#animator vs animation analysis

[lopsidedgryffins]

green’s inner conflict and how it is manifested through greenscreen: an analysis

TLDR at end!

disclaimer: this is probably really ooc, and is mostly speculation by a mediocre at best student of literature ++ i’ve never been good at lit, so this analysis is likely not gonna be great :/ feel free to criticise/comment on this analysis! i’m open to feedback if there’s any :)

SPOILERS FOR INFLUENCER ARC EPS 1 AND 2 AHEAD!

we first see greenscreen when the cg abandons an overdone/overedited video of theirs - he is quite literally borne of neglect, and is thus a symbol of green’s negligence towards his friends and the inner turmoil he faces in trying to cater to all his viewers. 

why does greenscreen appear as, well, green? green is basically fighting with himself, a form of inner conflict manifested through the CG’s fight with what is essentially green’s neglect and negative emotions. 

this is also super interesting because inner conflict is usually internal and invisible: that’s what most of it is about. however, alan and the team present it here through actual physical conflict, which parallels green’s fight with himself - to make the content that he and his friends want to make, or to cater to the viewers and leave his friends behind, becoming increasingly self-centred? 

in the first fight with greenscreen, the CG beat him as a group, and green even takes a photo of them together post-fight to upload to instagram. this symbolises green’s (temporary) triumph over his neglect for others, still caring for his friends. 

however, over time, green starts to drift from his friends. he distances himself from them, isolating himself in a minecraft room by himself to make videos, neglecting friendships, genuine feelings and enjoyment in preference for catering to his viewers and all their preferences, taking each piece of criticism too seriously. therefore, as green’s neglect toward his friendships with the CG continues and increases, greenscreen grows in power as the negativity and abandonment become worse.  

before we continue with that though, let’s talk about the recycle bin!

the recycle bin is a recurring figure across AvA - being used in both AvA and AvM to get rid of applications. that’s what a recycle bin is at its core - a receptacle for waste, left to be neglected, never truly emptied. both greenscreen and the deleted videos of the CG are thrown into the recycle bin, where they perhaps fester into who-knows-what in ep 3. you know who else was also unceremoniously thrown into a recycle bin/deleted? victim! after he escaped from the animator’s neglect towards his feelings and sentience, victim is out to get his revenge. the recycle bin takes it’s inhabitants’ negativity (in greenscreen’s case, neglect), and turns it stronger upon their escape. green’s dunking of greenscreen into the recycle bin in ep 1 is symbolic of him ignoring his tendency to ignore and leave his friends behind in the pursuit of content creation. he does not actively work on stopping such behaviour, instead leaving it in a metaphorical (and literal) recycle bin, letting his habit of neglecting others in the chase for something he desires to grow. 

my theory is that greenscreen may come back in the last episode of the influencer arc, beating green at first, symbolising green’s negligence towards his friends’ feelings consuming him in his pursuit of content creation, but this is overcome as he realises the situation he is in - where he finally beats greenscreen and with him, his internal conflict, not by throwing him into the recycle bin where the neglect will be left to fester, but by coming to terms with his plight, communicating with his friends and agreeing to create the content that they want to create, putting an end to the negligence and laying greenscreen to rest.

(as of writing this, green’s newest video (reacting to my friends having fun without me) shows the rest of the CG being thrown around? it looks like they’re fighting something/someone, which is very likely whatever spawned from the recycle bin - i’m guessing this is greenscreen.)

TLDR: greenscreen is a physical manifestation of green’s neglect towards his friends AND his internal conflict, who will return in ep3 of the influencer arc, but will ultimately be beaten by green which symbolises him stepping back from content creation.

thanks for reading till the end! really appreciate it if you read the whole thing - once again this is purely my own speculation, opinions and theory!

[inksandpensblog]

Excellent post op, mind if I hop on?

Chosen uses his feet to fly exactly once. On Reddit.

Also text isn’t the only thing Chosen can eat with his pac-man mouth! In AvA2 he gobbles up several menu buttons as noogai is activating the antivirus.

(I do wanna note as an aside that Chosen actually isn’t unique in his ability to eat things that aren’t food, as we’ve seen Purple eat League data and we all know about Blue’s escapades…but he is still the only one with a mouth.)

It’s interesting that he doesn’t need the mouth to breathe fire but has used it when breathing fire anyway. I wonder if that means anything. (I once tried to figure out how many different fire-powers Chosen has by how the fire is stylized and whether certain stylizations correlate with how he uses it, since Dark’s fireballs are stylized very differently from the fire he uses to fly with; I failed because Chosen’s fire was animated differently in every episode of season 2 😭)

Thank you for emphasizing the lack of damage Chosen suffers from the vira-tech, as opposed to Orange. I've always found it interesting that Orange had visible wounds while Chosen didn't.

Also you’ve already pointed out the weather/cloud thing regarding his lightning, but something else interesting about his storm powers: of the three times he’s used them, he was only in the air for two, and both times he stopped using his fire to fly yet he remained in the air.

As for his vacuum-punch, as my discord friends call it, he does use it twice in The Flashback but the first time we actually see it is during his Return!

Interestingly, the Adobe debris seems to get pulled into it when he uses it here

(Would you believe I've been watching this series since 2017 and yet I only just noticed Chosen's double-jump for the first time earlier this year?)

Also Chosen has only said one word ever in his life.

Well, now that AvA 11 has put my heart in a wood chipper, let's finally get around to making a post about Chosen's powers! Which I've been meaning to do since I made my post about Dark's powers! Yippee!

(This post will contain no AvA 11 spoilers or screenshots, for the record.) (It is, however, very gif heavy, as a lot of their abilities/the examples I have are best viewed in motion.)

Like the Dark post, this isn't meant to criticize how anyone portrays Chosen's abilities. This is just a reference for what powers they're shown to have in canon, and how they seem to work. With that said, let's get into it.

Unlike Dark, Chosen never got any sort of power boosting/altering item (as of the time of writing, anyways). Their power set is straightforward, and largely consistent throughout the series. Most of the powers they have as of season 3, they've been shown to have had since AvA 2, excluding a handful of one-off abilities I'll make note of at the end.

Starting off with powers they share with Dark, and also their most used power, pyrokinesis. Their pyrokinesis seems to function pretty much identically to Dark's. They can fly, breathe fire, and throw fire as a projectile.

They're also shown setting themselves on fire, usually in a large, explosive blaze, which Dark is not shown doing.

And an interesting note: Chosen (and Dark too) seems to only produce fire from their hands and mouth. This appears to be true largely due to the fact that they only ever use their mouth or hands, even to fly, even when propelling themselves some other way may be more convenient.

I feel I should note here, as I said in the Dark post, that Chosen does not seem to be able to create 'fire bombs'. So far, the only characters shown to have that ability are Dark and Firefox.

They also share the heightened strength and resilience Dark has. Alongside this, Chosen seems to be resistant to deletion, being attacked by both Dark with the V blade, and the Virabots, multiple times, and showing no signs of the deletion that RYGB experienced, or even the physical damage sustained by Orange at Dark's hands.

Getting out of shared abilities, another common power of theirs is their lazer eyes. Able to cut through solid concrete, and the limbs of Virabots. They also seem to have a physical force to them, and can set things on fire.

They also have cryokinesis, the ability to create and control ice. They're able to create truly massive icebergs, and apparently also freeze themselves. Presumably, similarly to how their pyrokinesis seems to work, they likely have a resistance/immunity to freezing, hypothermia, etc as a result of this power, though that is largely speculative on my part.

I've seen people say before that Chosen seems to gain new powers sometimes, and I think they're usually talking about this ability or the next one I'll mention, but they've both been present since AvA 2!

Speaking of, they have... either electricity powers, or some sort of storm manipulation, I'm actually not 100% sure what's going on here.

They're capable of controlling/summoning electricity/lightning, but every time they do it, a storm cloud also forms. So... /shrug. Make of that what you will, I guess.

This ability does not seem to give them an immunity to electricity, much like electric eels.

Not totally certain if this counts as a power or not, but I have to make note of the pac-man mouth. What even is this thing (affectionate)

They can eat text, and breathe fire via this mouth. (Though it doesn't seem like the pac-man mouth is required for them to breathe fire, as they don't appear to use it in Wanted or The Box, despite breathing fire multiple times.)

This next part is where I'm gonna list all the powers that Chosen only uses once/a handful of times, and that don't seem to be directly linked to their other abilities in any way.

First up, in AvA 2, they double jump exactly once and never again. Please bring this back it's so unreasonably funny

The rest of their one-off powers come from season 2.

In The Chosen One's Return, they use some kind of golden wave attack to force the Virabot out of control of the PC, and back into a form that they can actually attack (and ultimately defeat). This attack seems to weaken the virus in some way, though it's not entirely clear why.

Also in this episode, we see Chosen create a Wifi portal for the first time. Some kind of white light appears, before the portal opens up under their hand. It's unclear if this is an ability unique to Chosen or not, but we also don't see them do this again after this moment.

And finally, in The Flashback, twice during the fight with Dark in their workshop, Chosen throws a punch that's surrounded by a swirling white light of some sort. It's very unclear what this is, or what it does exactly.

Good lord Chosen has a lot of powers. I guess they live up to their name??

I might make another post like this for Orange at some point, though I have a hunch that that would end up being outdated pretty quickly. Will probably do it anyways tho, if just for the sake of completing the set. That'd end up being a Lot of speculation tho, so...

[jetlaggingbehind]

thinking about wallace wells. thinking about going through hook ups like tissue paper, never believing anybody will stick around besides scott, who's here only because he has nowhere else to go, and you let him stay anyway even though he doesnt pay the rent. one of the only consistent people in your life, someone you might've actually genuinely liked straight up dying and leaving you with a sudden void of an empty apartment and a cold spot in a futon. thinking about immediately getting wasted and bringing a guy home, someone whose name you won't remember but it's okay because youre only in it for the sex— you dont believe in sparks, after all. believing that scott's conception of his one true girl was a joke because you just don't think you'll ever love anyone like that. kissing someone on a movie set because it's something to do, because he's dressed in the costume of somebody you cared for, because it's all manufactured, false realities and layers of separation deep enough for you to brush off his pleas for connection. thinking about going to paris after everything, the city of love, as tacky as that is, saying you're only there to spend money. but despite the insistence on irony you meet a guy— a fellow canadian, actually, twin foreigners in an unfamiliar place. someone who actually wants to stick around, who follows you through the city to see the sights and seems to genuinely like you. it can't be genuine, though— can't possibly be a reason to stay beyond a few hookups. so you stop at the river and you kiss him to get it over with...

but instead you see sparks.

[xjackjackx]

Not enough people are acknowledging the fact Dark's canonically a little bitch

Like, he acts like a coward in all three of his episodes. He begs for his life before Chosen in AVA 3. He panics when the computer's exploding in Flashback. He runs away from Orange in Showdown. And to clarify, it's not like a normal thing in AVA. This series is full of brave people, Dark is the outlier here.

Chosen thought clearly when the computer was exploding. He never needed a wristband to boost himself, he always had trust in his base abilities. He ran for his life only once in Wanted, besides that he's always brave, always fighting, never begging. Even in the Box, he refused to yield to Victim and almost defeated him through sheer determination.

King spent months learning all about Minecraft to achieve his goal. He fought like 11 people at once, even when brought back to a normal mortal he fought, almost regained his staff, and still managed to steal Yellow's while pinned and surrounded. He was never afraid, he always fought, he WON. He wasn't defeated. He willingly gave up.

Purple tanked a world-destroying beam just to save the first friends he ever made in his life, and call out to the one he viewed as a father figure. Even with minor characters; Herobrine stayed defiant, looked straight into King's eyes with rage as he was being absorbed. Even the Witch didn't panic when fighting Reuben, and fought until she was literally unable to cause she was a harmless dye.

Like, this isn't a common reocurrence. This is Dark being visibly the exception to a cast of extremely brave, determined fighters who never back down. Chosen plays fair, King earned his godlike power fair-and-square, Herobrine simply came in, saw the issue and threw hands without asking questions. Agent saw a pissed-off, flaming Superman-like stickfigure flying at him, went "Nah I'd win" and ACTUALLY WON with a single strike of Pause. Alan saw like 50 ViraBots charge at him when a single one beat his ass easily, and went in to attack them without a second thought. Dark's the one who sneaks in a power-up ability cause he's not doing good enough for his standards, and then sends like 50 people at 2 mfs cause he's still having trouble while acting all smug about it.

Dark is a massive, Grade-A loser and not some super-badass like I see fans make him out to be. Give my Pathetic Dark content. I want to see him act like a pussy

[stargirl230]

Heard there’s going to be another lxh movie!! and immediately renewed my hyperfixation by consuming all the available media in the franchise

(no reposts; reblogs appreciated)

[2skyflorix2]

Siciria Analyzes The Most Complex Stick Figures Known To Man (part 1)

SPOILERS FOR AVA / AVM / INFLUENCER ARC SERIES

READ AT UR OWN RISK

Also here's part 2

I was rewatching Influencer Arc Ep 1 because the music slays, and the fight choreography is just awesome.

*cut to Siciria chilling*

But then I noticed this;

So, to those of you that don't know what I'm talking about, I noticed that Blue just kind of waits there for a moment before going in to help Red. I wondered why, because throughout the series, these stick figures are shown to have really quick reaction times in these kinds of moments.

But then it hit me; it's about personality.

So then I decided to do a deep analysis of Blue's character, which is probably going to be the first of five parts (maybe even more) where I deep dive into everyone's traits and flaws and whatnot.

-

Here goes...

So, we've seen Blue as more of the pacifist assistant. He likes plants, netherwart, potions, and cooking. You don't really see him being the first to instigate something, or the star of a fight. Heck, even in the Raid episode, it's more focused on Yellow and the command block staff than him.

But we do see more of an aggressive trait as well, in that sometimes, he acts without thinking.

LIKE THE LAVA. HE DIDN'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT AND JUMPED INTO STICKING LAVA. WOW. WOWOWOW. WOWOWOW.

But, what startles me, is that even though he'll self-sacrificially jump to save someone, and follow someone without thinking, and needs someone to ground him (usually Yellow), there are also times where he just freezes. Like in the Influencer Arc. He freezes when Red is getting beat up by the clones, before shooting at them. His brain takes a second (hehe) to catch up.

And here, too. Yellow is making a plan, where Blue's emotions are overriding any sort of thought.

...BUT AT THE SAME TIME, we also see those two things coalesce together for the better. We see him take action instead of freezing, and actually think about what he's doing as well. And this moment in the battle against the King goes kind of unnoticed, in my opinion, since there were so many hard fighting sequences and emotional stakes.

LIKE WHAT THE STICK. HE LED AN ENTIRE VILLAGE INTO WAR, AND THEY WERE ACTUALLY ABLE TO HOLD THEIR OWN AND CAUSE THE PILLAGERS TO RUN AWAY WITH ABSOLUTELY NO CONTEXT OR PRIOR TRAINING (albeit before they came back with the evoker and illusioner)

But we also don't talk about how much he assists everyone else. Like here. Green would have gone flying twice if Blue didn't have the presence of mind to brace him.

I saw a comment under the video calling Blue the MVP of the fight against Greenscreen. And while I do harbor the opinion that everyone contributed a lot to the win (and don't really agree with the comment, as Green, Yellow, Red, and Second contributed so much too), you can't deny that he assisted everyone frequently during the fight, and was a key part of success.

Blue's character arc is something we don't really talk about much as a fandom, but there are truly some moments which are, like, really cool.

And the most important one of all, of course.

Bluecifer "Elsa" Blonde. (my fanmade name, tell me if u like it!)

#slayqueen

EDIT AS OF 9/24/24:

There's also something else I noticed. Blue is shown to be able to keep track of a lot of things at the same time as well, like the positioning of his friends in a battle, and enhance them properly. He knows exactly what they need and can deliver it to them.

In the Witch, when he arms himself with potions and starts fighting, he has the presence of mind to turn his friends into animals that can stop the witch. For example, when Red is about to strike, he turns him into a golem for it to pack more punch. It's truly amazing, because he was able to pinpoint that that was about to happen before it did.

And even with himself, when the witch started shapeshifting, he did too. He knew exactly which mob would combat which, and he might have won if he hadn't run out.

[emo-hermit]

SO i just got finished watching AVA in its entirety. general consensus is "holy shit, what am i about to get into". but either way, during the entire thing, i had a "Live Feed" document going, where I wrote down anything that came to my mind about each individual video.

so anyways, here is a brief summary of an autistic creative literature major's time watching AVA:

[splonk-fox]

The Psychology of The Dark Lord: An AvA Character Analysis

One of the most popular characters to ever be featured in the Animator vs. Animation universe is none other than The Dark Lord.

First being introduced in the penultimate episode of Season 1, the Dark Lord quickly gained prominence after his reintroduction in Season 2 a whole seven years later where, despite being (supposedly) killed off in that same season, quickly became a fan-favorite. Being used in many fanworks and a lot of fans clamoring to see his return to the series.

Yet, despite how popular he is, I feel like a good majority of the fandom don't really understand the Dark Lord's character. A lot of fans tend to depict him as things that he really isn't. Whether it be a caring friend to the Chosen One, or a tragic figure turned to villainy because of his creator's negligence, and while I have nothing wrong with deviating from canon a little bit when it comes to how you choose to portray characters, it did make me curious. Who is the Dark Lord, really. Well? To understand that. I think we must first understand where the Dark Lord's story started.

The Dark Lord first debuted in Animator vs. Animation 3. Created by the (at the time) villainous Alan Becker in order to destroy the Chosen One, he spends most of his screentime in this episode doing exactly that.

There's actually quite a lot we can learn about the Dark Lord from this first episode a lone. For starters, Dark likes destruction, a lot. The moment he sees Chosen the first thing he does is throw massive fireballs at him, destroying massive chunks of the the animation software they are both fighting on.

He also isn't above using the environment itself in order to give himself the upperhand, as seen by how he uses pieces of the animation program to attack Chosen throughout their one-on-one.

Another thing to note about Dark's fighting style is that he tends to work best when he has a group of minions assisting him. This is shown when he recruits the various Windows Applications to assist him in battle.

Generally speaking, Dark Lord is shown to be a pretty good improvisor, he has no trouble using the environment around him to his advantage along with coming up with plans to overwhelm Chosen on the fly as seen with the Windows Applications.

Aside from that, Dark is also a pretty big fan of going on the offensive. He immediately attacks the Chosen One without giving him a chance to really prepare himself, and he continues to try and overwhelm him while the latter mostly goes on the defensive.

This already shows a contrast between how Chosen and Dark operate. Aside from his introduction in Animator vs. Animation 2 and the beginning of Animator vs. Animation 3, Chosen is almost never the one to throw the first punch in any battle. More often than not he's the one responding to other characters' aggression.

What's more interesting than his fighting style however, is how Dark responds to his enemies getting the upperhand.

For context's sake, this is what happens after Chosen destroys the Minesweeper game Dark was trapped in using Firefox. We see here that the moment Dark is overwhelmed, he begins to cower in fear. It's scenes like this alongside other scenes that happen later in the series that make it very clear that Dark is only as strong as his ability to have the upperhand on his foes, the moment they get a leg up over him, he loses all fight and begins to cower.

We also get a taste of Dark's loyalty (or rather lack thereof) at the end of this episode. While we obviously don't know exactly what Chosen said to convince Dark to rebel against his creator, from an outsider's perspective all it really took for Dark to change sides was Chosen going "Hey you should stop fighting me and help beat the shit out of our creator instead." and him just going "okay."

You will see later on that Dark's willingness to forgo any loyalty to his allies is not exclusive to just Alan.

Now I should say, before anyone points this out, I'm aware that the popular consensus of Dark's change of heart at the end of Animator vs. Animation 3 had to do with the fact that Alan essentially left him to fend for himself against Chosen, and while this is true in a sense, there's no actual confirmation that this was Dark's reasoning.

Following Dark and Chosen's teamup, the two would destroy Alan's PC, escaping just in time before everything blows up.

I should note that, again, like with what we saw in Animator vs. Animation 3, the moment everything starts breaking, Dark just sort of freezes up and begins panicking while Chosen takes on a more proactive role, immediately running to the WIFI route and breaking it open for them to escape.

Yet again, Dark shows himself unable to handle situations where he isn't in control.

Regardless, one thing that can't be denied about the events of Animator vs. Animation 3 is that the destruction of Alan's PC clearly gave Dark a taste for destruction. Or should I say it gave him an even bigger taste in destroying things than he already had.

We learn through dates given by Animator vs. Animation 11 that following the events of Animator vs. Animation 3, Chosen and Dark went on a several month long rampage across the internet, destroying many websites and endangering countless lives in the process.

Now granted, the time they spent causing copious amount of destruction is actually a lot shorter than we first suspected. I and many other fans had the impression that everything we saw in the Flashback happened across the course of many years from 2011 to 2018, but this turned out not to be the case.

As of me writing this, the last known rampage the two went on together was in NewGrounds, which seemed to be by far the biggest of the bunch.

Prior to Animator vs. Animation 11, the only thing we really knew of the NewGrounds rampage was the single image you see above, but the rlease of that episode proved this incident to be far more devastating than we first suspected, it being the thing that would result in the death of Victim's partner Mitsi, leading to his fall to villainy.

Dark's overall screentime in Animator vs. Animation 11 is relatively short all things considered, only really appearing at the end. But it's also incredibly insightful when it comes to figuring out his character.

I mentioned this in my mini-analysis of the Chosen One's actions in Animator vs. Animation 11 (which you should totally check out by the way), but Dark's general disposition in this episode clearly shows off an aura of pride and arrogance.

Unlike Chosen whose emotions are... kind of impossible to read at least from a body language perspective, Dark clearly takes joy in the destruction he's causing and show's a general disregard for the lives of others as opposed to himself.

What Dark got up to after the NewGrounds rampage isn't exactly made clear, whether he continued destroying websites or settled down for awhile until 2018 when the events of Animator vs. Animation Season 2 would occur is unknown. What is known however is that while Chosen began having second thoughts about what they were doing, Dark only became more and more hellbent on the destruction of everything and everyone in sight.

When it comes down to it, both "The Flashback" and "The Showdown" are easily paint the clearest picture of the Dark Lord as a person.

Starting with The Flashback. We clearly see in this episode that following the destruction of Alan's PC, not only was Dark incredibly proud of his and Chosen's accomplishment, but that he had no intentions of stopping there.

We already know what happened with Chosen and Dark's rampage on the internet, now it's time we talk about what happens in the "present day" (or at least, the present day from an Animator vs. Animation Season 2 perspective)

In the time spent between their intial rampage and the events of Season 2, Dark shows off his technical prowess in the form of the ViraBots. Large, parasitic, spider-like entities who's sole purpose is to consume and destroy everything in sight. We see in the Showdown that Dark has direct control over everything that the ViraBots do and don't appear to have any free will of their own, the only ViraBot that seems to have any form of autonomy was the one he sent to Alan's PC, and even then it's possible that he was controlling that one as well seeing as he's seen working at one of his computers in the Showdown when Chosen first confronts him.

Keep in mind that this episode takes place directly after Chosen saved Alan's computer from the ViraBot, so I don't think it's out of the question to assume that this is what Dark has been up to during the events of those episodes.

Theories aside Dark continues to show off his pride in The Flashback where, after Chosen enters their shared home, he quickly shows excitement at his arrival before showing off the capabilities of the spines that the ViraBots use.

Clearly, Dark Lord has a lot of pride in his creations and wants Chosen to be excited too. He even goes as far as to send the very first one all the way back to their creator's PC for some good ol' revenge, likely thinking that Chosen would be more on board with his idea by sending it to the one person he should hate the most, oh how wrong he was.

Now, Dark's relationship with Chosen is a pretty big factor in his overall character and I do want to talk about that in more detail, but I first want to address the infamous "betrayal" scene.

To start things off simple, once again Dark shows his overall lack of genuine loyalty to his allies here by immediately dropping any and all friendliness with Chosen and attacking him with a fireball the moment the other shows objection to his plans. He shows very little hesitation in doing so and, despite what others may claim, was very clearly the aggressor in this situation. Chosen made no attempts to seriously harm Dark before Dark made attempts to seriously harm him.

The worst thing Chosen did at the beginning was throw Dark to the floor after the other refused to let up on sending the first ViraBot to Alan's computer, which in comparison to Dark's more destructive reaction, was overall pretty tame, and that's neglecting to point out that Chosen tried the passive approach at first and only got physical when Dark refused.

It's a hotly debated subject among the fandom as to who exactly betrayed who here, and quite frankly it doesn't really matter all that much, though for the sake of this analysis, let's explore the concept of "betrayal" and who between the two of them fits the definition more objectively.

According to Google, betrayal is defined as

"the action of betraying one's country, a group, or a person; treachery."

Now this alone doesn't really tell us anything about what it means to betray someone, luckily we have this definition from Vocabulary.com that gives us a more clear picture of what a betrayal actually is.

"Betrayal means "an act of deliberate disloyalty,"

So, at it's core betrayal means an act of deliberate disloyalty, which means that, unfortunately for Dark Lord defenders, means that he objectively fits the definition of betrayal more.

Chosen trying to stop Dark from releasing the ViraBot onto Alan's computer is not an act of disloyalty, it's merely him disagreeing with Dark's ideas, the closest you thing you can get to "disloyalty" from Chosen is him trying to shut down Dark's machine. Which really doesn't mean anything because as far as we know, Chosen never actually intended to double-cross Dark, he just wanted to stop him from sending a code-eating virus over to his creator's PC.

What can be classified as an act of deliberate disloyalty however is attacking your so-called best friend with a fucking fireball and immediately throwing hands with him before promptly doing the exact thing said best friend didn't want him doing in the first place. and I haven't even mentioned the ViraBands.

In case some of you didn't catch on from the episode, Dark Lord's ViraBands seem to have a built in feature that gives him immunity to Chosen's eye lasers. We see this in action when he quite literally surfs across them after he equips his first ViraBand.

My good friend @xjackjackx was the one to bring this to my attention and I feel it only strengthens my point, so big thanks to him for this little bit of trivia.

Regardless, this shows that even prior to this interaction, Dark had already gone out of his way to make a Wristband that was specifically designed to counter Chosen. Which either means he was planning on turning against him way sooner, or that he simply installed this as a keepsafe, likely having noticed how Chosen was beginning to have second thoughts about their destruction. In any case Dark clearly didn't trust Chosen enough to believe that his friend would stay by his side to not specifically invent a weapon that would give him the upperhand in a battle against him specifically.

This little big of trivia regarding the ViraBands' laser immunity actually does a lot to recontexualize their eventual falling out. Instead of Dark simply being excited to show Chosen his new invention and the latter not liking it, now it almost seems as if he was testing him. Testing him to see if Dark's plans to infest the Outernet with ViraBots was a step too far for Chosen. It would even explain why the example he showed of the ViraBots' capabilities was by destroying a globe, he was trying to test how far he could push Chosen before the other decided enough was enough.

It would also explain why Dark was so quick to resort to violence during their falling out, he had likely already seen this coming and had prepared himself for this exact interaction.

Now granted, a lot of this is speculation, and I'm not denying that, but I do at least think it's worth talking about, especially in regards to what is without a doubt the biggest point of contention with the Dark Lord's character...

His relationship with the Chosen One

This is definitely where opinions of Dark tend to differ the most. Either he and Chosen had a genuinely good relationship and that his actions in the Showdown were a product of him feeling both angry and betrayed by his former friend. Or conversely, that Dark never really cared much for Chosen to begin with. I've even seen some argue that Dark's actions are a result of his programming, Alan made him specifically to destroy the Chosen One after all, so perhaps this was simply him letting go.

Personally, I don't see much merit behind that interpretation, as far as we can tell Dark is completely unaffected by his programming and can basically do whatever the fuck he wants, unless you want to argue that he spent the past seven years holding back on his urges until Chosen conveniently decided to go against him.

Either way, that's not the point of this section. The point of this section is to analyze Chosen and Dark's relationship from as an objective level as humanly possible.

And... this is where I unfortunately have to throw in the towel, at least somewhat. The fact is we don't get enough of what Chosen and Dark's relationship was like beyond the snippets we see in the Flashback and Animator vs. Animation 11. What their relationship was like during the six years that followed their rampage is completely unknown and the best we can do is speculate. That said I do believe that by using context clues we could at least get a decent picture of what Chosen and Dark's relationship could've been like.

For starters, contrary to popular belief, it does seem like Dark had some sort of awareness of Chosen's change of heart. The mere existence of the ViraBands does enough to tell me that this was already something he had been suspecting long before their eventual falling out.

The second thing I should point out is that when it comes to the interactions that we do see, it seems kind of... one-sided. In the sense that while Dark is out here causing all of this destruction and enjoying it, Chosen does not, yet as we see in Animator vs. Animation 11 it seems like, at the beginning, Dark seemed to think he had a genuine comradery with Chosen, what with how he held up his hand for a high-five in that episode.

Generally speaking, I think Dark thought he had a positive relationship with Chosen until later down the line. At some point, he seemed to realize Chosen wasn't as enthusiastic about what they were doing as he thought, and so he created the ViraBands as a sort of keepsafe for if the other ever ends up turning against him.

With all this being said, what this does tell us is that Dark's habit of betraying his allies once it proves ideal is still very much a character trait of his long after he turned against his creator in Animator vs. Animation 3.

So do I think Dark just simply didn't care about Chosen? Ehhh, I think it's a little bit more complicated than that.

Something I haven't really gone into much detail on but I do think is important to Dark's character is the overall relationship he has with power.

I mentioned at the beginning of this analysis that Dark shows the most confidence when he has some form of power over his opponent.

In Animator vs. Animation 3, he confidently fights against Chosen because from a logical level, he has the advantage. He has Alan to help him fight Chosen, he also has the Windows Applications to help him fight. From his perspective he is the one with the most power in the situation.

During the NewGrounds rampage, Dark shows his power over his victims by destroying their homes and ending their lives, yet again he's in a position of power and shows himself to be incredibly prideful about it.

As for Season 2? Beyond being able to cause as much destruction as he possibly can, him attempting to sicc the ViraBots onto the rest of the Outernet is, again, a pretty big show of power.

When it comes to his fights with Chosen, Dark shows himself to be at his most agile and boastful once he equips the ViraBands and sends out the ViraBots.

See here that Dark has his arms out towards Alan's cursor as the ViraBots attack it, almost as if to say "come and get me". He is taunting him because he has the leg up on him, he has the power and he's exerting it over his enemies.

This is all to say, Dark absolutely loves to feel in control, perhaps out of some form of insecurity over losing his first fight to Chosen? Who knows, regardless it's pretty clear that Dark loves to feel strong. It's why I believe he made the ViraBots completely subservient to him, that way he can always have control.

And this all leads me back to Chosen.

I believe that, in a roundabout way, Dark did care about Chosen, but more in the sense that Chosen makes him feel powerful. With Chosen, the two were able to destroy Alan's PC, with Chosen, Dark was able to lay waste to many websites, leaving them in complete ruin.

Dark loves power, and Dark "loves" Chosen because he gives him that sense of power.

But what happens when the very person who gives him this sense of power was now actively trying to take it away? Well, you get what happens in Season 2, a Showdown.

Many have noted that Dark, for as brutal as he was with him, never actually tries to kill Chosen, he merely overwhelms him with the ViraBots before setting them off to ravage the internet while Chosen just sits and watches.

Now while you could argue this as simple circumstance, I think a more interesting way to look at it is that Dark is trying to prove a point to Chosen. He's trying to prove that he has the power and that Chosen should know better than to try and take that away from him.

It was never about eliminating Chosen, it was all about proving a point.

But in the end, in an ironic twist of fate, instead of proving that he was the strongest, Dark would end up having his ass handed to him by an Awakened Second Coming, the last thing he sees before being absolutely incinerated (as far as we know) is the green eyes of the stick figure who was so much stronger than he could ever be.

It's rather ironic that the very last thing Dark does before being absolutely pummeled by Second is try to run away. In the end, no matter how much power he attempts to give himself, no matter how confident he would like to make himself seem, Dark is ultimately just as much of a coward as he was all the way back in Animator vs. Animation 3. Because the only thing that truly scares him, is the idea of having absolutely no power or control over his own fate.

Ultimately, this is all my own personal interpretation of the Dark Lord's character. I honestly didn't expect this post to be as long as it was, but the more I dug deeper into the nuances of this character, the more surprised I was by just how interesting he actually was.

This is not to say I believe my way of interpreting Dark is the objectively correct one, but I do feel at least somewhat confident in the conclusions I have come to. I do hope that the upcoming mini-sodes Alan plans on making takes the time to shed some light on the finer details, like what exactly Chosen and Dark's relationship was actually like.

But until then, that'll be all folks! Thanks to everyone who stuck through this entire analysis, I know it was a bit of a lengthy read, but I appreciate it either way. Feel free to leave your own thoughts on this post via reblogs/comments, I would love to see what ya'll think of this analysis.

Anyways, I've yapped long enough. Again, thank you all for reading and I hope to bring you all more things like this in the near future.

[tallsc]

Okay something I'm noticing with the current Green arc (which I've found incredibly interesting as a whole btw, I've just been busy irl so haven't found the time or words to do a full analysis on or contribute to every amazing analysis I've seen by other people) is the glasses.

Note: I don't have Tiktok and don't really have the ability to view things on it, and I don't have an Instagram either, so I may be missing a few things. I'm mainly focusing on the Youtube aspect of this.

I've seen mention that Green's been losing energy, getting less involved with their friends, and generally doing more clickbait-y and iffy videos. But also they've been starting to wear these glasses more - and I think that's a pretty direct representation of when Green's behavior, energy, creations, and friendship have all been going downhill.

For the basketball, superhero saga, and most of the Minecraft vlog (also the Tiktok announcement, which I'm not sure where that fits in), Green has just been Green, no glasses or anything. And that's when they seem to have the most energy, and have been doing things with their friends. Sure it's silly and a bit over-the-top, but it seems like everyone's legitimately having fun, and everyone's involved. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the popups and stuff over the vlog video was done by other sticks just wildly tossing in effects like they did in the first official video.

But at the end of the vlog video, and for most of the recent things, Green put on these orange-rimmed sunglasses. And the end of the vlog video is when we first started seeing the rest of the CG looking less than pleased with the videos. And after that, Green's started doing things that not even they seem happy with - the couch challenge, or the eating grass.

So I believe the sunglasses are a symbol of that. Of abandoning friendship in favor of personal goals, and losing yourself and your enjoyment of the world in the process.

Because this isn't even the first time a similar pair of sunglasses were used to express that.

Orange abandoned their friends so Orange could do something they thought would be better and make them happier. Until they realized it didn't, and realized they were wrong, then they put down the glasses and went back for their friends.

Hopefully Green learns to put down the glasses too.

[echostarz123]

rant about Mitsi

(Spoilers for AvA 11)

First of this might be a hot take but she is not a badly written character!!

Mitsi was shown to be kind and sweet and a "typical female character" but she wasn't shown like that cause she was a girl she was shown like that to actually show that she was genuinely kind. I've also seen people complaining about her "overly feminine" design, but Alan has created characters that are female who aren't overly feminine like pink/orchird. None of the stick figures even technically have genders so there isn't a point in that argument.

And about her actual character, the reason she seems basic is because we didn't get to spend much time with her. Try and tell me you knew Tsc's personality in the episode he was introduced. It takes time to show off characters personalitys and I completely understand why Alan didn't spend that time with Mitsi. He was focusing on plot point and the backstory. He wanted us to know about her existing and being in Victims life but not to get us attached.

The reason she was made by Alan and his team was to show that Victim experienced kindness. Someone have him kindness and it was taken away. Just because she was used as a tool in the plot doesn't mean she exists for Victim.

[tangents-from-an-awkward-void]

Obsessing over Av11 and the Mitsi-Victim-Agent trio (I know Agent was just a security guard but he was there for a damn long time)

Four years. Four years, the three knew each other-- and then Mitsi just gets ripped away, all due to two sticks that seemingly came from nowhere and just caused havoc.

Victim's devastated - by the loss of his partner, by the loss of his company. And, as seen time and time again, there comes revenge.

Agent, being a Newgrounds stick, wouldn't know about the cursors that Victim has some sort of past with, just the internet terrorist duo. But when Victim connects them to the cursor that's haunted him for the last 18 years, it's obviously gotten even more personal.

And Agent sticks with Victim the whole way through. The tools in his toolbelt increase, both literally and figuratively, with his combat (though that could have always been the case). He knew him and Mitsi well. He has a connection with the company, and not just in work. He also feels the pain of Mitsi's loss.

They're still the antagonists. But they're understandable antagonists; Victim is simply getting payback for the years of torment and pain those sticks and his creator have caused him. Agent is just following his old colleague with a goal he might just share.

Framed differently from canon, it's almost a protagonist's goal for revenge.

The issue is when innocents get roped into the mix -- the Color Gang. Though Victim has reasons for the Color Gang's treatment (Orange is another one of Alan's creations, and the RGBY quartet are connected to him and therefore Alan).

You really get a feel for both sides; the Color Gang is just helping (to dubious wish, seeing as Chosen just dragged Orange out) the guy that saved them in Virabot/TCO's Return, Chosen is getting hunted down for his creator for some reason, and Victim wants revenge for TCO, TDL, and Alan's torment.

[poppyflavour]

Hi!

You can decide not to answer if you don't want to, and I won't absolutely judge anything, but what kind of relationship you see for the Hollow Heads?

Just curious

Tl;dr: Hollow heads are all siblings

Sorry if you meant it feelings-wise, but I used this ask to explore and put on paper some of my interpretation and story/world building

[astronnonyy]

(Post about Chosen's powers!)

I've noticed some misconceptions about how Dark's powers work in my time in the fandom, some of which I believed myself, so I thought I'd make a post going over their powers and how they seem to work within AvA canon. I'm mostly just making this for my own reference, but hopefully this will be useful for other people too 👍

(For the record, I'm not trying to call out or criticize anyone by making this, it's purely for reference purposes. You do whatever you want when writing/drawing stuff)

Without Wristbands

Without the wristbands introduced in The Showdown, Dark only has three* powers that we're ever shown, compared to the four+ that Chosen has, which I will describe below.

The power they use the most is pyrokinesis, much like Chosen has. They can create fire, and use fire to fly.

They're also shown to be able to breathe fire like Chosen does, despite not having a visible mouth (ie. A pac man mouth).

Dark can also create what I can only think to call fire bombs, and has done so in every episode they've appeared in. These are unique to them and Firefox, and Chosen is not shown to share this ability, (which leads me to believe that this is not directly linked to their shared pyrokinesis abilities).

*I'm not sure if this counts as one power or two, but I'm going to talk about them as two facets of one power.

Dark and Chosen both seem to possess some sort of heightened physical resilience, as well as super strength. Being thrown through walls, and throwing others through walls, with little to no actual damage being sustained.

(It's difficult to get proper screenshots of this, but you can see it in just about every scene the two are part of.)

There's also. whatever the hell this attack was. which I can only think to put under this section, because they never do anything like this again.

At no point is Dark shown to have laser eyes as part of their normal powers.

With Wristbands

With the wristbands, Dark's power set completely changes. They're never shown using their normal powers again after this point, which leads me to think they may not be able to, though that's 100% speculation on my part.

They gain a number of new abilities, as well as a boost to their physical strength and resilience, seeming to surpass Chosen's abilities. Specific powers and abilities are described below.

They gain multiple abilities previously used by the Virabots, including the ability to fly/levitate without the use of fire (which they could not do previously), and summon spikes that delete things they hit.

There's also some things that seem to be unique to them in this state, namely being some sort of black energy balls they can throw, laser eyes of their own, and, most iconically, the ability to summon the V blade.

The exact properties of these abilities (minus the blade) are unclear.

The V blade, however, is a sharp, sword-like weapon, which has the ability to cut through and instantly destroy normal stick figures, reducing them to code. It, alongside the Virabots themselves, also seems to severely weaken both Chosen and Alan's cursor, ultimately destroying the latter and kicking Alan out of the battle.

Dark seems to be able to easily outpace Chosen with the wristbands on, throwing them around and eventually pinning them down with the help of the Virabots.

It also appears that they may have gained an immunity/resistance to Chosen's laser eyes, or at least they're less concerned about them. Previously in both AvA 3 and The Showdown, they're shown to run away and avoid being hit by the lasers, but after putting on the wristbands, they tank laser beams with no hesitation.

I don't really have much of a conclusion to this post, so I'll leave it here for now. Hopefully this is useful, or at least interesting, to others! ✌

[jetlaggingbehind]

tbh i think it's kind of fascinating how because spto is more from ramona's perspective, we see scott with rose-tinted lenses, since this time round the show's much more interested in ramona's issues. so a lot of the deep meditations on scott's character and his internal perspective aren't explored, literally turning the viewpoint around so that we see him like ramona does: nerdy, cute, kind of immature but sweet and funny and makes good conversation and asks for consent. we don't see the panicky stuff going on in scott's head, or the various assholish and shitty things he does when they're not together. it instead gives us a better look at how ramona is broken, in her own ways: how she's flawed, not just the girl that scott idolises and chases after. And in the same way we also see why in the world somebody like ramona flowers, who seems so untouchable and out of his league, would fall for scott in the first place. He's not anything like her past super strong, super smart, super famous exes— even his fighting skill doesn't overshadow the fact that he's just kind of lame. but in a way that's what endears him to her: the ways that he's different has her consider the potential that things could turn out different for them. that idea drives her to try to fix what happened, a direct mirror of the comic narrative.

look at this look they give each other in the epilogue!! they're good together when they work on themselves and are willing to change for the better!!

[xjackjackx]

Thinking about ChoDark and VicAgent. Not in a shipping sense, just the two relationships in general.

Thinking about how both are evil people, but one is clearly more evil than the other.

Thinking about how the more evil one "lost" someone they trusted, sending them on an evil path, but the less evil one was there for them.

Thinking about how both duos hate that cursor, but one more than the other.

Thinking about how both duos were the other's only friend for years on end.

Thinking about how the less evil one tried to reach out to the more evil one, but they didn't care.

Thinking about how the less evil one saved the more evil one's life, but they did not give a shit and never repaid the favor.

Thinking about how Chosen tried to convince Dark to back down, only for Dark to show he viewed him as disposable.

Thinking about how Agent will likely try to convince Victim to back down, only for Victim to show he viewed him as disposable.

[kushamisaru]

Bowser clutching a win because his troops love him and are loyal to him...