Latest Steven Universe Episode Changes EVERYTHING

The most recent episode of the Carton Network series Steven Universe, entitled "A Pale Rose" dropped a stunning revelation that affects the entire series' backstory as well as existing relationships in the show.

I'm going to review the reveal, some of the hints that I think were dropped along the way, and what it means about the show's characters AND characterization.

Discussion in this post from here on out will be a gigantic spoiler, so I've put the rest of the post behind a "read more" link. Click below to read the rest of the post.

LiveJournal's Mascot Returns With Artistic Rebellion...

Image description: Cartoon of an adult man with black hair, full beard, glasses
and a pencil stuck behind his ear. A speech bubble reads: "Hi! I’ m Ryan. A decade ago,
I worked with LiveJournal to create a comic based on their mascot Frank the Goat. When LJ
was sold to a russian company that I didn’t know how to get in touch with, it seemed like a good
place to end the comic. Over the years, I heard vague things about the site going on to ban political
& pro-lgbtq content but I didn’t really know the extent of what had happened until I heard the
latest episode of the Reply All podcast which alleges that moving the servers to Russia was part
of a violent, sustained campaign by the Russian government to silence and punish critics and
 journalists. While listening, I realized that since I had quit the comic myself, the contract
that allowed me to make frank comics had never actually been cancelled. Which means I have
the authority and login credentials to do this...

Over ten years ago, LiveJournal was the premier place to host online journals-- usually for spaces and accounts that were too personal or niche to be labled as blogs. Like many web properties run by nerds with goofy senses of humor, LiveJournal had a mascot: Frank the Goat. LiveJournal hired comics artist Ryan Estrada to write and draw a webcomic starring Frank the Goat that continued on for a few years before finally coming to an end in late 2008. In 2007, LiveJournal's parent company was sold to a Russian media group, SUP Media. Company operations were still based out of a California office, until 2016 when there was a sudden move of all of the site's servers to servers physically located in Russia. Not long afterwards, the terms of service for LiveJournal were updated to "comply with Russian law".

The new terms of service stated that all users are subject to Article 10.2 of the Federal Act of the Russian Federation No. 149, which dictates that blogs with more than 3000 daily visitors are classified as media outlets and may not be published anonymously, are responsible for the dissemination of unverified information, and are restricted from posting obscene language, or "extremist materials" and are subject to Russia's anti-gay laws. After Estrada listened to a Reply All podcast that put forth the case that SUP Media was doing this in order to help the Russian government crack down on reporters and critics of the government, he remembered that he still had the login credentials for the Frank the Goat Comic account. Even better, they still worked.

So he created and uploaded this comic to the official mascot comic account here, which as of this morning is still live on LiveJournal's site. You can listen to the Reply All podcast in question here.

This Cute Hedgehog May Change Movies & Virtual Reality

Description: A cartoon illustration of Henry, a hedgehog, looking
at the  viewer, smiling and waving hello.

 Henry is the star of a self-titled animated short. It's about a hedgehog who likes to hug that feels lonely on his birthday. He makes a wish for friends to celebrate with... which is when a little birthday magic  grants his wish... in the form of baloon animal friends, which is a little difficult for a hedghog to hug. The short is an original story created by former Pixar animator Ramiro Lopez Dau, who is also the director of the animated short. He is joined by fellow former Pixar artist Bernhard Haux and a former Dreamworks production designer Kendal Cronkhite who halped the director and animation crew develop the signature  look and feel of the project. Sounds like a cute, promising animated film, right? Henry isn't just a short-- it's an animation experience because it's also an interactive virtual reality. Take a look at the sneak peek below:



Sure, the team could have gone with something more action packed or gritty or science fictionish or, well, game-like, since this short will ship for free with the rollout of the virtual reality Occulus Rift system to consumers. In a WIRED featured article entitled "The Most Important Movie of 2015 Is a VR Cartoon About a Hedgehog" (seriously), the team explains that they wanted to give the experience an emotional connection, too:

It wasn’t just that Story Studio needed Unreal to do something it wasn’t made for. They also wanted to do things that had never been done in movies, period: they want Henry to look you in the eye, no matter where you are in his virtual world. At its core, Henry is a simple story... There are emotional ups and downs, and when Henry experiences a certain feeling, he looks at the viewer to share his sadness or excitement. This is an incredibly rare thing. It’s also unnerving; the first time I tried an early demo, I immediately felt like a voyeur, as if I was spying on this poor hedgehog during his sad solo birthday. But in VR, the whole point is that you’re meant to feel as though you’re physically there ... it’s weird if Henry doesn’t [notice]. “It’s just like ‘Why don’t you look at me? I’m right here!'” Unseld laughs. But when he does it carries an emotional connection, an empathy, that even those abused action figures in Toy Story 3 didn’t quite muster. 

You can read the whole article here and read more about Henry here.

Best Possible Version of Young Justice Released

Young Justice was a series that was canceled despite good ratings and a large fan base and is a prime example of a great series cancelled way too soon. There were a few DVDs released, but they were released across 4 bare-bones DVDs and DVD set in a confusing manner. Now Young Justice fans get some entertainment justice The complete first season of Young Justice was released on Blu-ray yesterday!

No word on a second season yet, but word is that strong sales of this DVD will send a strong case for releasing the rest of the series in a similar fashion.