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transneonneko · 3 years ago

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Things from Archie Sonic that I would love to see return in the Mainline Games and/or IDW Sonic!!

Recently, I decided to read some of the Archie Sonic Comic, from like issue 186ish up until the first MegaMan crossover and the reboot, mainly because there were some gaps in my knowledge of those stories. Mainly Issues 198 till 235, which I never got to read as a kid and, I have to say, there were a lot of really interesting concepts during Ian's run of comics before the reboot that I really loved. There was a lot of really interesting concepts I love after the reboot too. I wanna celebrate that. A lot of these concepts and story idea I feel really deserve another chance.

So I wanna make this list of stuff I wanna see return in either for stories in the Mainline Games or the IDW Sonic comics. Before we start, I do wanna add somethings. This post isn't meant to be shitting on IDW and being like "IDW would be better if they did this". I really love the IDW comics and universe. I also know that some of these concepts likely can't be done due SEGA Mandates and I'm not gonna include stuff like "Bring back the Freedom Fighters" because I feel asking to bring back characters isn't gonna be very productive, as much as I would like to see their return. Anyways, let's begin.

The Fate of the ARK

One thing that really inspired this list was this scene right her. We'll talk more about Silver's Future later but for now, let's focus on the ARK. I'm gonna assume anyone reading this knows the story of the ARK from SA2 and Shadow. Sadly, the ARK hasn't really been revisited in the main canon since Shadow, despite how iconic of a set piece it is. In the Archie Comics, we get a look at Silver's future and one of things that may have been the cause of how bad things are is the ARK crashed. Sadly, Archie got rebooted before the writers could go more into it but, from SA2, we know that the ARK was set to crash into the planet if all 7 Chaos Emeralds are placed into it, wiping out all life on the planet. This could be an excellent premise of another Silver adventure, whether it be in the comics or games, where Sonic, Silver and some friends have to stop someone from making the ARK crash into the planet.

Expanding the Eggman Empire/Egg Bosses

Something I've always found a bit lacking in the game canon is how the Eggman Empire itself has been presented. In the games, the Eggman Empire is usually just made up of Eggman, Metal Sonic, Orbot, Cubot, a bunch of robots and (recently) Infinite. It's not really an Empire if it's just one guy and a bunch of robots. The main goal is the conquer the world but we hardly see Eggman actually see what happens when Eggman conquers a place, like what happens to the people who used to live there, besides like Colours and Forces, where the Wisps and Mobians are usually just seen being imprisoned. The Egg Bosses are the perfect solution to this and adds so much to Sonic's World.

The Egg Bosses are Mobians who, either willingly or unwillingly, aligned themselves up with Eggman for whatever reason, becoming commanders of the Eggman Empire. This usually comes about when Eggman has taken over a part of the region and the people living in that region have no choice but to join the Eggman Empire, for their own safety. Not only does this make the Eggman Empire feel more than just one person but it also makes Eggman more a villain himself. It able to portray Eggman as someone to be feared and, I mean, this is a dictator and genocider who is pretty much declaring war against the world.

It also brings up some interesting thoughts about the world. Characters like Maw, Thunderbolt and even Nephthys to a degree joined up with Eggman because they felt it was the right thing to do for the sake of the world, or in Nephthys case, to stop things getting worst later on, meanwhile characters like Grand Battle Kukku are plotting to usurp Eggman, with Clove and Beauregard only working for Eggman to protect family or close ones.

As I said before, having these Egg Bosses also makes Eggman look more threaten, both because he's able to look like a "bigger bad" next to these villains he has command of and, because almost all the Egg Bosses hate Eggman's guts, they are cyberized, a terrifying process in which those who work for Eggman are focus to have parts of their body replaced with cybernetics, with either bombs which will blow if they decide to leave or a locking mechanism that will paralyze their entire body, ready to be locked up.

If either in the game or the IDW comic, I would like to see the Egg Boss concept return. It doesn't even need to be the same characters or use the name "Egg Boss." It would help expand the army of the Eggman Empire, as well as provide some fun bosses for the games I think.

Mobians and Humans living together

This was always a weird hangup I felt the series had. In the case of games between Sonic Adventure & Unleashed, Sonic and friends were the only Mobians, humans made up the NPCs while Mobians were reserved for main characters. Then in Forces and IDW, Mobians made up the background characters, so then Eggman is the only human. I really prefer it when they have the two living together, it makes it seems more normal and, honestly, a better solution than the whole "Two Worlds" explanation.

Eggman Seemingly Defeated

Can I just that I love Issues 198-200? In these 3 issues, Sonic and friends Eggman's main base, the Egg Dome. This including fighting on the outside of the base, involving fighting hoards of the Dark Egg Legion soldiers and Eggman in the Egg Phoenix. After dealing with the outside, Sonic and friends raid the Egg Dome itself, taking different directions, with the Dark Egg Legion seemingly retreating, until they reach the center of the base, where they are blocked off by a barricade, which only Sonic can pass through, giving a "Point of No Return" vibe, Dark Egg Legion soldiers lining up and saluting Sonic. Then Sonic reaches the center and finds Eggman in the Egg Tarantula, starting their final battle which Sonic wins. This defeat is enough for Eggman to lose his sanity, seemingly ending the war Sonic and the Freedom Fighters have been fighting their entire life.

Of course Eggman returns but, god, it's just such a memorable couple of issues. There's a real sense of finality to it. I would a sequence like this in the games, something that feels like truly ending the Eggman Empire and defeating them once and for all. Of course, it wouldn't be the end, Sonic games are always needing to be made which would lead to...

The New Rulers of the Eggman Empire

In the comics after the defeat of Eggman, the Eggman Empire is taken over by some of it's Commanders, the Iron Queen and Iron King, who rules the Empire as their own until they are defeated and Eggman's return.

I love the idea that even if the Eggman, there will always be someone there to take his place. The games could do this by having Neo Metal or Infinite take his place. Hell, IDW did have Neo Metal take over but I think what made that less interesting was that Neo Metal wasn't doing it for himself, he was doing it for Eggman. I think this would work well if a concept like the Egg Boss was introduced in the games, maybe have one of the characters part of that group take over OR have a lot of the more ambitious Egg Bosses war against each other to take command, until eventually Eggman returns and puts them in line.

Silver's Future

Silver is one of the most recurring characters, who always joins the gang when his future is in trouble. The problem is that we never see his future besides 06. We have no idea what Silver's future is currently until it's in danger and, even then, we never see it.

We see Silver's Future in both continuities of the Archie Comic, with two different takes. Pre-SGW has a destroyed city vibe, like 06 but less lava. Post-SGW brought a whole new take where people are ruled by a corrupt council where people are put into class groups, and security robots will arrest if you are not at your job at the right time. They even re-contextualize Silver's bracelets as cuffs that the robots can activate. With Silver being my favourite character as a kid, I remember being obsessed with this new world and story, wanting to know more.

I'm not saying they would need to copy this world exactly but it would be nice if they gave us a concrete and consistence look for Silver's Future.

The Heroic Metal Sonic

Right before the SGW, we were introduce to Shard the Metal Sonic. His story is that he was the original Metal Sonic, the one that raced Sonic in Stardust Speedway. He appeared later in the comic, where Sonic made him realized there was more to life than just being Eggman's killing machine. He seemingly died, but was rebuilt to serve as a member the Secret Freedom Fighters.

This one would be tricky to be included. It worked in the Archie comic as they had been many Metal Sonics throughout the series, each one getting destroyed. Meanwhile, there's only officially been one Metal Sonic in the games made by Eggman (two if we count Classic and Modern). Admittedly, Gemerl fits Shard's personality and does need to be used more in the games but having it be Metal Sonic is just a cooler concept.

I think a solution to this is that we have Metal Sonic 1.0 made by Eggman and, in Rivals 2, we have Metal Sonic 3.0 by Eggman Nega from the future. But what about Metal Sonic 2.0? I think we could have a game where after Metal Sonic fails, Eggman builds a replacement, being 2.0, which would give reason to Metal Sonic wanting to revolt, which could lead to a redemption? While I am loving the IDW comics, I do really miss a lot of what both Archie continuities offered. I haven't mention the some other concepts and stories I liked that really focused on certain characters such as Naugus, Geoffrey St. John, Dimitri etc. Maybe I'll talk about that another day...

#Sonic #sonic the hedgehog #archie sonic #idw sonic #pre-sgw #post-sgw #sega #eggman #eggman empire #egg bosses #shard the metal sonic #silver the hedgehog

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idw-sonic-fan-blog · 3 years ago

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The Mandates

Just wanted to share my thoughts on the pro-ported mandates because they cast a shadow on this comic.

“Game characters cannot have relatives unless they were estabilished in the game canon, i.e. Cream and her mother.”

This one is understandable and you can blame Penders for this. Mind you that most licensed comics of gaming franchises don’t actually delve too much in personal family relationships or expand on them. So this is expected and honestly Sega should have put the screws on Archie decades ago about this.

“Game characters can not die. There are workarounds for this, such as being Mistaken for Dying or "Mistaken For Dead”

Again. Yes. Not a big deal.

“Game characters cannot have wardrobe changes unless approved. Chao Races and Badnik Bases has some characters (mainly the female game characters) wear different clothes for extreme conditions. Male characters remain the same.”

This is a useless rule but whatever. I mean Sega, you are the ones putting bad wardrobe choices on the characters so again it’s whatever.

“Sonic can't be shown getting too emotional (i.e;cry)”

This is one that it complained about because it really wouldn’t matter unless it is called attention to. A lot of superheroes don’t cry. But that doesn’t prohibit them from expressing themselves. IDW Sonic has been sad. He has been pissed. He has been furious.

Is this not too emotional?

Is he not expressing himself appropriately?

I don’t even know why this is brought up. When in this comic has Sonic not been expressive or displaying the appropriate amount of emotion? When did Sonic needing to cry be necessary?

“Game characters cannot enter in a relationship.”

Oh GOD YES. Don’t threaten me with a good time.

“All major Character Development must be approved by SEGA.”

Yeah, of course. Let me remind you that Penders and Archie ruined any strand of trust Sega could have in comic media. They played loose at first and all of the sudden, they are involved in a lawsuit about characters in a Sonic comic that they didn’t even know about. They probably lost a video game business relationship because of it. If they want to be involved in the comics, fine. That means that they are now forced to World Build. They have to invest in it now and not just be like Lucas Films and let anybody do anything with their flagship title.

“Much like the post-reboot of the Archie comic, the words "Mobius" is banned—the planet is simply called "Sonic's World". Unlike the Post-Boot, which allowed the names "Mobian" and "Mobini", anything related to Mobius is banned in this comic.”

…Of course but how about you throw the writer’s a bone and I don’t know, name the fucking planet. If it is not Earth, give it a name.

“Sonic must always win at the end. Even if he and his friends are at the losing end in an overarching story (the Metal Virus arc, for example), they must come out on top when it concludes.”

I don’t even get this rule and the knee jerk hatred for it. Why even have it? Why even share the existence of this rule? Archie Sonic didn’t really lose too bad. It’s more on how you frame a victory. The fact of the matter is that Eggman is still actively trying to conquer the planet. Sonic stops him but Eggman still has control of land and has military installations all over.

This rule is offset by this. While Sonic can’t lose, Sonic can’t completely win.

“Characters and material from other licensed properties (Sonic the Comic, Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM)', Sonic Underground, the OVA, Sonic X and the Paramount films cannot be used. This rule extends to characters and redesigns done by the current writers. The only exception is Sticks from Sonic Boom, and that's because she was created by SEGA themselves and showed up in non-Boom media, but any ideas regarding her use still need to be okayed by SEGA.”

First off I am glad that Sticks was spared by this rule and I look forward to her eventual inclusion. Second, again, this is not much of a big deal as it was expected. Sorry Freedom Fighter fans but honestly deal.

“Male characters, sans Eggman, can't wear pants, which was also a thing in the Post-Reboot, albeit never explicitly stated. The inverse is also true; female characters have to have some form of lower clothing.”

Okay this is a pedantic rule. It is so weird with how precise it is. Like…huh?

“Classic characters such as Mighty, Ray, Nack/Fang, Bean, and Bark won't appear in non-Classic issues, as Sega doesn't want Classic and Modern Sonic to mix.”

One of the most bullshit mandates fueled by the nostalgia boner fans created. Like this is stupid because Archie Modern Sonic has added more character and depth to all of these mentioned characters than any of the Sega Sonic games they appeared in which only amounts to 1 or 2 at most. Why neuter your own potential stories with this stupid limitation?

“According to Ian Flynn, a specific incident involving Shadow's characterization when he's exposed to the Zombot infection was written in a specific way because of Sega mandating that he be written as an "overconfident asshole rival" character, similar to Vegeta. He later followed up with an explanation that out of every character, Shadow has the most mandates and notes attached to how he's portrayed. According to the podcast, Sega says that Team Dark is no longer a thing. The three members are not a team and they have never worked for G.U.N.; Shadow also doesn't even consider them friends.”

This is my opinion is the worst rule. First it’s contradictory to the character Sega introduced us to. Stop trying to be like Dragon Ball for once and actually be your own thing. It’s one thing if we are changing it because Shadow was unpopular because of his personality. But no one likes this Shadow. People miss the somber but reserved Hedgehog that continued to fight in spite of the world betraying him. Hothead Shadow is a cheap Knuckles. And I don’t even understand why Shadow even has so many mandates when he wasn’t the most egregious offender. Knuckles was.

Also, Team Dark aren’t a thing and Shadow doesn’t even consider them to be his friends. First off that doesn’t even fly in your own games. Who outside of Sonic does Shadow interact the most? Rouge. They have teamed up and were a packaged duo since their inception. When Shadow appeared, Rouge appeared right next to him. If Rouge was in a game, so was Shadow.

Team Dark or just Rouge has fought alongside Shadow in every game they appeared in. Who else does Shadow talk to if not Rouge?

“Sega has stated to Flynn that only male hedgehogs are allowed to go Super with the Chaos Emeralds.”

Except in Sonic Mania.

“Ian isn't allowed to directly reference a game, since the comic is supposed to be its own thing.”

Okay. Not only is this rule stupid. But it’s untrue.

This references the end of Sonic Forces.

The first page of comic.

It has referenced Sonic Adventure, SA2, Sonic Generations , and Sonic Unleashed.

This referencing Shadow the Hedgehog.

I don’t believe this rule exists and even if it did, it is dumbest rule since the whole point of this comic is to base it off the games more. The dumbest rule.

“Knuckles is not allowed to leave Angel Island unless he has a very good reason to.”

For decades, people have complained that Knuckles routinely leaves the island. For decades. Now does this mean Sega is going to 1. Use Knuckles and 2. Amplify the importance of Angel Island and the Master Emerald? No. Again, this criticism should be levied at Sega because they often conveniently forget Knuckles purpose and just hand wave it instead of giving Knuckles more to do on the island like I don’t know, have other entities invested in attacking him.

In summary, here is what I think is going on. Do I think most of these mandates are real? Yes. Given what happened to Archie, I do think Sega is doing some brand alignment. I think they got the clamps on.

But what I think is going on is a Japanese cultural thing called Power Harassment. It is normalized abuse of power. Sega of Japan is normally laxxed about their brands. They don’t mind blatant rip-offs of their mascot nor do they get stiff about fandom creations or mods. The comic division, however, is getting tough love because not only did it cost them a publishing deal, but ruined a relationship with a high end developer. So the IDW writers and staff are being subjected to intentionally hypocritical rules and strict mandates that they know don’t make sense until they’ve shown to be obedient.

A lot of the mandates aren’t strict. But some are so asinine that I don’t think they aren’t aware with how stupid they sound imposing those rules. Like Shadow is the most narratively complete Sonic character and yet, Sega puts this tight mandate as if Archie Shadow was the most egregious thing. Archie Shadow was overpowered. He wasn’t out of character like Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails were. They can’t be that stupid or be that intentionally dense. So they want to see if the writing crew can follow orders. That’s it.

But that’s just my take.

#idw sonic #sonic the hedgehog

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segasonicaesthetics · 3 years ago

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Common Sonic arguments

Common Sonic arguements and discourse debunked.

These often come up in discourse around the series and don't seem to ever die so today I am going to nit pick a few of the common criticism that comes on regarding Sonic discourse because why not, nothing better to do with my time.

1: Sonic shouldn't have a story or if it does it should go back to fast hedgehog gets rings and fights funny science bad guy.

A: Why shouldn't Sonic have a story? I never see a good arguement for this case and most of the ones that do come up are not that good.

First off a series should evolve and grow, staying in the past forever or playing to nostalgia endlessly is harmful. A good example of this was the classic megaman series through it's first six games, which did the same megaman fights doctor wily plot to the point the series was losing players who where getting tired of the same thing.

The games where good but they offered nothing new, thats when Megaman X grew the beard and made a leap forward which helped put the megaman franchise on the map and allowed it to take many bold new directions.

2: Well see Sonics a cartoon hedgeh...

A: And? Are cartoons a lesser form of art or media? Some of the best stories in the 2010s came from cartoons of that era which evolved with the times and tackled some interesting themes. Just because something is for younger people doesn't mean it has to be a lesser form of storytelling.

This arguement is pointless and comes from a boomer mind set locked in the 20th century seeing cartoons and games as "Just a kids thing and kids media is meant to be silly."

3: Sonic has had a rough transition to 3D...

A: This has been done to death, please just stop already, god.

Remember the Adventure games where highly praised and got good reviews at the time, this crap is some real selective memory bollocks and it seems to stem from Sonic 06 poisoning the discourse for years.

4: But sonic 06...

A: It has been over 15 years, move on already and stop using this to advocate holding the series back.

5: Sega should focus on other games besides sonic, all they do is make sonic.

A: Where is the evidence for this one? Sega is not just sonic team, they own a lot of game dev devisions and teams who work on their own franchises and projects, a few of these include AM1, AM2, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio(Which is part of Sega CS Research and Development No. 1) and a few more not including companies they own such as Atlus, Two point, hardlight and Creative Assembly. Trust me they put out a lot of games, some current ones being PSO2 reboot, miku hatsune series, yakuza etc so this arguement is total bunk.

6: But the quality of the Sonic series has been all over the place.

A: True and Sonic Team needs to do better.

7: Sonic has too many friends.

A: So? What’s wrong with having other characters, it makes the world and setting more diverse and rich. This arguement also fails because through the 2010s a majority of the games have been Sonic only with not many playable characters. If anything this arguement is coming from people who have not kept up with or still play the series and seems out of touch.

8: The stories are too edgy and dark.

A: Hello I am from 2005 and have lost my time machine, please help.

9: Lol they gave Shadow a gun, series has jumped the shark.

A: This is not 2005, we’re over this, I think Sonic team got the message 15 years ago, can we move onto some productive criticism now?

10: People make porn of sonic, fandom bad, sonic fans wanna **** big the cat lolololol XD XD XD

A: This is not an arguement about the series, this is a you problem, maybe stop googling sonic porn if it’s a big deal?

11: Sonic was never good.

A: Thats just your opinion man, don’t like it fair tons of games out there to play.

12: Sonic 2 was the best and only good Sonic game and Sega should just make that again.

A: This sort of ties back to number 1, a problem with that is doing nothing but appeasing aging 90s kids forever would bury the series harder than Sonic 06 almost did, things need to grow and do new stuff that is part of life and a good thing.

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic fandom #Sega #Sonic Team

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Static Shock: Shock to the System and Aftershock Review

“You know what? 13 years ago, me and some friends sat in a restaurant all night and daydreamed about the kinds of stories we would tell if we had the chance. We wanted to expand the concept of superhero to include characters that kind of looked like us, who had some of the same background, experiences and dreams as we did. We wanted to create something fun that a new generation would respond to the same way we responded to our childhood heroes -and damn if we didn't succeed beyond my wildest dreams. Today, Static Shock is a household name with millions of fans of all ages (Is there stuff I'd do differently? Yeah, almost all of season four but why nitpick?) Static is the most successful thing I've ever helped create and I'm both proud and gratified that people have taken it into their hearts. “

Dwayne McDuffie, Co-Creator of Static and Writer for Static Shock

This review is dedicated to Dwayne McDuffie and Robert L. Washington III. Rest In Power Static Shock is awesome. I grew up with the show watching it both first run on the WB and second run on Cartoon Network and loved it as much as I did other large parts of my childhood courtsey of DC like Batman the Animated Series, Teen Titans and both Justice League Shows. What makes this unique among the DC Properties is that Static wasn’t really a big name when he got a show. He wasn’t even part of the DC Universe.

See as I had no idea for probably a good decade, Static actually came from Milestone Comics, a company ran by and focused on african americans. The goal was understandable: While black heroes existed at the time, and there were some fantastic ones like Storm, Jim Rhodes and Steel... these guys weren’t the center of their universes. The big faces of the big companies, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash.. were white. So milestone was a shakeup of that with the main teams and heroes all being black, from Icon, an alien who’d lived among man but rather than end up in kansas like say superman ended up imprinting on a slave woman centuries ago and has been with us since, who was encouraged by an energetic teenager named Rocket to put on a costume and do something with his powers and his community, Hardware, a tech genius who had his work stolen by a white asshole and wanted to fight back and BLood Syndicate, a group of gang members all caught in the “The Big Bang”, a huge fight between all of Dakota, the midwest city where the comics take place, that ended when the police released a bunch of experimental gas that gave them all super powers.

As most of you who have watched the show already know, this is where Static comes from. Static was the company making their own Spider-Man, i.e. a nerdy teenager who suddenly gets super powers, in this case Virgil Hawkins who at the prodding of a friend took a gun to The Big Bang to get revenge on a bully. .but ultimately couldn’t go through with it, decided it wasn’t him and got rid of the gun and ran.. and still ended up in it, becoming Static, a young hero dedicated to using his powers to fight other “Bang Babies”.. a term that dosen’t really sound that great and they really should’ve thought through. But Phrasing aside the character was great and I look forward to reading more and only haven’t because I have to buy the issues gradually, but DC is currently re-releasing the individual issues of Static, Icon, and Hardware weekly in anticipation of a reboot of Milestone Coming in May digitally on Comixology at only 2 bucks a pop, and rereleased the original print collections that were long out of print for 10 bucks each, though i’m getting static on it’s own since i’ts really not that much less expensive as it only collects four issues while Icon and Hardware both collect 8, so I can wait a bit there on Hardware and already own Icon: A Hero’s Welcome.. and really need to review it at some point.

While Milestone’s output was good, at least from the two books i’ve read, with Robert Washinton III, who sadly not only ahs also passed but was fucking homeless for a while in the 2000′s.. what the actual hell, writing Static alongside Dwayne McDuffie, whose later moved onto animation writing tons of Static episodes all of them classics including the school shooting episode, the first three rubberbandman episodes and both Anasazi episodes. Point is it had good writers and artists and even had a distrbution deal with DC, so they had a leg up on the glut of other comic book companies.. but happened to start at the start of the comic book crash, a huge downturn in sales in the 90′s as the speculator boom, i.e. a bunch of people assuming every number one would be worth golden and silver age money, forgetting a character has to BUILD INTREST and this stuff takes time, and whose attempts to sell fast flooded the market with comics no one wanted,, caused the roof to cave in and with a bunch of assholes pegging milestone as a “Company for black people” rather than you know, a company trying to add fucking diversity and represntation to the comics industry, and that simply wanted a unvierse that was centered around people of color instead of white guys. The company eventually had to shut down, and was left to lisencing. This is where the show comes in. Producers HAD been trying to make shows based on Milestone for a while, as far back as the mid-90s and the company was was all for it but the closest it got was an x-men style team series using various characters whose first draft was terrible and whose second draft by Alan Burnett, a producer on various DC Animated shows who’d go on to produce Static Shock, that McDuffie and others really liked but sadly did not get picked up. eventually though with presistance Static ended up getting a series and as I said McDuffie went on to write for it though he did not develop it. Some changes went into place naturally to make it work for an early 2000′s kids show and while i’ll probably miss so since again, only read one issue as we go. But due to Milestone coming back my intrest was peaking, hence finally reading the copy of Icon I had to buy from the library years ago due to keeping it overdue but am now EXTREMLEY glad I own as i’ts incredibly rare and really damn good, and wanting to read static, doing so lately since it’s finally on digtiial and again not too expensive. So join me as I give you a shock to the system and revisit this hell of a series to see if it holds up.. which just to cut that short it does and i’m only holding off binging MORE because I want the first two eps to be fresh enough in my head to review properly.. and also go over the various voice actors because that’s a thing with me now and charcter co-creator dwayne mcduffie because he’s awesome.

As I like to do when covering a series first episodes, let’s run down the voice cast.

First up is an UTTER LEGEND, and I use the term voice acting legend a lot, and mean it every time and have good reason to use it when I say it, and Phil LaMarr is a GOD in the buisness, having done a metric ton of voice acting roles, and being easily the most proflific black voice actor in animation. He’s also done some acting work, mostly in pulp fiction which I have not seen, but his true staying power and talent is in animation so here’s just the roles I feel are most notable or may not be very notable but i’m bringing up anyway because it’s my list.

His roles besides Virgil include Lester Payton the Texas Ranger who showed up for one very good episode of king of the hill to be badass and show up the hickish, stupid and very punchable local Sheriff, Gearld’s obnoxious older brother Jamie O on Hey Arnold, Hermes Conrad from futurama, Carver from the Weekenders (PUT IT ON PLUS DISNEY), Axel Foley for exactly one bit in Clerks the Animated Series, but anyone whose seen it will know exactly which one, Micheal on the Proud Family, Black Vulcan on Harvey Birdman (In His Pants), Hector Con Carne and Dracula on Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Evil Con Carne, Jack on Samurai Jack something I didn’t know for decades (and I didn’t know about the carver thing till today though i’ts obvious in hindsight), John Motherfucking Stewart on Justice League and later Steel and Adult Static in the Unlimited seasons, Osmosis Jones on Ozzy and Drix, Bolbi Strogofski on Jimmy Neutron (And yes i’m just as shocked as you are.), Wilt on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Marcus on Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Bull Sharkowski on My Gym Partner is A Monkey and Also a Sociopath Please Help God My Life is a waking nightmare..... okay the rest of that title is implied but we all watched the same show, we all know in our hearts that was the title

Moving on, he was also, and yes there’s MORE: Maxie Zeus on The Batman, Philly Phil on Class of 3000, Both Robertsons AND Fancy Dan on the Spectacular Spider-Man, Jazz on Transformers Animated, Kit Fisto and Bail Organa on Star Wars the Clone Wars, Gambit and Bolivar Trask on Wolverine and the X-Men, Aquaman I, L-Ron and Green Beetle on Young Justice, J.A.R.V.I.S. and Wonder Man (Simon Williams) In Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Gabe and Carny on Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters (Really miss that game and have been snapping up what cards I can get lately), Baxter Stockman in the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (And there’s also an awesome photo of him with 2003 Baxter... the two best together in one place. I got chills), Dormammu (I’ve come to bargin) in various Marvel Shows, Noville in Mighty Magiswords, Zach’s dad Marcus in Milo Muprhy’s Law, Craig’s Douchey Brother Benard on Craig of the Creek, showing he’s clearly come full circle, And Mr. Scully on the Casagrndes. And given It took about two paragraphs to cover all of this, yeah, I MEANT legend.

Next we have Kevin Micheal Richardson as Virgil’s Dad Robert, and it’s the first time since I started introducing Voice Actors on a show that i’ve overlapped. I already covered him during the second episode of legend of the three caballeros, but for the short version he’s also very acomplished, very damn good and I somehow missed he played the old blind guy in hey arnold> Needless to say the dude is awesome.

Virgil’s Sister Sharon is played by Michele Morgan who was in the rap group BWP and did some smaller roles outside of this the one exception being Juicy on the PJ’s, which I have not watched much of but REALLY do not like, though i’ll at least give it credit for being a decently long lasted black claymation sitcom at at time when there were, and hoenstly still aren’t, many black animated shows.

Back to long casting sheets, next up is Jason Marsden, who is one of my faviorites as i’ve realized recently as Ritchie. As I also found out only recently he started on the Sitcom Step By Step and while that show is .. ehhhhhhhhh, he is great in it because he’s great in everything. He also apparently has his own internet variety show which I have to watch now. His roles include Max Goof, ironically given I was just talking about that role a few days ago, Haku in the english dub of Spirted Away, Micheal, the kid being yelled at by a bunch of 80′s cartoons characters not to take drugs in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!, Nermal in the DTV Garfield movies and The Garfield Show, Tino on the Weekenders (SERIOUSLY DISNEY), Snapper Carr on Justice League, Rikochet on Mucha Lucha! for the last season (Why I do not knkow and while I love the guy he was not the right choice), Felix on Kim Possible, Chase Young on Xiaolin Showdown (WHich I did not realize was him and now I do easily his best role and I REALLY should’ve), Red Star and Billy Numerous on Teen Titans, Speedy on Batman Brave and the Bold, Impulse/Kid Flash II on Young Justice, and Fingers on Kaijudo. He hasn’t done as much lately which is a shame but hopefully i’tll pick up again.

Next up is Hotstreak, Virgil’s brutal bully turned unhinted pyromancer played by DANIEL COOKSY, another actor i’m happy to talk about and another faviorite I haven’t seen much of lately. Daniel was an actor from childhood, playing Budnick on Salute Your Shorts, but he quickly gained a long and storied catalogue of VA Work: His first big roll was as Montana Max on Tiny Toon Adventures and if there is a god he’ll be back for the reboot, Stoop Kid on Hey Arnold, the incomprable Jack Spicer on Xiaolin Showdown, far and away his best role and part of why Chronicles sucked so bad was he was he didn’t get to reprise the role, The titular Dave the Barbarian, Django of the Dead on El Tigre (Had no idea), Kicks utterly insufferable big Brother Brad on Kick Buttowski and apparently he’s back at it again after laying low for a bit as he’s voicing Snag in Long Gone Gultch.. which I already really needed to watch but hot damn, I missed him. Sign me up.

Frieda, Virgil’s crush and close friend who in the comics was his main confidante and love intrest but here is eventually pushed aside, is voiced by Danica Mckeller whose work didn’t seem all that familiar.. until I found out she was Ms. Martian on Young Justice. Hello, Megan. Very talented and she did get a major role in a dc show eventually so good for her. Can’t wait for season 4.

So with our major players out of the way, let’s talk about Dwayne. McDuffie is an AWESOME man and my respect has grown for him more and more with time. A writer and editor at Marvel, McDuffie has a decent resume doing smaller but awesome books, which I got most of for free last year when Marvel was giving out free digital collections due to the lock down, like Damage Control, a sitcom set in the marvel universe about the company that picks up after superhero battles and the logistics and antics that insue and Dethlok, about a pacfist trapped inside a cyborg zombie. He was as mentioned one of Milestone’s founders, and wrote Icon, Hardware and co-wrote the first few issues of Static. He’d go on to a pretty stacked career in animation, writing on this show and Justice League before becoming story editor and show runner for Unlimited , even making a return to comics as a result writing the Marvel miniseries beyond and an arc of Fantastic Four in which Black Panther and Storm filled in for Reed and Sue while the two of them worked on their marriage after Reed did.. pretty much everything he did in Civil War. He also became head writer and show runner for Ben 10: Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, revamping the franchise a bit, and Alien Force, at least the first two seasons are awesome and I feel people overreacted on the changes. Ultimate Alien is okay, but has it’s problems but the finale was awesome and left the man’s legacy on a high note.. as he sadly passed in 2011 due to heart complications. He is truly missed and produced some utterly amazing stuff whlie he was alive. So on that melacholy note let’s see what happens when his creation hits the tv screen shall we?

Shock to the System:

This episode is written by Christopher Simmons, who is apparently a huge art designer guy.. but i’m not sure that’s the same chirsptoher simmons. Much more notable is the writer of the episode after this Stan Berkowitz, who was showrunner for season 1 and has done a LOT of DCAU work and is suprising talent, having written a lot of awesome Justice League episodes including Secret Society and The Royal Flush One. Point is we’re in first class hands. Before the episode itself I want to talk about the intro and how it’s unique among DCAU shows. Like most Western Animation the intros for DCAU shows didn’t change much over the seasons with the most I can see is JLU changing up the footage to preview the current episode and later adding Hawkgirl to the intro after her return to the team. I THINK superman the animated series changed some of it’s footage too, but I can’t confrim it and may of just been imagining it. As i’ve talked about on my blog it’s normally a pet peeve of mine, mostly because shows you know, change after season 1, characters get added some one shot characters used for the intro never return, and after a while it can feel dated especially in more recent shows where the status quo is not at all set in stone and things change quite a bit. But sometimes it can be good enough that either the dated elements don’t matter or general enough that you don’t need to change it and i’ts just that good.. and given Batman the Animated Series has both in spades, you can see why i’ts probably my golden standard for intros and after superman the animated series DC mostly followed suit. But being part of the teen superhero boom of the 2000′s Static is unique in that it splits the diffrence: It’s intro gets the character across perfectly like a good intro should starting with Virgil getting out of bed and running a comb across his head before showing off to his sister to bug her and literally running into his dad who hand shim his bag and smiles, silently showing off his family. He then runs to school and runs into some trouble.. and said trouble changes for each intro, with Rubberband Man for season 1, Kanga (Whose name I only know because I happened to run across it) for season 2 and your guess is as good as mine for seasons 3 and 4, though Hotstreak is a constant. They still save some money for seasons 1 and 2 by recycling some animation.. but that’s alright with mea s it was good animation, and the improtant thing is cycling out old villians for new ones, while Season 3 is the only out and out redo to show off Richie taking on the Gear identity, adding about 10 seconds of intro to let him show off. Seriously it’s an utterly great intro and like the other DCAU intros outside of superman, stuck in my brain.

The other change that’s ENTIRELY diffrent from the rest of htem is that the music changes each time. The first two have the same formula just with a difrent vocalist and backing track: a superhero theme but with some hip hop beat boxing over it. The first intro is fine enough, not specattcular but stilll god. The second song.. is eh. Not really great and feels like a marked downgrade from season 1 and just dosen’t blend an ocrehstiral superhero theme with the beatbox elements NEARLY as well. The third song though is my faviorite.. even if I HATED Little Romeo as a kid because I really did not like his nick show, it’s more a straight up rap song, but it has a faster beat that fits the intro better, and Romeo’s bragging fits Virgil’s character and penchant for Spidey quips perfectly. I also find it ironic that the theme that blends in with the dcau the most, the first season’s, is the one from BEFORE they decided to put it in the same universe. Still this season’s intro slaps, I just like the LIttle Romeo one a bit more. The opening scene is picture perfect. Some masked crooks looting a warehouse are loading some stolen TV’s into a van when suddenly the lights come on one by one above one of the crooks before his tv switches to various channels before going haywire. Cue our heroes’ entrance. Let’s tak ea good look at him

Static’s Costume is awesome. While I prefer the season 3 redesign, and clearly DC agrees as the redeisgn was used for both pre and post new-52 when they used him, and while he’s getting a fresh design for the reboot, said design takes a lot of cures from said outfit. As for how the outfit differs from the comics itself this is the design he had in the comics

It didn’t change much from the first issue, with the exception of his now iconic big puffy jacket which was added pretty early into the character’s history but I was unaware of that and just assumed he had the bodysuit the whole time. The more you know. But as you can see outside of the cool puffy jacket over a costume the two couldn’t be more diffrent. While the Dakotaverse outfit is more a standard superhero outfit, with some regular clothes touches on top the first cartoon outfit comes off more realistic, looking fantastic, but still coming off as something two teenagers could realistically have thrown together with what clothes they could buy, while still looking awesomely superheroy. IN short it’s perfect and only topped by the season 3 onward look...

But the slicker look, with an even cooler jakcet and the new colors all fitting the lighting ascetic better, but fits: not only has Virgil come along farther since he started, but with Richie now having a genius brain as Gear, he can provide a far slicker, far more professional superhero outfit on the budget the two have. This show is just great at costume design.

So getting back to the episode at hand, Static puts up a huge sign in elecrticy saying “Bad guys here”, PFFFT, and then hides away and narrates that a few days ago he’d be the last person anyone would’ve expected to be a hero. Cue Flashback.

We meet Virgil Hawkins on an average day: rapping into his razor, getting into a petty argument with his older sister Sharon, as a younger brother myself I relate to this, and talking to his dad who tries to get them to cut that out. We find out his mom has passed via his sister making really terrible eggs and saying that’s how mom made them. Exposition! Though we do get a great bit through this as when his sister gets distracted by her boyfriend calling, he uses the opportunity of her leaving the room to dump the eggs.. after having earlier jokingly prayed to his mom for a way out of breakfast. “Thanks for looking out for me mom” That’s both very sweet and very hilarious.

This is a change from the comics it turns out as I was utterly flored to find Virgil’s mom alive and well when reading the first issue of Static. Turns out this was a change made during development and one Dwane McDuffie admitted in the interview I got the tribute quote from to not liking as he had a good reason for having Virgil have a nuclear family, as most black families in media at the time were just one single parent and a kid or two with the other having either left or died. He wasn’t too bothered by it as while he preferred what he came up with in the first place, the show DID get some really good stories out of her being gone and didn’t just have her be absent because shut up. Virgil is still working over her death and the way HOW she died ends up playing an important role in this episode and gives Virgil a dislike of guns, as she died to gang violence. So the change wasn’t for stupid or racist reasons, but likely both to keep the character count down while giving them something to work with for storylines. Or it could’ve been for stupid reasons and the writers simpily made lemonade out of that very dumb lemon, either way it ended up working. Virgil also plans to ask his friend Frieda out. Frieda was a bigger deal in the comics, being Virgil’s friend and confidante as well as his ocasional love intrest, but here while she was inteded to at least be his love intrest here, that sorta fizzled out. As for the best friend role we meet her replacement in Richie, which McDuffie conceded was the kind of change a studio would make swapping out a female character for a male one. That being said the crew made the best of it and Richie is awesome, a bit of an overcompensating dipstick at times, but a good sounding board and pal for virgil and funny as hell too. He was also gay, something only revealed post series by McDuffie.. but unlike say Dumbledore, it’s a bit easier to swallow here: The early 2000′s were an even worse time for gay characters in tv let alone cartoons, and if they couldn’t kiss or have sex scenes on regular tv, there was no way we were getting any representation in a children’s show. So it was largely just hinted at by Richie overcompensating in how “into girls” he was and i’m once again fine with this being word of god as it was literally the best they could do and his counterpart in the comics was also gay, if not as relevant. Ritch encourages Virgil to work on his opening to ask her out as it’s awkward as heck, hits a bit close to home.. but I do appricate the show just .. having him try and ask her out from the first episode. They likely would’ve drug thigns out a bit granted had they used Frieda more, i’m not blind to the convetions of the time. .but as someone who got the very wrong idea from tv that just waiting around meant a girl would like you eventually, when no you need to actually try even if rejection happens, I honestly wish we had more of this in media than the other garbage morals at the time.

So he prepares to , not helped by her mentioning guy after guy is asking her out.... but before he can F-Stop, the future hotstreak, shows up. F-STOP

That being said...... it’s not as bad as the original gangster name for the comic’s version, Biz Money B. Yes BIZ MONEY B

So yeah while F-Stop is no more intimidating, it at least means I can stop laughing. Francis, because I can’t type F-Stop without laughing and this review is already behind, shoves Virgil out of the way and agressively hits on Frieda, even saying “you smell good”, the international sign your a douchebag and also to call the police. Virgil steps up to the guy and gets PAINFULLY slammed into the lockers, something I give the animation team a lot of credit for, as you can FEEL how fucking painful that was. Virgil is saved by Wade, another local gangbanger who in the comics was a close friend of Virgils but here saves him seemingly just because.. seemingly.

On the way home though Virg’s problems don’t end as naturally, the giant sized asshole with nothing better to do has his goons corner virgil before VIOLENTLY beating him.. off screen but the noises, and the clear brusies including a black eye, on virgil afterwords.. just holy damn i’m suprsied they got away with this but it shows just how horrifing it was and that this is a step above regular bullying, which make no mistake is absoluttley terrible and the series would later do an episode on it and school shootings, into straight up gang violence. Wade shows up again and gets the bastards to flee.. but also makes it clear he can’t keep doing this.. and forces Virgil to meet him at his base under the bridge. And it’s a tense sequence, with Virgil KNOWING this is a bad idea but having no real choice and Wade making it abundantly clear that he wants Virgil to join his crew, and makes a chilling point: while Virgils dad RIGHTFULLY dosen’t want his son to join a gang as Virgil points out.. he can’t be there for him all the time and eventually one of those times, Francis will be around. And he may not surivive that. Virgil nods noncomittaly. At home it gets even more grim as he dosen’t open up to his family, understandably as his dad would jsut say to call the police and well.. we’ve seen how the police treat black people. At best they’d just try and use Virgil as an informant and that likely wouldn’t end fucking well for Virgil. Ritchie points out he can’t join a gang, virgil’s mom died that way.. see told you it’d be important to the plot.. but I like how the story dosen’t offer an easy answer.. well okay he gets electric powers soon enough but without the fantastic element this is just an innocent kid caught between either joining the very thing his mom hated or hoping a system not built to protect him will keep him alive. It’s utterly saddening and chilling and holy shit is it amazing a cartoon in the early 2000′s was able to get away with.. ANY OF THIS, and they handle it great, paired down a bit from the comics but even then it’s still incredibly balsy they got THIS much in.

Naturally Wade calls in his favor and our hero is forced to come running.. and soon finds out Wade’s brought him in for a massive gang war. Welcome to the big bang, baby. He hands Virgil a gun as things get started and Virgil.. drops the thing and tries to escape, in a harrowing sequence.. and runs into Francis because god apparently REALLY hates this kid today. As if to prove that the police show up and while that prevents a beating, they demand they disassemble. then release untested gas on them because of course they do.

As a result the big bang truly begins, with the various gang members getting mutated.. and naturally so does virgil. Though he wakes up the next day seemingly fine. How’d he get home? Does his dad know where he was?

I don’t know and we’re not getting any answers, but Virgil soon finds weird stuff happening like his clock shorting out, change being attracted to him and his razor going wild. It’s only once he get sback to his room he gets an inkling of what’s going on and calls Ritchie to meet him at the Junk yard.. though it is a bit of a dick move as he dosen’t you know, tell him anything about Wade or Francis right away. He does at the yard though.. and that he has powers, having finally figured out how to use them to a point. And the series does provide a decent justification later as to why he’d get this so quickly: Virgil is a smart kid, gets great grades at school and apparnetly there’s even an episode later where he gets a scholarship to a fancy genius school. So him getting how elctromagntisim works or being a quick study on it makes perfect sense.

Richie suggest the obvious.. to become a superhero. And the thought.. hadn’t occured to Virgil. It’s honestly a nice twist on the old trope. That he hadn’t thought of it, not because he’s selfish or any of that or needs to learn a hard lesson, those have been done.. simply because the rush of getting his powers, and implicitly of having a way out of his current predciament, a way to keep Francis off his back and keep Wade from pulling him in further. His own path. But once i’ts brought up.. he jumps on it. Part of it is being a nerd like you or I, of course he wants to.. and being a good intetioned one, he knows this is the right thing to do. It’s waht makes a superhero a hero: Anyone can get powers in a universe like this, esepcailly the dcau, but it takes true courage and heart to use them selflessly and knowing you’ll be in danger. It’s why I love surperheroes: they often didn’t ask for this but they do it anyway because somebody’s gotta. We also get an intresting wrinkle is superman is, at least I think in this episode I could’ve missed it or misremembered things, mentioned as a fictional character. That’s because originally like the comics this wasn’t part of the DCAU.. but eventually the crew decided it shared staff from it, shared a network, both first run and on reruns, why not just make it part of the DCAU proper. I fully support this decisionf: While i’m midly annoyed unlimited never really used anything from static shock outside of Static himself in the time travel episode, despite you know Static and Gear having BEEN to the tower and not being much younger than Kara and defintely older than Courtney, I chalk it up to weird rights issues or something like that. But having Batman, Batman Beyond, Superman, Green Lantern and the Justice League itself all guest star was a good idea, and expanded both static’s universe and gave the DCAU something differnt as most heroes in it were older and more experinced in contrast to the up and coming virgil. Again really would’ve been nice if he and gear could’ve been a part of the expanded league but production might of just been too far ahead or, given he had his own series, they might just have wanted to stick to toher characters. Also begs the question why Icon or Hardware wasn’t adapted for the expanded League but hey, questions for later and the tricky logisitics of the milestone rights might’ve been the issue. I don’t know I wasn’t in the room.

So we get a costume montage, including Black Vulcan from Superfriends, who again ironically would be voiced by Lamarr not too long after this, though weirdly they DON’T use his outfit from the comics for this montage. I mean why not? It fits the gag and would’ve been a good second to last choice.But what could’ve been aside we get our winner and cut back to present day...

Thanks boys. Static finds out one of the things in the warehouse is a shipment of computers for the school and can’t help but show off, showing up to the school, where Frieda and Richie are setting up for the dance, and dropping off the computers, and even saying his catchphrase for the first time “I’ll put a shock to your system” (Which Richie chimes in with awesome line and I agree, great catcphrase), before helping set up and flirting with frieda.

Though as Richtie says he’s a natural. He’s not wrong as he can work a crowd. .but back it up too as his first run out had him easily taking out the crooks, and as many teen superheros and fans of heroes of hte type, myself included will tell you, getting it right in one is not easy. Not even Miles MOrales was immune. All Static needs now is a villian.

And the end of the episode provides one as we see, in horrifc and once again damn suprising detail most of hte new metas aren’t doing so good and are melting and other stuff and we catch up with Francis whose burning up.. and naturally given that hair, though given he named himself F-Stop it’s the least of his problems, he’s got fire powers and escapes to “Have me some fun”

So with that we end episode 1. And it’s excellent, a great way to introduce the hero and while the warehouse opening is a bit superflous, it is a decent addition, showing our heroes first outing in costume and giving us a bit of an action scene to get us through the very heavy rest of the episode. But the rest of the episode is no less grippping, telling the tale of a teen caught in an unwinnable scenario who suddenly finds a way out. And speaking of which waht of Wade? Will we see him again? Is he perhaps Ebon, the series big bad as I thought when I was a kid? What comes of the man who directly caused static’s origin?

Yeahhh that’s the one mistep I think the pilot makes. Frieda is understandable as that was likely a simple change in creative direction. This though? Why build this guy up if your not going to bring him back. I mean where he went was probably the grave, as he probably did due to his mutation, but it’s still VERY weird to spend a whole episode focusing on this guy, building him up as a big personal threat to our hero.. and NOT have him become the series big bad. And maybe he WAS supposed to be ebon and they just changed their mind. I don’t know but it bothers me it bothers me a lot. Otherwise though flawless. ONe more to go.

Aftershock: We open outside an electronics store, as our heroes watch the news reacap what happened in the first episode, with the media dubbing it the Big Bang and revealing their could be hundreds of “Metahumans”, as Virgil dubs after deciding the media’s term “Mutant” dosen’t fit, a nice wink to the fact that that’s the term used in dc comics and I believe milestone but could be wrong there. Me I like the term, has a nice ring to it.

At the store while Richie mulls over waht this means Static finds out he’s a human CD player.... this was before mp3 players and streaming on your phone made them horribly obsolete mind you and if you don’t know what one is congradualtions you live in some sort of bubble and you made me feel really old junior.

Frieda happens to be there and Virgil quips “What’s the matter they run out of britney cds”. Dude she’s not bad. Also be careful what you wish for man. Nickeback returned the year after this. You have not truly suffered through bad music yet my young friend. They spot a kid looking feverish, and he soon turns into a purple werewolf, as you do. It’s a bang baby.. those are richie’s exact word and you may not want to start a panic there bud. Just saying your best friend is one. THeir not all like this. Our heroes book it only to run into Francis who naturally refuses to let them leave and only doesn’t try to beat up Virgil because Virgil points otu the werewolf and nonplussed, he goes to fight it, scarring it off by revealing his own powers. He’s now dubbed himself Hotstreak which points for getting an actually good name kid. No points for what happens next as unsuprisingly getting powers did NOT mak ehim a better person and he attacks Virgil who blocks with a garbage can lid and thankfully is blasted into an ally. Richie tries to guard frieda for damn obvious reasons but gets hsi shirt burnt up because shut up Thankfully Static shows up, and we get our firsdt full on superhuman fight as both fight each other with aplomb, and it’s a damn good fight.. and one that goes pear shaped for Virg as he’s caught off guard when he finds out Hotstreak can use his powers to fly, and tackles him and his previous trauma causes him to freeze up. Thankfully , as Frieda put in a call earlier, the fire department arrive and HOt streak has to retreat, though Virgil is bummed that he “Choked”. And I love this as it not only shows Virgil’s inepxerince, as this is his first time fighting a bad guy but that just because he HAS power now dosen’t mean trauma and his previous fear of Hotstreak goes away or you won’t freeze up from time to time. It dosen’t make him weak or anything like some assholes would call it .. it makes him human. Humans make mistakes, and it makes him all the more relatable that he’s not pefect and that he did freeze up as I know I certainly would at last once in the circumstances.

Things don’t get better at dinner as Sharon and Pops argue over the bang babies with Pops calling them a meance and Sharon pointing out Static exists so they can’t all be bad. See assuming a group of superhumans are bad because a handful of them ar edick sis why the x-men had to get their own island nation. You can only save an ungreatful populous so many times before you say “fuck it i’m getting my own island, pay me for life saving drugs, save your damn selves and stop doing genocides on us. Kay thanks”. But he does bring up a valid point that rattles his son: We don’t know anything about the Bang Babies or their biological structures and it’s likely they might further mutate into monsters, Static included.

Virgil, understandably, wants to check this and thus he and richie compare blood samples in science, to no real conclusion. She he checks out with his doctor who assumes he’s sexually active in a great getting crap past the radar bit and a bit of realisim, but he agrees to the test though if something came up he would have to tell Virgil’s dsad and is up front about this. Nice dose of realisim.

That night City Council has a meeting and the Mayor TRIES to deflect Papa Hawkins questions about the bang babies which again, while being a judgmental ass as not every person hit was a gang member (Virgil, and as we discover later some others), and not every gang member is there by choice, some by circumstnace some, like virgil almost was, because they HAD no other option. Again years of reading x-men may of just made me a bit touchy on assholes admitely assuming superpower people bad. But it’s clear the public is upset and while she says an investigation is underway... Virgil and Richie are not only not convinced, but figure she’s actively covering it up. And unlike everyone else there who probably suspects the same, they can do something about it and tail her. It’s during this, and cleverly as I didn’t realie till writing this using similar skills to his human cd player act, Virgil listens in and discovers whose behind it: Edwin Alva, whose apparently richer than bill gates and a beloved phinarophist Alva, as it turns out, was actually the arch enemy of Hardware in the comics, taking advantage of the guy in his civiliian idtentiy and thus casuing him to launch a war on the asshole. He does transition into this series well though, being the one behind the gas that caused it and with the mayor agreeing to back off, planning to simply dump the info about the big bang on a disc then destroy everything for now till the heat dies down. Yup sounds like a corprate douchebag.

Static tails him, finds the lab and infiltrates it, stealing the disc.. but getting caught by Alva’s goon, and trapped in a glass prison, forced to use ALL his power to escape and barely getting out alive, but not before bouncing off alva’s car. Still he now has the proof.. and meanwhile Hotstreak, who I was wrong did get captured, is forced to take pill sbut spits them out once the orderly is gone. Dude.. WHY DIDN’T YOU WATCH HIM. Make sure he swallows that shit especially since, as he has no powers right now and can’t harm you.

Hotstreak escapes off screen and our heroes discuss the disc before he shows up, and we get a REALLY fucking amazing scene: Virgil ducks into an Alleway and ritchie is worried.. and Virgil disarms him with just one word responses Ritchie: Virg you can’t take him. Virgil: Gotta. Ritchie: Well at least wait for the fire department Virgil: Can’t. It’s simpile but it gets the point across: This is his fight, he can’t wait for help, and people need him. And this is what makes a true hero: It’s easy to be a hero when everythings going well.. but it’s the true ones who stick it out against the odds and fight anyway. And he’s going to. So we get one hell of a fight, though naturally Hotstreak burns up the disc. And I do like this as it dosen’t feel contrived.. yes Static could’ve left it with ritchie.. but he wasn’t thinking in the moment and dind’t really have time to think abotu the disc, only that people were being hurt and he was all they had between them and Hotstreak. It was no choice at all. Still that pisses Virgil off that the last night’s work is now worthless, and he fully charges up and curbstomps francis who retreats into a clearing. Hostreak brags when static follows, as even he’s figured out Static needs to be around metal, as he’s usually on his disc or the street, and in the park there suppodsidly isn’t any. But he’s not THAT smart as Virgil points out two things: one, he hoped to do this on PURPOSE so they wouldn’t be around people and no on e would get hurt and 2).. this is a city, there’s metal everywhere.. and he awesomely and cleverly proves it by unlodging a sewage pipe with his powers and dousing his foe, winning and proving his stuff. I love this solution, it’s a clever spider-man type way to disarm him, using smarts and the einvroment instead of just brute forcing it. Though the sewage part wasn’t intetional our hero still won and gets praise from the people dumb enough to follow the fight.

However at home Virgil points out it was Pyrrhic Victory and shows off his smarts by telling the tale behind it, which I didn’t know,because tv tropes didn’t exist yet: king pyrhus fought the romans and WON.. but had so little armies left that he still lost overall. That’s what this feels like to Virgil: he beat hotstreak but any chance at a cure for Bang Babies and Alva going to jail for causing them is gone. His mood does get a boost though as the doctor calls and reveals he’s fine, he just has a bit too much elctrolytes and just needs to lay off teh salt. He celebrates, we get a quick gag and the episode ends

Aftershock is another stellar episoe, giving us Virgil’s first super foe and a personal one at that, while showing some growth. As richie tells him he’s not virgil anymore he’s static and he can’t let his past get to him.. and he does’nt going from cowering in fear to easily beating his foe with simple logic. It’s a good followup that answers questions you may have from the first ep, like what does this do to virgil’s body, who supplied the gas, and why has no one done anything about this, and sets up another villian for Static in Alva. Great stuff. I highly recommend these episodes and the show as a whole: it’s fast paced, grounded and enjoyable, having just enough levity to not be too dour but just enough tension and stakes to be intresting. A throughly fantastic superhero show and one that i’d certainly love to revisit on this blog If you have an episode of static or the dcau in general you’d want me to cover, my comissions are open and details are on a tab on my blog or can be gotten simply by asking me via ask or dm. Tommorow we’re going deeper underground, there’s too much damage in this town as the Lena Retrospective continues. So expect gay ducks, straight ducks and some terrfirmains. See you next rainbow.

#static shock #static #virgil hawkins #richie foley #robert hawkins #sharon hawkins #hotstreak #milestone comics #dc comics #dc animated universe #dcau #dwayne mcduffie #robert l washington IIII #kids wb #hbo max #2000s #animation #black lives matter #black history month

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joshjacksons · 3 years ago

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Joshua Jackson interview with “Irish Independent”

It was during a childhood visit to his granny’s house in Dublin’s Ballyfermot that Joshua Jackson smoked his first cigarette.

“My memories of those visits to Ballyfermot are quite sweet really,” the Dawson’s Creek actor recalls. “I was always running around with the neighbourhood kids, getting into trouble. Not bad trouble, just little-kid trouble. Although, technically it’s where I smoked my first cigarette, so that in itself isn’t the sweetest memory.”

Jackson’s handsome face surges with deep laughter lines and quiet dimples at the mention of mum Fiona’s home turf. “She might prefer I’d say she was from Chapelizod”, he jokes, before proudly pinning his mum’s allegiance to “Ballyer”.

Was the young Canadian treated like a shiny, exotic object by the local kids? “I was a bit, but I became less exotic the older I got. Culturally, I was so far away from an Irish kid but in a little pack of children, everyone finds their level. It also helped that I had my own cousins, my own blood, around with us. I had that family connection so I never felt too exoticised.”

An entry on his IMDb profile suggests his late grandparents Rosemary and Patrick were opera singers in Dublin, indicating that performance runs in the genes. The actor seems unaware. “Mum tells me they used to sing to each other a lot. My grandparents lived in council housing with a little kitchen out the back, garden right outside, and they would sing to each other through the window as he was out pottering about while she was cooking.

“But he was known more as a snooker shark around Ballyfermot. And my grandmother, she was known as a sainted mother of seven.”

Having welcomed his first child, Janie, with his wife, the actor Jodie Turner-Smith, last year, it’s obvious family is paramount for 43-year-old Jackson, as he Zoom-calls from a rich hotel suite with dark wallpaper and plump cushions in the background. It stems from an evident bond with his mum, whose presence lovingly peppers our conversation. Just 16 when she left Dublin, Fiona Jackson travelled through Paris, Amsterdam and Geneva before embracing the vibrancy of London’s Swinging Sixties and ultimately making for Vancouver in her early twenties.

In an entry on her blog, she speaks of falling for “the spectacular beauty of snow-capped mountains and the Pacific Ocean” and ultimately scoring an entry-level position at a Canadian talent agency. It led to a career as a successful casting agent, working on film classics including Carnal Knowledge with Jack Nicholson and McCabe & Mrs Miller with Warren Beatty and Julie Christie.

She met and married Joshua’s father, John Carter, and the young family moved to Los Angeles. Sister Aisleagh was born shortly before John walked out on the family, leaving a profound effect.

“My father, unfortunately, was not a good father or husband and exited the scene,” the actor disclosed last year, before adding it’s something he “will never get over”.

Young infants in tow, Fiona returned to Vancouver and, having found early success in casting, helped contribute to the foundation of the burgeoning “Hollywood North” industry on the Canadian west coast.

Accompanying his mum on set, young Joshua’s interests were piqued. “She introduced me to this world and saw from a young age that I enjoyed performing in a way that kids do. She allowed me the opportunity to step into her work world, but it was also very clear that it was work.”

He appeared as an extra on MacGyver and as a child actor’s double in The Fly II, and Fiona could see her son’s talent and genuine desire to impress. So she allowed him to audition. However, permission came with strict caveats.

“I don’t think my mum would have ever put me anywhere near the entertainment industry if I didn’t have something to offer to it. And not just for myself; she’s a prideful woman and didn’t want to be embarrassed by her kid.”

Casting 1991 melodrama Crooked Hearts with ER’s Noah Wyle, Fiona gave Joshua a chance to shine. Impressing the filmmakers, the then-12-year-old secured the part, setting him not only on a path to stardom but away from the troubles of his teen years.

“My mother gave me the guard rails I needed at that time and also recognised, being a working single mum and with me a young boy, transitioning into a teenager, I needed structure in my life. I needed something that I was passionate about and had a respect for, because I was kind of a typical teenage disaster.

“I look back on those times in my life and the two parallel tracks I was running on. On the one hand, getting into all sorts of trouble and, on the other hand, my professional life, where I showed up and learned my lines and did my job in order to be respected by the adults I was around. If I hadn’t had that professional side of my life, the other side would have taken over, and Mum saw that. Who knows where I would have ended up?”

So Jackson was a full-on teen delinquent? “Yeah, I was, to a certain extent. It was relatively innocent — nobody died — but I was a teenage boy who didn’t have a father in the home, didn’t have a man to be scared of, frankly, and as a teenage boy, I think that helps. My mum had to work and she wasn’t always in the house so I learned to get into more and more trouble. I got into just enough trouble to have a good time and learn some lessons but if I hadn’t had my work life, I might have tipped over into the kind of trouble that you don’t come back from.”

Three decades in and Jackson remains one of the hardest-working, most recognisable actors in the game. Hitting pay dirt at 18 as Dawson’s Creek’s Pacey Witter — the wisecracking, teacher-bedding antithesis to James Van Der Beek’s beleaguered titular drip — the actor was a revelation: the soul and bite of a seasoned character performer in the guise of relatable poster-boy idol.

Teens swooned, so did the industry, and alongside Van Der Beek, Michelle Williams and Katie Holmes, Jackson had Hollywood at his feet.

A string of popcorn offerings followed — Cruel Intentions, Gossip, Shutter, Cursed — some quality, others derivative, with the small screen ultimately best utilising his skills. A five-season run on sci-fi series Fringe was followed by an outstanding turn on Showtime’s The Affair. Last year, he maintained a brooding presence opposite Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington in Little Fires Everywhere. And this year, he takes on arguably his darkest work yet in Dr Death.

The new miniseries is based on the non-fiction podcast of the same name, and Jackson portrays Christopher Duntsch, a former spinal surgeon who maimed 33 patients owing to gross malpractice while operating in hospitals in Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas. Two of these patients lost their lives. Convicted in 2017, Duntsch is currently in prison and serving life imprisonment. He still maintains his innocence, with his defence arguing that he was merely a bad surgeon, not a criminal.

Exuding a simmering malevolence, the actor showcases Duntsch’s disturbing complexities and terrifying behaviour as a narcissist and sociopath with a keen insight. Did Jackson meet with Duntsch? “I wanted to, but that was going to be really difficult because he’s appealing his case and his lawyers would’ve advised against it. And as I got deeper into the materials and podcast, and got a better understanding of the man, I don’t think it would’ve helped because he still really believes he’s the victim of his own patients, and the lawyers and the legal system. I’m not sure asking a liar for the truth gets you any closer to the truth.”

When it came to the victims, Jackson wanted to maintain a respectful distance. “I didn’t need to drag them through those awful memories again and I’m always a little dubious about asking people to delve into the worst moments of their life just to satisfy my curiosity. The questions had already been asked thanks to the podcast.”

Dr Death came at the right time in the actor’s life. New baby daughter Janie offered a crucial respite from the intense, and often dark, six-month foray into Duntsch’s malignant psyche.

“Inhabiting Mr Duntsch was an ugly space to live in for six months. If I’d been coming home to an empty house every night, it would have been a pretty bleak existence. It was so much better to come back to a loving home. My one-year-old doesn’t give a damn what I was doing that day. She just wants to be loved and hugged and cuddled, and it was the perfect antidote when some days were particularly heavy.”

Recently Jackson confessed that the Dawson’s Creek cast won’t be returning for a retrospective reunion like the Friends stars did earlier this year. “If you put our mid-forties selves together on a couch now, with our creaking backs, it might shock people.”

Quizzed on an actual reboot of the drama, Joshua reckons he’s simply too old to replicate the iconic rapid exchanges of dialogue between the garrulous young characters. “We were like The West Wing for teenagers,” he laughs, referencing Aaron Sorkin’s hit political TV series, also infamous for speedy script delivery. “My 43-year-old brain couldn’t do a show at that pace. Back then, we were doing seven, 10 pages a day and, to deliver dialogue at that speed, you have to have a certain mental capacity for that, and I don’t have it anymore. That’s the real reason why we’re not doing a reunion — I’ve become too dumb to keep up with that script.”

He remains in touch with his DC co-stars, including Holmes, his one-time girlfriend of two years. There’s even a text chain. “It goes through spurts every once in a while. I’ll have a bunch of messages on it and then it’ll go dormant. We’re like college friends — there are moments we’re all in contact and then long, fallow periods as we get on with our lives.”

While maintaining a busy slate, Jackson’s overwhelming purpose continues to circle the women in his life. Turner-Smith is currently shooting a new movie with Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig, so he’s assuming full-time dad duties. It’s an equitable arrangement given the flexible needs of their individual commitments, and one he appears content with.

#joshua jackson #dr death #dawson's creek #fringe #the affair #jodie turner smith

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supernova1us · 3 years ago

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My MOTU series idea outline

please leave feedback

With the release of MOTU Revelations, and taking a look at all its pros and cons, I decided to chart out my own idea for a series that would continue the he-man story in the future. As im a big fan of the 03 reboot and it was my intro to MOTU, a lot of influences/basis would carry over from that, as well as updated with some aspects I like from revelations and the CGI Netflix series.

20 years ago was the final battle between He-man and Skeletor, which left the lord of havoc in a death-like state to be entombed within snake mountain by his followers. In the five years that followed, He-man, She-ra and their allies defeated both the snake men and the Horde, bringing peace to Eternia and Etheria. Adam has since left behind the he-man persona, ruling as king of eternia, with teela as his queen and their teenage son and daughter.

Crita, a spacefaring rogue comes to snake mountain and convinces a reluctant evil-lyn, its new lord, to restore skeletor. Skeletor is revived but is forced to be subjected to cybernetic enhancements and armor to survive. Despite his weakened state and the new structure of eternia, his ambition and madness is as strong as ever in his determination to rebuild his forces and conquer it. Skeletor is forced to play the long strategic game, as he must seek out and re-ally with what remains of his warriors, as well as new evils.

The retired Mekanek and his son are the first to witness skeletor’s return and the former master sacrifices himself to give his son time to deliver the news to king adam. Dunken, after hearing the news, works with adam and teela to begin the process of rebuilding a new team of Masters to stop skeletor and his forces of evil.

Having grown negligent in her position in the years since the fall of evil, the sorceress of greyskull quickly approaches adam and teela’s twin children, gifting them the swords of power and their becoming new personas of he-man and she-ra to stand against skeletor’s new threat. Realizing what has been done, adam if forced to reveal his past as he-man to teela, angering her and another rift forms between them and the sorceress at her putting their children; her own grandchildren, in peril.

The fight between good and evil is on as both sides scramble to be the first to marshal their forces.

Masters

-He-man and She-ra would be redesigns of the classic appearances; both would have beast mounts/partners. She-ra’s would be the princess’ small pet magma salamander, which would be transformed into a large, flaming lizard capable of flight. He-man’s would be created from a wild boar the prince had previously spared while hunting.

-Adam would go through a growth of knowing what his children are doing but hiding that knowledge from them for their own protection/responsibility. He has difficulty in trying to reconcile not wanting them to be in danger but also recognizing their potential in serving eternia, just as he did before.

-Teela would go through a long arc of trying to reconcile her distrust of adam keeping the truth from her and her mother’s recent actions, eventually leading to reconciliation and having to accept taking up her mother’s role as sorceress.

-The present Masters would consist of the now old Dunkan, Orko(now council to king adam and a much more powerful sorcerer, older and wiser but still zany), Roboto(now captain of the guard), Moss Man, Rotar, and Andra(the current women-at-arms).

-New Masters members that would be recruited after Skeletor returns are Ram-Ma’am(ram-man’s Amazonian built daughter), Mekaneks son(a close friend of the prince and princess), Hawke and her Andreenid lover(both are outcasts of their people for their relationship though are on good terms with king Stratos), and a Kulatak tinkerer who is duncan’s apprentice.

-Other allied warriors are Dekker, Snout Spout, Lizardman, Zodac, Sy-klone, Gwildor, a female Qadian hunter, a Spelean/Caligar mercenary duo who always feud.

-Warriors from Etheria that would come over to aid the masters would include Extendar, Mermista(Princesses of power based), Double Trouble.

-An older Randor, Merlena and cringer live a retired life outside the capital but often act as a source of council and wisdom for both adam and teela, as well as their grandchildren.

Evil Warriors

-Skeletor to is furious and resentful of the power and success others have achieved while he’s been comatose. He now relies mostly on fear and intimidation for respect until managing to achieve more power. As more of his body began to whither and rot from his being deprived of havoc magic, he is given cybernetic enhancements and armor(based on his “New Adventures” look). He does not know his return was masterminded by and part of larger scheme by the “unnamed one”. He also believes the new he-man and she-ra are the originals he previously fought.

-The Unnamed One is a powerful and malevolent trollan sorcerer who has been trapped in limbo for a millennium and is the overarching true antagonist. He manipulates events in the present and future to facilitate skeletors return to further his own release and schemes. He also masquerades as a specter of the fallen hordak, with whom skeletor consults and has been recruiting warriors from eternia and the fallen horde to his cause. He is hinted to have been pulling the strings of both the snake men and horde in the past, as well has having some connection with skeletors future son.

-Evil-lyn would have become an avatar of dark magic and taken on a form similar to her father, the faceless one, in the 03 series, as she has now wields a fusion of skeletors old staff and her own. She has ruled what remains of snake mountain in his absence and her rejoining skeletor would be a half-hearted gesture; she at first attempted to maintain her authority but he pushed her aside more and more. She deeply resents his clear new favoritism for crita and(based on the 87 film) would eventually rally some of the other disillusioned warriors and break from skeletor to go rogue.

-Crita would claim to be space-faring mercenary and pirate but in reality is from a ruined race of mutant conquerors from the future. Unknowingly manipulated by the “unnamed one”, she learned of the legendary skeletor and travelled back in time to devote herself to him, with twisted, unspoken feelings beginning to form between the two. She also develops a mutual animosity with evil-lyn, as well as the new she-ra.

-Beastman is now older and weaker but still a brute and skeletors most loyal warrior, who faithfully watched over his tomb and defended it from any aggressors or assassins for years. He wears some bits of Clawful’s shell like armor after slaying him in combat when he attempted to kill the comatose skeletor. He considers webstore his closest friend and still maintains a turbulent relationship with evil-lyn.

-Stinkor , who always enjoyed being an evil warrior, has long acted as evil-lyn’s second in command and confident(she has used her power to be resistant to his smell). Though he was happy at skeletors return, he was more loyal to lyn(she had previously freed him from the eternian prison) for her genuine appreciation of him and would eventually join her and others in seceding from skeletor’s forces. He was also secretly an informant for Duncan.

-Tri-klops would have upgraded himself to a floating, purely cybernetic being(mostly similar to his Netflix CGI series version) who hops from unwilling victims to act as his host bodies until his pressence witheres their nervous system and he moves to the next host. He would have been the one to restore and enhance skeletor. He still retains most of his personality and rotating eyes gimmick. He would be one of the warriors who follows evil-lyn in breaking away.

-Nami, Mer-man’s daughter would soon join Skeletor’s forces; she’d previously slaughtered her siblings to secure ascension to her father’s throne and when he seemed like he would not give up power, she killed him in battle as well. She was then overthrown by an uprising of her people. She believes skeletor will help restore her as queen of the seas. Though she seemed steadfast in standing with skeletor, she would eventually see through his lies and join evil-lyns breakaway.

-Trapjaw in now a deranged, hulking brute; his head is his only organic piece left resting on a large, deadly mechanical body that is a walking arsenal. He had struck out on his own as a marauder and raider but eventually rejoins skeletors forces.

-Webstor has mostly inhabited and wandered snake mountain alone and covered much of its interior in his webbing. He is loyal to Skeletor and works close with beastman but is not very active.

-Scare Glow has been rendered as nothing more than an incorporeal specter, only able to affect others through their dreams.

-Karg, Blade and Saurod would have been mercanaries who served evil-lyn but, at crita’s prodding, were used as sacrifices so their energy could revive skeletor.

-new warriors who join skeletors forces would consist of Fang Man, Spikor, tung-lashor, an aged Jitsu and his body guard Ninjor, Saw tooth, count marzo, draego-man, Gygor, Icer.

-Weakened in sorcery, skeletor has embraced technology stronger and now commands a legion of Hover robot troopers.

-Surviving horde warriors that would join the unnamed one would include grizzlor, leech, entrapta, callix, Mosquitor(cgi netflix based), dylamug, allura & malkina. Eternian warrior that join him would include count marzo, gygor, kobra khan.

-Granamyr would act as a passive rival to skeletor in evil.

#He-Man and The Masters of the Universe #he-man #masters of the universe #motu

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flyingcookierambles · 4 years ago

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hm reading??

hm so like re: this and reading some other stuff thats like homestuck epilogues/2 critical (being super slow compared to hs, being depressing, making all the characters become assholes for like no reason (hs2 crit stuff in the later half of this vid, about 30 or 40 minutes in i think??), the creators being uh not the best people, etc.), plus my own slow experience with trying to read through the incredible boring long winded sloughs that were the epilogues meat and candy when they first came out uhh

i think that i’ll skip on finishing the epilogues/hs^2 since they honestly sound. so. boring.

like.

we as an entire internet culture are just so sick and tired of when beloved media from our childhood get some weird reboot but its dark and gritty and edgy on purpose. for example the entire cw reboot joke meme that applies to riverdale/archie comics, the winx club netflix show, and now powerpuff girls, but the girls are “adults who are depressed and hate their childhood heroics” or whatever is even happening with that show right now since its still technically in production lol.

and you know what. epilogues/hs2 sounds like its the dumb cw reboot.

so.

i think ill stick to the games (friendsim/hiveswap/pesterquest), already existing better written fanfic and fan works/adventures that feature original characters and canon characters doing. not riverdale stuff. so yeah.

for fan adventures, i’m planning to read these:

Vast Error (https://mspfa.com/?s=2302)

OasisQuest (https://mspfa.com/?s=29685&p=1)

Homestuck: Act Omega (https://mspfa.com/?s=16414&p=1)

Cool and new web comic (https://mspfa.com/?s=14113&p=1)

Alabaster: The Doomed Session (https://mspfa.com/?s=236&p=1)

Act 8 (https://mspfa.com/?s=14278&p=1)

Karkat goes to a convention (https://mspfa.com/?s=27317&p=1)

Hackbent (https://mspfa.com/?s=2810&p=1)

TLCstruck: Double Death of the Author (https://mspfa.com/?s=2810&p=1)

for fanfic hmm. i’ll probably reread stuff and then move to try to find other things lol. and like all the stuff directly listed here are things that i’ve personally read before except LoDaD and the general big tvtropes list so like yes i like these i approve of them i have read them in my lifetime at some point and you should also try them lol.

honestly i’m currently re-reading the classic crossover between hs and alien nation, which is an interesting movie that you should watch even if its a dumb 90′s movie that isnt the best lol. while its technically not finished/hasnt been updated since 2014, honestly the endings of all of them are good enough to be like “yeah i could stop here” so eh. i will warn that the fics, from 2012-2014 era, have the r-slur in them, which is cringy and unfortunate. :/

maybe i’ll finally finish the land of dungeons and dragons, by the same person as above, which is like 600K words and 173 chapters.

there’s straw soldiers, which is great. i remember waiting for the final chapter update and it literally dropped when i was in the middle of science class in high school lol. alternia decides to have trolls undergo surgery/learning/etc. to be spies on earth preparing for an alternian invasion. karkat is one of them.

terawatt outlaws is incredible. where sollux is discovered and taken by the condesce to power her ship, sollux meets his ancestor the psiioniic/ancient beta universe mituna captor, and they team up and start a revolution.

a lullaby for the gods starts out as a fluffy found family crack crossover between homestuck and the avengers, and a plot starts forming in later chapters. its still ongoing so you can binge read it but you’ll have to wait for an actual ending.

petstuck au where trolls are on earth but like. pets. (the og, the fanfic of a fanfic, and the fanfic of the 2 fanfics that got fic-married)

the parody game faqs/early 2000′s type walkthrough fic

cultstuck! - karkat is kinda raised/protected by the signless cult. also revolutions happen yay

we’re all doomed - hilarious doomed session where the kids and trolls decide to fix things as best as possible and live/chill together. kinda lol

the gods we once knew - a sadstuck one shot thats real good

honestly these are good lists for stuff really - fics and works

#rambles #books n junk #I guess?#hs

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chibifoxwrites · 4 years ago

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Since someone showed interest

During my rewrite for Cyber Heroine, it was originally going to be 100% based on the manga for Megaman NT Warrior with some occasional details from the anime and games thrown in. Some of the stuff stayed for the current, other stuff did not. Here were some ideas I had drafted:

The main cast were high school age, not elementary school.

Netto and her friends had drifted away come middle school but would get back together as friends during high school.

Netto was a loner and would spend her free time coding food, clothes, and toys for Net Navi’s, which is how she got income on the side. She is an unofficial intern at Sci-Labs since they double check her work.

The link was already in place thanks to X. Netto and Rockman have a betting pool as to when Yuuichiro was going to tell Netto that she used to have a twin.

70% of the twins using the mental link is just to share bud puns, jokes, and memes.

Many of Netto’s classmates thought that her parents were divorced since Yuuichiro was never seen at home for more than a day or so.

It was known amongst Netto’s friends and peers that Rockman was modeled after Saito.

Netto and Rockman operated under the aliases of Aile and Vent, a famous hacker duo who operated like the Leverage team. Most of their crimes were giving back data stolen by major corporations to their rightful developers.

Multiple civilian Net Battlers actually fought against WWW if they were registered as B-rank or above, but only if they were near the attack site.

Many of the WWW attacks were actually targeting Netto, with those specifically being arranged by the Professor. Wily did not want anyone killed but hurt was fine.

To keep her cover, Netto had a wardrobe for her regular outfits and one for her Aile outfits.

Enzan and “Aile” had a Batman/Catwoman kind of relationship, where Enzan’s nickname was Mr. Official.

Rockman already had Style Change but had to undergo a trial for Saito Style.

Enzan was not their heir to a major corporation but the heir to a very old family involved in law enforcement, hence his involvement in police work at such a young age.

Enzan was jealous that another teenager, one that had better scores than him, was brought onto the force.

Netto and Enzan’s relationship was like that of Sakura and Syaoran.

When Rockman was first deleted, Blues would come over and watch Studio Ghibli and Disney films with Netto to just be there for her.

Mamoru was still the same age as when he first appeared in canon and raised by his aunt Tamako. He lived with her in the countryside when he wasn’t in the hospital. Netto would bring him books and games to keep him occupied. When Netto wasn’t around, he played with Serenade.

Serenade was VERY protective of Mamoru and would do anything to help Netto since she could make their NetOp laugh even when he was having a bad day.

Much of Rockman and Forte’s drama/rivalry was due to Netto. Forte wanted Netto to forsake humanity and be his friend/partner like when she was a kid, but Netto wanted to stay with Rockman and wouldn't turn against humanity.

Despite rejecting his offer, Forte would still come to Netto’s defense if she and Rockman were attacked.

Arcadia existed as a civilization of programs before it was attacked by a splinter cell in Sci-Labs led by Regal. Neo Arcadia was built by the remnants of the first attack.

The Four Guardians (Harpuia, Fefnir, Leviathan, Phantom) were condensed into small files and turned into the Element Programs, which Netto and Rockman stole back.

While operating as Aile in real life, Netto would use the Guardians.

Blues was made from data stolen from Arcadia and was created to be a prototype independent Net Navi that was the perfect soldier aka a Forte that only followed orders.

Laika and Netto were penpals as Laika stayed with the Hikari family when he was younger due to Sharro’s economy and his mother’s declining health. Yuuichiro and Laika’s mother were colleagues, so Laika stayed in Electopia until the economy got better and a permanent home could be found for him.

When the Cyber World and Real Worlds temporarily merged, Alia and Haruka had a girl’s day out.

Saito Style going out of control was due to repressed anger form both Netto and Rockman.

Netto has access to pop culture that didn't come about as planned because of the universe reboot so every once in a while, she makes a reference that nobody understands.

The cover for the illegal Net Battles was movie night, using movie from before the timeline reboot, hence Code 80s Dance Party.

When Double Soul activated, Netto got to keep chips of it like in the anime and people volunteered to try it with Rockman.

Dark Rockman was one of the multiple attempts of Yuuichiro trying to bring back Saito but deemed it a failure when it would not activate. He became a Darkloid due to the anger of being thrown away and abandoned.

Dark Rockman tried to force Netto to go Perfect Synchro with him. When she refused, he tried to kill Netto himself instead of having Shademan do it.

Netto was revealed as Aile during the Netopia Arc but was never formally arrested due to X being involved plus many people lobbying for her release.

Netto also had an identity crisis as to if she was really Hikari Netto or Aile Light due to past life memories.

The Netopia Arc had some real repercussions since the military technically abducted a citizen of another country under false pretenses, which is how X got properly introduced in person.

X, Zero, and Axl were merely mentioned until the Netopia Arc, where they actually showed up. Up until then, the only action they took was smiting opponents they knew ordinary Net Navis could not defeat.

Data Ghosts of the original Classic Robot Masters appeared to stop Nebula Grey.

There were only 3 Cyber Elves and they were larger than most Net Navis.

Cyber Elves had their own language and Netto would slip into it at times of high stress.

Forte was caught because he came to movie night and many were put under arrest for not reporting Forte’s whereabouts, including Blues, Searchman, and Tomohawkman.

X fist fought Duo to save the planet when it was found out that Slur rigged the entire trial.

Rockman got both of Gregar and Falzar’s data, not just Gregar.

Cache found a way to absorb the world like in the anime, not the Cybeasts like in the manga.

Trill was a prototype Net Navi for a Sci-Labs program that would allow Net Navis to have children of their own. He was created during the one year that Rockman was missing.

In the workshopped Ryuusei no Rockman spin-off of the series, Trill grew up to be the King of the Net Navis that fled Earth with the help of Duo when they became completely obsolete outside of basic functions and even helped Subaru return to Earth because it was what his older brother Rockman would want.

Subaru and Misora were main characters who came to the past to help stop Cache and were able to travel back in time thanks to Trill.

By the time Ryuusei no Rockman comes about, there is entire semester dedicated to the ‘Cyber Wars’ aka Netto and friends fighting crime. Subaru is an expert, has all the documentaries, and even fought Gonta for a replica of her headband.

Each college has at least one history degree path that covers history from before the universe reboot and is dedicated to finding the data and traces of it. Sharro has the leading university in the world concerning this subject and a statue of General Laika is in the lobby of the main building.

Cities, buildings, and other landmarks are named after Netto and her friends.

#cyber heroine #plot ideas

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penroseparticle · 4 years ago

Note

Would it be appropriate for me to be That Dumb Bitch™ and ask for all of the music asks? Because I know I'm gonna ask them all on Anon anyway and I really love your opinions,thoughts, and suggestions on music

Thank you so much💜 ily(platonically)

And I hope you're drinking water

ILY too anon

We both know I’m drinking Diet Cokes rather than water. But I appreciate it! And of course you can be That Dumb Bitch. I approve of all Dumb Bitches as I am one too. all 30 questions coming right up!

your favorite album opener I know it’s pretty basic to answer Arctic Monkeys is a good band, but I am pretty basic so here we are. AM is a near perfect album, which is not news to anyone, but few people know that Do I Wanna Know? is the first track on the album. Masterful.

a song starting w/ the same first letter of your first name Cheat, by Emily Burns. It’s just a quiet, competent, earworm. And it’s a pretty nice message too- if it were me I wouldn’t have cheated, end of. I like it.

a song outside of your usual genre I’m not super into Metal. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy it, my brother pretty much exclusively listens to hard rock and metal and such, so I have some stuff I like. But it’s just one of those genres someone has to introduce me to songs in. That said, I really like Cold Water by Protest The Hero. Good stuff!

a song that reminds you of your favorite season Almost Lover by A Fine Frenzy is SUCH a Fall song, I swear.

a song from a lifelong favorite artist I think my lifelong favorite artist is Ms. Lauryn Hill, if we’re going by the artists I’ve loved longest- that’s obviously influenced by my mother, who LOVES Jill Scott, Lauryn Hill, etc. I’m going with a Fugees song, not an independent, but it’s still fantastic- the classic “Killing Me Softly With His Song”.

your current “on repeat” song Montero by Lil Nas X is still on repeat and I’m not ashamed.

a song your friend introduced you to that you ended up loving Shout out Anna for introducing me ti Leikeli47! Girl Blunt was the song and now I just love her in general but Girl Blunt is good. I think my fave is Wash and Set though, so have a freebie on me.

a song that speaks the words you couldn’t say I have a hard time asking for things for myself so Rose’s Turn has always been a song I think but don’t say out loud. Starting now it’s gonna be my turn? Too unrealistic tbh.

a song that captures your aesthetic (can be ideal!) Bambi by Hippo Campus

a song about the place where you live I have played Welcome to DC so many fucking times (By Mambo Sauce because this city is a fucking joke) and I am thoroughly sick of it. When youth hockey teams use a song as their warmup song it gets old REAL fast.

a song from an international artist I LOOOOVE Maluma, sorry not sorry, and El Perdedor is one of my favorite songs of all time tbh.

a song you can scream all the words to Love In The Morning by Chris Jobe. I just really enjoy the song idk why. Also it’s a very simple song and it’s easy to sing.

a reboot of a song/songs you already loved (remix, mashup, acoustic, etc.) I love Passionfruit, but Drake is a... problematic artist to enjoy nowadays. Yaeji did a very slow, lilting, quiet cover of it that I quite like. So now for my Passionfruit fix I support a small artist and not, you know, Drake

a song with the name of a place in the title Oh god. Vienna is literally the name of like 4 songs that I love (The Fray, Billy Joel, Lambert, and Ultravox, so I’ve gotta go with that one tbh. Lambert is instrumental and Ultravox is some chill ass 80′s stuff, and everyone knows the Billy Joel one.

a song that reminds you of traveling Feel It Still by Portugal the Man reminds me of a trip I took to NYC because someone I went with loved the band.

your favorite childhood song My favorite childhood song is What Kind of Pokemon Are You? From the 2.B.A. Master album for pokemon. It is my fave because that cd is the first piece of music I ever bought for myself.

a song that reminds you of a good time Midnight by Caravan Palace. I have seen Caravan Palace three times live, more than anyone but Betty Who, and I ALWAYS have a fantastic time at their concerts. Just. So good.

a song that reminds you of a bad time Season 2 Episode 3 by Glass Animals is how I describe depression to people- it’s not just that I’m like, blank or sad or bland. It’s that I go through the motions and it doesn’t feel like anything. I do things I love and it feels like nothing. You kind of just can’t do anything to get out of it, your stuff just stops working.

a song from an artist whose old music you enjoy more than their new music So it turns out that my favorite album by FAR for OkGo is Of The Blue Color Of The Sky, a fairly old album of theirs. I like most of thier stuff and obviously all of their videos are great, but my favorite song of theirs is from this album- Needing/Getting.

a song that empowers you I like other Lady Gaga songs more but Donatella makes me feel like I can punch through Concrete idk why

a song from a local artist DID YOU KNOW GINUWINE IS FROM DC. ANYWAYS STREAM PONY

a song you related to in the past and present, but for different reasons Let’s Dance To Joy Division by The Wombats is a song I’ve always related to. Back in the day it was just loud and fun and very good, and now I really think the message of “Everything sucks but we’re gonna celebrate what we can” is something I try to absorb as much as possible now.

your favorite cheesy pop song Classic by MKTO is an objectively bad song that I constantly have in my Spotify Wrapped. I legit can’t explain it. Is it good? no. Is it original? Also no. Is it interesting? No! I don’t get it but I’m under the spell

a song from a soundtrack (musical, movie, video game, etc.) A PROMISE FROM FIRE EMBLEM: THREE HOUSES WAS MY NUMBER THREE SONG ON MY SPOTIFY WRAPPED LAST YEAR SORRY MOM SORRY GOD

the song currently stuck in your head OR the song you are listening to right now My music is on shuffle but it just hit Hot Girl Bummer by Blackbear

a song that taught you a lesson Which to Bury, Us Or The Hatchet by Reliant K is one of my favorite songs and really is an object lesson in letting things go. What’s more important? The person or the problem? And sometimes it’s the person, so you bury the hatchet, and sometimes it’s the problem, and you bury us (the relationship). It’s a good song imo.

an instrumental song Teleblister by Clever Girl

a song you always skipped, but ended up loving once you listened to it My favorite song from The Blessed Unrest by Sara Bareilles is Cassiopeia and I straight up skipped it every time I listened for the first like, 6 months I listened to the album.

your favorite album closer good kid, m.A.A.d city is a perfect album as well, and Compton is the last song on the album. Perfection.

your all-time favorite song Such a hard question, and not always easy to answer to be honest. It fluctuates. But for me I think my all time favorite song is currently

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bulgariansumo · 4 years ago

Text

The Messy Relationship Between Sonic and Localization

Ask any Sonic fan and they’ll tell you that the fandom is one of the most fractured things to ever exist. It’s a miracle whenever we can all agree, and that usually comes from us collectively hating something (Sonic Movie’s original design, Ken Penders, etc.)--and even then, there’s a dedicated few who disagree. Many of us have such differing opinions on what the series “should” be, that satisfying all--or even a majority--of Sonic fans is next to impossible. How did it get this way? I think it has a lot to do with localization.

Classic Era

The 1990’s wasn’t the best decade when it came to localizing anything, especially not video games. Often, some creative liberties would be taken when adapting a source from Japanese to English. The Sonic franchise was no exception to this. The first split comes from the game manuals. Me and @rontufox already made a post discussing this, but the Japanese manuals gave a little background info on the series’ lore and worldbuilding. The English versions gave a bare-bones description of the premise of each game, but that’s about it. There were no mentions of an apocalypse caused by people misusing the Chaos Emeralds, of Sonic finding the ring that would foreshadow Knuckles Chaotix, or of Knuckles thinking the Death Egg was a ‘Dragon’s Egg’ described in ancient legends. Sonic went to a bunch of colorful zones, beat up Dr. Robotnik, collected some magic stones, and maybe a new character or two would tag along, but there was nothing else to it. There was no dialogue and few cutscenes in the games at this time, so the English localizers could get away with this.

Since there wasn’t much to go on games-wise, English fans at the time got their perception of Sonic and his world from various comic and cartoon adaptations. The American-produced ones portrayed Sonic as an in-your-face smart aleck who was almost completely full of himself. The UK-produced Sonic the Comic starred Sonic as a self-described “cool guy” who cared little about the people around him, including friends. Whatever worldbuilding these adaptations had either didn’t exist or diverged completely from the games, because the writers, even if they did care, didn’t have much to go on. There also weren’t a lot of Japanese Sonic adaptations at the time, and the only one that got localized was Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie (aka Sonic OVA). To English-speaking fans, Sonic was an arrogant but funny hedgehog who despite everything, got the job done. Aside from Dr. Robotnik, other characters were an afterthought and could be replaced as needed.

Adventure Era

Sonic Adventure released in 1998 with fully voice-acted cutscenes, and localization differences started catching up. Some things were easy to fix, such as Dr. Eggman (Robotnik’s name in Japanese) being a nickname for Dr. Robotnik. Other things weren’t that simple. For instance, some of those little things mentioned in the Japanese manuals started showing up again, specifically the apocalypse caused by people misusing the Chaos Emeralds. Sonic Adventure was a soft-reboot, where most previous characters and worldbuilding are still there, but some details are left behind so that newcomers have an easier time entering the series. There also might be changes in the series’ tone. For example, Sonic Adventure was somewhat more serious than previous games could be, but still overall lighthearted. This was also the first of many mainline games during this time to have an ensemble cast. Instead of just playing as Sonic, or maybe Tails and Knuckles, you were required to play all three of them plus other characters, with different stories and gameplay styles. This was a tall task, but these games pulled it off well enough to be very popular at the time. Themes of friendship became very prominent in the games around this time, and to further cement it, Sonic X, a Japanese-produced anime came out and got localized in the United States. Sonic was still a little cocky in English dubs of the games and anime, but he was also free-spirited and very supportive of his friends instead of being preoccupied with being the coolest person in the group. For the most part, his English and Japanese portrayals were nearly indistinguishable. Other characters also got more screentime and focus on their personalities, and popular new characters like Shadow and Rouge were introduced to the cast. All was going great.

Then 2006 came around. Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog (aka Sonic 06) came out, ushering in a period of very poorly received Sonic games, the latter being seen as a contender for the worst game of all time. Shadow the Hedgehog was an attempt at explaining why the titular character was alive after apparently being killed off Sonic Adventure 2, but the gritty and somewhat melodramatic tone was seen as ill-fitting for the Sonic franchise. The gameplay was also lacking, in part due to other characters tagging along with Shadow and repeatedly telling him hints and mission objectives. The problem of characters talking a lot mid-gameplay was present in Sonic Heroes, but the gameplay itself was passable enough that the game didn’t completely suffer for it. Shadow the Hedgehog tied up the last plot threads the Sonic Adventure series left behind, so the series had to go somewhere different. Sonic 06 was another soft-reboot, so that newcomers wouldn’t have to study up on the games from Sonic Adventure to Shadow the Hedgehog. Because the game was rushed for the holiday season, it was glitchy, didn’t feel good to play, and the writing was… very flawed. The game’s tone was slightly lighter than Shadow the Hedgehog, but still a little too melodramatic for most fans.

With all of these changes in mind, further splits in the English-speaking fandom occurred. Many vocal Classic fans were thrown off by the series being heavier on plot, worldbuilding, and Sonic’s friends. They wanted to go back to a time when none of that existed, and when Sonic was just an arrogant jokester--a time that only existed in 90’s US and UK. Newer, Adventure-era fans grew up with these new changes and loved them, though many of them were also not happy with Shadow the Hedgehog and subsequent games’s handling of these things. Because of Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06’s spectacular failure in handling different characters’ gameplay, one sentiment was repeatedly echoed--that only Sonic should be playable. Since then, with very few exceptions, only Sonic has been playable in mainline Sonic games. This still wasn’t enough to save the games. Games after Sonic 06 often had a core gimmick to them, many of which weren’t received well, and the ones that were got replaced by the next game. The writing had the same feeling to it, though. It shied away from the melodrama of the most hated entries, but still retained the sincerity of entries like Sonic Adventure.

Modern Era

That changed in 2011 with Sonic Colors. Instead of Sonic Team writing the games, they hired Ken Pontac and Warren Graff, two American writers known for working on Happy Tree Friends. Neither had much knowledge of the previous games’ characters, worldbuilding, or stories, but this was intentional. Sonic games sell less in Japan, so Sega probably wanted to put more focus into pleasing audiences in America and Europe. The two went off some basics about the characters and setting, and what little they knew previously. There is some supervision by Takeshi Iizuka, a longtime Sonic Team member who is currently the head of the series after creator Yuji Naka left in the mid-2000’s, but he is interested in the series going in a new direction. Sonic Colors was another soft reboot of the series, but because of the writer’s lack of knowledge about the series a lot more details were lost and changes made than in any of the previous ones. The writing is lighthearted, but most of the sincerity has been traded for attempts at comedy, which tend to be hit and miss. Sonic as a character retains his free spirit and some kindness towards his friends, but some of the self-importance of his English interpretation is making a comeback. Many of the characters from previous games make returns, but they’re written oddly (“Y’got this, Sssonic!” - Shadow, Sonic Generations (2011)) and the writers don’t quite know how to integrate them. Sonic Colors was well-received for its gameplay, and even the writing was praised at the time, but most subsequent games have middling reception. None are considered outright bad (except Sonic Boom, but that was a spinoff that Sega contracted a different company to do) or outright good (except Sonic Mania, which Sega contracted a team of fans to do.)

Conclusion

As it stands now, the Sonic franchise is a strange hybrid of the Japanese and English interpretations of Sonic. A lot of the Adventure Era fans are old enough to start noticing the changes in the writing in the Modern Era, and some aren’t big fans. Some are, though. Some of the Classic fans are satisfied with these changes, others aren’t impressed either preferring the Classic or even Adventure Era. Some people like the Classic Era, but not the English interpretations of the series. There are likely Modern fans who grew up with this version of the Sonic franchise and love it, but there may be ones that have seen previous iterations and prefer those better. There are many differing opinions and few can agree on what would be good for Sonic. Would things have been different if localization had been handled differently in the 90’s? Who can say? All we have to go by are ripples from the errors of the past.

#sonic the hedgehog #this concludes my text-form video essay #in this essay i DID #can write an essay about sonic but not for college

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