#and Robot Jones related stuff

[elhombresiniestro]

This nutcase was the first character I started hyperfixating on

Gary with wands

[iscdisc]

Doodles from the Whiteboard Session (Sorry it ended kind of abruptly- IDK what happened- Lmao) ! ✨

I drew some stuff relating to, "The Day the World Broke" by Saladmix ! I swore off drawing the Bayverse Turtles but the fanfiction broke me,, /hj

MM / TOTTMNT Raph x Casey is the first time I've enjoyed a Raph and Casey pairing (romantically), so I drew that too ! I used your interpretation of MM / TOTTMNT Casey Jones, @up-the-anti ! I hope that's cool ! 😔🫶✨

I need to keep drawing more TMNT girlies, so I doodled Rise! Kendra and 2012 Irma ! However, this was more of my own personal interpretation of Irma rather than canon ! I thought it would be cool to depict Irma as a Utrom survivor instead of Kraang Subprime ! So she would be an Utrom adolescent that escaped to Earth (With the Irma robot disguise-) and tried to lay low in New York City after Kraang Prime's hivemind takeover in Dimension X- She would just be trying to live a normal life like April and her want to befriend April would be genuine / not a manipulation tactic or anything like that !

I think this would've been cool world building for 2012, since it would address the Kraang hivemind and separation of the Utrom early on, as well as create "drama" (so to speak) between Irma and the rest of the group considering she's a "Kraang" and Irma has to defend herself / explain that Kraang and Utrom are not the same thing and that she wasn't betraying them-! 😭

[danglovely]

Regrading Taskmaster: S03 E05 The FIP.

*Score changes noted in parenthesis.

Series finale! Kind of excited to get through Series Three, because Series Four marks where I feel the show starts to become truly special. But I have some love for the weirdos here, so let's wrap it up right.

Prize Task: Photo of the most handsome relative.

Definition of Handsome - Of a man, good-looking. Of a woman, striking and imposing in good looks. -- I find it strange that Oxford Languages feels the need to gender the definition, so we'll just go for "good-looking," gender notwithstanding.

Let's get the non-relatives out of the way! Paul isn't a relative of himself, Sara is not related to a cat (adopting a pet doesn't create a legal relationship), Rob is not related to James Earl Jones.

So weirdly, this is a two horse race between Al and Dave. No disrespect to Al's grandfather, but Dave found the link to Cary Friggin Grant.

Al: 4 (0) Dave: 5 (0) Paul: DQ (-1) Rob: DQ (-3) Sara: DQ (-1)

VT 01: Move the water from Bucket A to Bucket B. You must not move the buckets.

Dave cheats. Taskmaster's cheating policy never forgives. But . . . does Al cheat? Greg says no but he also gives Sara a bonus point to address perceived injustice. I'm of the mind that Sara could have paid Alex to move the bucket, just like Al.

One more note, Taskmaster isn't about being fair, but Rob really got hosed by the weather in this one.

Al: 5 (0) Dave: DQ (0) Paul: 3 (0) Rob: 4 (0) Sara: 2 (-1)

Team Task: Wearing one of these hands on each of your hands at all times, communicate to your teammates the names of these films, books or TV programs. You may not raise your voice.

Greg is right, nothing in the task says you can't have Ben Fogle shout the answers across the Thames. I'd normally say the split should be 4-1 except Rob was just openly shouting at Sara, which is forbidden.

Al, Dave, & Paul: 5 (0) Rob and Sara: DQ (0)

VT 02: Do something that looks brilliant when sped up or slowed down.

I actually thought Dave's was really cool. Sara's robot dance was fun . . . "brilliant" might be a stretch. Al's is funny and I like that it comes back in Series Four. However, banging a gong is not improved by slowing the video down. Paul's is interesting because he both speeds up and slows down the video. Interesting idea, looked okay.

Rob did maybe the simplest thing in just hitting a bunch of stuff, but I have to say it's the only one that actually benefitted from the tempo change.

Al: 1 (0) Dave: 4 (+1) Paul: 3 (0) Rob: 5 (0) Sara: 2 (-3)

Live Task: Place one or more donuts on your stick. The person with the lowest unique whole number of donuts wins.

For a second I thought maybe only Al and Dave should be able to participate in the second round because they had the fewest donuts. On review, this task was scored properly.

Al: 0 Dave: 0 Paul: 0 Rob: 5 Sara: 0

Final

Al: 15 (-1) Dave: 14 (+1) Paul: 11 (-1) Rob: 14 (-3) Sara: 4 (-5)

So here I would give Rob's win to Al. Mostly because I thought he should have been disqualified for bringing in James Earl Jones as a relative.

Series Final

Al: 80 (0) Dave: 83 (+2) Paul: 68 (+2) Rob: 78 (-9) Sara: 63 (-9)

So, as predicted, Rob doesn't win the series in my regrade. He honestly got really lucky in a lot of situations and benefitted from not being disqualified when he should of. I wasn't expecting Sara to land below Paul, but she did lose a lot of tasks.

[geekrwinkr]

Introduction❦

✵ Hi!! My name is Jones, but you can call me Jude.

✵ I enjoy the summer, going out, road-trips, music and old stuff.

✵ I spend my days listening to music, watching tv, reading or going out. (Sometimes in orchestra rehearsals)

✵ I am a Violinist and bassist!

✵ I am puerto rican (we can talk in both Spanish or English ❤︎︎)

✵ My favorite things to watch on tv: Ghostbusters, Mythbusters, the lego movie, the lego batman movie, Neon genesis evangelion, My little pony and more.

✵ My favourite stuff to read are: Scott pilgrim, El codigo Da vinchi, any interesting old book and anything related to science or robots.

✵ my favourite animal are turtles, especially soft shell turtles.

✵ I am a hopeless romantic

✵ I listen to The beatles, The Beach Boys, The turtles, Tally hall, Weezer, Jarabe De palo, Maná, Queen, Puya, etc

That’s all! I’ll probably be making blogs and stuff but thank you for reading💋

socials❦

spotify - https://open.spotify.com/user/31ad3amp7gmmazk2z7ox7dxm6ysu?si=LnprirOSRteiY1LSsj3PTg

Pinterest - https://pin.it/WunqjjpZM

(ask 4 discord acc❤️)

[thatrobotkid]

Robot shop in “CN City”, titled “Polyneux’s Robot Shop”. There’s also posters of Mom-Unit, Dad-Unit, and the show logo on the walls by the door. This particular robot shop is next to “Buck’s Gym” and “Fudo’s Electronic Superstore”. 

[monkeymanproductions]

Some of our recommendations

So you might not notice if you don't listen to the credits (no judging, believe me), but after going through the cast and crew, I recommend a show or something else audio-fic-related for you to check out! Here's a list of what we've been suggesting (or will be very soon) this season!

1972

Chaika

October Jones and Fish with Legs

The Night Post

Roguemaker

The Tower

Care and Feeding of Werewolves

Deep Blue Stars

This Planet Needs a Name

The Vesta Clinic

Tell No Tales

Starfall

Hand in Glove

Eliza: A Robot Story

What Will Be Here

Starship Q Star

Witchever Path

Icarus Rising

Folxlore

We listen to a pretty wide range of awesome stuff! Check it out and see what catches your ear-attention! We've also got an older list of recommendations on our website!

[gunnerkriggcritical]

I’ll share my personal story here in condensed form. I started reading the comic about 10 years ago and quickly became obsessed. I’d say at this point I’ve reread the entire thing… I don’t know, let’s say 5 or 6 times. At its peak, no other webcomic can match Gunnerkrigg for art, for story, or for character. What a stunning, spooky, subtle, complex, and deeply moving comic—and at times hilarious as well. All centered around Annie, one of the most heartbreakingly relatable characters I’ve ever encountered.

My personal turning point was The Tree. I feel like this is where some other fans would put their turning points, too. Anthony’s return brought the comic to a point I feel like it still hasn’t recovered from. Something happened at that point which slowly but surely made GKC a chore to read and keep up with, rather than a pleasure. The story now proceeds in awkward leaps and lurches rather than the patient, unfolding pace we were accustomed to for the first decade. 

Nowadays, there’s no slow, careful unfolding of story. Major plot threads get resolved—or introduced and then immediately resolved (see the two Annies)—in ways that feel nowhere near satisfying or even coherent. New arcs are introduced that feel weird and tacked-on and, at worst, annoyingly unwelcome (Loup, who has never quite felt integrated into the story of the comic). The story is telling rather than showing 99.9% of the time. It’s ALL exposition. It’s like Tom is racing at full tilt towards the finish line so he can start working on something else he’s more passionate about. And worst of all, Annie Carver herself now feels like a side character in her own story. She displays few moments of autonomy or personality. She’s just kind of “girl who is there.” I don’t feel like we know her anymore. And for such an incredibly nuanced protagonist, that’s the worst crime of all. 

But I might still be reading if not for two particular incidents. I usually can stay loyal to something I’ve loved despite its declining quality, but I never quite came back from the chapter where Tom seems to address reader criticism of Tony, Annie’s deadbeat-at-best dad, by having an entire chapter dedicated to how Tony is excused from being a deadbeat, actually, because he has an ambiguous mental illness of some sort, and ending with Annie looking directly at the viewer to tell us she doesn’t care and loves him anyway and she’s fine and we should all stop worrying, and then having Jones, the literal impartial observer character, agree with her. 

That was my last straw. The comic was done for me after that. All my goodwill was gone. I’m honestly still enraged even though this happened more than a year ago; I could talk about it for paragraphs in another post, and I probably will. But for whatever reason I kept reading, morbid curiosity I guess? 

Until I reached the point where Lana is almost sexually assaulted by elf kids. I couldn’t believe what I was reading, for so many reasons. GKC has gone so very far off the rails. I realized I was actively dreading each new page and I didn’t want to read at all anymore. I’m done, and I’ve only periodically checked in with the comic since then, each time discovering it’s gone even further off the rails than before. 

It really feels like the author has clocked out. The art is no longer stunning (IMO), and the story no longer has any passion in it. It’s not unique or charming or heartbreaking or funny the way it once was. It’s just… random stuff happening. A story about robots, told robotically. At turns, unfortunately, it’s even actively offensive and bad. And for a comic that was once so special, that sucks especially much. 

[thedawningofthehour]

I'm scared by the very calm description about Casey's father compared to Casey's version, If this Papa Jones is anything like IDW's Arnold Jones/Hun, then I can easily see him pretentding to act calm just to raising hell and organizing a whole radicalized group behind the scenes to go to Mutant Town and see who took his daughter.

All ending in an incident that would support Draxum's agenda.

I don't know about this, but considering Casey's parent issues I have a feeling that once he finds out the truth about Donnie, he'll go all '12 Karai and go straight for Draxum's head.

Also, I wanted to mention how messed up it is that in '03, Hun is responsible for Casey's father death, while in IDW he's Casey's dad. It's like in some dimension, Shredder is relate to the turtles, hahaha...... wait.

Come to think of it! Shredder is like the x10 grandfather of the turtles, Draxum is their creator and Big Mama is their daddy's ex, if the whole plot of the series is just one big family feud?

Wait, IDW Jones Senior is Hun?! I need to read IDW, don't I? It sounds so fucking metal.

I mean, being sober makes a big difference. Don't do drugs, kids.

Or if you do, don't do meth. For real, I have not heard a single story of someone casually doing heroin or meth and having it not ruin their whole life. This is my big sister advice. Don't touch that shit. Go ahead and smoke a joint, have a drink, whatever, just don't drive. Be smart in your drug use.

Hold up, that was 2003 Casey Jones's origin story?! How do I not remember this?

My memory of 2003 is so weird. It wasn't even my first TMNT, I was like eight when it started, so I should remember more. I'm pretty sure I stopped watching around 2005 because that's when ATLA came out and my hyperfixation shifted, and I think I missed a lot of episodes because TMNT was on right when I got home from school and my mom would go through periods where she made me do homework before anything else. (which meant that I never did anything else, my parents were really crazy and would legit have me at the table doing shit from 4-9/10 at night in the third grade) Back before streaming and I don't think they had the episodes on VHS at the video rentals, so if you missed an episode you'd have to wait until the whole show cycled through. Dark ages, truly.

I do like how everything is connected in Rise, I think that was a good narrative decision. The Krang are responsible for Yokai, Yokai nonsense resulted in the turtles, Krang made the Shredder and the Shredder caused the rise of the Hamato clan. I think that's cool and a good choice for the story.

But I do have to appreciate the absolute chaos that TMNT storylines have typically been. The ooze is usually alien in nature, (was that the case in 87? I was very young then I have an excuse for not remembering plot points) but everything else? 2012 Splinter was a whole-ass dude with his own generational trauma and conflict and literally stumbled into a secret alien meeting that had nothing to do with him. Saki just shows up wanting to kill his former best friend and winds up involved in crazy alien shit. There's a bunch of gangs in 2012 and 2003 that see all this mutant stuff happening and are like "damn that's crazy. Anyway." There's a whole-ass alien invasion that has nothing to do with any of the above. The Triceratons just show up and feel like wrecking shit. The turtles end up in space because why the fuck not? Their space dad is a robot. It's insane. And it just works.

[greatwyrmgold]

I heard RWBY: Ice Queendom was good in general and specifically fixed some problems I had with the original, so I finally decided to watch it. For the interested, here are my thoughts.

TL;DR: It felt a lot like RWBY, except with less focus on action and more focus on what I thought the series would be focused on after watching Volume 1. Also, watching it made me feel just how little RoosterTeeth had planned ahead of time by including things that really should have showed up in the original (like the heroines’ families).

The opening narration is almost identical to RoosterTeeth’s (except, y’know, in Japanese). But the animation behind it is obviously new. It seems to imply that humans built up their civilization to a skyscraper-city sort of level before the Creatures of Grimm became a threat. I find this notable, because the fact that the Grimm seemed to have existed since ancient history (before humans had guns and robots and Dust) is one of the reasons I found the Grimm threat to be unconvincingly apocalyptic.

I’m used to the American, CG versions of these characters, so it’s kinda weird to hear Ruby speaking Japanese (and obviously not voiced by Lindsay Jones) and animated traditionally. Dunno if I can really explain it better than that. Other characters didn’t look so weird; maybe it’s something about Ruby’s face? Is her hair shorter or something?

(Tangent: I kinda liked the Volume 1 aesthetic, despite the jank. Way better than the more generic yet still kinda janky CG some of the later Volumes had.)

Starting with an actual introduction to our core characters instead of the Dust store robbery is a big improvement. And as someone who correctly predicted that Volume 2 would feature less of what I liked about RWBY based entirely on the contents of its first episode, despite everyone on that one RWBY fan forum saying I was being too nitpicky and reading too much into things, which I’m still surprisingly something about, this focus is a good sign for things to come!

Likewise, seeing Weiss at home, in her “normal world” environment, before going to the “world of adventure” (Beacon) was a good choice. (Hypothetical dissenter: The White trailer doesn’t count and you hypothetically know it.)

The splitscreen in Weiss’s conversation with Whitley is...distinct. Not common for anime. It feels deliberate, especially since several non-split shots are harshly divided in other ways. Something about the divide between the siblings?

This is something I wondered about the original RWBY, too, but where do people get the captured training Grimm? Do some Huntsmen hog-tie boarbatusks and...giant armor Grimm I don’t know the name of and stuff before dragging them to civilization?

The fight scenes are more anime than Monty Oum—almost as if Oum’s choreography was based on the strengths of digital animation and would be impractical to replicate in traditional anime even if he was alive to direct. It’s a little more generic, but also has more of a focus on character, if that makes sense. And the fight scenes definitely feel like they’re the same as the original, in the sense that you could imagine the White trailer and Weiss’s fight here are just different cameras shooting the same fight (plus or minus the additional context Ice Queendom gives).

Adam has so much more character than he did in the Black Trailer. And it’s not a matter of time constraints in a trailer, they established it with just a few quick lines of dialogue.

I’d gotten used to the new voices characters have by Blake’s section, but the train fight’s music feels wrong. I wouldn’t expect “From Shadows” to be playing, lyrics and all, but…is it too much to hope for some musical motifs to be recycled?

Gambol Shroud looks…I dunno…janky? I think part of the problem is that it’s moving slowly enough that you can tell when it’s playing fast and loose with momentum. On a related not, the way they shot the one bit where Adam uses…erm…I forget the shotgun’s name is a bit too close to really convey how that works. I don’t like their fight scene as much as I did Weiss’s, in case you can’t tell.

Having Blake cut ties with Adam (and his train car) right after he shows callous disregard for non-Faunus life, instead of putting another fight scene between them…it feels like a stronger emotional beat, but also a slightly different one. It feels less like Blake took a moment to think over the shocking thing Adam said and made a decision based on that, and more like this was just the last straw. Having Adam and Blake exchange a few more words is an unambiguously positive change, though.

Also: Adam mentioned that he and Blake were faunus, so it can’t be an end-season reveal. Now, Blake being a faunus wasn’t much of a twist the first time around; to me, the real twist was that Blake was hiding it. (Her bow looks more like cat ears in Volume 1, okay?)

No, Ruby still looks weird. Note to self: Compare her original and Ice Queendom designs later. But it’s nice to actually see her doing weapon-geek stuff, even if it’s just a montage of stuff she likes to do in Vale. Also: I’m glad there’s a montage of stuff Ruby likes to do in Vale! Good character-establishing stuff.

Oh hey, a reason for Ruby to be at the Dust shop. It’s a bit odd, but it’s better than “they also sell magazines I guess?”

Roman Torchwick shows up almost 60% into the episode, instead of being the first person we see after the opening narration. Since he turns out to be a henchwoman’s henchman and pretty irrelevant aside from his involvement in said henchwoman’s plans, this is a good thing.

Ruby’s Semblance looks a lot cooler than any of the CG versions I saw (maybe there’s something cooler in the back ⅔ of the series, I dunno). Also: Roman calls it a Semblance and acts surprised that Ruby has one, neat change.

Roman has a grappling hook! Wait, his cane had that in Volume 2. The director knew that his cane had a grappling hook before this episode was finished!

Cinder just flew off instead of jumping out of the cockpit and sparring with Glynda for a bit. Means less Glynda fighting, but…yeah, that exchange didn’t really do much except look cool, did it?

Aw, Ruby didn’t ask for Glynda’s autograph. That smash cut from “Can I have your autograph?” to the interrogation room was such a great beat.

The first we see of Ozpin is a handful of extras saluting him. That’s a good way of establishing his importance. And he greets Taiyang, calls him “Tai”. Love this introduction.

Yang gushing about Ruby being accepted to Beacon at the police station makes a lot more sense than on the airship to Beacon.

Bringing the end of the opening narration to the end of the first episode makes a nice bookend; using it to frame a quick montage

The credits say that’s Void_Chords or L, not Casey Lee Williams, but I wouldn’t have known. I dunno if they intentionally picked a vocalist who sounds like Casey, but they did a good job of making the (OP? ED? not sure which it is at this point) sound like something from the original RWBY.

Overall: An excellent second draft. Some things felt like a downgrade (especially leaving out the autograph beat), but they’re far rarer than the bits which feel more refined. More like the writers and animators had an actual plan.

I appreciate the character focus. That’s what should matter, I feel. Action is cool, but action without grounding in the characters’ traits, goals, etc is…well, it’s literally why I dropped RWBY a few episodes into Volume 3. If I ever need to talk about bad anime tournament arcs, the Vytal Tournament will definitely be one of my examples. Spite aside, it gives me hope that the folks behind Ice Queendom will focus on more of the stuff I like about RWBY and not get mired in the stuff I’m more tepid on.

Not sure if I’ll post something like this for the rest of Ice Queendom, but if I do it probably won’t be one long list of bullets per episode.

[adultswim2021]

Frisky Dingo #8: “Blind Faith” | December 4, 2006 – 12:30AM | S01E08

Previously, on Frisky Dingo: Killface is blinded by Antagone’s corrosive ant spit. He’s also being sued by Phil for his work-related cancer diagnosis (this plot detail did not need to be recalled! It didn’t have anything to do with the episode!). Xander Crews escaped from his captor and would-be rapist (or, perhaps, he actually was raped and we should be giving him a stand-up special) and is getting some help by some random dorks in the park meeting up to do some dork shit. 

It is the Frisky Dingo show: the show where I usually just recap the plot and then say something like “yeah this one was alright I guess” and then end the write-up. Okay let’s begin: 

The dorks are schlepping Xander around in one of the guys honestly pretty bitchin’ classic car. He learns various things, like that the hooker who blackmailed him back in… episode one, I think? She now owns his house, sold to her by Stan, who is now wearing Awesome X’s armor and being a real showboat. Xander tries to go to Grace Ryan’s house where her Antagone persona takes over and scares Xander away with violence! Before Xander shows up, we see Grace Ryan marveling at her ill-gotten bank heist gains from the previous episode. She’s unsure why her kitchen is now full of gold bars and money bags. This cements the idea that she blacks out when she’s Antagone. 

There’s also a brief bit where we see Arthur, the guy who was slowly turning into a crab, is now mostly crab. Sinn is saying a tearful goodbye to him as he retreats into the ocean in order to not be captured by marine biologists. So I guess that dude is toast. This is one of the small handful of scenes I capably remember from this show, though I don’t know why. 

The episode ends with Killface and Xander crossing paths, quite literally. Killface is seen trying to acclimate himself to his newly sightless lifestyle throughout the episode, and he winds up wandering into a crosswalk in front of Xander’s car. Xander mows the fucker down, who is now discombobulated and likely suffering from a concussion. Xander introduces himself as Barnaby Jones, the titular character from an old TV show I’ve never seen before but for some reason I know that it was released on DVD and they bleeped out a character using the n-word. Uh, sorry for knowing that, everyone. Anyway, this kicks off a partnership between the two, with Kilface blind and concussed and Xander hoping for some angle to take advantage of him. 

This episode is yet another one that feels like its main reason for existing is to push the story forward to some (hopefully) more interesting place. There are plenty of small comedy moments that the show is known for, but they are pretty tepid. The only thing that actually elicited anything close to a laugh from me was when the dorks started doing some annoying alarm noise to mock Xander for mixing ancient fantasy and futuristic sci-fi genres (on account of his robot Xtacle pants). The alarm bit isn’t funny; it’s annoying, unironically. But the third friend losing it, pathetically laughing at what is surely a lame inside joke these three share is wonderful character stuff.

[thealmightyemprex]

Miscellanious halloween viewing part 2

More stuff I have watched that is halloween related

Trick or Treat (1952)

REally delightful Donald Duck cartoon

The Mad Doctor (1933)

REally creepy Mickey Mouse cartoon that I imagine scarred many 30's kids

Old Dark House (1932)

Watched with lil sis ,she liked it. One of my faves

Halloween with the Addams Family (!964)

I am very tempted to binge this show cause this episode was SOLID .Don Rickles and Skip Homier as criminals were fun ,and the main cast (John Astin,Carolyn Jones ,Ted Cassidy and Jackie Cooganj ) were all solid

Halloween is Grinch Night (!977)

Mediocre special with one great scene

Courage the Cowardly Dog Season 2 (2000)

WAtched several episodes from season 2 .....Man this show was weirder then I remebered,but I love it .Theres an episode where a giant robot who sounds like Christopher Walken challanges Courage to a breakdancing contest ,but Courage convinces him to pursue his dream of carving wooden reindeer

Dracula (!931)

Again watched with little sis .She thought the ending was lame and the film itself was OK.I also think its just OK

Evil Dead 2(1987)

Not my favorite Evil Dead movie but still a classic I reccomend to anyone .Its good gorey fun

The House of Usher (1960)

REallly loved this movie upon rewatch ,one of Prices best performances .Great gothic horror story

Creepshow (1982)

Well I watched most of it.Its one of my favorite horror movies ,but I CANNOT watch the final segment ,too gross for me

@ariel-seagull-wings @princesssarisa @theancientvaleofsoulmaking @amalthea9 @metropolitan-mutant-of-ark @filmcityworld1

[dramatically-anime]

What would yo do for power?

For the chance to control the world?

What Up Nerds?!

I’m gunna be doing a series with this squad about Netflix originals. Of yo I didn’t know, Netflix has gotten into the anime game. At first o was a bit iffy about it. But then I decided to jump on in one day and I wasn’t disappointed. First up in this series is Spriggan.

Name: Spriggan

Genre: Action, Sci-FI, Thriller

Platform: Netflix

Release: June 18, 2022

Writer: Hiroshi Seko

Plot:

An ancient civilization, with advanced technology, rules the earth. Their downfall was the misuse of their own power. They left behind message plates for generations to come on indestructible metal. Written in Hebrew, they warned of their mistakes and told them to destroy the ancient artifacts that held their power if they could not find a good use for them.

A search begun between powerful companies, groups and private armies for these artifacts. For their chance to rule the world. One power known as ARCAM rose up to defend these artifacts from the rest of the world. They use their elite agents known as Spriggan to stop these groups from destroying the world.

This freakin anime man. I am absolutely in love with it and am anticipating the second season. The action is great, almost non stop. The voice acting is spot on. The story for me is engaging. And characters are memorable and like-able, even those who die. This one would be one where I would recommend reading the manga first, as the arching plot would make more sense. But also from some who didn’t read the manga first, it’s still extremely entertaining.

I have read elsewhere that this anime is true to its manga predecessor which is something extremely refreshing. Often times, we see too much that anime’s don’t adhere to its source material or trail off too much. (Let’s not talk about fillers.)

Something that I see with this anime is that it runs kind of like Ghost in the Shell: stand alone complex. Each episode can stand on its own and be engaging enough to where someone could still follow along with what’s going on.

I have always liked stories that used history and real artifacts of the world to give us something new. It gives us something relatable to us. We know about Noah’s arc or the crystal skulls. Some of this stuff has been used in other media like Indiana Jones. So it becomes something familiar, but with a twist. And this anime does that. Puts an action twist on history.

One flaw that I can see is the sense that there is a lot of foreshadowing and set up for further events. Shady companies are introduced. There’s no overarching plot. Characters die or disappear. There isn’t any character growth or room for it. The supporting cast is different with each episode and nothing to really tie things together. There are very little flash backs to the past. Which can be off putting for those who weren’t fans of the manga.

The second flaw I can see is the choppy animation. While it’s not the worst I’ve ever seen, it’s still noticeable. The 2D mixed with the CG sometimes don’t work hand in hand. It slows down the action packed scenes. It can be fine when dealing with the robots or mecs, but they don’t always look good either. Sometimes the clunky machine looks out of place when next to other things in the scene. in terms of animation, the 1998 film looks better.

Overall, I’m giving this anime a 4.5/5. I think the good far outweighs the bad, but I also can’t fully ignore the bad. I would recommend this anime to newcomers and manga fans alike. It’s defiantly one that could be one of the greats!

Sources: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spriggan_(manga)

[stormvanari]

“But I actully have met him[Zac]. He’s almost as big a pain in the robot as you[Pac]!”—Apex, Robo Woes

Beginning the breakdown of these revamped designs, I imagined Post-PWWI!Zac once had a rough fight with the Pointy Heads, hence the bullet hole-ridden coat(plus the eyepatch too, and I believe the allergy guns aren’t the culprit). He stole one of their guns and had it modified at some point. Related to the Pointy Head battle, Zac’s eyepatch is inspired by the 93-year old Indiana Jones in “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.” It‘s actually his second eyepatch though, and it’s built by Sir C himself with advanced abilities after reuniting with Pac.

——————————————————————

On the other hand, I simply got the idea of designing Post-PWWI!Sunny from one of Pacman’s Smash alts and making her look more like the original Ms. Pacman. The satchel is supposed to contain some important stuff, such as the last remaining Berries of Youth.

[madster2005]

“Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?” Fanfiction: Polyneux, 1998

Prologue:

Robot Jones continued his middle school studies up until 1985. His peers graduated to high school, however the robot was no where to be found. It was later found out that JNZ Robotics went bankrupt and were deactivating all their models, which of course included RJ. His friends, Mitch, Socks, and Cubey, were confused and saddened, but overtime all the memories they made with Robot became more and more irrelevant. They continued their lives in Polyneux, living simply and rather uneventfully. In 1998, a discovery would change everything.

Chapter 1: The Discovery

"And where in the hell did you find that?"

A woman around the age of 27 grimaced as she stared at the broken automation before her. She had long hair that curled at the ends, long bangs, as well as pink hair clips. She wore a tye dye T-shirt with purples, blues and pinks mixed together. Her skirt was also long, and black. Her shoes were plain white converse, which was quite the opposite of the rest of her attire. After gawking at what looked like junk laid before her, the friend which originally presented it spoke up.

"I found it on that eBay website. Man, there was a bunch of crazy shit for sale, but this really caught my eye" She put her hands on her hips and looked at her friend for confirmation. The other shook her head and poked at the thing before her like a curious child.

"Chrissy, out of everything you could have gotten from there, you ended up with this... robot? Machine? Whatever it is"

The other girl, known as Chrissy, simply laughed and itched the back of her neck. Appearance wise, the girl had short blonde hair with a pink headband. She wore an old dark gray shirt with the band name and logo of "Nirvana". Her jeans were just as worn, with small holes by her knees. Unlike her acquaintance, she had black combat-style boots which worked well with her fit.

"Oh, it's much more than that. Well, it's a robot still, but!" Chrissy exclaimed, and she sat the old bot up to open its chest plate. The inner workings were caked with dust, and a lot of it flew into the air too. She payed no attention to this however, and instead pointed to an imprinted logo and numbers on the inside of the plate. It read: 'JNZ ROBOTICS, KX-8 UNIT, MODEL 01/01'. "It's that robot from middle school! The one from that old JNZ factory, remember? Come on, you have to remember him at least a little, Pam"

Pam looked at it with a bit more interest, and took notice to more of it's features. It had a square head, with yellow antennae on two sides. It's eyes were large, and it had an equally large lightbulb-looking object screwed onto the top of it's head. The body was also square, with red and gray paint. The arms were skinny and had small two-pronged claws for each hand. For it's legs, they resembled some type of shoes or boots, but fused to the robot instead of being separate. She glanced at her friend's dorky smile, and her eyes widened as she uncovered some memories from her junior high school life. Her memory of the machine was limited, but she did remember a few instances they spent some time together. Pam quickly removed the look of shock from her face, and crossed her arms in an attempt to appear more casual.

"Oh yeah, whatever. I'm kinda remembering, not much though" She said, looking towards the ground. Chrissy rolled her eyes jokingly at her friend's attempt at pretending not to care, and closed up the chest plate on the robot.

"Okay bitch, but would you happen to know his name? I can't at all, I didn't really know him" She said sarcastically at first, but then she went to mumbling. Pam gave her a glare, but Chrissy could see a small smile form on her face. She flipped her hair, and shook her head.

"Nah, can't say I do. I remember hanging out with him for like, a few days, then we didn't really again" Pam shrugged, and looked around. They were at Chrissy's place, more specifically her garage. She worked at a car repair shop, so the amount of random parts and tools scattered in random places wasn't a surprise. Looking at everything actually gave Pam a small, half-joking idea.

"Say, maybe you should just fix him. Maybe you'll finally know" Pam added with a small laugh, not really taking that suggestion seriously. Chrissy did though, and her face lit up. Pam squinted in suspicion.

"Okay, I was joking. I don't think you can even do that, he's not a car" She rubbed the bridge of her nose, not knowing what the hell she just got into. The other girl smirked and went to dig in one of many drawers for a few tools.

"Well, actually, I know a lot about mechanics and stuff, not just related to cars" Chrissy responded in a know-it-all voice. "And I'm honestly bored as fuck all the time when I'm home, so why not try to?"

Pam simply looked at her with a dead-pan stare, and sighed. There was no stopping her. Pam took some strides towards the open garage door, and glanced at her own car. " I'm gonna go back to my house, but good luck. Seriously though, how are you gonna fix that?"

Chrissy plopped some items on the table next to the automation, and looked up. "Aight. Also, I dunno. Like I said, I'm just bored. Might be fun to at least try"

Pam smiled again at her friend's response, and swung the ring of her keychain around her finger. "For real though, good luck. Would actually be pretty cool if you could get it working again" She said a bit sheepishly, breaking her usual demeanor. Chrissy returned a grin.

"Thanks, girl. Have fun doing whatever the hell you're gonna do for the rest of the day though!" Chrissy gave a thumbs up, and Pam waved.

"Right, have a good night, Chrissy" Pam said in return, and she walked to her car. The other watched her drive off, and stared down at the machine in front of her.

"This should be interesting"

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

I mean these are probably the same person that complain about minor things on the internet and thinks that no moral grey characters should have redemption arcs, so I guess they want male characters to be as bitter as they are. 🤷‍♀️

I agree with you 100%. They say “emotional, vulnerable are so rare in fiction media” but then will use negative, sexist terms to describe a man whenever he’s in pain. I’m guessing the reason they emphasize the prefix “man” in the word “manpain” is because it involves a male character being hurt over a female character and they think she’s only being used as a plot device for his pain, but like, that’s still a crappy word to use??? and you’re still in a way attacking him for being vulnerable? Also, what’s wrong with a man being hurt for a woman he loves (romantically, platonically or family-wise)? Isn’t that what they want? To have the male characters care deeply about the female characters? These people confuse me on a daily basis because I don’t know what they actually want. They constantly contradict themselves with many of their arguments and don’t realize the hypocrisy, cognitive dissonance and contradiction that comes out of their own mouths, or in this case, their typing fingers. The argument about morally grey characters not deserving redemption and even villains themselves is such bullshit. Do they know the background of that character? do they know if the character has actually been manipulated? plenty of reasons for a redemption arc could be listed but that redemption arc has to be earned through the actions of the character themselves, whether it is through atonement or an act of good.

It gets long because I got carried away yet again. Read it if you desire. 

Take Darth Vader for example, for 6 years he was presented as this figure of pure, magnified evil. You didn’t know who was behind that mask, he was tall, scary, brutal and menacing. He spoke in a deep, commanding and quite robotic, monotone voice (@ you haters who shat on Hayden for mimicking James Earl Jones’s Vader enunciation and diction in many scenes) devoid of any emotion other than coldness and anger. He was hid behind an all black suit and was considered to be more machine than man. The audience gets to The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, Luke is now older and a solidified member of the Rebel Alliance but he still has a long way to go in regards to his handling of emotions, impulsive nature, recklessnes, wisdom and Jedi teaching. He disobeys Yoda and abandons his training because he saw a vision of his friends dying, although he is told the future in the visions is always uncertain and can’t come to fruition, he still refuses to listen to both Obi-Wan and Yoda and risks his own safety to save his friends. He fights Vader in a long, testing lightsaber duel, loses his hand and it’s revealed to him by Vader himself (who out of all of the figures in Luke’s life is the only who didn’t lie to him but whatever I’m not going there rn 😶) that he is his son, his flesh and blood. Now, how could Luke Skywalker, the main symbol of hope, the representation of light and goodness in the galaxy, the posterboy of Star Wars, the everyman of the saga, the most important character in all of Star Wars be related to a man as heartless, as cold and as evil as Vader? On top of Leia, another symbol of hope and strength in the saga, being revealed to be his daughter, we would have never thought of neither of these to be Vader’s children, but then we get to Return of the Jedi, a year has passed since the tumultous events of TESB and the uncertain, quite worrying future it left for our two protagonists Luke and Leia after having dealt with and lost a lot in that movie. Now Luke is wiser, more serene and collected that he was in the previous two movies and it really highlighted how much Luke had grown since. He’s put in a difficult position because he is told by his two mentors that he has to kill Vader because they both deemed Anakin to be gone forever and that there was nothing in the galaxy to bring him up, but what they didn’t understand is that Luke was his own son and even with all the evil Vader did, he just couldn’t bring himself to murder his own father in cold blood to save the galaxy. It really deconstructed the theme of revenge shown throughout cinema and how heroes are really just like us, yes they are exceptional, yes they have super powers but when it comes to emotions, when it comes to their desires, to their feelings, to even some of their problems, they are like us, that’s why we relate to so many of them. Luke refused to kill his father because he believed to be goodness somewhere deep inside of his already torn, blackened soul. Nobody could have thought that Vader would have ever done something good in his life, but he did, not even because he regretted what he put the galaxy through for 23 years, but because the love he had for his son was so deep it was enough to bring him back to the light. It took Palpatine electrocuting Luke to make Anakin really embrace the genuine love he had for his son, to make Anakin realize he still had goodness in him, to make him finally betray Palpatine after the years of abuse, gaslighting and manipulation he put him through. It sparked the light inside of him that was already flickering and take over him again. To some, it might have seem like a small, insignificant gesture because it didn’t make up for all the years of torture and destruction he brought to the galaxy, but his love for his son was strong enough to bring him back. I wouldn’t call it a redemption “arc” but it didn’t need to be that way because I think Vader saving his son, thus saving the galaxy from the reign of the Emperor that had finally come to its end was perfect the way it was written and I wouldn’t do anything to change it. I got carried away by my Star Wars so this got so unnecessarily long, but I think I made my point LOL But yeah, if a character earns a redemption arc then why should there be a problem even if they did some bad stuff? Humans are much more complex and layered than people think and characters in most cases reflect that about our nature.

[things2mustdo]

According to legend, the media is a pillar of democracy. The free press informs the public objectively, without bias, “just the facts, ma’am”. They staunchly champion freedom of speech; that’s their bread and butter! Their intrepid reporters expose high-level corruption, protecting the little guy from abuses by the wealthy and powerful.

Today’s reality is nearly the opposite. Worse, now they’re enthusiastically participating in censorship.

“Shut it down!”

Jason Koebler, a Vice editor for Motherboard (their technology column), posted “Deplatforming Works“, practically gloating about it.

It’s true that Silicon Valley’s lethargy on the far-right, aided by endless press coverage, helped amplify their message and turned the far right into a real, powerful political force in the United States.

So he believes that tech giants have been too slow in suppressing views that he doesn’t like. Still, he worries about what happens when they move to alternative platforms that respect freedom of expression. Further, he laments that censoring popular commentators generates publicity:

Deplatforming works “best” when the people being deplatformed don’t have any power to begin with.

That’s quite an unfiltered glimpse into the media mentality. He denies the censorship is ideologically motivated. Well, how often do leftists get banned for “extremist” opinions, criticizing groups they dislike, or controversial opinions about history?

The new Ministry of Truth

Another whopper, co-authored by Jason Koebler and Joseph Cox, described how journalists serve as social media tattletales:

In a recent interview at Facebook headquarters, one senior company employee told Motherboard that Facebook somewhat formalized the process of responding to content moderation-related inquiries from journalists, and has a dedicated system for ‘escalating’ issues highlighted by journalists. This often gets the content in front of those deciding whether to remove it or not more quickly than ordinary user-generated reports.

Thanks for the tip, dude. I’ve been wondering who’s been doing this sneaky behind-the-scenes stuff. As I’ve suspected, this goes much further than tricky “watchdog” outfits, or Social Justice Warriors orchestrating mobbing campaigns on Tumblr.

So he brazenly admitted that Lügenpresse employees are colluding with social media companies, ratting out content which they think the public shouldn’t be allowed to see. (Is that what college journalism departments teach kids these days?) Since the tech giants in cahoots with them created special pipelines to expedite the snitching, apparently this happens pretty frequently.

Last month, when explaining why Twitter hadn’t initially banned InfoWars from its platform, CEO Jack Dorsey said “it’s critical journalists document, validate and refute [dis]information directly so people can form their own opinions. This is what serves the public conversation best.”

Given the MSM’s track record of bias, distortion, and outright lies, their new side job of censoring dissident viewpoints is like a fox guarding the henhouse. (Jack Dorsey’s statement is almost as much of a whopper as when Barbara Spectre said, “But without that leading role, and without that transformation [to multiculturalism], Europe will not survive.”) It gets more nauseating yet:

Wednesday, at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Dorsey again noted the role that journalists play in counteracting disinformation that spreads and is incentivized on his platform.

“We have this amazing constituency of journalists globally using our service every single day, and they often with a high degree of velocity call out unfactual information,” Dorsey said.

Senate Intelligence Committee—well, isn’t that special? If this “amazing constituency” is up to this daily, is all that really topical investigative research, or more like cyber-loafing?

Guarding the echo chamber

Journolist closed after this secret back channel was exposed. Is there anything else like that going on now?

Although that article seems unconcerned about ethics or freedom of speech, it correctly explains that tattling about social media posts for Silicon Valley billionaires isn’t the job they’re supposed to be doing. Journalists are paid to write stories. I’ll add that if they’re acting like Glavlit informers while on the clock, they’re stealing from their companies, just like if they’re playing Warcrack.

To be clear, every platform has moderators or algorithms which catch the vast majority of content violations on a platform. But still, many of the highest-profile content moderation decisions seem to be made only after there’s publicity around them. For example, InfoWars was only banned from platforms after a steady drumbeat of reporting surrounding the disinformation and hate speech spread by Alex Jones.

Jones got banned from four major platforms simultaneously. Anyone who believes the timing was a coincidence probably believes in the Easter Bunny too. Are the esteemed members of the Fourth Estate still using transmission belts hidden from the public like Journolist?

Here’s how it rolls at their own company:

At Motherboard, we’ve increasingly decided to withhold specific examples from tech companies when approaching them for an article. Of course, if they really need an example in order to have enough context to comment—if it’s a single specific video for instance—it would probably be best to provide a link to the clip. And we will give them enough context about what the videos are and the issue so they can write a statement explaining why they believe the content should or shouldn’t be removed. But for more general issues, or especially public material that can be found with a simple search, the companies don’t need hand holding to find the videos: indeed, the point is that they could have—and perhaps should have—come across them easily in the first place.

Finally:

Facebook also told Motherboard many other reporters have stopped sharing links to specific pieces of content until after the stories are published. Facebook believes it is beneficial to everyone if the company is able to remove violating content as quickly as possible.

So their take seems essentially like this:

Journalists are getting sick of working so hard at performing censorship for other companies, instead of doing their real jobs.

They wish the tech giants would make better programs to delete politically incorrect content robotically.

If they write a clickbait article about it, they’re disappointed that the content gets banned first.

It’s little wonder why people don’t trust the Lügenpresse. Even most liberals today realize the MSM is bullshit!

Why dissident views are important

Media outlets do have ideological positions. That’s understood, so long as long as that stuff stays in the op-eds and news is unbiased. According to legend, diversity of opinion throughout the media will allow the public to sort things out for themselves. However, 90% of the USA’s media outlets are owned by six gigantic conglomerates. Five are little more than propaganda factories for cultural Marxism. The one essentially representing the controlled opposition doesn’t stray too far from prevailing orthodoxy, or touch many vital topics.

The MSM is an oligopoly with vast powers to shape opinion. Therefore, dissident voices free of interference are the only ones breaking the information blockade. It’s the “deplorables” who now are looking out for the public, calling out subversion sometimes rising to treasonable levels when nobody else dares call it treason.

Finally, Jason Koebler has written several articles about data mining misuses. That much is admirable. Ironically, the MSM overlooks another problem with tech giants abusing monopolistic powers, often even assisting them. Not only do huge social media companies get a free pass for censorship, some journalists merely wish there was more of it so they can quit doing free work for them.

Don’t miss Beau’s book catalog. Good stuff!