himself invincible, for which he paid.

Princess Romelle/Amue, along with the younger prince, appear on screen at the moment when Avok/Samson defeats the robeasts. Lotor/Sincline, visibly annoyed by their rival's triumph, jumps into the arena and proposes a second duel, to which Pollux/Hercules' heir agrees without hesitation.

... it's so noble and fair to challenge a man who has just fought another opponent to a duel ... Romelle/Amue and Bandor/Alor enthusiastically look at the duel and cheer on their older brother. In GoLion, they admire the military prowess of both rivals, and in DOTU they say that it’ll be great when their brother becomes a robeast and defeats Voltron.

Alor was amazed and fascinated by Sincline's martial prowess. Not for long, but the prince will become an idol for him, which at the end of the series the boy will bitterly regret, sobbing over the graves of his father and brother.

As for Romelle/Amue… she supported her family, and her father. At least in the first minutes of appearance on the screen. Both Amue and Romelle will wish their brother success in the battle against Voltron. The royal family is shown as very loving and very friendly, where Avok/Samson doesn’t look like a person who was decided to be heartlessly sacrificed for the interests of the country.

But the first red flag comes when, during the duel, Lotor/Sincline notices the resemblance of the guest to the object of his obsession - Allura/Farla. After staring, he loses, the witch takes away the victorious Avok/Samson, and Lotor/Sincline rushes to get acquainted with a girl with such attractive facial features.

At first everything goes fine. The princess even flirts, but it stops abruptly when Lotor/Sincline boorishly drags the girl down the stairs with him. Even in DOTU, where Lotor invited Romelle for a walk, and she seemed to agree, the scene doesn’t look at least a little cute, since itn’t customary for a lady to be dragged by the wrist, she’s politely led by the arm, especially if the gentleman has considerable physical strength.

Of course, it can be assumed that the DOTU writers aren’t very well versed in human facial expressions, but as you can see in the picture above, Romelle/Amue's face doesn’t shine with joy even without comments from the crowned father of the family.

The fact is that against the background of what’s happening, it’s shown how King Coba/Hercules abruptly rises from his seat and looks worried. And if in DOTU he worries about Avok (whom he sent for experiments... logic, where are you?), then in GoLion he was horrified when he saw his daughter being dragged away by Sincline. Only Alor remains imperturbable in this situation, as he looks at Sincline through rose-colored glasses.

As for the princess... From now on, she’ll never say a single kind word about Lotor/Sincline again. He’ll leave her on his planet, and she’ll return home only after a few months in the company of the prince himself and a bunch of his concubines.

Somewhere I heard that Romelle was considered Lotor's bride in DOTU, but I didn't find anything like that in the series itself. Romelle/Amue's status on the Planet Doom wasn’t specified in any way, Lotor/Sincline kept her to himself out of a personal whim, without asking her or her family's opinion.

Later - in a personal conversation with her younger brother – she’ll shed light on her opinion about the alliance with the Drules/Galra. And if Romelle basically says that war and happiness are incompatible things, which is a very strange statement for the daughter of the militant Pollux, then the Amue will begin to convince Alor that Sincline is a terrible person and shouldn’t be admired.

In both cases, Romelle/Amue is no longer happy with her father's plan and tries to explain to her younger brother that the situation is much more complicated than it seems. And when, in a few minutes, she encounters paladins in the corridor of her native castle and sees Allura/Farla, she’ll experience a real shock. The striking resemblance elicits a strong emotional reaction from her, because the princesses do look like twin sisters.

Moment X comes when the Drules/Galra find out that the paladins have snuck into the castle and unleash Avok/Samson on them. He doesn’t rush at the enemy like a crazy beast, but uses fighting techniques, and does it successfully.

Voltron breathes fire in his face, hits with electricity in the water, but Avok/Samson still safely gets to his feet and continues the battle. His father didn’t lie, he really could compete with Voltron, although he wasn’t a machine, but a biological being, that is, capable of experiencing pain.

In general, when creating classic fairy tales, there’s an unspoken rule that heroes shouldn’t kill a lot, and even more so, kill non-villains. Ideally, the antagonist should fall into the abyss, run into their own weapon, refuse help, but not force the protagonist to get their hands dirty in blood. And the paladins completely fell within the framework - they didn’t injure Avok/Samson in any way, although they bludgeoned each other from the heart.

It isn’t known who would have emerged victorious if they had been allowed to finish the fight. But Lotor/Sincline, who was watching the battle through the monitor, loses patience and gives the order to attack both giants.

Yes, both Voltron and Avok/Samson.

First, because the witch's cat overheard the royal council, and warned Lotor/Sincline of the betrayal. Secondly, in DOTU, the villainous trio had already agreed in advance that Avok would be killed, Romelle would be given to Lotor, and Pollux, under the leadership of a young Bandor, wouldn’t pose a threat.

It was unprofitable for the Drules/Galra to leave a living Avok/Samson to the pseudo-allies. He was intelligent, loyal to his homeland and extremely dangerous.

Avok's death in DOTU was severely cut. Yes, he still dies when the Drules shoot missiles at his back, but in GoLion he’s also blinded by well-aimed shots to the eyes, which makes poor Samson feel like his mythical namesake.

But what else was cut in DOTU - and this is something I can't explain - is the death of King Coba. In GoLion, after seeing the Galra ships killing his son, the king rushes to the ground cannon and starts firing at Sincline's cruiser. With this gun, they blow him up, right in front of his daughter and youngest son.

Apparently, the DOTU writers decided that this scene was too violent for young children, removed it and it turns out that King Coba - who looks like a strong muscular man on the screen - is actually old and weak. Yes, yes, he’ll die soon, and in his dying fever he didn’t come up with anything better than to declare war on Arus, send the heir to a risky battle, and leave the planet to a 12-year-old child.

In GoLion, Alor becomes the new ruler of Hercules for a more logical reason - because his older brother and father tragically die and Amue is captured.

After the death of her father and older brother, Romelle/Amue is taken away by the Drules/Galra. And here’s a very important point – Romelle curses Lotor for killing Avok (which is doubly insulting for her, if we assume that, according to the American scriptwriters, she really liked Lotor), and Amue... calls her brother for help.

Younger brother.

Moreover, until the very meeting with Ryu (aka Takashi's twin brother, aka Sven version 2.0), she’ll repeatedly turn to her younger brother in her thoughts and beg to save her. And that's what was missing from DOTU.

The fact is that when the American screenwriters lined up the line of Bandor's behavior, they prescribed him as an ordinary 12-year-old child. Silly, naive, cocky, and sometimes self-centered.

What they didn't notice was that this "little boy" has bigger biceps than the average office worker.

Alor is much more serious, responsible, courageous and smart. He dreamed not of a personal palace, but of becoming as great a warrior as his elder brother. He isn’t conceited, knows how to admit mistakes and be grateful. Having been wounded in the knee, he continued (!) to crawl after the Galra in order to save his sister. And the Heraclians never questioned his orders the way Bandor's subordinates did.

True, there’s something that both GoLion and DOTU agreed on - that Bandora/Alor never (!) had to be saved. Remember this. With the exception of being captured in episode 21 (literally for a few minutes) and episode 18 of season 3 (created by WEP itself), it was the prince who ran around space and tried to save his sister, not vice versa.

Princess Amue never perceived Alor as a stupid little boy. She saw in him a young man and a warrior of her family.

On this tragic note, episode 17 ends, and the series will only return to this storyline in episode 21.

And no, in the interval between them, the paladins will never remember Romelle/Amue, as if she never existed. 2. Escape

The poor thing was sitting in a dark cell all this time along with other unlucky girls. There were no loungers or at least some amenities, only a cold stone floor. In GoLion, the storyteller adds some dark colors, describing that they were given practically no food, just enough to keep them from starving to death.

I must say that when Lotor/Sincline enters the cell, and we’re shown how the girls huddled against the walls, it becomes not so important that Lotor didn’t seem to rape Romelle, and her off-screen scream was cut out. If only his appearance horrified women, then there were reasons.

Romelle/Amue tries to attack him with a sharp stone, but, alas, to no avail.

However, there was still a difference in the behavior of the characters. Romelle begged not to touch her, and Amue asked him to kill her, but both are the usual reaction of a tortured person.

Lotor boasts that by using Romelle as a hostage, he’ll be able to control Pollux. Sincline, on the other hand, says that as long as Farla is running free, Amue will do just fine as her replacement.

Then he grabs the princess and takes her away. Lotor states that he will use her as bait, but Romella returns to the cell exhausted and sobbing anyway, so it's unlikely she enjoyed Drule company.

Her friends in misfortune console her, talking about how good it would be to run away, and then Romelle/Amue says that she has a plan.

It’s unknown how they managed to start the fire, although Amue had more room to act as Sincline's concubine. And while the soldiers hastily extinguished the source of smoke, the girls made their way into the hangar and stole the spaceship.

True, a very interesting question arises - how did they know how to pilot it? They sat down in the cabin in their places and managed to fly away safely, which is very strange for ordinary unremarkable women. Apparently, the writers considered such knowledge to be something natural for the inhabitants of a militarized planet.

How did Lotor/Sincline react to this escape? Lotor exclaimed that Romelle would pay for her act, and Sincline promised to cut Amue to pieces.

If Lotor needed Romelle alive, then Sincline was ready to kill a naughty toy.

When the ship is hit, Romelle/Amue sends an SOS signal to her brother at the last moment and reports the crash site. The paladins also receive this message and rush to the rescue, crossing the road with the Pollux/Hercules rescue ship.

They land on a snow-covered planet, where they find a ship that sent out a distress signal. But it's empty. There are no corpses in the broken cabin, but there are no living ones either, because the Drules/Galra took the nameless girls. Their further fate will remain unknown.

At some point, Allura/Farla notices an unconscious woman in one of the cabins. That was a witch disguised as Romelle/Amue, who decided to set a trap for the paladins. She takes advantage of the sluggishness of Bandor/Alor, hits him on the head and takes him away with her.

Later in the same episode, the boy, along with his older sister, will be used to blackmail the paladins and in particular Allura/Farla. Lotor/Sincline will offer an exchange, promising to kill the captives if they refuse.

Unfortunately, events will turn out in such a way that Keith/Akira will only be able to recapture Bandor/Alora. He would use the blizzard to disguise himself and pretend to be Allura/Farla, but without a proper weapon, his chances of defeating Lothor/Sincline were slim. And he certainly wouldn’t show compassion for the one who deceived him.

So the decision of the captives to return and help may not have been too smart, but it saved their savior.

The episode ends with the witch Haggar/Honerva unleashing a robeast on the paladins, and while they fight it off, Lotor/Sincline safely takes all the fugitives away. Yes, it wasn’t possible to save anyone in this episode - in GoLion, having dealt with the monster, the paladins look sadly after the departing ship. In DOTU... Voltron returns to Arus and is met with fanfare, which looks extremely inappropriate in this episode. Just like many other things added by American screenwriters to reduce the level of tragedy in a non-children's series

3. "Space Wolf"

And then ... we move on to episode 39. More precisely, to several episodes from 39 to 40, because the 40th is actually the second part of the 39th.

And in this story there’s a very serious difference between DOTU and GoLion. In particular, because the Americans didn’t know what exactly was going on there.

What was in the original?

In the original, the witch informs Zarkon/Daibazaal and his son that at an unknown time, the White Hole spewed out a cosmic body with a diameter of 1 kilometer with an incredible force of gravity. Hypergravitational planetoid - that is, it seems to be a planet, but very small and with huge gravity. I’ll try to explain it in simple words: there’s a theory that at the end of the black hole, where everything is drawn in, there’s a white hole, from which everything flies out. Both the white hole and the black hole are real cosmic phenomena that have given rise to many fantasies about interdimensional portals. As in other parts of the universe, so in other universes in general.

The planetoid was named "Space Wolf" and began to go around in a wide arc, as it attracted absolutely everything to itself, grinding its victims into dust. We don’t know what trajectory it flew before the events of the series.

In front of the overlord's eyes, Honerva directs a Galran ship to the space body, and the planetoid immediately pulls it towards itself, twisting and crushing. But the rings that it carried jump out and, having expanded, cover the entire planetoid. Satisfied with the result, Honerva reports that now these rings completely control the movement of the Space Wolf.

Apparently, the rings caused a strong explosion at a certain point and thus pushed the planetoid. I don’t know how sane such an idea looks from the point of view of physics and astronomy.

And what is very remarkable: when Akira and Raible (Coran) will discuss whether it’s possible to destroy the Space Wolf, Raible will say that Altea's existing capacities are not enough even to force the planetoid to change its trajectory.

Yes, it turns out that the power of friendship is far from always able to overcome any evil.

What's in DOTU?

DOTU caught up with a lot of pathos. That when the Big Bang occurred at the beginning of time, in addition to ordinary cosmic bodies, it also gave rise to several anomalies, one of which was the comet Omega. That is, if the Space Wolf appeared on an unspecified date, then comet Omega has always existed.

Haggar described this comet as a flying black hole, which sounds ... somehow more absurd than the banal magnet from Japanese screenwriters. On the other hand, it now becomes clear how comet Omega managed to throw comic book characters (Voltron/Robotech crossover by Dynamite Comics) into other worlds.

And what is fundamentally important: the paladins of the past were able to stop this comet and hide it. The rumor about this feat spread throughout the universe and turned into a legend that every child knew.

But no one remembered how (!) the paladins did it. According to Coran, data on the event was lost and it took 10 years to develop the plan.

At the end of the story, the witch boasts that she found this comet, and took control of it with the help of rings, as it was in the original.

Hearing of this, Lotor/Sincline tells to bring Romelle/Amue. Sincline did it on purpose, and Lotor... apparently, in order to mock her.

And here again there is a difference in the series. Amue sees how the witch orders the rings to send the Space Wolf towards Altea. Savoring the moment, Honerva tells her that the cosmic body will cause terrible cataclysms on the planet, the princess is horrified and screams that Golion won’t allow them to do this.

Moreover, subsequent events will show that Amue doesn’t know what the "Space Wolf" is.

Romelle is told that the legendary comet Omega is in front of her, which is now heading towards Arus. And the princess of Pollux knows this legend, as well as all the inhabitants of the universe. The girl bravely declares that she will find a way to stop Lotor and the witch... which doesn’t sound very smart from the point of view of her behavior. Oh, it's DOTU... *heavy sigh*.

What's next?

Romelle/Amue shows espionage skills and manages to get to the communication system. But how she did it remains behind the scenes. The princess informs the paladins that a dangerous cosmic body is moving towards them and must be stopped by any means necessary.

Lotor/Sincline is informed of this, but he doesn't seem the least bit surprised. Sincline laughs and calls the princess a fool for not realizing that this is a trap, and Lotor simply suggests using the girl's zeal for his own purposes. In the castle, they discuss the information received. And it's quite interesting that Akira and Raible know what a Space Wolf is and are surprised when Amue calls the Wolf a weapon created by Honerva. Here we can assume that the planetoid appeared relatively recently, after the princess was captured. And then it becomes clear why the witch became interested in him just now. Despite the seeming hopelessness of the situation, Akira makes the assumption that the planetoid is controlled by the occult powers of Honerva (it is), and suggests that everything be done to keep the Space Wolf from Altea. Raible turns to Hisa and tells her to be ready to face death like a samurai. Farla orders to prepare everything for the evacuation of the population, so that people have the opportunity to keep their dignity alive.

In DOTU... Keith proudly declares that they are the Voltron Force and will be able to take down Omega no matter what. Coran dejectedly retorts that nothing will come of it and they must prepare for death. Allura… doesn’t consider it necessary to issue an evacuation order. It seems that Farla at 16 was still smarter.

Voltron flies up to Omega/Wolf. The GoLion paladins tried to keep their distance, but they were still pulled, because the planetoid's gravitational field was truly enormous. The heroes of DOTU… showed themselves to be not very smart people and flew into the gravity zone themselves, because Pidge couldn’t collect the necessary information about the comet at such a great distance.

Romella/Amue is brought in to watch Voltron floundering in the gravity zone and trying to fire all the cannons in order to at least change the trajectory of the Omegawolf and thereby save Arus/Althea.

And then there's a scene that, in the DOTU version, makes me want to roll my eyes.

What's going on in GoLion? Amue is led to Sincline and Honervra from behind, and the witch tells the prince to seize the moment and destroy Golion before the paladins figure out where the Space Wolf's vulnerability lies. To which Sincline replies that they’ll never guess to shoot at the rings, but he isn’t going to give them such an opportunity and orders adjutant Gobra to launch an attack.

Princess Amue, in a panic, rushes to the radar station in front of her, and, after contacting Altea, screams that they need to shoot at the rings. In the Japanese voice acting, she screams in short phrases, which means she understands that she has a chance in a million, and she’s about to be interrupted.

Sincline and Honerva watch this scene with a smirk, and the paladins, alas, when trying to shoot at the rings, lose concentration and crash into the surface of the Space Wolf at full speed. For an unstated reason, the main cannon fails, which genuinely surprises Akira.

What's going on in DOTU? Romelle is again brought in from the back. Lotor says that the paladins would have a chance to defeat the comet if they did this, that, and that, but they would never think to do so. Moreover, he mentions the crystal inside Voltron, although how does he even know how this weapon works?

Yes, he behaves like a typical ostentatious villain who needs to tell the enemy about how to defeat him.

Romelle, abruptly dumbfounded, doesn’t feel any trick, rushes to the microphone and retells this whole long tirade to the paladins. Apparently, she thought that she was surrounded by only gentlemen who would politely wait until the lady had talked enough with her friends.

The paladins, on the other hand, try to follow the instructions, but this, on the contrary, stops Voltron, and they still - but for a different reason - crash into the surface of Omega at full speed.

… but excuse me… what kind of surface can a black hole have?...

The prince and the witch laugh, Amue/Romelle is predictably hysterical and calls herself an idiot. In the second case, not without reason.

Voltron tries to rise, or at least tear off the limbs from the surface, but to no avail. The Omega/Wolf flies up to Arus/Althea and begins to slowly disintegrate the planet along with the population. Coran/Raible announces an emergency evacuation, and in DOTU adds that he asked the Alliance for help, but most likely they won’t send anyone.

...and why the hell is this Alliance needed then?..

Meanwhile, the witch gets tired of waiting for the planet's gravity to crush Voltron, and she releases a weapon in the form of spiked rings from the crumpled ship (the same one that delivered the rings). The situation seems hopeless, but suddenly help comes in the person of Bandor/Alor.

In GoLion, Alor says that the Heraclians were tracking the Space Wolf's trajectory and rushed to help when they realized the situation was becoming critical. In DOTU…. Bandor reveals that he’s the commander of the 11th Starfleet of the Alliance, but didn’t arrive for long, because his troops must guard the energy carrier. We’ll never know why the young king of Pollux ended up on packages from the Alliance and guards some kind of energy carrier instead of his native planet.

…just think how strange it sounds for a child of royal blood to lead a guard post… What is even more frustrating is that in DOTU, due to a mistranslation, it completely disappeared that the Heraclians not only followed the movement of the planetoid, but also managed to construct a cannon to protect others against it. The weapon didn’t have enough power to destroy a dangerous object, but it could change its course and thereby protect people against its impact.

In DOTU, the ships will just abstractly shoot at the comet, although in theory the black hole should be completely inert to such an impact.

And yes, Bandor/Alor will order a shot at the Omega/Wolf, knowing that Voltron will be hurt at best and destroyed at worst. With the full consent and approval of the paladins. This will destroy the rings and move the cosmic body, thereby saving Arus/Althea.

In response, Lotor/Sincline will become furious and send troops, both for unexpected saviors and to the planet, in order to complete what they started without the Omega/Wolf.

And then we move on to the events of episode 40.

Which starts with Lotor/Sincline flying over Arus/Althea and bombing cities. He makes princess Romelle/Amue watch the ships shoot down civilians, while he laughs and promises to kill every single one. "To the last midge" - quoting meticulous Lotor.

Bandor/Alor, meanwhile, is trying to pull out Voltron, and unlike the paladins, it wisely doesn’t approach the planetoid, but sends "laser anchors" to try to overcome the Omega/Wolf's gravity and pull the robot from the planet with the whole fleet.

Moreover, there’s a big difference in the behavior of Alor and Bandor - Alor listens to the words of his subordinates, and they support his desire to save Golion and protect Altea. While Bandor's relationship with the soldiers reaches the point that they begin to sabotage his orders.

And perhaps they would have been able to save Voltron, but the Drules/Galra didn’t give the enemies such a chance, and began to shoot the ships tied with anchors and therefore unable to defend themselves.

As a result, only Alor's ship remains, whose anchor breaks and he loses sight of the Omega/Wolf.

The allied soldiers say that they’re now millions of light miles from Arus and blame Bandor for not listening to them, but the Heraclians urge Alor to be strong and protect Altea instead of Golion.

What about paladins? No, they don’t overcome gravity with the power of friendship, alas, this doesn’t work with the laws of physics, but the Goddess of the Universe charges Voltron/Golion and destroys the Omega/Wolf.

...that's what it means to "have good acquaintances"!..

Meanwhile, Lotor/Sincline is trading with Bandor/Alor, who has dented his cruiser pretty well. He shows the boy his sister and threatens to kill her if he doesn’t stop his attack.

...in general, it seems that the superiority of the Galra over the Heraclians consisted solely in the robeasts...

As you understand, the young king didn’t want to sacrifice his sister, but Voltron/Golion arrives and solves this moral dilemma in favor of Arus/Altea. It destroys the Drule/Galra forces, and Lotor/Sincline hastily leaves the planet.

The prince is furious that all his plans have been ruined and takes the captive princess to a place full of skulls on the Planet Doom. Lotor wants to destroy Romelle for his loyalty to Voltron, and Sincline says that although he hates the idea that Amue needs to be disposed of, he must take revenge on Alor for saving Golion (yes, Sincline thought it was Alor's merit).

In general, here Romelle/Amue demonstrates remarkable restraint - she looks her killers in the face without fear and snaps, declaring that Voltron will win anyway.

But the princess manages to avoid death - a voice from underground orders her not to move (however, in DOTU it’s female for some reason ...), and when the soldiers start shooting, she falls under the ground.

The episode ends with a strange figure holding a candle who decides to approach the unconscious princess. 4. Field romance and shock content

And ... we go straight to episode 41. Yes, unexpectedly we got as many as three storylines in a row.

But the surprise was not only in this. I have to admit, when I watched episode 41 of GoLion, the thought flashed through my head that I wasn’t mentally prepared for such scenes.

...sometimes the Japanese scare me...

The guy with the candle turns out to be Ryou Shirogane (yes, Shiro is a surname), aka Sven.

The reasons why Sven/Ryou ends up in caves on an enemy planet are slightly different in DOTU and GoLion. Ryou was captured a long time ago, back in the days when his brother piloted the Blue Lion, but since then he managed to get out of the dungeon and is now a partisan (what exactly he did was never said). Sven, on the other hand, was much less fortunate. When he was seriously injured and sent to the hospital, by coincidence, it was on the planet where he was being treated that the Drules raided and took away many slaves. Including Sven. Injuries didn’t allow him to resist, and as a result he was thrown to die in a dungeon, since no one wanted to support a disabled slave at their own expense. He didn’t agree to die just like that and was able to get out into the wild, if, of course, vagrancy on the Drule planet can be called such a word.

What’s even more different is the behavior of the characters.

In general, against the background of the slender and logical replicas of GoLion, the lines in DOTU look somehow crazy. When the princess stumbles and falls while running (long skirt, shoes, you know), Ryou asks her to be quick, but Sven says that they have no time to rest.

Sven generally resembles a half-madman and calls himself a Savage who has no name. A guy crazy from loneliness, downtrodden and despising himself for being weak.

Ryou, on the contrary, is in a fighting state of mind and is confident in himself. He introduces himself as the younger brother of the famous paladin Takashi, and when Amue protests that Farla is piloting the Blue Lion, he loudly calls her a liar. The mourning of the brother takes place according to all samurai canons, with the mention of a ghost that appeared to Ryou in a dream and bequeathed to defeat the Galra Empire.

Relations between the characters are also built differently. If GoLion they’re dogging at first (love-hate fans - a step forward), then in DOTU Romelle has to shake Sven to come to his senses and encourage him to take action. Sven will even refuse to mess with the paladins, because, you see, he’s ashamed, and Romelle will have to persuade him to do this. Ryou at that moment just called without any persuasion and bowing.

Actually, the GoLion couple cooperated so much that they even arranged an escape for the Heraclian captives - who, unfortunately, were caught. Alas, in GoLion, a successful escape is a rarity.

And now we move on to shock content.

Sincline/Lotor realized very quickly that the princess wasn’t dead. His soldiers noticed that she had fled into the caves, but couldn’t catch her up. And although he initially ordered the destruction of the escaped slaves, the witch suggested that he’d use the captives for blackmail and thus return the fugitive.

And here's what it looked like. People (men, women, at least children weren’t shown, hanks for that) were taken to something like an arena, hollowed out among the rocks, and a huge metal golem was put in front of them. The prince, standing on the edge of the abyss in the company of a witch and his father, loudly declared that he knew that the princess was there, and offered to surrender and thus save the captives.

In GoLion, Sincline also appealed to royal honor, because it was clearly indicated that all slaves were from Hercules, that is, they were subjects of Amue.

Naturally, no one wanted her to agree to this proposal. First of all Sven/Ryou. The captives themselves began to shout for her not to come out, as they would be killed anyway.

Moreover, in GoLion, the Heraclians not only asked the princess not to go out, but began to chant “Long live Hercules! Long live Princess Amue!". That is, they clearly stated their position and stated that they value the life of the princess more than their own.

And the Heraclians will continue to shout these words even when the iron golem begins to crush them with its hands.

Yes. In GoLion, it’ll be shown close-up, accompanied by the crunch of breaking bones. In DOTU, the screams of people will be re-voiced, the scene itself will be cut and the sound will be replaced with a less impressive one.

... and that's when I realized that there is much more Japanese in this series than it seemed at first. Don't let European interiors confuse you...

Moreover, it’s worth noting that if the reaction of the princess in both versions was approximately the same, then Ryou showed much more callousness than Sven. Ryou said that Amue must endure for the sake of sacrificing her people, while Sven expressed regret that he couldn’t help these people in any way.

As you understand, Sven's behavior is the behavior of a Western person, while Ryou is harsh, as befits a samurai. The Heraclians die for their hime, it is their duty. His duty is to avenge his brother, Amue's duty is to survive so that the sacrifice of her people won’t be in vain.

After some time, the main characters find several more fugitives and offer them to cooperate. In DOTU, these are random people, and in GoLion, there are a few more Heraclians.

And yes, these people will also die to enable the princess to escape from the planet. Although in DOTU such dedication seems incomprehensible - the fact that Romelle is undeniably a beautiful woman doesn’t explain why several men decided to sacrifice their lives for the sake of a captive like themselves.

The hijacked ship was immediately pursued, and Lotor/Sincline decided to personally participate in the capture of the fugitives. But since Sven/Ryou contacted the paladins, they flew out to meet him along with Bandor/Alor.

An improved version of the iron golem will be released on Voltron, but Bandor/Alor will help ensure the sister's path to Hercules/Pollux.

And here comes another interesting point.

The iron golem forges Voltron’s hand and foot with the help of its crown. The creature that crushed living people a day ago was now about to destroy the main weapon of the resistance forces. And then Romelle/Amue herself (!) will deploy the ship and head to the rescue of the paladins.

In GoLion, Amue will simply decide to go for a ram, which Ryou will silently approve of, but Romelle will ask the sluggish Sven to become her navigator and dictate her coordinates (which again will look extremely strange, but I probably should get used to it) .

The ship won’t be able to ram the golem, but it’ll be able to knock down the crown and free Voltron.

And after a glorious victory, the heroes will finally return safely to Hercules.

Episode 45.

Alas, there aren’t so many interesting events for Romelle/Amue personally. She returns to the Planet Doom with Sven/Ryou to spy. In a new stylish suit and earrings to match the color of the dress.

It's funny that the dress was blue and the combat suit was pink. If you know what I mean.

The main character of this episode is Sven/Ryou, who sneaks onto an enemy ship to find out where the fighters are being taken to create a huge army of robeasts. Both the ship and the plant planet are eventually destroyed.

Of the interesting moments of the episode is the development of a romance between the characters. The characters of GoLion continue to quarrel, clearly experiencing a certain pleasure from this. In DOTU... these same disputes are spelled out a lot more boringly. The feeling that this is just a game for the characters has disappeared from the text and voice acting, and it’s more difficult to believe in any feelings between them.

Further, Romelle/Amue will appear only in episodes 51-52.

There are no longer any plot twists that are important for us, there are only battles going on in a continuous stream. The alliance, assembled by Altea from 7 allied planets, storms the Drule/Galra planet. Voltron and Castle of Lions (which suddenly remembered that it’s actually a spaceship) attack from above, and our heroes lead the assault from below.

And I must say that the princess will fearlessly rush into battle in the forefront. Throw grenades at enemies, plant bombs on walls and shoot from a machine gun.

The minuses of the series ... Ryou tragically dies. Lotor/Sincline captures him, but Sven/Ryou manages to stab the prince with a dagger and they fall into the abyss together. And in GoLion there’s no water down there, because there were no seas at the foot of the tower. Yes, they’re smeared on the ground, and before his death, Ryou triumphantly says "I did it, brother!" and proudly dies. Like a true samurai.

Many thanks to the Japanese writers for burying the best pairing of the series in the very last episode. In GoLion, it’s actually the only one, since Farla and Akira had no relationship.

This is where the story of the old Romelle ends. She, of course, appears in additional episodes of DOTU season 3, but there she’s given very little screen time, and her entire role is reduced to waving a handkerchief after Sven. Simply put, the American screenwriters turned her into a plot tool.

I sincerely hope that my retelling didn’t cause your yawning, but I considered it necessary to describe everything that in theory could have a connection with VLD. I even wonder how many similar scenes and references you noticed yourself, without my help.

#VLD #golion #voltron dotu #romelle #Allura #lotor

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dreamerdagn · 1 year

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so uhh I really enjoyed Honor Among Thieves

it was at least fairly campy but that meant it never had moments of unflattering seriousness, and the writing was pretty simple but that meant no cringe that I can remember. But the characters were fun, the aesthetic was cohesive and attractive, and I loved the acting and the character design. It was paced super well so that scenes hit all the beats they needed to but didn’t drag, and I always personally appreciate that because I get anxious easily and if the tension of a scene builds for too long it can become unenjoyable for me; if a movie is supposed to be tense and I’m there for it that can be fine, but I don’t generally sign up for that in a fun fantasy romp. Oh yeah and the jokes pretty much across the board got at least one laugh out of me, and then there was one in the middle that was exactly the same caliber as the rest and for some reason I completely lost it. It had a slapstick component that really sold it I think.

Anyway obviously no movie is for everybody, but I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this anyone, because if you don’t like you lose nothing. (Unless you’re deep into D&D lore, which...I’m aware exists but like. It’s all background noise to me even when I’m playing in that setting. I mean even then you might like this movie but that’s the one thing that you could nitpick I guess.)

I do want to try to see movies that are original, but it’s so hard for me to work up the energy to see movies...then again all of the last three I saw I liked, but I had to really really want to see them to be willing to. Nope and Everything Everywhere I saw at home tho, I hope that still counted towards their success...Everything Everywhere wasn’t a personal favorite but it was interesting, I was glad I saw in order to be in the loop, and I’m super glad of its success, both for being a fun mainstream movie that I enjoy more than most, and an Academy winner that I enjoy more than most of those. And Nope I just outright loved.

I heard Honor Among Thieves did well enough, but not enough to maybe be the franchise they were hoping it to be which...like...good. I really liked it, in fact I’d like to see it again, and sequel could’ve been fun, but...I’d rather get new stuff. (Also I had literally just remarked that I wondered what Justice Smith had been up to since Detective Pikachu, and I went into this having no idea he was in it, and uh...he was great, probably my favorite performance out of a bunch that I liked)

I definitely want to eventually see Across the Spider Verse, there’s no way I wouldn’t unless it gets completely panned, but idk if I’ll see it in theaters or not...but the big shock to me was how good the new TMNT movie looks? Like I’ve never actually watched a piece of TMNT media, I’m just a little too young to have nostalgia for the cartoon series and I never got into any of the reboots. But the trailer was absolutely delightful, the mood was fun and the animation style was really appealing. idk. we’ll see.

#catfishchat

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dweemeister · 1 year

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95th Academy Awards nominations reaction

I got up early this morning, typed some of these just after the nominations came out, and left it sitting in the drafts. Some personal reactions from me about today’s nominees:

Of the ten Best Picture nominees, I have seen five of them. This is the furthest ahead I’ve been at this point in awards season since 2019 (Avatar 2, Banshees, Elvis, EEAAO, Fabelmans). I do have my work cut out for me here. As of right now, I’m pretty much on the EEAAO train, but perhaps not as energetically as I’ve been for other movies in previous years. Partly due to the fact I can understand why people might dislike EEAAO intensely and partly because there are no 9/10 or 10/10 movies for me from 2022. At least from those I’ve seen. Fabelmans my second choice from those I’ve seen.

And now I have to watch two Top Gun movies. I’ve been avoiding the first for a long, long time having heard way too much about it and people saying it’s just not gonna be my thing. We’ll see over the next month.

Whoa. Where did Triangle of Sadness come from with both Picture and Director? That movie was divisive in some parts, and I’ve heard that it felt like an overlong lecture. The directors’ branch gonna directors’ branch, though - they always nominate one director out of left field. And this year, Ruben Östlund was that man.

Say it with me: in the Year of Our Lord, Anno Domini MMXXIII, we take Steven Spielberg and John Williams for granted. I think Spielberg has a shot at Director (and, as of this moment if I was a member of the Academy, I might just vote for him) and John gets his record-extending 53rd nomination (behind Walt Disney’s 59, and most by a living person). John’s count of five total Oscars (having last won 30 years ago) is too low. But the Academy members, I think, I have Oscar winners’ envy. John also becomes the oldest Academy Award nominee ever.

In any case, the other Original Score nominees this year are amelodic electronic background noise. Where is Simon Franglen for Avatar? Alexandre Desplat for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio?

All Quiet overperformed here, compared to what I expected. I know its haul of 14 BAFTA nominations was ridiculous, but I chalked that up to WWI being more prominent than in the U.S. - where most people don’t think about it much at all. I’ve not seen it, but I must say I have a lot of admiration for the 1930 original that won Best Picture. That All Quiet was the first sound masterpiece at a time when the silent-to-sound transition was still going on. I’m not sure how this one will stack up, having heard about some of the narrative changes they made to it.

Despite what has been widely reported, Michelle Yeoh becomes the second Best Actress nominee of Asian descent since Merle Oberon for The Dark Angel (1935). Oberon had to hide her Indian and Maori heritage due to safety reasons and we didn’t learn about this until after her death.

Also overjoyed to see Nighy, Michelle Williams, Ke Huy Quan, Hong Chau, and Stephanie Hsu all in the mix for acting. Best Actor features five first-time nominees for the first time in 88 years. Also, that’s four actors of Asian descent getting nominations! That’s a record!

Cartoon Saloon finally has the first blemish on their Academy Award nominations record. They were previously nominated for all of their movies - The Secret of Kells (2009), Song of the Sea (2014), The Breadwinner (2017), and Wolfwalkers (2020; which should have beaten Soul). My Father’s Dragon (2022) definitely was their weakest movie yet and, yeah, that didn’t deserve to be here. Hoping to see a return to form for the Kilkenny-based studio. You’ve got to think GdT’s Pinocchio now. No contest. I need to check out The Sea Beast, though.

What happened to RRR? Original Song only? Not a movie I’ve seen because I insist on watching it in the original Telugu, but my sense was that there was a divide in how it was received. In the West, with critics and audiences having very little idea about the nature of Indian cinema and its history, it was something different and refreshing and was well-received. In India, its use of Hindu iconography struck a chord of Modi-esque Hindu nationalism that has muted critical plaudits there. It’s an interesting dynamic, one that I doubt Westerners picked up at all.

I am so excited to see the short films, as always (and I write up on them too, you can see last year’s edition for Animated Short here). Those last two Animated Short nominees though? My Year of Dicks (not people named Richard, afaik) and An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It? What titles. Can’t wait! As I understand it, no major American studios were in play for Animated Short at the shortlist stage. So this should be a fun, independent filmmaker-driven slate.

The Batman should have found its way into cinematography.

Never count Diane Warren out for Original Song, no matter how obscure the movie! She’ll, of course, lose - as she unfortunately always does. 14 nominations for Warren. Glad she picked up the Honorary Oscar last year, though.

Lots of clamor about the decision to leave Decision to Leave out in International Feature. But the International Feature branch usually does very funny things, and I don’t think there has been a consensus at all in this category. All Quiet the odds-on favorite due to its significant haul of nominations, however.

Well, this should be a fun month! On this blog, “31 Days of Oscar” - my marathon based on Turner Classic Movies’ (TCM) marathon of the same name featuring only Oscar nominees and Honorary Oscar winners through the 95 years of Oscar history - is coming on March 1st!

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dascarecrow · 2 years

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The Ace Files- Cartoon Network Invaded

A radio is turned on and begins tuning before a broadcast begins. “This just in. An incredible tale as told by numerous witnesses. This past week several citizens of our fair city have reported what can only be called UFOs in the skies. Photo and video of these supposed sightings have proven inconclusive but we are left asking the perennial question. Are we alone in the universe?”

S clicked off the radio, shaking his head. “I tell you things never change. One lone nutjob sees what they think is a UFO and everyone thinks it’s War of the Worlds. Been that way since the turn of the century. Heck I remember a time years ago when all the folks in CN City thought that there strange visitors from other worlds lurking around. Boy was that a silly month to be certain.

“Buongiorno my adoring audience and welcome to another installment of the ACE Files. Today I thought we would cover one of the more unique crossover endeavors that was done by Cartoon Network.” In Spring of 2007 Cartoon Network began airing some of very unusual bumpers, centering around aliens attempting to take over the Cartoon Network studios. Said aliens had original character models and their bumpers had that iconic Cartoon Network spin on them, hinting that these invaders had some kind of evil plan they were working towards but may not be the brightest. This was all meant to build up to a special 5 part event that would air in May. One where Cartoon Network would be invaded. Across five different Cartoon Network shows we would see aliens attempting to achieve their abominable ambitions. Or at least that was the impression that the marketing was going for.

Cartoon Network marketed the heck out of this event by the way. They had the bumpers airing, they had something set up on their website for it, they created special promo art for the shows involved, you get the idea. The promotion hinted that we would be seeing something like an old b-movie, sci-fi horror at minimum with maybe a touch of thriller but the actual episode were largely the same as the always were when they aired with just a hint of the elements that the marketing promised. I don’t know if that was deliberate or if there was a change in direction during production but the promos hinted that this was always the plan.

And speaking of plans let’s go into why Cartoon Network was even doing this. From what I’ve found Kraft approached the network about sponsoring the event but pulled out at the last minute for unclear reasons, which is why I suspect there was some behind the scenes issues behind the production. Also the creators of the shows apparently weren’t that excited about the whole thing, which may have impacted things as well. It’s kind of sad to be honest, Cartoon Network was wrapped up in a deal where the sponsor got cold feet and the writers were stuck with something that was mostly a corporate mandate they weren’t too enthused about. Finding out that what was supposed to be this big exciting crossover event was essentially the network trying to get something out of a deal gone bad is just a bit disheartening. But CN took it like champs and tried their best to make something great.

As for the actual event it was pretty fun and you could see that Cartoon Network put in a bit of effort to make it special. I’ll cover the actual episodes in other posts but I will go over the parts that tie the event together. You see Invaded was a cross through, a type of crossover where there’s a connecting element that appears in each title of the event but the actual titles themselves don’t interact with each other. Well until the last part for Invaded but we’ll cover that when we get there.

To start with are the actual shows that are part of the event. These were Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends

Ed, Edd n Eddy

My Gym Partner’s a Monkey

Camp Lazlo

and The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy

I can’t complain too much about the selection. Barring Grim Adventures the shows weren’t really the kind you would expect alien invasion stories for given their tones, so seeing how that would play out was honestly intriguing. There was also how the episodes were written in the context of being crossover episodes. In a bit of foresight the writers set the episodes up so they could be pure standalones for the series in reruns but it was still clear that there was an overarching story. And that brings us to how exactly this cross through was woven together.

As already mentioned this event was based around aliens invading the shows that were part of the event and credit to the creators for how they implemented that. The designs of the aliens and their ship were uniform across each show, simply altered to fit with the art style of the episode they appeared in. There were some differences with how the aliens appeared within each part but I’ll cover those when we get there. One unifying aspect about the aliens was a fixation on cheese, owing to this initially being something Kraft meant to sponsor. Beyond that there isn’t much I can say about the aliens that wouldn’t be better covered in the episode reviews.

There was also one more bit of connective tissue for the event. Each episode had a special opening rather than the typical one for the series. It was a UFO flying down over CN City and shooting down a tractor beam that would show snippets from the episode. It was very different and sold the idea that this was a special event where things would be a bit different. Of course these were replaced with title cards when the episodes would air in normal rotation but every so often you could see the original Invaded event openings for them.

Now you’re probably expecting me to go into each episode of this event or give my opinion on how it went overall. And you would be right. Now it’s time for us to start covering what exactly happened in Cartoon Network Invaded, beginning with Chapter 1 which was...

A ring tone started playing, which was the Wing Cap theme from Super Mario 64, cutting off S. “Scuse me a second everyone.” He answered his phone. “What is it? I’m busy.” Some chatter happened on the other end. “Get someone else it’s a day off.” There was more chatter. “I don’t care if the Milky Way just disappeared. Get someone else.” And more chatter again. “Ugh. Fine I’ll be right over. But don’t surprised if someone gets blasted.” S hung up the phone. “Sorry folks, looks like we have to cut it short today.” S walked off to deal with whatever emergency cropped up. “I swear these idiots are going to blow themselves up someday.”

To Be Continued

#The Ace Files #Cartoon Network Invaded

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haru-luo · 3 years

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[CN Translation] Victor’s Capture (捕捉SR) <Record date>

!Spoiler warning! : The followings contain contents for dates of Mr. Love: Queen’s Choice/Love and Producer that are yet to be released in Global server. If you do not wish to be spoiled then please refrain from going undercut.

Karma Quote : “The time you're looking forward to, of course I'll make it special enough."

The translation is undercut. You have been warned about spoilers.

~~~

If you see any “---” sign then it simply indicates change of scenes in the place.

________

记录之约 {Record date}

Preview : "I proposed to "contract"/undertake half of the date with Victor alone to accomplish what I want to do with each other. I brought Victor to the Mr. Kitty exhibition hall and let him experience my childhood favorite cartoon exhibition. When the dusk came, what he most wanted to do was....."

Part 1 :

Today is a "special rest day" with Victor that we agreed early in the morning.

In order to make the rest time more meaningful, I suggest that both of parties "contract" one half of the dating time to accomplish the thing that they most want to do with each other.

Originally I just suggested it as a whim but Victor unexpectedly agreed. Right now, I have exactly six hours left on my part.

I stood in front of Victor breathlessly and he glanced at his watch.

Victor : "Five minutes late."

Victor : "You have five hours and fifty five minutes left."

MC : "Do you want to keep the time rule so strictly...."

I mumbled in protest, Victor said lightly,

Victor : "Six hours per person, this is certain someone's own rule."

Victor : "I'm just implementing it seriously."

After Victor finished speaking, he put a hand on his pocket diagonally, raised his eyebrows and asked.

Victor : "But is this street your chosen destination?"

MC : "Of course not, just follow me."

MC : "Mr. Victor, please."

I pretended to lean slightly then took Victor's arm and strode forward.

-----

After crossing a street, the center exhibition hall appeared in front of us, there was a big title "Mr. Kitty Theme Exhibition" that was eye-catching at the door.

In addition to the colorful balloons, there is also a giant "Mr. Kitty" doll squatting at the door. Many young girls are happily surrounding the doll.

Victor : "Is this what you wanted to do the most today?"

I pulled out the admission ticket and proudly raised it.

MC : "That's right!"

However, the expected frown did not appear. What greeted me was Victor's calm eyes. I realized something later.

MC : "Victor, you wouldn't have guessed it long ago, did you?"

Victor sighed lightly but the corner of his lips were pulled imperceptibly.

Victor : "There were billboards for themed exhibition all the way to here, so one doesn't even have to bother to guess."

Victor : "And as for this plush doll and it's arms crossed shaped."

Victor : "It indeed fits someone's usual preference."

Part 2

Although Victor guessed the answer in advance, it did not affect my interest in the least.

Entering the exhibition hall and looking at the familiar and various "Mr. Kitty" dolls in front of me, my mood also relaxes.

MC : "This was my favorite foreign cartoon when I was a kid. It tells the story of Mr. Kitty and his friends on the planet "Meow".

With that said, I walked to the waiting doll and made a greeting gesture to Victor, then deliberately said in a low voice similar to the tone of Mr. Kitty.

MC : "I'm the famous Mr. Kitty, welcome to my cozy little nest."

MC : "Here, take pictures of your friends to your heart's content!"

Victor looked at me, folded his arms across his chest.

Victor : "Let's talk about it then, just how "famous" is it?"

It's rare for Victor to cooperate so well so I quickly introduced this "childhood friend" while the iron was hot.

MC : "In the entire planet "Meow", Mr. Kitty is the most capable."

MC : "It not only knows a lot of knowledge but also often takes adventures with friends."

I squeezed my fist while talking.

MC : "Whenever an enemy strikes, its spacecraft will rush to the front to drive away the enemy and defend the planet "Meow".

MC : "Don't look at Mr. Kitty's always unsmiling side. In fact, it is very soft at heart."

Seeing me ramble, Victor raised his eyebrows.

Victor : "It seems that you really like it."

Victor : "But I haven't heard you mention it before."

MC : "After all, it was when I was young."

MC : "This is Mr. Kitty's first exhibition in LoveLand City. I will tour you here to get to know it for the first time~"

Victor looked around for a while, took my hand and walked in.

Victor : "Don't you want to take pictures "as much as you want"?"

Victor : "You can't come back at the doorstep to fulfill your wish again."

After passing through an arch, the exhibition hall inside is really bigger and the dolls on display are also richer in looks.

In addition to Mr. Kitty, there are Skull Mouse dolls wearing skirts, Fairy Elf dolls with wide eyed eyes and several cute models of spaceships.

MC : "And this is Mr. Kitty's most trusted friend, Mr. Elf and this is Miss farmer mouse who always loves and kills." [T/N : If I'm not wrong, "loves and kills"/"相爱相杀是" means a "love but full of quarrels relationship"]

At this time, a shape of Mr. Kitty wearing an apron and holding a dinner plate suddenly broke into my eyes.

Although it has no expression on its face, the movements in its hands reveal a sense of seriousness. I tilted my head and took another look then suddenly laughed.

MC : "Victor, doesn't this look like you when you make pudding in Souvenir?"

MC : "How about I take a photo of it with you?"

Victor : "I'm giving you one minute to reorganize your words."

I raised the camera and shook it with a smile.

MC : "Happy movements must be recorded in order to have a lasting double happiness, right~"

Victor : "Give it to me."

As soon as I finished speaking, Victor reached out and took my camera.

Victor : "Rather offering me to, it is better if you walk over and stand there yourself."

MC : "Then I'll trouble Mr. Victor."

I stood next to Mr. Kitty with two steps and grinned at Victor.

"CLICK!"

The picture freezes on the camera and Victor's eyes slide across the screen calmly but the slight smile in his eyes reveals his good mood at the moment.

Victor : "....Such a stupid smile."

-------

Part 3

After taking enough photos and playing a lot of small games, Victor and I went to the innermost part of exhibition hall. There were four striking characters on the wall.

MC : "Spaceship Pursuit?"

At the same time, the small screen on the wall sounded a melody of the promo.

Screen Broadcast : "Using high-tech projection technology, everyone can take Mr. Kitty's spacecraft, explore the universe with it and defeat the enemy!"

Screen Broadcast : "And in the process of PK with the enemy, there will be cameras to capture everyone's heroic moments!"

I subconsciously looked at Victor. He did not respond immediately but raised his wrist.

Victor : "As a reminder, you have one hour left."

MC : "......"

Victor : "Don't bother if you want to play."

Boarding the "spaceship", Victor and I sat down near the corner.

Soon, a clear picture of adventure lit up in the pitch-black spaceship at the same time as if the real universe was shrouded in the sky.

At the same, the ground under my feet suddenly began to jolting and shaking slightly---and the spacecraft set off!

I got back to my senses and I was about to raise the small "pistol" but when I turned my head, I saw Victor's slightly disgusted expression.

In his hand, the cat-shaped plastic gun seemed to be less than the size of his palm.

Under the cover of the dark light, I turned my face away and couldn't help but curl the corners of my mouth.

After a while, as the spacecraft sailed, the enemies who were also driving the spacecraft gradually appeared appeared in the field of vision and I quietly pointed them to Victor.

MC : "The mushroom head in the middle is our worst enemy and the one on the left is also a threat."

MC : "But if you are optimistic, we'll be able to successfully drive them away later!"

I pulled the trigger of the small pistol but several rounds in a row were quickly avoided by the mushroom head.

I adjusted my strategy and planned to shoot from another direction but at this moment I saw from the corner of my eye, a figure sitting upright next to me.

Although, Victor was very disgusted just now, but right now, he was holding the small pistol very seriously, as if he was not in front of the game screen but before the usual report materials.

MC : "Pff!"

Among the excited crowd, Victor looked different in a suit and a serious look alone.

I wanted to ask him to relax a little bit but then I gave up after thinking about it. Such a rare scene should be appreciated for a while.

Perceiving my peeking and secret joy, Victor gave me a constant look.

Victor : "Who was the one who just said to chase away the enemy and now gave up so quickly?"

MC : "No, I was just changing my posture."

Victor turned his head without comment.

The projected colored spots reflected light on his face. Looking at Victor, who was a little more vivid and childlike than usual, I suddenly became playful.

I turned my head and looked around and I saw a flashing red spot not far away, it should be the camera lens of the rocker arm.

My body is so close that I want to shoot from behind Victor, in fact I secretly stretched my hand to the top of his head and made a "V".

Victor : "If you want to make a face of me, just be fair."

Hearing the sound, I rolled my eyes.

MC : "It's not often that you play games so seriously."

MC : "If it happens to be captured, it will add a bit of fun to your photos."

Victor : "According to you, would I still say "thank you" for this?"

Hearing the helplessness and ridicule in his words, I stuck out my tongue.

Now that I was caught, I no longer concealed my intentions. I quickly squeezed Victor's face with my hands and squinted at the camera.

MC : "Victor, look at the camera quickly!"

The rocker lens quickly passed overhead. Victor turned his head and looked at me with a smile.

Victor : "Happy now?"

I said frankly.

MC : "It's okay I guess, you just said to be more honest."

Another red projection reflected on Victor's face and his lips slightly curled up.

Victor : "Childish."

Part 4

When coming out of the game hall, the brilliance of the setting sun had already fallen in front of him.

After playing for so long, I couldn't help but feel tired. I ordered an ice cream from the surrounding shops and Victor and I sat down in the rest area.

After all, it was the first ever exhibition of Mr. Kitty in LoveLand City. It was the first time I ate an ice cream shaped like Mr. Kitty. In a novel way, I had a "wipe" when I raised my camera.

Preparing to put the camera away, Victor's figure advertently moved up facing the camera suddenly appearing in the frame.

The adorable ice cream is right in front of him and while wearing a suit and leather shoes, he picks up a small spoon seemingly not knowing where to start.

I couldn't help but laugh softly.

Victor raised his head and glanced at me holding the camera.

Behind the camera, I sighed slyly.

MC : "It turned out that even Mr. Victor would make a fuss and it's rare."

MC : "Come to think of it, I have collected a lot of "The other side of Mr. Victor", It shouldn't be too bad to take another one."

After speaking, I quickly pressed the shutter. As expected, Victor hadn't had time to react so, I captured the slightly dazed expression in the photo.

Putting down the camera contentedly, I dug a scoop of Mr. Kitty's ice cream and tasted it. the refreshing and non-too sweet taste made my eyes bright.

MC : "This is delicious, try it!"

Victor : "Don't change the subject in a hurry."

Victor : "I think "surprise" is your focus for today, right?"

After taking another big mouthful ice cream, I rolled my eyes and squinted with a smile.

MC : "You can't say that. No matter what you are, it was originally a very important part of today's record."

Victor paused for a moment and a slight upward arc leaked from the corner of his mouth.

Victor : "Strong words are unreasonable."

We just ate Mr. Kitty's ice cream one by one. After a while, the waiter brought another ice cream cone.

Victor : "Why did you order two?"

Lifting the cone to Victor, I smiled and winked.

MC : "If you look closely, this is a unique "elf" cone."

MC : "Do you remember the fairy..."

Victor : "Is the Mr. Kitty's most trusted friend."

Victor took my words unhurriedly and then raised his eyebrows.

Victor : "Isn't that right?"

MC : "So, since we're here, it's worthwhile to try all the special things!"

The sun slanting westward fell on Victor's shoulders and hair, he gave a soft smile, his mouth seemed to have the aftertaste of summer.

Victor : "I can see it's just like someone's own taste."

At this moment, the staff of the game hall sent the photos captured by the camera. On the screen, I happened to pinch Victor's face and smile triumphantly.

Unexpectedly, that moment was actually captured. Seeing Victor's helpless look in the photo, I suppressed a chuckle.

Victor : "Seeing certain someone's silly look, she seems to be very satisfied for a long time."

I tried to narrow the corners of my mouth and pretended not to say so unequivocally.

MC : "It's almost thanks to Mr. Victor's cooperation."

A soft look flashed in Victor's eyes, he raised his writs and took a look then raised his eyebrows.

Victor : "That being said, the rest of the time is mine."

----

After all, it is the first time in a while such a "special day off" has been agreed and I can't wait to look forward to the next arrangement.

Stepping on the shadow of the setting sun, I curiously followed Victor. However, as I walked, the scenery in front of me became more and more familiar.

I hesitate for a second and then asked him my doubts.

MC : "Victor, are we on our way back to you home?"

Victor gave a low "Hm".

Victor : "What do you want to eat later?"

Victor : "Fried salmon?"

Although I always rely on Victor to "extravagant food and drinks", after I happily took him to the childhood cartoon exhibition, his arrangement was unexpected.

I pressed my lips together and the emotion of expecting bubbles fell.

MC : "...Is this what you want to do most today?"

Victor lowered his head, his eyes touched my somewhat stunned expression, he reached out his hand and tapped my forehead.

Victor : "What are you thinking about again?"

MC : "Oh...no..."

On the other side of the road where the lights were lit, Victor fixed his eyes firmly on me and the corners of his lips were slightly raised.

Victor : "About what you wanted to do, I had already expected ‘lively’."

Victor : "And the result is indeed the case."

Victor's voice was very low and so clear. He paused the smiled softly.

Victor : "But during the rare rest days, what I want to have is your and my private space."

Victor : "The idea of going home for dinner may not considered special in the general sense."

Victor : "But for me, if every three o'clock and three meals a day can have some dummy chirping by my side..."

Victor : "That is the time I'm most looking forward to."

When the voice fell, the low and doubts that had been quietly surging in my heart before were all filled with heat and warmth now.

Looking at the person in front of me who made me feel at ease, I subconsciously stretched out my arms around him.

The skin-to-skin heat surges up, as if converging into a special invisible camera in my heart.

Recording the moment that belongs only to us forever in my heart.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

DATE CLEARED~

🍮Victor’s Moments 1 & 2 : Ice-Cream and Pretend

🍮Victor’s Texts : Escape from the heat

#mlqc #so cute T^T #Mr. Kitty is just Vic vic but in another dimension haha #mr love queen's choice #mlqc victor #mlqc dates #mlqc cn #mlqc translations #mldd #love and producer

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ectonurites · 3 years

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idk how to quote tags on mobile where is the conner kent essay i NEED it

ALRIGHT OKAY! here’s 5k+ words plus panels & screenshots of me comparing and contrasting the two drastically different versions of Superboy (comics vs young justice cartoon) and going over what makes them such distinctly separate characters. someday i’ll refine this a bit more its kinda just a word dump that’s been living in my brain that i wanted to actually articulate after i read through Reign of the Supermen but here we go:

Pretty frequently I see the question “Why is Superboy so different in the Young Justice cartoon?” float around in DC circles. I think there are two main approaches to answering this:

Why did the writers of the cartoon decide to create a very different version of Superboy?

What factors make this Superboy so different from the comic version?

For the first approach the answer is relatively straight-forward, from the start Young Justice as a cartoon was never meant to be a direct adaptation of the comics. They just used the title and a few elements so they could create their own approach to the DC universe with a focus on younger heroes. For example, Artemis Crock in their show is also COMPLETELY different from her comic counterpart, Zatanna is aged way down to be a member of the teen team, and Kaldur’ahm was created for this show (and integrated into the comics as Jackson Hyde). They were always trying to do different things than the main comics universe, so them making a different version of Conner also makes sense. Their approach to him is also very clearly influenced more by how he appeared in the Teen Titans comic run that was still coming out as Young Justice started airing (his design, and some other elements we’ll discuss along the way), as opposed to his original version from the 90′s/the Young Justice comic.

So the basic “why” is that from the start they wanted to create something unique to their universe, which they definitely did accomplish.

The much more interesting subject to dive into, though, is looking at the differences in Superboy’s story that contribute to him becoming such a different person.

The drastic changes made to the following factors are what I view as the main source of his differences in personality/outlook/characterization:

The conditions and history of the world at the time he is introduced

The circumstances around him being introduced/leaving Cadmus

The reaction Clark has to him and how their relationship starts

The people he first interacted with & became close to, and how he interacts with the world

The timing of him finding out about his connection to Luthor

The State of the Worlds

In the comics, Superboy is first introduced in Adventures of Superman #500 by iconically saying “Don’t ever call me Superboy!”

during a 1993 event called “Reign of the Supermen”, a follow up to the 1992 event “The Death of Superman”. Based on the title of the 1992 event, I think you can, uh, guess what one major difference in the setting here was vs. the state of the world at the time he was introduced in the cartoon. Obviously Clark didn’t stay dead forever, but Superboy first comes onto the scene as a young clone of Superman who insists he is the new Superman (one of the four characters trying to do so during the event). This is in the main DC universe in the early 90’s, which means that heroes in general, including teen heroes, aren’t a new thing! Not only has the Justice League been around for a while but so has the Teen Titans. Once Clark is alive again, Superboy goes off on his own to establish himself as an individual teen hero.

So how is that different in the cartoon?

In the cartoon, Superboy is first introduced in the pilot episodes “Independence Day” and “Fireworks”

on the 4th of July in (what most people consider to be) 2010. This was supposed to be the day that Robin (Dick Grayson), Speedy (Roy Harper), Kid Flash (Wally West), and Aqualad (Kaldur’ahm) would get to see the true Justice League HQ at the Hall of Justice, which... doesn’t go exactly as planned.

In this world, superheroes are a newer thing, this is something that the creators have talked about before. At this point, while there is an established Justice League, there are no known teams of teen superheroes. Just the fact that as of season one Dick Grayson is still Robin is a pretty good indicator that this world is early in it’s time with a Batman. Now, the sidekicks aren’t a secret, as they appear very publicly in this first episode, but they are almost always seen acting with their mentors at this point. Again, there is no Teen Titans in this setting, and there never has been.

So when they do form the first teen hero team? It is kept covert-ops. They do not publicize that they act as a superhero team, and the members who weren’t already publicly known heroes (mainly Miss Martian and Superboy) end up being pretty… unknown to a lot of the world outside the hero/villain community! Again their existence is not strictly kept a secret, but they keep the fact that there’s a team of minors who are heroes going on independent missions VERY under the radar on purpose. Thus, those who aren’t going around doing super public hero activities just don’t have nearly as much of a presence.

So to summarize:

In the comics, Superboy is immediately put in a spotlight (he befriends a reporter and is all over tv and literally trademarks the name Superman) becoming known to the world and establishes himself as a solo acting hero YEARS before joining any teams.

In the cartoon, Superboy is kept relatively out of the spotlight, immediately becomes part of a covert-ops team and doesn’t act solo very often. The well known teen heroes in this setting are sidekicks working under a mentor, and Superboy does not actually act as a sidekick.

What does this mean for Superboy?

Superboy in the comics gets to, right away, act on his own and get a taste of what being Superman is like. In the cartoon, he’s brought into the world at a time where there already is a Superman. I think back to this bit from the therapy episode, where he says:

“See, from the moment I first opened my eyes in that Cadmus pod, there’s been one thing I’ve wanted, and feared. To know what it is to be Superman.”

Comics Superboy started out getting to do that! He immediately got a shot at filling that role, and he then makes the choice to relinquish it back to the original once he’s alive again. He (begrudgingly at first) understood that it wasn’t yet his time to be Superman, and knows he’ll someday fill those shoes for real- but in the meantime being Superboy is gonna be his own thing and he’ll embrace it and make it work.

Cartoon Superboy is left in a shadow, not ever truly knowing what it’s like to fill those shoes (except in a doomsday scenario training exercise gone awry that he then just feels intense guilt over). This leaves him a lot more frustrated and lost, and I think is a major contributor to how angry this version of Superboy is compared to his much more ‘chill go with the flow’ attitude in the comics.

Cadmus

In the comics, in that same issue he’s introduced, we find out that Superboy broke out of his cloning tube prematurely and left Cadmus with the assistance of the second Newsboy Legion, who also gave him his first leather jacket, before the programming that would allow Cadmus to control him was implemented.

He quickly gets up to speed with the situation, that Clark is dead. So he comes on the scene starting to save people and saying he is Superman, or at least the clone of the original one. A major thing that does influence his character here is the fact that… this is the 90’s. He is designed around the idea of what is ‘cool’ back in 1993. (look, even his original character design sheets call him cool)

So right off the bat he’s got a stereotypical ‘cool teen guy in that era’ personality, which is often played for comedy to add a little lightness to some of the dark things happening during this event.

Anyways, he has left Cadmus, he’s acting on his own, and he starts realizing that his powers aren’t exactly the same as Superman’s over the course of the Reign of the Supermen story.

After the main conflict is settled and Clark is fully alive and acting as Superman again, the two of them end up going back to Cadmus to find out what the exact deal is with him. I’ll go into this more in a later point, but they find out he’s not exactly a clone of Superman (or Lex- him being actually involved as a DNA donor is a retcon that happened a decade later). They agree to let someone from Cadmus (Dubbilex- the grey guy with the horns in this pic) leave Metropolis with him, as he sets out on a press tour to establish himself as Superboy now that he relinquished the trademark on the Superman name back to Clark.

Let’s pause and look at how this is different in the cartoon.

In the cartoon, when the trio of Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad decide to prove themselves to their mentors they run off on their own to attend to a fire at Project Cadmus when the Justice League got called off to do something else. Upon arriving, they accidentally uncover some weird things about Cadmus, like the crazy amount of sublevels, the creatures roaming around, and the fact that it’s not on the main power grids. They eventually find Superboy, still in his cloning tube. They break him out, but then get captured themselves.

When they are then put into tubes by Cadmus personnel, they manage to convince Superboy to help free them by promising him things like getting to meet Superman, and see the moon. The group of four now working together manages to escape from the building and it topples down, where they are then greeted by the Justice League who are Not Happy.

Superman flies away shortly after, and the group of kids explain to their remaining mentors that sure, they disobeyed orders, but they accomplished something good here, and they are going to keep doing it, whether the League likes it or not. The compromise is the formation of The Team, to be covert-ops while the Justice League acts publicly, and the boys are joined by Miss Martian.

So to summarize:

In the comics, Superboy leaves Cadmus pretty independently (with some assistance) to go act on his own as a hero immediately. He returns to Cadmus later for more information, and they reveal truths to him about his existence. After he knows his truth, he goes off to continue establishing himself as a solo hero but lets Cadmus still supervise what he’s doing through Dubbilex.

In the cartoon, Superboy is rescued from Cadmus by Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad, without knowing pretty much anything about himself besides the fact that he is a clone of Superman, and is immediately put on the covert ops team.

What it means for Superboy:

Comic Superboy goes to act on his own, even after he admits he’s not the real Superman anymore. Yes he’s not 100% alone in terms of ‘he’s got people (Rex, Roxy, Dubbilex, Tana) around him’, but as a hero he’s a solo act and ends up taking residence in Hawaii. In the cartoon, by joining a team right away, he’s taking on a very different style of being a hero, especially because the team itself is covert-ops. Rather than regularly saving the day all on his own much like Superman, which can help comic Superboy feel like he’s still living up to the name more, cartoon Superboy is working under the radar in a group setting, while still wanting to desperately fill those Superman shoes.

He is overconfident in his abilities and wants to be the hero he was created to be, so him being put into this very different type of superhero situation is another major contributor to the frustration/anger. Even later on when comics Superboy is part of forming the Young Justice team, they were never a secret covert-ops team, they were always publicly known. (hell, a reporter is the one who gave them the team name Young Justice because he’d misheard Bart)

Superboy & Superman

In the comics, as we have established, Clark was dead at the time Superboy first came on the hero scene. Clark comes back to life, during a little bit of a lull in the middle of the huge conflict. He immediately accepts that Superboy is one of four who came forward to try to replace him, and one of the only two (Superboy & Steel) who genuinely only had good intentions in doing so. Clark, Steel, Supergirl, Hal Jordan, and Superboy then all work together in the big battle against the Cyborg Superman.

Once things are settled, Clark is curious about him, and where he came from and his origin, so they end up going to Cadmus together with Guardian and learning more about him, as I previously mentioned. Once it is established that Superboy is in fact a metahuman clone who was created to mimic Superman, but is not actually a clone of him, Superman still accepts him and thinks he’s earned his right to continue using the ’S’ shield and have the name of Superboy.

They part ways so Superboy can go on his press tour, but in general they have pretty positive interactions where they mutually respect each other! Not too much later in the comics even (I forget exaaactly when this happens but it’s definitely before the 1998 Young justice comic), Superman is the first one to give Superboy a real name, “Kon-El”, something he is so happy about he literally cries.

How is this different in the cartoon?

When the boys first escaped, and Superboy first meets the Justice League, Clark is standoffish. Other members of the league need to nudge him over to go actually talk to Superboy, and it’s not much of a conversation before he flies off and away, leaving Superboy frustrated and alone.

This… turns into the standard for almost the entire first season. Other characters constantly telling Clark that he needs to reach out and be support for the boy (like in this iconic diner scene with Bruce and Clark), but Clark consistently being too freaked out by the fact that someone made a clone of him without his knowledge to properly accept Conner. While this does over time get better, this being the immediate reaction when Superboy is brand new in the world definitely… has an impact!

He is rejected by the person he idolizes, and feels neglected and abandoned, and definitely kinda overcompensates with ego to try to make up for it.

So:

In the comics, Superman and Superboy work together from the start, not falling into a hero/sidekick situation but rather acknowledging each other as individual heroes with respect for one another. They grow to see each other as family much faster, and little tension between them. A crucial difference in situations, though, is that at the time these versions first meet Superboy is not actually a clone of Superman.

In the cartoon, Superman at first avoids Superboy, and does not offer guidance or mentorship or anything the boy needs. It is clear that he wants to work with Superman and be like him, since it was what he was created to do. It takes a lot of time for Clark to accept Conner in this setting, and there is a lot of tension for the first several months Conner exists. (they seem to settle this towards the end of season 1/during the gap between season 2, but it still has it’s impact on who Conner is early in his life)

What does this mean?

I feel like this is another major factor that contributes to Conner being so angry all the time in the cartoon, he feels immediately rejected by the person he’s supposed to be someday, rather than accepted by him. Again, very different from how comics Superboy got a chance to be Superman, and a chance to then work with the real deal as equals.

Friendships, Relationships and Identity

When Superboy is freed by the second Newsboy Legion, it’s primarily out of a ‘we’re clones who are stuck here, but you need to be out there, you’re what Metropolis needs right now!’ kind of idea. The first person he actually becomes close to is a reporter named Tana Moon.

Tana and Superboy’s relationship is… bad once it actually becomes romantic due to their huge age difference (she’s around 23, he is for all intents and purposes 16), but during the Reign of the Supermen where they’re still just friends for the most part, it’s not as bad. Tana becomes the GBS correspondent who focuses on everything Superboy (at this time still insisting he is the new Superman) is doing as a hero, and they become close friends.

GBS then also brings in Rex Leech (and his daughter Roxy) to be his agent, to promote Superboy and manage things for him. Rex is exploitative as hell, but Roxy does become another really important person to Superboy. These characters along with Dubbilex are his main supporting cast at the start of his solo comic when he’s in Hawaii.

In this whole era, Superboy is pretty much a celebrity. He’s cool, he’s a superhero, and I think it’s very notable he does not have a secret Identity. For a decent chunk of time, he is always just ‘Superboy’ (until, as I mentioned earlier, Clark gives him the name Kon-El. Even so, he doesn’t adopt a regular secret identity [Conner Kent, although he actually used a different one, Carl Grummett, before that!] until he begins living with the Kents in the early 2000s). By the time he joins any teams, Kon is pretty damn confident in who he is as a hero and has a relatively good grasp on who he is in general, if anything he’s a little too confident.

Young Justice was created in the aftermath of World Without Grown Ups when the trio of Superboy, Robin (Tim Drake) and Impulse (Bart Allen) had teamed up. After they saved the day they realized they worked well together and formed their team, utilizing the old Justice League base in Mount Justice. They were eventually joined by more members, especially relevant here is Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) who Kon later dates for a portion of the Teen Titans run that these four are in after Young Justice ends.

The four of them become close, and when Kon dies during Infinite Crisis it rips a hole in everything they had established growing up together over the past several years (Cassie joins a cult dedicated to bringing him back, Tim tries to clone a new Kon, Bart got aged up and took on the mantle of the Flash, etc) and Bart’s death that followed similarly shook the remaining Cassie and Tim. This group eventually does get to reunite, with Kon and Bart coming back during Final Crisis, solidifying how even things like death don’t keep them apart for long. It’s hard to look at the comic book versions of these four characters and imagine how they would be without their connections to each other... until you look at the YJ cartoon and see a world where they’re not even all part of the same generation, let alone a friend group.

Now in the cartoon…

The first people Conner primarily interacts with are Dick, Wally, Kaldur, and M’gann, along with the League members who interact with The Team pretty regularly, Red Tornado, Batman, and Black Canary. He’s shown to be friends with the other memebers of the team and get along with them relatively well, but in general he’s not much of a social person.

Much like in the comics, Superboy is considered very attractive, and immediately upon their meeting, M’gann is interested in him. Very, very interested in him.

At first it definitely does seem more just like an innocent crush, but it’s later revealed to be a little more… concerning than that. As in ‘Megan subtlety influencing Superboy to become her dream boyfriend based on a TV show she likes’ concerning. Like… she literally gives him the name ‘Conner’ after the TV show character that was the boyfriend of the character she bases her human self and entire identity on. The two date and once that becomes a thing, a lot of their plot lines in the following seasons revolve around the ups and downs of their relationship.

In general in this show, Superboy doesn’t really get much of a chance to establish himself on his own terms. Within months of him leaving his cloning pod, he and M’gann start going to high school with secret identities, so he’s already having to hide who he truly is to blend in with other people, before he even knows who he truly is.

So to compare:

In the comics, Superboy gets to figure out who he is as Superman’s Clone/Superboy very publicly, has multiple love interests and a celebrity status, and over time becomes part of a tight-knit group of friends. He doesn’t use a regular secret identity for the first several years he’s active.

In the cartoon, Superboy has one love interest with a very large impact on him, not nearly as much focus is given to his other friendships, and he immediately adopts a secret identity meaning he needs to hide who he is from the start.

What it means:

These factors play a big difference in his attitude, particularly highlighting how extroverted his comic version is and how introverted his cartoon version is. Comic Superboy never really needed to hide who he was until years into his career, vs being told to do so early on in his life. When you get used to needing to hide things so early, that can definitely lead to being more private/disconnected from others. Also somewhat related- in the comics, when Kon is given knowledge in his cloning tube, more pop culture got included. He mentions knowing Star Wars without having seen it, and references a ton of TV and Movies, vs the cartoon version of him that seems to have been given a lot of history of the world but not the current fun stuff. It’s the difference between knowing what’s going on in the world and what’s popular, vs only knowing the past and what’s fundamental. Not knowing pop culture like this can also really contribute to feeling alienated and lead to introversion. (I just... I think about how in the comics Kon’s favorite TV show is Wendy The Werewolf Stalker, in the cartoon Conner just... watches white noise static)

Also, having a completely different set of friends with different personalities has a big effect, people are always gonna be influenced by the people they’re close to to some extent. Bumping Conner up to Dick’s generation of heroes instead of Tim’s not only gives him completely different friends, but it also puts him in this position of being one of the ‘Original Team Members’. By this I mean, a member of the first iteration of the only teen team, one of the people that younger heroes coming onto the scene and joining the team in later seasons see as an experienced and older team member to look up to (despite the fact that cartoon Conner is permanently 16- they never fixed that for him like in the comics). That just creates a different dynamic entirely, because in the comics even when the Tim/Kon/Cassie/Bart group are more experienced on their team late in the Teen Titans run, they are still always going to have heroes like Dick Grayson, Donna Troy, Wally West etc as the older generation of ‘original teen heroes’ who came before them.

Also, while I am talking mostly about in-universe reasoning here, I do wanna bring up one slightly more meta reason that might also have contributed to them choosing to go for a more ‘introverted brooding hero’ characterization with him: the fact that their version of Wally already filled the ‘flirty jokey’ archetype original Comics Kon fits into. Having two characters like that in the show from the start would definitely get... overwhelming. And at the time this show was first airing, in the comics, he was relatively devoted to Cassie and not nearly as flirty anymore anyways.

Lex Luthor / Details of Cloning

In the comics, as I have already mentioned and will now actually explain, when Superboy was first introduced he was not the clone of Superman and Lex Luthor as we know him to be today. Kon was a metahuman clone, made with the DNA of Paul Westfield who worked at Cadmus, that they genetically altered to look like Superman, and gave powers based on the energy aura they discovered to exist around Clark’s dead body. This telekinetic field gave Kon the distinct powers he had for his first decade of existence: His Tactile Telekinesis (often referred to by him as TTK)

Lex Luthor was originally not directly involved in his creation, but he was aware that it was going on as is revealed during the Reign of the Supermen arc. Kon’s TTK allowed him to mimic Superman’s flight and strength, but not all of his powers. TTK also gave him powers Superman DOESN’T have, such as his ability to dismantle machinery or mold materials he is touching into different shapes. (The reason this is called Tactile Telekinesis is because there needs to be a tactile element, he needs to be touching the things)

It is not until 2003, a decade after Superboy was created, that writer Geoff Johns in his Teen Titans run decided to alter Superboy’s origin. He established that Lex Luthor had been the real human DNA donor and that Superman’s Kryptonian DNA was actually used in the cloning process. Around this time, Conner also begins to exhibit more of the typical Kryptonian powers, like Clark did around this age.

This information is at first only known by Conner and Tim, because the email had actually been sent to Tim directly. The two keep it a secret as Conner was not ready to tell the rest of the team, because he fears the implications it has, and is afraid of becoming evil or being rejected. This revelation about Lex being one of his ‘parents’ DNA-wise coming years into his hero career changes a lot of things for Conner, and makes him begin to question who he is. Unfortunately, Lex does at one point take control of Conner and force him to break Tim’s arm and attack Cassie directly (as well as the rest of the team, but these two specifically are what Conner expresses the most guilt over after the fact). This era of Conner in the comics is where he’s definitely closest to his cartoon counterpart, because he’s very troubled and dealing with a lot of heavy stuff regarding himself as a person. Yet there’s still traces of who he has always been in there. I mean, if you’re only familiar with cartoon Conner, can you really imagine his final words as he’s dying after saving the world being “Isn’t it cool?”

Now, looking at the cartoon…

Conner finds out about his connection to Lex in November, only a few months after having existed outside of a cloning tube. He finds it out on his own, from Lex speaking to him directly, after Conner went back to investigate the remains of Cadmus and ended up having a fight with Match (another clone who is able to pass for Conner’s duplicate who they… their version of Match is another thing they drastically changed from the comic version but as we’ve established that’s something they like to do so I’m not gonna dwell on it).

In the cartoon, Conner’s powerset is, from the start, different from both Superman and comic Superboy. Here he has heightened senses and strength and the ability to leap really far, but he lacks actual flight and some of the other standard Kryptonian powers, and has no TTK. The cartoon explains these gaps in his powers as being due to his half human DNA, and they introduce these patches that are able to suppress his human DNA and give him temporary access to full powers. Lex uses these patches as a way to manipulate him. Much like in the comics, Lex has a code word programmed into Conner that effects him, although it isn’t quite used for the same amount of ‘total mind control’, and he doesn’t get fully brainwashed and turn against the team or anything. Instead, the code word (here “Red Sun” rather than “Aut vincere, aut mori” [Translated as “to conquer or die" / "victory or death”]) just leaves him stuck in a hypnotic trance.

So:

In the comics, Kon finds out after years of believing he was a metahuman clone who was given powers to mimic Superman, that he is actually a clone of Lex Luthor and Superman, which alters his entire perspective on himself! This causes him to become a lot more unsure and anxious about who he is, in stark contrast with how confident he was before. There are still traces of his old self within him, but this is a development in his character that influences him moving forward, making him a bit more serious but still at his core the same person he used to be.

In the cartoon, Conner finds out after months of thinking he was a clone of just Superman, that he has half human DNA and the donor was Lex Luthor. While he always had confidence in his abilities, he was still somewhat lost as a person in knowing who he really was outside of things other people have assigned to him (teammate, boyfriend, superhero, etc), and finding out this information about himself just adds to the uncertainty and frustration.

What it means:

Having this struggle be something Conner has to deal with so early in his existence is one of the most fundamental changes in my opinion. Finding out that Lex Luthor is one of your clone parents is something that will alter your entire perception of yourself and who you are! In the comics, Conner had already been confident in who he was so it shakes his world in a really big way, but in the cartoon he still didn’t know who he really was so it just adds to further confusion.

I think that even with the more serious characterization Kon starts getting in the 2003 Teen TItans run, his history and past as the fun cool 90′s Metropolis Kid isn’t entirely forgotten, it’s still a part of who he is/was. Sure, maybe he’s sometimes even embarrassed by how he used to be, but it’s not treated as though it didn’t happen. All of his history comes together to create the character and who he is by the time he wears just a T shirt as a costume.

By skipping over the fun era of his life and jumping right into who he was when he started facing these huge changes, it creates such a completely different set of challenges for him and that contributes directly to how he’s characterized.

Putting it all together

The ultimate point I am trying to reach in all of this is that, beyond just ‘they made a writing choice to make him different’ the environment that Superboy was brought into and the events that took place right when he came into the world greatly influenced the type of character he would become. Every time an adaptation is made of something like comics, there are going to be changes and alterations to fit the world the creators want to make. Sometimes these changes are minor and don’t actually change who a character is (an example for the YJ cartoon’s universe itself: In the tie-in comics [issue 6] it’s established in this universe that the Flying Graysons weren’t just Dick and his parents, but other family members were active parts of it too. One was an uncle also named Richard, who actually survived the fall that killed the rest of his family but was left paralyzed and thus unable to care for him. This uncle already used the nickname ‘Rick’ which is likely why Dick ended up using ‘Dick’ as a name in a modern setting even though it has fallen out of popularity as a nickname because uh, connotations. This is something that is mostly unique to their world and helps to explain some things, but it’s not like tragically losing a few more family members changed their version of Dick and his backstory that drastically. At his core, he still has many similarities to his comic self) but they’re still changes, and that’s okay. Superboy, though, is such an extreme case where they made so many changes that at his core he really does become a completely separate character. Sure he has the name and design, but I was able to write five thousand words about differences here and am struggling to come up with more similarities beyond that.

I think there still could be specks of the original Superboy buried inside cartoon Conner, and that maybe he could have been more like his original version under other circumstances. Looking at these differences and where they come from is, I think, a cool way to begin to understand what elements contribute to who each version of Conner Kent really is. I think it’s clear from how I wrote this that I prefer the comic version, but there are definitely things that are fun to look at and think about with both.

if u read all of this UH thanks for listenin to me ramble! sorry if this is incomprehensibe!

#rainbowroadimpulse #sam writes #conner kent #superboy

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thankskenpenders · 3 years

Text

And so that’s it... nearly 200 issues deep, we’re done with the contributions of original writer Michael Gallagher. I’ve been asked in the past about the possibility of writing an article going over Gallagher’s run, like what I did with Penders. And I might still do that. But for now, here’s a shorter postmortem summarizing my feelings on the work of the original writer for history’s longest-running video game comic

I think it’s easy to look back on Gallagher’s silly old stories with a lot of nostalgia, especially after seeing what the series would become in its Dark Age. I can’t blame anyone who feels this way. I feel that way sometimes, too. It was a simpler time, with short, self-contained stories and a ton of puns, and it was a lot more easily digestible than a lot of the teen melodrama and half-baked sci-fi that followed. But the thing is... that doesn’t mean that Gallagher’s writing was good

Gallagher was always an odd fit for Sonic. I can’t really blame the man for introducing lame concepts like Cal and Al that didn’t fit in with Sonic early on because it’s not like he had much to work with in the early days. The guy was expected to write a monthly comic series based on a couple 16-bit platformers with very little story and some snippets from a cartoon that wasn’t out yet. He also had no way of knowing that his work here would lay the foundation for the longest video game comic ever made. I don’t envy his job. Of course he’d do a goofball story where Sonic travels back to caveman times. It’s not like he had much else to do

But as the series progressed and the cartoons and games gave the comic writers more material to work with, Gallagher didn’t really play along. He gave us a few solid, fun stories like Mecha Madness, but for the most part he was off in his own world, trying to sell us on shoehorned characters like the Forty Fathom Freedom Fighters or the Downunda Freedom Fighters who existed almost exclusively to deliver new flavors of lame pun. One time he even worked with Jim Valentino to make a naval-gazing parody of classic Guardians of the Galaxy so they could make lame puns about a comic they used to write (that very few children in 2001 reading Archie Sonic would be familiar with)

People generally pinpoint Penders as the guy who became obsessed with his own pet characters over the main cast as time went on, but really, Gallagher was just as guilty. And honestly, sometimes Gallagher doing it bugged me more. At least Penders had some prominent characters people actually liked, like Elias, Lara-Su, and Julie-Su, as well as some semblance of an overarching plot to work with. Meanwhile Gallagher was over here trying desperately to get people to care about a group of characters he had created exclusively as a vehicle for trite Australia jokes

Gallagher did introduce a few characters who stuck around, but he doesn’t really deserve much of the credit for that. Most notable would probably be Fiona Fox, who would become a major recurring character under later writers... except Gallagher only really invented her robotic doppelganger that Robotnik tricked Tails into falling in love with that one time. He created Knuckles’ grandfather Athair, the one comic character to somehow make it into a cartoon, but Penders helped out with that lore and did more with the character, meaning most people just assume he’s another Penders echidna. He created Tails’ parents, but Karl and Ian were the ones who actually did stuff with them. And he created the Ancient Walkers, who were kind of neat at first but quickly devolved into a tired plot device, only to be killed off by Ian almost immediately to cut down on the deus ex machinas. If you look at the list of characters Gallagher created, it’s mostly just randos he created for the sake of puns

And that’s really what most of it comes down to. Lame puns. I’m totally down for Sonic stories that go for a silly tone. I love Sonic Boom as much as the next fan, and I’ve been having a blast with the extremely goofy Sonic X comics. I’m not a cartoon snob who won’t watch a show that doesn’t have action and drama and lore, I’m out here watching shows like Apple & Onion. But while Gallagher could write good jokes sometimes, he mostly relied on groanworthy newspaper strip-level puns. (I guess it’s fitting, considering he’s related to both the guy who created Heathcliff AND his successor who makes those comics about the Garbage Ape.) I love me a good pun from time to time, and a lot of Gallagher’s are funnier when shared out of context, but when a story is just wall to wall puns it becomes agonizing. Puns should be a spice, not a main ingredient. And when Gallagher got a chance to follow an ACTUAL newspaper comic strip format in the Off Panel, he fared even worse. It was so rare for the Off Panels he wrote to actually be any funny

He WAS genuinely funny at times, though. I’ll give him credit for that. I don’t want it to seem like I hated ALL of his stories. (He did impress me with at least one political joke that’s sadly still relevant today, and in hindsight there’s something really funny on a meta level about the dark and gritty return of Cal and Al.) I think his best work came when he was paired with better artists. Scott Shaw’s more energetic Sonics really helped sell the cartoony comedy in the original miniseries, and obviously Spaziante’s work on Mecha Madness made that story legendary. When he was stuck with the less exciting Manak or Mawhinney, though, not so much

Beyond the puns, there was also this undercurrent of nastiness, meanness, and general grossness in his stories that I don’t see as many fans pick up on. This was mainly evident in the many odd decisions he made with the female cast

We had his take on Sally, who was treated as little more than Sonic’s annoying, moody, bossy girlfriend who bickered with him, sat on a big throne, and occasionally got to be a damsel in distress. He added Bunnie to the cast early on, but it felt like he didn’t have many ideas for what to do with her except make her the butt of jokes about her being a southern belle, including literally making her say “the South shall rise again!” We had Barby Koala’s extremely creepy flirting with Tails, who was half her age. We had that tone deaf Off-Panel joke about turning the special dedicated to the female readers into a swimsuit special (which isn’t far off from what everyone else actually did). And we also had that baffling story where Dulcy killed her mother. I have NO idea what the fuck he thought he was going for with that one.

It wasn’t just the girls, though--Antoine was somehow even more of a punching bag in Gallagher’s early stories than he was on SatAM. At least in the cartoon Sonic was responding to Antoine’s’ massive ego when he poked fun at him. In the early comics, Sonic would constantly rag on Antoine at any opportunity he got. It was VERY distracting in the early issues, and it made his Sonic come off as way more of a jerk

Later writers would often talk about needing to fix certain characters. Penders, for all his countless insufferable faults, used his early stories to steer Sally towards the version of the character fans knew from SatAM. (He then ruined Sally in his own special way, but, you know.) Just about every writer who touched him spent years and years trying to fix Antoine and make readers stop hating him. The unspoken part here is that the original incarnations of these characters that everyone had to work so hard to fix... were Gallagher’s

Again, Gallagher didn’t have an easy job as the first writer on this series, and most of his stories were... fine. Nothing I’d recommend to non-fans, but they had their moments. They make for an amusing read for their sheer absurdity. But a lot of it ranged from not very good to outright bad. We’ll always cut him some slack for having so little to work off of when he started and for writing stories that were, in hindsight, better (or at least less grating) than a lot of the melodramatic schlock that came later. I’ll always have some nostalgia for those simpler times. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Gallagher’s stuff was ever all that good

But I can’t hate the guy too much, because he gave me the greatest Sonic character of all time

#StH 185 #tkp post

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sketching-shark · 3 years

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I think we should start a protection squad (although they don’t need it because they can protect themselves) for Sun Wukong and Guanyin

“Begone monkie kid fandom trying to down grade these really interesting characters with interesting personality’s and backstory ( the both of them like seriously Guanyin backstory is so cool) to a villain wile trying to justify your angsty backstory (that are no where near as cool as monkey who fights gods and Person who has 1000 arms and heads to help people in need) for the actual villain”

So who wants to join

Me:*raises my hand*

Ps: sorry if I got Guanyin backstory wrong am not an expert on it.

Haha okay so some critiques on the jttw & associated media western fandom & fandom in general coming up, so please skip this upcoming text wall if you don't want to encounter my undoubtedly ~devastating~ words (i.e. don't like don't read as people love to say, & if I have to be inundated with images of my notp every time I go into the sun wukong tag then I imagine people can be chill with me expressing my opinions & giving people fair warning that I WILL be critiquing common fandom trends, but no need for you to see that if you don’t want to. Cool? Cool.)

-----

PFFFFFTTT oh man there are many times when I feel like signing up for such a protection squad...when it comes to the current western jttw & Sun Wukong fandom I do feel like I'm often swinging at a rapid pace between "well it's fandom & people are allowed to make the stories they want" & "I am once again begging my fellow monkie kid enthusiasts (& sometimes creators) to do more research into the og classic/show it more respect so you can avoid any potentially offensive/off-the-mark misunderstandings of the status & cultural context of the characters in their country of origin (I promise it's super interesting & I can provide you with links to free pdf copies of the entire Yu translation, i.e. the best one ever created, so feel free to ask!) & maybe also stop constantly stripping away all the nuance of Sun Wukong's character for the sake of either making him an entire asshole so your little meow meow can look completely innocent in comparison and/or making the monkey king's entire life & character revolve around said meow meow."

Like I get that fandom's supposed to be a kind of anything-goes environment, but one thing that honestly seems to be true of a lot of fandoms--and the western one for Sun Wukong & co. is certainly not immune from this--is that there often seems to be a kind of monoculturalization at work in what stories are created & what character interpretations are made popular. Across a multitude of fandoms, you frequently see basically nothing but the exact same tropes being made popular & even being insisted on for the canonical work (especially hasty redemption arcs & enemies to lovers these days), the exact same one-dimensional character types that characters from an original work keep getting shoved into, the exact same story beats, etc. And I get it to an extent, as fandom is generally a space where people just make art and fic for fun & without thinking too hard about it & without any pressure.

This seems to, however, often unfortunately lead to the mentality that it’s your god-given right to do literally whatever you want with literally any cultural figure without even the slightest bit of thought put into their cultural, historical, and even religious context, even (and sometimes especially) when it comes to figures that are really important in a culture outside your own. For such figures--even if you first encounter them in a children’s cartoon--you should be a little more careful with what you do with them than you would with your usual Saturday morning line-up. It of course has to be acknowledged that there exists a whole pile of absolutely ridiculous & cursed pieces of media that are based on Journey to the West & that were produced in mainland China, but for your own education if nothing else I consider it good practice for those of us (myself certainly included) who aren’t part of the culture that produced JTTW to put more thought into how we might want to portray these characters so that at the very least (to pull some things I’ve seen from the jttw western fandom) we’re not turning a goddess of mercy into an evil figure for the sake of Angst(TM), or relegating other important literary figures into the positions of offensive stereotypes, or making broad claims about the source text & original characterizations of various figures that are blatantly untrue, or mocking heavenly deities because of what’s actually your misunderstanding of how immortality works according to Daoist beliefs. Yet while a lot of this is often due to people not even trying to understand the context these figures are coming from, I do want to acknowledge that the journey (lol reference) to understand even a fraction of the original cultural context can be a daunting one, especially since, as I’ve mentioned before, it can be really hard & even next to impossible to find good, accessible, & legitimate explanations in English of how, for example, the relationship between Sun Wukong and the Six-Eared Macaque is commonly interpreted in China & according to the Buddhist beliefs that define the original work.

That is to say, I do think it’s an unfortunate, if unavoidable, part of any introduction of an original text into a culture foreign to its own for there to be sometimes a significant amount of misinterpretation, mistranslations, and false assumptions. There is, however, a big difference between learning from your honest mistakes, & doubling down on them while dismissing all criticism of your misinterpretation into that abstract category of “fandom drama.” The latter attitude is kind of shitty at best and horrifically entitled at worst.

Plus, as I’ve discovered, there is a great deal of interest and joy to be drawn from keeping yourself open to learning aspects of these texts & figures that you weren’t aware of! I can say from my own experience that I’ve always really enjoyed & appreciated it when individuals on this site who come from a Chinese background--and who know much more about the cultural context of JTTW than me--have taken the time to explain its various aspects. It often leaves me feeling like woooooaaaahhhhhHHH!!!! as to how amazingly full of nuanced meaning JTTW is like dang no wonder it’s one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels.

And I guess that right there is the heart of a lot of my own personal frustration and disappointment with the ways that fandoms often approach a literary work or other piece of media...like don’t get me wrong, a lot of the original works a fandom may grow around are just straight-up goofy & everyone’s aware of it & has fun with it, yet the trend of approaching what are often nuanced and multi-layered works in terms of how well they fit and/or can be shoved into pretty cliche ideas of Redemption Arc or Enemies to Lovers or Hero Actually Bad, Villain Actually Good etc...well, it just seems to cheapen and even erase even the possibility of understanding the wonderful complexity or even endearing simplicity that made these works so beloved in the first place. Again, I feel like I need to make it clear that I’m not saying fandom should be a space where people are constantly trying to one-up each other with their hot takes in literary analysis, but it would be nice and even beneficial to allow room for commentary that strives to approach these works in a multi-faceted way, analysis & interpretations that go against the popular fandom beliefs, & criticism of the work or even of fandom trends (yes it is in fact possible to legitimately love something but still be critical of its aspects) instead of immediately attacking people who try to engage in such as just being haters who don’t want anyone to have fun ever (X_X).

----

Anyway, I know I didn’t cover even half of the stuff you brought up in the first place anon, but I don’t want any interested parties to this post to suffer too long through my text wall lol. I was asked to try my hand at illustrating Guanyin, but as with you I’m nowhere near as informed as I should be about her, so I want to do more research on her history and religious importance before I attempt a portrait. I’ll try my best, and do plan to pair that illustration with my own outsider’s attempt to summarize her character. From what little I do know I am in full agreement that her backstory is so incredibly amazing...just the fact that she literally eschewed the bliss of Nirvana to help all beings reach it, and even split herself into pieces in the attempt to do so (with Buddha granting her eleven heads and a thousand arms as a result)...man, I can see why she’s such a beloved & respected deity.

----

As for what western fandom commonly does with everyone’s favorite god-fighting primate...I can talk about this at length if there’s interest, but for this post I’ll just say that I guess one lesson from all of this is that for all the centuries that have passed since Journey to the West was first completed, literally no one drawing inspiration from the original tale in the west (lol) has come even slightly close to being able to equal or even capture half the extent of the nuance, complexity, religious, historical, and cultural aspects, and humor that define Wu Cheng'en's story of an overpowered monkey who defied even Buddha.

So thank the heavens we'll always have the original.

#journey to the west #jttw #guanyin #sun wukong #monkey king #monkie kid #fandom #fandom critical

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cianmars · 3 years

Text

They were roommates... (A Lokius Fic)

So I made this a lil while ago, it gets updated every few days

Loki has to stay somewhere in the TVA and if he was working for them then its a little mean to leave him in a cell... or at least that was Mobius' argument, so he took one for the team and has Loki move in with him... A purely selfless act....

AKA Loki learns to be a good person, an okay roomie, and a not so good at being a menace to society (unless society bugs him)

AO3

Loki hadn’t recovered from seeing the projection of his mother being murdered in front of his eyes, because of him, for very obvious reasons…. But he had started to come to terms with it, with everything.

That of course didn’t mean that he wasn’t looking for a way, any way, out; but it did mean that he had agreed to work with the TVA, well not with them, but with Mobius, even if the man (was he a man? Man was just short for human, was he human?) was infuriating, in every Gods damned way.

A whistle and a tilt of the agent’s head was what woke Loki from where he was dozing at the same table he had been sitting at since he had brought in, some unspecified time ago, Loki had opened his mouth to tell him that Gods did not appreciated being whistled at like a dog but Mobius was already off, walking out of the room.

Gods did not chase after anyone, let alone men who were holding him prisoner, Gods did not chase…

“Gods don’t chase,” he told the man, practically bouncing as he caught up to the fast walking man (seriously how did he walk so fast?), his head following everyone who passed them as they walked by, and trying to see what propaganda they had tacked to their modern walls.

“And yet, here you are,” Mobius replied in that calm yet amused tone he always used for Loki.

Loki glared, but Mobius wasn’t looking at him so he rushed past him, turning back to face the man walking backwards without breaking pace, trying to focus on him not on everything they were passing, he hadn’t been this way before, had they? A hundred questions bounced around his mind, most of them were ‘why the fuck is a talking duck being led by four armed guards?’ and ‘can I go talk to the duck?’.

A hand on his upper arm stopped all the thoughts in his head and he had to stop himself from coming to a full stop, or tripping, that would be embarrassing.

“Careful, Loki, you’re gonna bump into someone,” Mobius slowed his pace as he pulled Loki to walk at his side, “You can keep bouncing around like Tigger from beside me.”

Loki was not blushing; not at how flustered the touch made him, not at the mixed soft and amused tone which Loki swore was just for him (he wasn’t possessive he was just right), not from the chastisement, no he was not blushing, the TVA clearly just had a heating issue which seemed to be largely affecting just his cheeks, they couldn’t even heat a building correctly. Typical.

Loki cleared his throat, unrelated to his blushing, “Casey doesn’t know what a fish is but you know what that hyperactive big cat is?”

“Like I said Loki, you’re a pussycat.”

“Remind me to introduce you to a real hungry tiger one time,” Loki muttered, cheeks still pink, he kept an eye onto the admittedly comfortable slip on canvas shoes as they slapped against the floor.

“What was that, darling?”

This bastard was doing this on purpose, he had to be… unless he wasn’t, then he’d have to explain why in general people who were practically strangers didn’t call each other ‘darling’, but that did come with the increased risk of him either never calling him it again… or calling him it again, and they’d both know it was on purpose. He’s a bastard. Loki plastered a cheery smile onto his face, looking up at Mobius with a look of innocence they both knew was fake, “Nothing!” his smile turned genuine hearing Mobius laugh.

They were in a golden doored elevator when Loki found his voice again, “Where are we going?”

“I seem to remember some God of comedy telling me that he didn’t talk much…”

“It’s the god of mischief, or tricks, not comedy,” Loki cut in, narrowing his eyes when he saw a barely concealed smirk on his face, “But of course, you knew that as you know ‘everything’ about me. Where are we going?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“How can I tell you if I don't know?”

“You’re pretty,” Mobius leant forward past Loki and pressed his hand to the black screen on the elevator pad, pausing his speech for a second too long as he did so, “smart, why don’t you try to figure it out?”

Loki was frozen as Mobius’s arm brushed against his own as he leant back and stood beside Loki, he could smell the sandalwood from his aftershave as he moved. “You’ve found The Variant, the less amazing, less talented version of me?”

“The Variant is pretty talented too, Loki.”

“Not as talented as me,” Loki pouted, not pouted, Gods did not pout (as his father so often talk him), but his lips were pressed together and slightly stuck out. This was just ridiculous, he wasn’t pouting and he wasn’t jealous, because what would he even be jealous of? Some less awesome version of himself gaining Mobius’ praises?

“Agreed.”

Loki’s head snapped to the man who was studying his watch intently, a little too intently, if Loki wasn’t imagining it.

Mobius cleared his throat, looking back up at Loki, a mild smile on his face, “We haven’t found The Variant, yet. Any more guesses?”

Loki let out a frustrated noise, “This isn’t fair, you have more information where we’re going, I haven’t been given any clues!”

“Take a breath.” Mobius told him with an amused smile and a glint in his eyes, “Why’s it so hard for you to say I don’t know?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nice, very funny,”

Coming from anyone else it would have annoyed Loki, but it sounded both fond and amused from Mobius, he needed to get out of the TVA it was making him… he didn’t know, but it wasn’t what he was used to, and that made him nervous, which typically made him feel stabby. “So you’re not going to tell me? It’s taking forever, for a place which dictates how everyone else should spend their time you’d think that you would actually develop a elevator which doesn’t waste all of your time.”

“Time works differently here in the TVA, Loki, I’ve already told you; anyway no need to whine, we’re here now.” The elevator stopped and the doors opened and Mobius strode out and headed left.

“I wasn’t whining,” Loki whined to the empty elevator, before bounding after him.

“What’s this?” Loki bounced on the balls of his feet as Mobius stood in front of a door, as it scanned him.

“Do you ever stand still?”

Loki thought for a second, he shook his head, then ran his hand through his hair to place it back into its original place, “Most people ask me if I ever shut up.”

Mobius looked away from the door to Loki with that ever present smile, “I already know the answer to that one,” he winked then pushed the door open and walked inside.

Loki took a few more seconds to follow him than he perhaps would have had Mobius not winked at him.

When he finally did walk in he was met with… an apartment, fairly lifeless, the style of the rest of the TVA continued inside of the place, a small kitchen, a living area with a screen which looked like a television but he dare not ask in case that bloody cartoon clock began to play, there were a couple of doors leading off to one side and a couple more leading off on the other side.

“I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“Don’t use that patronising tone on me, I'm not a child.”

Mobius sighed, “I wasn’t using a patronising tone on you, Loki, I was asking you what you don’t understand, which is okay.”

Loki gritted his teeth and began to move around the room, strolling to the kitchen, he wasn’t sure if it was to stop himself from snapping again, or, gods forbid, from apologising. “So?” He turned back to see Mobius watching him with his hands tucked into his pockets.

“So…? Use your words, Loki.”

Loki could see the glint in his eyes across the room, that time he had meant to “What’s the test? Has the variant been here? Or is there some sort of set of clues? Or…, I swear if there’s a training video or propaganda video I shall launch myself out of the windows.”

“Nah, we’ll start on the training and propaganda in a day or two, not right this second, and those aren’t windows.”

Loki turned to look at the windows, “What are you talking about, of course it’s… oh simulated glass panes… I must have sustained a concussion from The Hulk, I’m never usually this slow.”

“Of course…” he said in a way which made it clear that he did not believe it, “We can get you checked out at the medbay tomorrow, if you like, being here might be affecting your healing capacity. This isn’t some form of test, it’s an apartment, my apartment.”

“It’s…” Loki looked around again with fresh eyes, it was still fairly lifeless, but there was a bright yellow mug on the draining board with that bloody clock on it, and a Coca Cola red pen on the table closest to him, a few certificates with ‘Mobius M. Mobius’ on all of them, along with some books which didn’t seem to be propaganda for the TVA… interesting… “It’s very…,” he tried to think of a compliment but gave up quickly, so instead gave a shrug, “it’s smaller than my childhood nursery was.”

Mobius gave a laugh, “I’m sure it is.”

“Well it’s very… it’s certainly an apartment… Why precisely are we here?”

“It was agreed by Judge Renslayer that if you would be working with us you deserved to be housed somewhere which isn’t a cell, of course you can’t go anywhere without me, and this apartment is fully secure.”

“You’re not worried that I’ll slit your sleep in your sleep?”

“It would mean I don’t have to get around to all of the paperwork on my desk.”

Loki frowned, why did this man never take his threats seriously? “If I’m staying here where will you be staying?”

“There’s two bedroom’s Loki, you’ll be staying in the guest bedroom.”

“A guest bedroom? Why do you have a guest bedroom? Are you allowed guests at the TVA headquarters? Do you have guests? Like your mother? Do you have a mother? Do all of the apartments have guest bedrooms? Are you agents allowed to get married and have kids? I don’t see why else you’d need two-.”

“Loki, can we stay on topic, please?”

“Sorry,” Loki swallowed, looking around once more, then back at Mobius, “I… I suppose it’s better than a cell.” The best thing about the cell had been Mobius’s visits, because Loki enjoyed annoying him, and nothing more.

“Marginally,” Mobius chuckled. “Is that a yes? Cause if not I should get you down to a proper cell before dinner time.”

“I… I suppose.”

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic, the cells really aren’t that bad, if you’d be more comfortable in your own space then I can take you there.”

Loki rolled his eyes, dropping into a rather uncomfortable armchair, he almost regretted his dramatics, almost . “I’m staying… But if you try to indoctrinate me into your cult with more of those videos I’ll skin you alive.”

“That’s the spirit.”

Loki was certain that he was going to kill either himself or Mobius by the end of the week.

#lokius #lokius fic #wowki #wowki fic #agent mobius #mobius m mobius #loki #loki laufeyson #loki disney+#loki show #they were roommates fic #twr fic #twr

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popculturebuffet · 2 years

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Restocking the Buffet: Late February 2021

Hello all you happy people. This is just a mildy quick post to talk about a few things, similar to Linkara’s state of the wall posts he does every couple of months, talking about a few recent bits of news i’ve wanted to get off my chest, next month’s schedule, upcoming plans now I have a better idea where things are at that sort of thing. If you don’t know me I do longform reviews of comics, animation and other fine stuff.

Assorted Thoughts on Recent News: The Boondocks Reboot Canceled: Let’s get to the bad news first as in an otherwise great week, some bits stuck out like a sore thumb. This is the first: Cedric Yarburough revealed the Boondocks reboot is no longer happening , it was canceled for reasons that haven’t been properly revealed yet leaving me incredibly annoyed. For one thing as a fan of comic strips, the original show to me is one of the gold standards for both comic strip adaptations and adaptations period, taking what worked from the comic, changing things up to work for a new medium and adding tons of fun touches all it’s own. So a reboot to it tackling modern issues especially in a post george floyd post trump era was perfect. The other reason is just as simple as it is baffling: HBO Max has exactly ONE adult cartoon worth a damn with all others they’ve tried being throughly mocked and shoved back into the stygian depths they came from. So WHY they’d cancel the one promsing show they have in reserve?

Just throughly frustrating and disapointing.

Bloom County Picked up For a TV Series!: Thankfully not one day later the exact opposite happened as something I hoped for but had little hope would happen happened: Bloom County was picked up for a tv series, with creator Berkley Brethead cowriting and producing it. For those unaware of this strip, Bloom County is a satrical comic strip from the 80′s that was revivied in 2015 and follows loveable optimist and goofus Opus, braindead cat who gets into a lot of weird shit Bill, and collapsed lawyer and sexual harasser Steve Dallas among many others. It’s a national treasure as well as the source of several of my reactoin images and I even have an Opus phone on my desk my friend emma gave me. So yeah this is excting and likely to happen given fox usually at least TRIES a show for a season.. and likely two given how animation is. So even if the show sadly dosen’t take off like I hope it will and introduce dozens more to this wonderful world, i’ll at least get two great seasons of television. I have high hopes for this and good or bad, i’ll defintely be covering this one when it comes out.. whenever that is.

Sonic The Hedgehog 3.. and Knuckles: Smaller one here but ahead of Sonic 2′s release in april, Paramount annoucned both a knuckles spinoff tv show and a third season HELL YEAH. I mostly bring this up because of something we’ll get to soon.

The Casagrandes Canceled: Yup. Just.. yup. While I haven’t watched the show in a while, it’s still disapointing this is happening, though not suprising. Both this show and the parent seem to be in a rut where not much changes. With other Slice of LIfe shows like Craig of the Creek and Big City Greens FEELING like they have progress while still keeping most of the same status quo , Loud House feels stuck DESPITE having moved everyone forward a grade. Hopefully it’ll get out of this rut and give the casagrandes characters, especailly Syd, another shot.

Comixlology Revamp: Comixlogy is a digital comics service, one I use frequently as it’s cheaper, usually better and just all around rocked... but this week it pivoted to a new model, using amazon’s services and reader and it.. is not great. There are a LOT of bugs to be worked out let’s be real here and while i’m far from the only one complaning abou tit, both Patton Oswalt and Gail Simone have chimed in I hope Amazon gets their heads out of their asses and fixes this SOON.

Okay now that’s out of the way

Blog Announcements:

Schedule:

This is as always freely avaliable under the schedule tabs. Schedule may change based on need, real life stuff coming up that sorta thing.

March: March of the Penguins! 2/27: Watchmen: The Judge of All Earth The Great North: Sexi Moose Adventure The Legend of Vox Machina Season 1 Monthly Muppets: The Great Muppet Caper 3/6: Batman: Surf’s Up, Joker Down Tomtrospective: Curse of the Blood Moon and Junkin Janna Penguin’s Behind Bars This Duckburg Life 3/13 Danny Phantom Poll 2 Amphibia: Cane Crazy/Flood Sweat and Tears/Hop Luck/Stakeout Surf’s Up Tomtrospective: A Boy and His DCXCE, Doop Doop and Sad Teen Hotline 3/20 Amphibia and Owl House: Escape to Amphibia/Follies at the Coven Day Parade Life and Times Finale Special Emma Patreon Surf’s Up 2: Wavemania 3/27 Amphibia and Owl House: Commander Anne/Sprivy/Elswhere and Elsewhen Bloom County: Headbanging and Marriage The Venture Bros Season 4 Watchmen (Film) April: Sonic Month! 4/3 Amphibia and Owl House Sonic Underground: Knuckles Quadrilogy Watchmen: Watchmaker Ducktales and Venture Bros Comparison (2nd Year Duckiversary) 4/10 Amphibia and Owl House Sonic Patreon Amphibia: The Domino Effect/Taking Charge/Anne Theft Auto/Breakout Star Monthly Muppets: Muppets Treasure Island 4/17 Amphiba and Owl House VeggieTales: An Easter Carol Sonic Poll Sonic Universe: The Tails Adventure 4/24 Amphibia And The Owl House Archie’s Sonic The Hedgehog: The Original Freedom Fighters Sonic The Hedgehog: The Movie (OVA) The Venture Bros Season 5

So a few things to talk about form these in detail

Theme Months:

Yes i’m doing TWO theme months in a row. This is Kev’s baby through and through with me only pitching in a Bloom County review on my own time because how can I celebrate penguins and not do this. So we have a look at the failed pilot penguins behind bars, which looks to be heavily intreting, a look at opus’ engagment and metal career, and a mini retrospective on the two film series Surf’s Up, one an underated fun surfing film.. the other a weird sequel i’ve never seen that has the wwe slapped on it and Vince Mccmahon’s weird mastabtory fantasies. So.. about right for a WWE product

The second is one i’ve had in the works for a while and with the film still set to come out and Emma , one of my patrons, one of my best friends and one of my main contributors, being a sonic fan, it was easy enough to collaberate for this idea.

To celebrate the sequel to the awesome first Sonic film, we have SONIC MONTH. A whole month dedicated to the blue blur with, like march of the penguins, about a review a week covering all sorts of sonic shenanigans: We have the four knuckles episodes from underground, his ONLY apperance in the DiC cartoons no less, a tbd patroen review, the tails adventure arc from archie where Bunnie and Antoine’s honeymoon an 8 year old took them on goes pearshaped thanks to a game adaptatoin decades after it shoudl’ve happened, a patreon poll choosing from the best of the criminally underated uk comic, a look at the one sonic comic kev ever owned and it’s second part, and finally capping it off with the sonic ova! Strange isn’t it?

The End of Old Projects and the Start of New Ones!:

March is also, as you can see a lot of house cleaning as I finish up both the tom retrospective and the life and times retrospective (part 1 of it anyway). After all the heavy delays I’ve sped things up slightly but you’ll get the same quality from these final reviews. I’m also FINALLY getting to my long put off due to delays review of an extremley goofy movie for my second patreon stretch goal.

So after Sonic Month and a tighter schedule in may, what’s next. Well for starters i’ll be starting looks at every season 1 episode of Amphibia starting tommorow thanks to Tyler Spickel, one of my patreons who got me to another goal! As a reminder my patreon goals are set on how many people join, so even just one dollar a month hits them and I have a goal set up EVERY time someone does. So your buck not only nets you a free review for joining and a seat at the table when I do my polls, my patreons each get to pick one of the choices you all vote from, but also gets me to do various projects. The next one up is episode by episode reviews of Owl House season 1, since like amphibia I started covering it reguarly at season 2. So if you want to give a hoot and see me do the same, join my patreon

MY PATREON IS HERE!

I’ll also FINALLY be starting my long delayed Helluva Boss retrospective in May! I’ve been wanting to cover the show for some time but I priortizied getting everything else finished.

I’m also covering some of Justice League International in May for it’s anniversary , and if reception is positive enough I may cover it in full. I also WILl do the more than meets the eye retrospective at some point... I just started it at the worst time possible, both as I had to cut back on reviews and as I had a ton of other stuff already going. I will get back to it, it’s still one of my faviorite comics ever and I still love it, the momentum’s simply died down and i’d rather not force something this important.

For my Danny Phantom followers, I’ll finally be starting my next leg of it’s story arcs with my Jazz arc, covering Jazz finding out his idnetity, her other spotlight episode in season one 13, the two youngblood episodes, ultimate enemy and then secret weapons, along with masters of all time , the last plot relevant episode before season 3, then probably season 3 as a whole. We’ll see

Finally i’ll be covering tuca and bertie this summer in full season reviews after the venture bros retrospective wraps up, for now, in june. It was one of my stretch goals and will slot in nicely as the new show I binge throughout the month and review a tthe end, something i’m keeping as a tradition. After that I’m considering either steven universe or x-men 95. You guys let me know which you’d prefer. As for anything else

I’m keeping things open for now, thinking of things i’ve wanted to review, things I hate I want to tear apart, that sorta stuff. I’m defintely going to do something x-men related as my rouge and gambit wedding review was a decent hit and every x-centric thing i’ve done has been a success, as well as how much I love it i’m just not sure what it’ll be as I have a lot of choices. Not only that there’s a daria arc i’ve wnated to do for some time but given it stretches over pretty much all of season 4 i’ve considered just doing season by season reviews of Daria at some point instead. I’ve also had character focus retrospectives for Flame Princess from Adventure time and CJ from regular show in my head so let me know. What characters would you like me to take alook at? What arcs from shows? what shows as a whole? Let me know what you guys would want to see and if it matches up with ideas i’ve had. What comics do you like?

Finally we have one last update to take care of

Regular Coverage:

Owl House and Amphibia are back next month! now since i’ve covered seasons 2 and 3 respectively as they’ve come out, some of you likely wonder how i’l lhandle this. As you can see from the schedule i’m pairing them up! I’ll still give these new episodes my best, but i’ll be doing both shows in one article, something I dont think i’ll get many objections to since these two fanbases have a lot of overlap. This also may be the LAST regular coverage I do. I MIGHT do moon girl and devil dinosaw, but that depends on both what you guys would think of me doing that and if I end up liking the show enough.

That said seasonal regular coverage is getting a new addition. While we wait on Invincible and Close Enough to return, say hello to Legend of Vox Machina! Yes baby, coming at the start of march i’m covering season 1. I was blown away by this series despite not having seen critical role (yet), so you bet your ass i’m doing it , especailly now I have a nifty new format for doing full season reviews thanks to my venture bros retrospective that I like a lot more. LIke those in addition to going ham on the character arcs and what not, i’ll also be breaking down the episodes capsule style with runners, some you’ll regonize form venture bros, some exclusive to this series.

So that’s all. join me for all this fun stuff and thanks for reading.

#sonic the hedgehog #amphibia #the owl house #the legend of vox machina #danny phantom

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toriasimmons · 2 years

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the inherent progressiveness of my little pony (’n friends)

Saddle up, everyone! It’s time to talk about My Little Pony.

If you’ve been with me since the partlydrawn days, you might remember that I liveblogged the first four seasons of Friendship is Magic. I had friends that knew I was a fan of vintage pony content, so they recommended/mentioned the new stuff, and I decided to try it out. It was pretty good, what of it I saw; from what I hear (mostly what I have learned from Jenny Nicholson, the One True Pony Aficionado), it gets… less that, and more fanservice-y toward the brony culture, so I’m not in a particular hurry to finish. I remember that some episodes absolutely ruled (the Shining Armor/Cadence wedding ones come to mind) and some that I found utterly miserable (anything with Discord, ’cause like, honestly, fuck that guy) and mostly it was fine.

The movie is… well.

My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) is a weird experience, particularly for those who haven’t seen much of FIM (heretofore G4). I (drift partner) have a younger brother Brony who insisted my family go as a family outing, which I was amenable to (we watched the first season together and I found it perfectly fine in small doses) but which largely turned into an endurance test for me. I have a pretty high tolerance for animated kids’ movies, but for whatever reason, I found most of this movie intensely unpleasant. It’s difficult for me to put into words — the bones of the story are fine, it’s a basic quest narrative and has a lot of fun worldbuilding elements, but for whatever reason sitting through it was intolerable to me. I gave it another try later genuinely trying to engage with it positively and, no, I just really don’t like it. (My brother loves it, and it seems to have been largely accepted by Brony fandom, so good for them!) At least Tempest Shadow is hilarious.

I know I watched the 80s cartoons as a kid — both of the theme songs live rent-free in my head — and I’ve seen the 80s movie a ridiculous number of times because my dad VHS taped it off the TV for me one time so I’d have it whenever I wanted. Whenever I wanted was apparently a lot. Back when My Little Pony: A New Generation (heretofore referred to as G5) was released on Netflix, I was ambivalent until I heard people complaining that it was too progressive, at which point I decided we needed to watch it immediately, but first let’s watch the original movie.

Then we found out that every episode of the 80s/90s cartoons (My Little Pony ‘n Friends, My Little Pony Tales) are available for free on Tubi and decided that we’d watch them, too, and… yes. My thesis stands: these ponies have always been progressive. (I would even go so far as to argue that a lot of 80s cartoons have progressive themes, if you consider love and acceptance and also environmentalism progressive, but this is about the ponies since that’s what we’ve recently engaged with.)

Let’s start with ‘n Friends (G1, let’s say; Tales will be G1.5). This post got very long, so we’ll be covering Tales in the near future.

Full text here.

#canbemagic #my little pony #my little pony n friends #my little pony g1 #loquacity #incomprehensiblelentils #blog post #essay

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thesims4blogger · 3 years

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The Sims 4 Paranormal Stuff: Developer Blog (Part 1)

SimGuruConnor has released part 1 of the Sims 4 Paranormal Developer Blog series.

Hello Simmers! Welcome to a small 2-part Dev Blog about our newest Stuff Pack, Paranormal Stuff! This pack has been an absolute blast to work on, and I’m excited to share what this pack is all about!

I’ll try not to reveal too many spoilers for the pack either, so I’ll keep things somewhat brief. Our topics for today are the new Scared Mood and the Haunted House Lot Type, plus an interview with our Audio Artist too!

Get Scared

Sims can now relish in the mortal dread of the Scared Mood! The Scared Mood affects Sims in a variety of ways, with my personal favorite, the new Scream Incoherently interaction, where a Scared Sim runs up to another Sim to scream their lungs out. This can result in the other Sim calming down the Scared Sim, or resulting in both Sims becoming Scared. This can create a Scared Mood wildfire if you’re not careful!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, it's okay!

Sims afflicted with the Scared Mood also have trouble communicating with others, the urge to panic-run everywhere, and are slightly more prone to accidents. If no other Sims are around to help calm down a Scared Sim, they might just have to Hide Under The Covers for a while.

But if being Scared just isn’t your Sims style, consider purchasing the new Brave Trait. This Satisfaction Reward Store Trait will rapidly reduce the incoming fear a Sim feels and help Sims regain their composure faster. While no Sim is totally fearless, this trait should help mitigate some of those creepy feelings.

The Scared Mood and the Brave Reward Trait are all base game features coming with the Paranormal Stuff patch on January 21st. Tons of previous Uncomfortable Buffs are now becoming Scared Buffs, such as the “Startled By Ghost” Buff or the “Thalassophobia” Buff from Island Living.

While being Scared might not be a common occurrence in your everyday Sims life, living in a Haunted House is a whole different story…

Happy Haunts

Introducing the Haunted House Lot Type!

The Duplantier Dwelling, created by Doctor Ashley! This “canon” Haunted House will be available in the gallery!

They’re like regular houses, only haunted! Although unassuming during the day, at night, these places get super weird. Your Sims may notice things like flickering lights, pipes rattling, or even creepy dolls staring at them in the corner. All are totally normal occurrences in a Haunted House, but it may take some time for your Sims to adjust to their new surroundings.

Sims living in a Haunted House will also be introduced to floating apparitions known as Specters. They’re cute little critters, but their motives aren’t entirely clear. You can try talking to them, or even offer them presents in hopes of establishing a good rapport. If they like you, they’ll drop special loot for you and your family. If they don’t like you, well, you’ve been warned.

o o o (> ‘ u ‘ )>

Learning to get along with your new ghostly inhabitants is crucial in a Haunted House. Things like botching seances, neglecting Specters, or letting accursed objects invade your house will have a negative impact on its spiritual serenity. There is a delicate art to co-existing with the entities of the house, and thankfully you’ll have an expert on the matter to assist you!

Meet Guidry

Claude René Duplantier Guidry was a seasoned Paranormal Investigator in his previous life, but now he exists to help anyone brave enough to live in a Haunted House! You’ll probably run into him eventually living in a Haunted House, but don’t worry, he’s a nice ghost!

Guidry will gladly offer his wisdom to those who seek it. If you’re confused, alarmed, or slightly uncomfortable by your new haunted surroundings, give Guidry a holler and he might be able to help. He can also offer valuable objects to help your Sims, too; all you need is to reach out!

Still got it.

All Guidry wants in return is to crash at your place for the time being. Sounds like a fair deal, right? But if you’d prefer to fly it solo, you can always disable his nightly visits—he won’t be too upset, maybe.

As mentioned before, Guidry was a Paranormal Investigator before his untimely demise. If he sees potential in you, he can certify you with a Paranormal Investigation License, granting access to the Paranormal Investigation Freelancer Gigs. Only those who are qualified enough can join the ranks of Paranormal Investigators, but more on that next time!

Be Brave!

Living in a Haunted House adds a layer of risk and reward for your Sims, and each successful night yields Reward Store Satisfaction Points for everyone in the Household. Specters can also drop treasure that can also be collected, consumed, or sold to an Oddity Collector. So although your Sims might go through a bit of peril, they’ll thankfully be compensated.

One of my favorite pieces of haunted treasure is the new Sacred Candle. Not only do they look cool, but they also help protect Sims from paranormal influences. Place them around your house to make sure Sims are properly shielded!

A properly protected Sim.

Things like Sacred Candles and performing ceremonies at the Séance Table are integral to keeping your Sims happy in a Haunted House. Without using these paranormal tools, the entities of the house might get a little bossy.

And while it might be in your Sims’ best interest to keep the spirits of the house in check, watching things go horribly wrong in a Haunted House can be just as fun too. So whatever works for you!

Like Tiny Homes, this Lot Type can be toggled on or off at any time. So whether you’re a casual thrillseeker who wants to spend a couple of nights in a Haunted House, or a seasoned Paranormal Expert who wants to take on a new challenge, this Lot Type should offer something for you!

Crosspack Stuff!

Pets get to share the fun too! They especially love the accursed objects that show up!

I think they’re gonna get along great.

As mentioned before, a ton of old Buffs from multiple packs are now being converted to the Scared Mood. I think 70 something Moodlets were converted? Honestly, I lost count. Anything that seemed more appropriate for the Scared Mood was transferred over.

Oh, and you might remember an old Lot Trait from City Living called Haunted. For clarity’s sake, it needed a name change, so now it’s the Spooky Lot Trait. It also benefits from being combined with the new Haunted House Lot Type and will have an increased chance of spawning Ghosts at night. So use both for maximum haunted-ness!

Audibly Frightened

Last but not least, I’d love to turn it over to our Audio Artist for this pack, Briana Billups! She did a killer job bringing Haunted Houses to life! Trust me!

Conor: Can you tell us what an Audio Artist does on The Sims 4?

Briana: Big, broad picture: an audio artist decides what everything in The Sims 4 sounds like. We record, create, and edit sounds to the art and animation of the game. Little, very detailed picture: creating the actual sounds is usually one of the smaller aspects of our job. We are meeting with other departments, like design, animation, and VFX, to understand the overall vision of new game features and how we can fit in sonically. We are meeting with each other to make sure all our new content still keeps the very fun and quirky vibe of the Sims. We come up with new tools and implementation where necessary.

Conor: What sort of things go into the creative process for creating audio?

Briana: Every audio artist/sound designer has their own creative process, but I like to make a “sonic mood board” of sorts. I typically like to have a good idea of what I want something to sound like in my head before I record or edit it, so it’s nice to have sound effects or music to refer to that represents my original inspiration or ideas. When I was in college, I would make Spotify playlists for whatever I was working on. I would listen to them once a day, adding and editing as necessary, so when I actually got to work, I was in the right headspace. Now I’m usually less formal about this sort of stuff, but for this pack, I would refer back to things like Vincent Price’s demonic laugh from Thriller or Casper the Friendly Ghost Cartoons and the looping soundtrack from the queue of a horror ride at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (Ghost Blasters)

Conor: What were you most excited to work on for this pack?

Briana: Definitely all the haunted house sounds! Good sound design is the crux of so many horror movies and video games, so even if we were keeping things more “Casper” and less “Poltergeist,” I still wanted to give a good scare here and there. I actually scared myself one day while playtesting another feature in the game!

Conor: If you had to choose, what is your favorite audio clip you’ve ever added to The Sims 4?

Briana: I would say my favorite SFX were the sports arena loops in EP08: Discover University. When you visit the arena for the soccer/esports match or graduation, you can actually listen to the whole game or ceremony. It was great to craft a whole story from start to finish using just sound. I also snuck in a lot of developer names when writing the scripts for our voice actors.

Thanks, Briana!

More To Come!

That about covers this first foray into the Paranormal Stuff Pack! This pack has been a ton of fun to work on, and watching my Sims flee in terror has been more enjoyable than I’d like to admit.

Next blog, we’ll focus on the Séance Table and developing your Medium skill, as well as the new active freelance career Paranormal Investigator.

Big thanks to the Stuff Pack team for helping this pack come to life, and thank you, Doctor Ashley, for building our featured Haunted House!

Until next time, SimGuruConor

#news #the sims 4 #ts4 #sims 4 #sims 4 paranormal #stuff pack

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