#rad likes robots

[yahoo201027]

Day in Fandom History: October 6…

After being struck by lightning, Shannon’s programming malfunctions, causing her to fall in love with Rad, and at the same time, Rad falls for Shannon, much to both sides of the aisle hating each other a la Romeo and Juliet. “Rad Likes Robots” premiered on this day, 7 Years Ago.

[jessfandrawer]

Have some sketches of a thing no one is interested in anymore, woo. I don't know why Rad Likes Robots has been on my mind, I haven't watched the silliness that is OK KO in forever.

Their relationship lasted only one short episode. They were too powerful together, the status quo couldn't handle it (don't worry, dear writers, I understand). It became a tragic story of heartbreak with lots of Romeo and Juliet references.

Their song is So Emotional by Whitney Houston. It is eerily perfect.

[potatobugz]

I WOULD RIP MY HEART OUT

[koboldfactory]

i wanna say im very appreciative of the way you design your characters with huge thighs and stuff to actually have Tummy as well, its really nice to see. so many folks just wanna make characters caked and shy away from depicting any belly to go along with it. its genuinely very nice to see those kinds of depictions and representation in your characters

learning how to draw fat characters has been super important for multiple reasons, one: because hearing how much folks appreciate seeing themselves in my characters always makes my day (and I hear that about Rad the most), and two: because it genuinely gave me a better eye for proportions and shape language in general which made me better at drawing *all* body types. I still have room to improve but seriously I recommend all artists to learn how to draw different body types!! it's good for you. Literally anything beyond skinny, and sorta slightly buff. please

[the-first-spinjitzu-master]

Okay it’s 3am and I have to be at my first day of work at my new job in seven hours.. but I just had a THOUGHT.

So hear me out- Jay can control electricity. Obviously.

But has anyone else considered the idea of him being able to basically mind control other people?? Or hack their bodies?? Since humans literally run on electrical impulses??

Now I know Nya can’t draw the water out of his lungs, but that doesn’t mean that using your element inside someone else’s body is impossible. Maybe that’s just confined to other elemental masters. And of course I haven’t seen DR yet (two episodes away from finishing Crystallized!! I’ll have caught up with DR by this time next week for certain), but I’ve heard a lot of discussion about Jay coming back as a villain in S2… can you imagine how absolutely batshit of a villain Jay concept would be if he came back and just mind controlled people?? And it would totally tie into his cult leader antics as well (I’m still so sad that the League of Jays was pretty much abandoned after the first couple episodes… it was such a funny concept and could’ve actually been used for some fantastic plot/character development … but… alas :( )

Anyway. Basically all that to say I just got smacked in the face with a new Villain Jay idea and I’m soooo going to start using him for fic stuff. Maybe I’ll even tie it in to the AU concept I’ve been working on for a while.. maybe..

[theserpentsnight]

Hey guys watch this hilarious fuckin series so the game grumps keep playing it, thank u and you’re welcome

[small-spark-of-light]

so have you guys heard of the new incredibox mod The Masks? cause Oh Boy i sure have/pos

[hsslilly-blog]

i always forget synths are a thing in fallout lol i completely ignore that stuff sorry i do not care about it. but would nishan be a synth. or would he be a normal robot. or would he be like a guy who makes weird robots. or think tank nishan

[taffy-glitch]

ababababa murderbot

murderbot of the murderbot diaries fame.... holds a dear place in my heart. it has some shit to work out and that's fun to see 😌

[shinxeysartgallery]

The sonic robots don't seem all that fucked up to me tbh

Oh, there's still some fucked-up robot shit in the Sonic series, it's just a different kind of fucked-up from Murder Drones. lmao

Like, Sonic doesn't have robots wearing humans as skin suits levels of fucked-up, but that doesn't mean there's nothing fucked-up.

For example, the Badniks count as a lower level of fucked-up, considering they're powered by living animals. Metal Overlord counts as a level of fucked-up, considering he'd technically be a rogue AI there that took over and did... well... that to himself. There's that robot Eggman used in Sonic Lost World that used the planet's life force to power it.

Omochao's existence. /j

If you count the Krudzu Hybrid Hydra from Archie, then the series also has biomechanical abominations. (Does it count if it was metal merged with plants instead of flesh? Eh, it's still biological material.)

If you want to count what Starline did to Surge and Kit in IDW, then that's also some biomechanical shit.

Speaking of IDW, the entire Metal Virus saga. 'Nuff said.

Then there's Tails Doll and whatever the fuck that ungodly abomination it transformed into in Archie was.

If you count the Metarex Saga of Sonic X, that whole plotline was pretty fucked-up when you think about it.

Do I even begin with the whole roboticization thing?

(Kinda funny, that last one is like a direct opposite parallel to Murder Drones. Roboticization is turning flesh into metal, while the Absolute Solver turns metal into flesh. Being roboticized turns you from a fleshy being into a mostly robotic being with maybe some fleshy parts still. Being possessed by the Solver turns its robotic host's insides fleshy.)

Oh, and speaking of that, both series also have robot possessions! Ixis Naugus and his crystallization magic, anyone?

I don't think it'll get to MD levels of fucked-up, considering the series is still primarily aimed at children (and MD is primarily aimed at teens and young adults), but all that still exists canonically in the series. lol

[inverse-problem]

keep telling myself “I should draw different ultrakill characters” and then I just keep drawing v1 and v2 again lol

[yahoo201027]

Day in Fandom History: October 6…

After being struck by lightning, Shannon’s programming malfunctions, causing her to fall in love with Rad, and at the same time, Rad falls for Shannon, much to both sides of the aisle hating each other a la Romeo and Juliet. “Rad Likes Robots” premiered on this day, 6 Years Ago.

[wortlby2]

Listen, this show is so good. Story structure, characters, art, animation, its all top tier. I've watched it three times since it came out and every time I find something new about it that's great that I didn't notice the first time. If you're worried that the story is unfinished, don't be, it ends in a satisfying place and even if there's not a season 2, this is always going to be a favorite for me. But I would very much like a season 2 or just money to be thrown at these creators for whatever else they want to do.

[canonwrite-productions]

Check out this rad comic by Piper Dell!!!! If you liked this, you can support the Kickstarter for The Universal Flaws of Robotics to get this and 18 other robot stories! We're an indie comics publisher and this is our biggest book yet! https://tinyURL.com/UFRComic

[secretmellowblog]

I feel weird about Arcane S2 because ….. It'd be rad if Arcane was super leftist or w/e, but I never expected it to be. And I was happy with that! I always expected Arcane to continue having its “X-men level” of political takes— “both sides are at fault and we need to come together and have compassion." I don't need a leftist moral political justification to enjoy a fun fantasy story.

But season 2 really did surprise me? by swerving off and being like “actually the political oppression storyline Does Not Matter, never mattered, and won’t even get a resolution— not even a conservative or centrist resolution?” XD

They don't even resolve the political storyline with the classic X-men “both sides are suffering, why cant we get along" type of ending; instead they just abandon it completely. By the last four episodes the show is all about fighting random Evil Outsiders and Magic Robots from the League of Legends Cinematic Universe to advertise upcoming League skins and spin-offs, while the plot about the warring political factions gets completely dropped without any resolution beyond Vague Implications.

I guess my take is that, unlike a lot of people, I was never expecting Arcane to be any more politically radical than an x-men movie— and I still enjoyed it a lot!

But I was expecting it to care about the storyline it had set up? And I was genuinely surprised by how little it did.

In hindsight it now feels odd how much time they spent emphasizing the characters experiencing police brutality and political divides and riots and violence at border crossings and class disparity and being crippled by pollution, because now we know none of this was ever going anywhere? XD

My surprise was not that all that politically loaded imagery was building up to a centrist message about how there are good people on both sides and we need to reach across the aisle. Because that’s always how I thought it would end, and that’s Fine for a fun fantasy show? But I was surprised to realize that none of the imagery was ever intended to be building up to anything, not even a general centrist message about reaching across the aisle. It was using political imagery in a hollow way, without intent, for Shock Value, for the Aesthetic.

the actual story is just a generic comic book fight between humans who want people to live vs robots who want to kill everything; everything else is just there to dress that up.

[theromanticscrooge]

The Shipping Corner: Voxman, A Balm for Capitalist-Induced Angst

Note: I'm sorry this took as long as it did. I've been in a pretty bad slump recently and am just now coming out of it.

Lord Boxman is the black sheep among his peers. This is first established with Professor Venomous' initial distaste towards him and the later reactions he gets when he unexpectedly shows up at Billiam Milliam's villain yacht party. The only kinds of relationships Boxman has with other villains amount to strictly business transactions to create their robot minions. The shareholders that directly fund Boxmore are especially skeptic of Boxman's destroy the Plaza side venture and see this as a misguided, Snidely Whiplash-esque escapade. He's just a Saturday morning cartoon villain and they're the respectable big leagues. When Boxman funnels so much time, effort, energy, and resources towards the Plaza attacks, it takes precious time away from robot production; the one thing he does they consider valuable or worthwhile. They threaten to cut off their support if Boxman's production doesn't increase and then gladly replace him with Darrell when the opportunity arises. Darrell fits the exact mold they need for a CEO: he focuses exclusively on production.

There's no respect. There's no interest in or concern for Lord Boxman as an individual. The dislike is mutual. Of course Boxman doesn't get along with other villains. Most of the known names and faces on screen hold the purse strings and by extension, the fate of Boxman's entire operation. He feels like he has to put on his best face and performance to keep his business afloat. Without Boxmore, he seemingly has nothing and loses everything material. After Boxman was fired by the shareholders, he becomes absolutely depressed and floats around for awhile until Venomous finds him in his trash can. As much as he hates answering to corporate interests, he's locked in as a "robot manufacturer" as much as an Average Joe is stuck at a 9-5 job because of bills, a mortgage; and most frustratingly, how easily someone can fall into the trappings of letting a job define their self-worth or sense of self.

--

When Professor Venomous gets introduced, he's partly in Boxman's mental bucket of shareholder/necessary business relationships. Boxman goes to great lengths to hide K.O., Rad, and Enid after accidentally booking his business dinner on the same night as an antagonize the Plaza event. He's scared that his 'hobby' would dissuade Venomous from buying any more of his robots and break their already tenuous business deal. Instead, Venomous starts to see Boxman through literal rose-tinted glasses and becomes interested in Boxman's ongoing Plaza rivalry but uses the robots as a continued excuse to check in again on this weird, intriguing man.

Another interesting precedent is that Boxman is more fond of Venomous from the jump. When interacting with other business partners, Boxman is over-the-top and eager to please in video calls and plays the oblivious idiot in casual settings, but behind closed doors, he's bitter towards them. Boxman won't hug his own children and scoffs at open displays of affection. Yet he wants to touch or hug Venomous as often as he can reasonably get away with. Part of his behavior is the same eager to please facade he gives other interested business parties, but the bigger part is a legitimate interest in developing a more personal relationship with Venomous.

The pink shoujo sparkles and elevator eyes Boxman has for Venomous are a blatant indicator he finds him attractive. That's a surprisingly huge part of what kicks off his interest. Look at how he reacts to Dr. Blight in the Captain Planet crossover. Boxman initially shows skepticism and disinterest towards her crazy plans, but the second she flirts with him, the flip switches. The promise of romantic interest grants her access to the full power and force of Boxmore. When she leaves at the end of the episode, Boxman is disappointed. He wanted to continue their partnership, especially their potential interpersonal one.

In Venomous' case, he gets extra points for joining in the fight after the Plaza brats interrupt dinner. He asks about the design and Lego brick-esque connectivity of the Boxbots. He's not above participating in the Saturday morning cartoon skirmish. Rather, he misses that kind of fight and yearns to experience more exploits like it. Venomous is the only on-screen character outside of Boxman's kids that shows a willingness to listen to, try to understand, and engage with Boxman in a more personable, intimate way.

--

Professor Venomous fell into villainy after he lost his powers and realized how overbearing he found the moral code heroes have. Being a villain comes naturally to him; he likes the fruits of his labor in the vast amounts of wealth, prestige, and material power that he could gain. Fast forward to present-day in the series and he's the picture of a successful villain. He figures out the easy button for amassing stupid amounts of money by threatening a Congresswoman with a death ray. He's sought out for deals involving his scientific prowess. He's respected and liked among other villains to the point he's invited to Billiam's parties. Though while he has a comfortable position, he's become jaded.

Enter Lord Boxman. Compared to the villains Venomous is used to, Boxman dances to the beat of his own drum. He's more interested in defeating the Plaza than an endless vie for prestige, wealth, or power. He says he doesn't care what the other villains think of him and how he does things. No matter what happens, he's going to carve out his own path as a villain and do what he wants to with his life. Somehow, Venomous got tied up in a new, different kind of bureaucratic process as a villain. As a hero, he felt like an outcast and a loser everybody looked down on without super powers. As a villain, he has everything he thought he wanted but it was more of a means to make up for what he lost. It was more compensating and filling in an existential hole vs actually taking meaningful control of his life. In stark contrast to that, Boxman knows exactly what he wants and puts his all into every pursuit, consequences and obstacles be damned.

Collaborating with Boxman is an epiphany. Dreaming up new schemes and plots to challenge the Plaza is fun. It's fulfilling and satisfying to Venomous in a way that heroics and solo villain ventures weren't. There's one scene in particular after Boxman and Venomous join forces for the first time and lose spectacularly. Both of them are smiling; it's joyous. Boxman was down and out without Boxmore, but building Fink's attack trike was a spark of hope that he can rebuild even if its from the ground-up. Venomous just lost his nice house and all of his current material possessions because Boxman blew everything up. But then Boxman turned around and presented the exact existential solution Venomous didn't know he needed by suggesting attacking the Plaza. It's the dinner party attack, but this time, Venomous was a full part of the planning phases. He gets to share in and fully experience the devil-may-care and more whimsical parts of being a villain he thought were long gone.

Venomous offers to buy out Boxmore and root out the shareholders. Finally, Boxman is free of one of the bigger obstacles between him and his all-time favorite venture. Not only does Boxman have free reign, but also the equal partner he so desperately desired; someone that's on his same wavelength and as invested in his kind of villainy as he is.

--

Another important dimension to Venomous' character is his destructive spiral as Shadowy Venomous. Finding that 'missing piece' in Boxman and Boxmore respectively isn't a magic solution. There's significant baggage in how much emphasis Venomous placed on his need for power. This was such a huge quest and chunk of his life that its difficult to give up on the idea entirely. Its similar to how some people spend so much time chasing after a specific job title or promotion that this elusive thing becomes an important part of what defines them or contributes to their sense of self worth. Venomous left Carol because of a gross misunderstanding that she saw him as weak. He was missing the value he assigned to super powers for so long that every new solution was always a band-aid or a stop gap.

Someone can find a thing or circumstances that significantly improves their life, but they need to see and recognize this psychologically too for it to be completely effective. In other words, Venomous needed to recognize the real-time changes and results from joining Boxmore, then figure out how to weigh those continued changes with his own self-discovery or improvement.

Boxman started improving on being a more proactive parent. Unfortunately, Venomous started getting lost in his own head and pulling away from his other responsibilities or general life. A change as big as a new partner, surroundings, and blended family would be enough to kickstart depression; especially because Venomous hadn't appropriately addressed why he needed this abstract concept of what it meant to be the 'most powerful being.' Success and self-actualization weren't included with the previous accolades he achieved as a villain. It wasn't obvious and forthcoming with Boxman either. The lack of introspection and vulnerable talks with Boxman or anyone else is exactly what led to the wind-up and eventual "I'll destroy everything if it means getting rid of the years of resentment and frustration."

--

Both Venomous and Boxman have some sort of adult trapped in the shitty corporate world element to their character writing. In a nutshell, Boxman struggles with the existential threat of losing who he is to one specific job he performs; Venomous finds villainy gratifying as more of a hobby or extracurricular activity vs a full-time job. He's successful at it but the version he's successful at is more of a distraction or a means to fill in a missing part of himself than true interest in his corporate role. Boxman's approach to villainy is considered juvenile and worthless. Venomous still loves villainy but he wants the freedom to have fun and go all-out without worrying about reputation or meeting the specific standards that comes with his current position.

In 2024, after the various rise of corporate buzzwords trying to guilt employees back to pre-pandemic work standards and inflation vs stagnant wages, there's new weight to the Boxman and Venomous character allegories respectively. These two are that success story of Boxman giving the middle finger to a crappy boss and Venomous making that leap of faith from an empty, soul-sucking job to the more wild, out of pocket thing. Venomous' ill-obtained funds becomes that treasured pile of "fuck you" money that so many people dream about having and using to take a risk on something personally, meaningfully valuable to them. Or just having a window of opportunity to enjoy life the way they want to without having to worry about bills and necessities.

More importantly though, while they describe themselves as business partners, it's two single, lonely men building a life and trying to healthfully blend their families together. Part of this life is making space for someone new that makes the other man want to work on becoming a better, more thoughtful person. Regardless of where a person sits in their job hunt or even at the height of personal achievement, the most important part is the support network they come home to or regularly interact with.

Thematically, Boxman and Venomous are the opposite side of the coin to the more straightforward found family K.O. builds and maintains. It's a reminder that no one has to be lonely. They can and will find someone that brings meaningful, valuable things to their life; someone that makes them want to change and grow. While this is about an explicitly romantic pair, the message applies whether that hypothetical person and relationship is romantic, platonic, or a new addition to a found family.