Mike said:
Since we talk Voltron every now an then in this game, I figured I’d share this post of actual production art from season one of Voltron: Legendary Defender. Always interesting to see impressive work starting somewhere.
Very cool.
Also cool to see the S.6 drop date (15 June). 
author: *** Dave H.
url: Community Forums: General Inspiration Thread | Roll20: Online virtual tabletop
So was watching some breakdown videos about Thor Ragnarok (as you do) and they brought up that the music for the trailer was a song by a group called Magic Sword (specifically, In the Face of Evil). Did some further digging and, while they appear to only have one album, that album sounds like the soundtrack to some amazing space fantasy epic that we were never given. Certainly worth a listen if this is your sort of thing (I would compare it favorably to Daft Punk’s Tron Legacy soundtrack).
author: Mike
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6419469
Definitely has that New Retro Wave thing going on. I checked and they in fact have a review of the Thor Ragnarok soundtrack here. Similar acts would include Dynatron and pretty much anything else on this YouTube channel.
Edit: the genre in general is called Synthwave. There’s a ton of other interesting stuff happening in neighboring spaces, like Electro swing (a friend of mine literally asked me “hey, I want some music like from the Star Wars cantina” and I could point him to an entire genre).
author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6419496
Thanks for the links Bill!
I remember enjoying the music quite a bit throughout Thor Ragnarok. Reading that review and realizing that Mark Mothersbaugh was the one who put the soundtrack together made that make a lot of sense.
author: Mike
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6419593
In other news, self-healing circuits are a thing now. Seems like something up the Newman alley.
author: Mike
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6419798
Mike said:
In other news, self-healing circuits are a thing now. Seems like something up the Newman alley.
There’s a ton of interesting stuff in that field. The carbon nanotubes that the robots use will “heal” naturally, for example, as an integral chemical property rather than any explicit nanotech. You can’t really stop it without some kind of exotic comic-book physics.
I can’t find where it was reported (and hence where I saw it), but this paper describes a related idea - how do you make a power distribution system stand up to stress, and self-heal if possible? Running an ionic solution across graphene layers produces an electrical current. The robots have a circulatory system of ionic “blood”, and as long as it’s pumping, they don’t worry about cut or bent wires. Conduction is through a fluid medium rather than a wire (which can bend or break), so it’s much harder for them to lose power.
Leo’s taking absolutely no chances that mechanical failure will kill his friends.
author: Bill G.
url: Community Forums: General Inspiration Thread | Roll20: Online virtual tabletop
Found this online actually sung by members of the Voltron cast. https://youtu.be/zoeGe82AFm0
author: James H.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6434646
So this article is far from perfect (it’s got some factual errors, not to mention a few too many shakes of polemic stirred in), but it raises at least a few interesting questions that had knock-on applicability to this campaign: Why Must Robot Women Fall in Love to Be Human?
(Applicability at least as a contra-factual discussion item. I personally don’t think Summer shows a particular imperative to romantic entanglement, somewhat to Jason’s conflicted frustration. And even though Aria and Leo are in relationship, to Alycia’s distaste, with reverberations of Leo / Pneuma’s original creation tale, Aria’s humanity doesn’t seem dependent on her love affair with Leo. But they are both noteworthy in that way, as well in how their “humanity” story feel different from Otto’s.
author: *** Dave H.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6467521
Subverting that trope into the ground is the reason for Pneuma’s existence, yeah. It’s been really important for me to give her things to do outside “be in a relationship”. Even if they weren’t in love, for example, she’d be acting as his business partner, looking after her sister, having stern talks with Alycia, etc. I’ve got a scene that needs Leo, Aria, and Summer back together that’ll talk more about this too.
author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6467552
I guess I can go one further: I’d like to think that the test of Pneuma’s personhood was that she could grow past “being in love with a human male”.
author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6467563
I’m a big believer, personally, in the transformative power of love, and its critical role in growth as a human. But I agree that being a human/person is more than just romantic love, and for many people growing past just that being the focus of their existence is a sign of truly growing up.
(Indeed, I could wax eloquent, and preach to the choir in some instances, about the dangers of the monomaniacal blindness of young romance/sexuality that becomes a barrier to growth as a person, and how, when growth does inevitably occur, those relationships are difficult to sustain.)
The Pneuma / Numina / Aria / Summer tale is very refreshing in going beyond those happily-ever-after mythology (even while it has richer happily-ever-after aspirations).
(Alycia judges the Newmans unfairly, not just in their origin, but in how they are far exceeding what she sees them as being, including in these particulars.)
author: *** Dave H.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6467653
James H. said:
Found this online actually sung by members of the Voltron cast. https://youtu.be/zoeGe82AFm0
I should have said this before…
Thank you!
author: Bill G.
url: Community Forums: General Inspiration Thread | Roll20: Online virtual tabletop
I’m not saying this is Alycia. Or Jason. Just … putting it out there, because we’ve gotten so multiversal …
author: *** Dave H.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6483997
I have no idea if Dave has seen this, but if not, I think this is Alycia Chin: The Movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwLY3aiT26U&feature=youtu.be
author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6502332
HA!
author: *** Dave H.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6502824
Hmmm, someone on the G+ community is making a very Charlotte-centric playbook. A couple of the moves could use some work (Chivalry Isn’t Dead, while flavorful and has a trigger I’d expect for this kind of character, mechanically is very odd and doesn’t really benefit you) but I think it is going in an interesting direction.
author: Mike
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6508370
ZOE Official Trailer (2018): https://youtube.com/watch?v=iqQu4p-0S80
Lea Seydoux, Ewan McGregor, Rashida Jones, synthetic lifeforms built to love. Hmm…
author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6516073
Don’t know if anyone follows the Humble Bundles or not, but this week they’ve got a lot of DC Comics audiobooks by GraphicAudio. Can’t speak to the quality of these (I’m downloading a couple now and prepping for work tomorrow) but I know I’ve gotten a couple of books from GraphicAudio before and the quality and production values were very well done.
author: Mike
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6529931
After seeing this, I’m kind of looking forward to the Menagerie all tiredly wandering into a Waffle House or something post-battle sometime in the future. Sure I remember the pizza party, but it doesn’t have that same “Ugh, why am I not dead? At least the food’s good.” feeling.
author: Mike
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6546979
I’m totally down for a grateful-to-be-alive binge at the local greasy spoon or equivalent.
author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6547061
