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NÂş001Monthly June 2020 (CONT.) 2.95â‚Ź

Top Secret A peak on the SCP Foundation and all its terrefying mysteries

The New

Marvel Series Find out fresh new details on the adventures of Loki, Falcon and many other heroes.

Stranger Things Sci-fi inventions parallels with DnD that became reality Discover how Stranger Things is just one big Dungeons and Dragons campaign gone wrong

From energy guns to the hypospray, find out which revolutionary invetions were based on science finction

Nยบ001 June 2020

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How The Audio For Anime Are Created

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Sci-fi inventions that became reality

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Marvel Series

Found Artists

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David Tennant

Character of the Month

Index

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Stranger Things Parallels with DnD

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The Umbrella Academy

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Welcome to the SCP Foundation

How English Audio For Anime are Created Anime may come from Japan, but a good deal of the way it's brought to English-speaking audiences is with an English language audio track. It's hard (bordering on impossible) to get anime aired on TV without it sporting English audio, and so a dub is vital to getting a given anime series or movie in front of the widest possible audience.

Here's a breakdown of the way English-language dubbing works for anime, as gleaned through discussions with industry professionals and voice actors.

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The vast majority of the time, an anime is provided by its original Japanese licensors with no English subtitles or audio whatsoever.

First step, then, is to create an English translation of the Japanese audio.

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he translation process demands broad cultural knowledge of Japan, and sometimes knowledge of a highly specific or technical area. Many anime that focus on the supernatural or Japan’s history require an understanding of some fairly esoteric aspects of Japanese culture in order to be coherent.

The most difficult titles, though, are those that involve current, cutting edge references to Japanese popular culture. They may involve references that even some native Japanese might miss. Try to imagine someone from outside the U.S. watching an episode of The Simpsons and imagining how much would simply fly over their heads.

Translation A

few anime titles are the exeption, typically theatrical films, may be released to DVD/BD in Japan with English subs included. However, that translation is almost never reused if the same title is localized by a U.S. releasing company.

Top Best Anime Streaming Sevices

Best Dubs

Best Subs

Best Options

Free Account Option

No Free Account Option

No Free Account Option

Notable Original Content/Exclusives:

Notable Original Content/Exclusives:

Notable Original Content/Exclusives:

Ghost Hunt, Nichijou, Unbreakable Machine Doll

A Place Further Than the Universe, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, Laid-Back Camp

Princess Principal, Bloom Into You

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ne good example: the Studio Ghibli films, many of which did include English subtitles in their Japanese releases. When Buena Vista (the Walt Disney Company) licensed the films for U.S. release, they created their own English translations from scratch.

In the case of Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke, they even retained famed fantasy author Neil Gaiman to polish the dub script and give it the poetry it needed.

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he translation produced from the show’s Japanese voice track is not what’s used to actually create the dub. Instead, another writer will take the translation and any associated notes or documentation, and produce from that the actual adaptation dubbing script. Some writers are themselves voice actors as well, which allows them to both expand their creative horizons and bring an “in the booth” understanding of what’s needed to the scriptwriting process.

What makes this stage most difficult, and most crucial, is that several goals all have to be met at once. The second and third points are both parts of a larger issue: fidelity.

The dialogue has to fit comfortably into the same amount of time as the original speech, to make it easier to “match mouth flap flaps”.

The script has to sound natural to English speakers.

Japanese grammar is entirely unlike English, and so sentences might have to be restructured completely in order to fit in the same space. What can be said in a few words in Japanese might take a whole sentence in English or vice versa.

Plot points, subtle emphases, and other crucial information all have to be conveyed. It’s too easy to lose these things in the shuffle.

S A show set in the modern day, though, can swap more of its Japanesecentric gags for matching Western pop culture concepts. Steins; Gate, for instance, had an English dub script positively peppered with this sort of thing, as a way to replicate the snappy back and forth banter of the original show.

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ome shows may abandon any attempt at being faithful at all, but only if the material calls for it.

Shinchan was rewritten from scratch for its English dub, in big part because the original was such a blizzard of culturally specific gags that any attempt to be faithful would have just collapsed in on itself.

The Japanese licensors for the show heartily approved of this approach.

RR ee cc oo rr dd ii nn gg SS ee ss ss ii oo nn ss Top Best Anime Voice Actors

Johnny Yong Bosch is the voice of:

Laura Bailey is the voice of:

J. Michael Tatum is the voice of:

Ichigo Kurosaki (Bleach) Izaya Orihara (Durarara) Lelouch (CodeGeass) Nobita (Doraemon)

Chun-Li (StreetFighter) Lust (FullmetalAlchemist) Iga Oboro (Basilisk) Maka Albarn (SoulEater)

Sebastian (BlackButler) Erwin (AttackonTitan) Zarbon (DragonBallKai) France (Hetalia)

The director may also work with the actors to produce a specific effect in their performance. Brina Palencia, for instance, took subtle cues from Katharine Hepburn when creating her performance for Holo the Wise Wolf in Spice & Wolf.

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uring the actual recording process, a key element is what voice actors and directors refer to as “matching flap.” “Flap” is slang for a character’s on-screen mouth movements, and so the actor voicing the character has to time his speech to match, if only roughly when there are mouth movements.

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nce a dub script has been written from the translation, the next step is to cast suitable actors for the dub and produce a recording from it.

When a show’s voice cast assembles, the choices usually are dictated by the voice actors’ existing roster of performances or their general mien.

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t isn’t always possible to be completely accurate, but it helps to preserve as much of the illusion as possible.

This becomes doubly difficult given that the flaps are originally timed for Japanese speech; as per above, the differences in syntax and speech patterns means it can sometimes be difficult for the dialogue to be stretched or squashed to fit.

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It is not just the movies for Marvel anymore. There is a whole host of new Marvel TV shows to get excited about in 2020 and beyond. That includes the likes of key MCU entries which will presumably shake up Marvel Phase 4 in a big way, plus those that do not quite fall under the control of Kevin Feige (yet) such as a M.O.D.O.K animated series and even some Spidey shows that are swinging on by in the future.

Spoiler warning! The events of Avengers: Endgame are so important to the future of Marvel TV that numerous spoilers lie ahead.

awkeye is the last of H the current batch of new Marvel TV shows from this stage of the MCU to be released.

Arriving in Fall 2021, the Hawkeye series will launch on Disney Plus and will see Clint Barton training up Kate Bishop to be his replacement.

Not much else is known about the series, not even who will be playing Bishop, though Hailee Steinfeld was attached to the role at one point.

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The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is the first of the new Marvel TV shows debuting on Disney Plus later this year. While we do not know a release date outside of the August 2020 window, we do now have the first look at the first post-Endgame, thanks to a Super Bowl Marvel spot.

Take a look at the trailer now, which also shows off a very quick rearend-focused look at U.S. Agent, played by Wyatt Russell.

Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan are back as Falcon and Winter Soldier.They’ll be joined by the aforementioned Russell, as well as a returning Baron Zemo (Daniel Bruhl). Further filling out the cast is another familiar face: Emily VanCamp is back as Sharon Carter.

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arvel and Disney are taking their new MCU spin-offs on Disney Plus very seriously indeed. Just to prove it, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige told Variety:

It looks like the next generation of new Marvel TV shows aren’t simply going to be cynical cashins.

"I think it is time for Bucky to go out there and have an identity outside of the circumstances that we have met him through."

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he Falcon and the Winter Soldier could even be home to the genesis of the X-Men. Kinda. A recent set photo clearly shows the flag of Madripoor, a fictional country best known for playing a significant role in a handful of X-Men comics down the years.

Stan said at an unnamed comic convention, while Mackie said at SDCC that he wants to find out...

"...what makes The Winter Soldier tick and what ticks him off."

"These episodes will intersect with the movies in a hatever happens, if very big way, It is the show echoes the a totally new form espionage heavy tone of of storytelling that we get to play with Captain America: Winter Soldier, they won’t have and explore."

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any complaints from us.

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oki has the potential to be the biggest of all of Disney Plus’ MCU shows, seeing as the trickster god is by some distance the highest profile character making the move to television. And just when you thought this new Marvel TV show had to be a prequel series detailing the God of Mischief’s history as a thorn in his brother’s side, Avengers: Endgame changed the rules again. After being unceremoniously executed by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, Loki’s earlier incarnation found a Tesseract-shaped escape route during Captain America, Iron Man and Ant-Man’s trip back to the timeline of the first Avengers movie.

Back in February 2019, the Hollywood Reporter said that the new show will see Loki (Tom Hiddleston reprising his role from the movies)

"popping up throughout human history as an unlikely influencer on historical events"

A fact seemingly confirmed by Kevin Feige’s appearance at an investor event where a photo in the background shows Loki in a ’70s city as Jaws is playing at the cinema.

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owever, Feige said at SDCC 2019 that the Loki TV show will take place after Endgame. Of course, with the multiverse timey-wimey stuff still up in the air (and the interesting choice of logo which could hint at four different Loki eras), who knows what tricks the God of Mischief has up his sleeve?

Tom Hiddleston has also confirmed that the show will approach two major questions: Loki’s death, and what happens to the Tesseract. There might even be a female Loki on the cards, as Sophia Di Martino has reportedly been cast in a lead role.

Just a few seconds of Loki footage has been revealed, though we’ve noticed that the letters on Loki’s prison jumpsuit, TVA, stands for Time Variance Authority. In the comics, they’re judge, jury, and executioner on all things time travel-related. If Loki is in their sights, it’s only because he’s been messing up the timestreams in his own smarmy way

However this plays out, Loki adventuring through time and space being a bit naughty sounds like a TV show we want to watch.

It is arriving in Spring 2021.

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Like the upcoming Black Widow movie, this new Marvel TV show will make you say "Oh, they are not dead!?"

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ocusing on Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch and Paul Bettany’s Vision, the Disney Plus series, which has a new release window of December 2020, will revisit the boy meets girl story that was doomed in the most unlikely of circumstances – y’know, when the boy had a stone with the power to destroy the universe forcibly removed from his forehead in Avengers: Infinity War. That.

WandaVision premise is wholly unique to not just the MCU but perhaps in all of television. As the trailer shows, Wanda will be pulling out all the surreal sitcom stops to keep her loved one by her side. Is it a set-up of her own making? Well, she’s pregnant in one scene and married in another.

This domestic bliss, while all happy and homely at first glance, could soon tear apart at the seams, especially if Wanda is subconsciously calling the shots.

WandaVision will also star Teyonah Parris as an all-grown-up version of Monica Rambeau, who later becomes Photon in the comics, from Captain Marvel.

Hinting at the show’s direction at SDCC, Kevin Feige says: "It is unlike anything we have ever done before."

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ac Schaeffer is on board as showrunner, while Feige has described the series as:

"something unexpected and surprising, as well as something we can only do in a long-form series."

Marvel’s currency is now so high that it’s earned the right to experiment, so expect the MCU to visit places it’s never been before with WandaVision.

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t will also serve as a lead-in to another big Marvel Phase 4 project, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Olsen will reprise her role as Wanda Maximoff there, too.

"We are gonna have a lot of fun. We are gonna get weird, it is going to get deep, and have lots of surprises.

We are finally going to understand Wanda Maximoff."

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David Tennant David Tennant is a well-known Scottish actor and voice actor known in the geek community for his roles of the Tenth Doctor in the British TV series Doctor Who. After appearing in small but challenging roles in several stage productions and TV series, he successfully established himself as a talented actor with powerful performances both on the small and the big screen.

David Tennant was born as David John McDonald on 18th April 1971, in the Bathage section of West Lothian, Scotland.

His father was Alexander McDonald, a minister, and his mother was Helen McLeod, with a sister and one brother.

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He was fond of watching TV from his childhood.

He became a huge fan of the sci-fi series ‘Doctor Who’ in which he would eventually play the lead role one day.

Later on, he was accepted into the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Since there was already another David McDonald in the actors’ equity union, he had to change his last name to Tennant. During his early years, he appeared in advertisements mostly.

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avid Tennant was still in high school when he made his professional acting debut. His first role on TV was in an episode of the British TV series ‘Dramarama’. His first important role was in the British TV series ‘Takin’ Over the Asylum’, which was about a hospital radio station in a Glasgow psychiatric hospital.

He earned critical acclaim for his collaborations with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was appreciated for his role in the 1996 production of ‘As You Like It’. In cinema, his first lead role was in the 1998 romantic comedy drama film ‘L.A. Without a Map’, which was directed by Mika Kaurismäki.

His next important work on the big screen was in the 2005 fantasy film ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’, which was the fourth installment of the famous Harry Potter film series.

He portrayed a death eater named Barty Crouch Jr. The film was a huge commercial success, and also won multiple awards.

He reached the peak of his career after he started playing the lead role of ‘The Doctor’ in the popular British TV series ‘Doctor Who’. The show, which originally aired from 1963 to 1989, was very popular in Britain and had also acquired a cult status in other countries. It was relaunched in 2005, with Tennant in the lead role.

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Mister Mxyzptlk Real Name:

Unpronounceable

Nemesis:

Clark Kent

Universe:

New&Prime Earth

Alignment: World: Creators:

Neutral

Zrfff, 5th Dimension

Jerry Siegel and Ira Yarbrough

Gender:

Male

Race:

Imp

Marital Status: 24

Single

Mister Mxyzptlk is an imp from the Fifth Dimension that was created to be a playful antagonist to Superman.

He was one of Superman’s earliest foes, appearing for the first time in 1944 in Superman #30. Since one of Superman’s weaknesses is magic, that made this little imp a very difficult character to beat.

However, he is also one of the weirdest DC Comics characters in existence and his weaknesses are even stranger. His power is restricted by limitations he sets, and he always sets them beforesetting off on an adventure. The most famous was declaring he could only be defeated if someone convinces him to spell his own name backward.

Mister Mxyzptlk has an irrational compulsion and attachments towardspractical jokes and things of a prankish, immature nature.

He rarely takes fighting seriously and normally spends his battles goofingoff, uninterested in harming or killing his enemies.

It has been demonstrated that this is an aspect of Mxyzptlk's interactionwith a three-dimensional reality such as the Earth dimension. The more time he spends in the Earth dimension, the more prone he is to engage in puckish behavior.

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Science fact: Sci-fi inventions that became reality The story of a 14-year-old girl who won a landmark legal battle to be preserved cryogenically has many people wondering how such technology actually works - for many of us, it seems like something straight out of science fiction.

But sci-fi has a long history of becoming science fact, as outlandish creations inspire real research.

Remarkable realities Tractor beams In Star Wars, the unfortunate heroes are caught in a “tractor beam” that freezes their ship and pulls them towards the enemy. Star Trek has a similar weapon.

An Australian university can do the same thing although its experiments with lasers could only manage to move a tiny object (one fifth of a millimetre) along about 20cm.

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grid of programmable speakers creates an invisible “hologram” shape from ultrasound waves. British researchers, have been experimenting with sound waves to shift objects through the air and can just about manage objects the size of a pea at about 40cm away.

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The moon landing

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n 1865, Jules Verne published the outlandish novel From the Earth to the Moon, in which three Americans are fired into space in a gun. In his story, the three men launch a lunar vessel called Columbiad, weighing a little under 20,000 lbs, at a cost of $5.5m.

Buzz Aldrin pictured next to the lunar lander after is separated from Columbia. A century later, America did send three men to the moon in the command module Columbia, which weighed 26,300 lbs, at a cost of $16bn.

To cap it all off, Verne’s estimate of $5.5m was equivalent to about $13bn in 1969.

The hypospray In the world of Star Trek (which also predicted flip phones), any ill character is almost miraculously healed by an “injection” from a hypospray, a device with no needles that delivers the cure painlessly, through the skin.

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hat is a jet injector, and although famous from the TV show, actually predates it. Aaron Ismach invented the jet injector in 1960, six years before Star Trek. It was used for mass vaccinations, especially in the military, since it could be used over and over again. But that brought contamination risks, so it has fallen out of use.

Energy weapons

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e’re a long way from laser pistols, but a modern energy weapon is the US military’s “active denial system”, used for crowd control. The non-lethal weapon works like a microwave oven, and causes extreme discomfort as it heats the target’s body underneath the skin, and causing the target to flee.

Thomas A Swift’s Electric Rifle, envisioned in 1911 and reborn as the Taser personal defence weapon, which is actually an acronym for Thomas A Swift’s Electric Rifle.

Nasa researcher Jack Cover, who created the device, named it after a 1911 book he read as a child, in which the eponymous hero invents a gun that fires bolts of lightning.

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Wells and Asimov Most remarkable of all, perhaps, is the eerie accuracy of a handful of science fiction writers in the 20th century.

HG Wells predicted automatic sliding doors in 1899, and the atomic bomb in his novel The World Set Free, written in 1913 and published the following year.

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tomic bombs were predicted before World War One but would not be used until the end of the second. Isaac Asimov, however, made some startlingly accurate predictions about 2014, in an essay to mark the 1964 World’s Fair.

They included global video calling, robots that would “neither be common nor very good in 2014”, flatscreen TVs and early 3D and self-driving cars.

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Impractical impossibilities Such predictions suggest anything is possible.

But there are still plenty of limits on what we can do. Some research, while reported on with incredible headlines, simply has not reached any practical application yet.

Invisibility ‘cloak’ Whether you’re a Harry Potter fan or a space traveller, “cloaking” is often used to refer to invisibility, bending light around an object to make it disappear. The Rochester Cloak is one optical trick to make objects “vanish”.

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his can actually be done for small objects, if you want to arrange a set of lenses in a precise arrangement, using the Rochester Cloak technique, it can be reproduced at home. But with its strict set up, it’s just an optical trick. Other “cloaking” attempts have been able to hide objects from microwaves or radar, but there’s nothing yet that can fool the human eye in practical scenarios.

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Power armour

rom Iron Man to future dystopia, powered armour for soldiers has always been a staple in sci-fi. The US military is among those with an eye on the idea.

TALOS, that’s a Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, has often been described as an “Iron Man suit”, but is far less exotic than the superhero’s attire.

Instead, the US Army hoped to create a “smart” bodysuit, which monitors soldiers’ vital signs, with a powered exoskeleton to increase strength.

The project is rumoured to use liquid armour which solidifies when hit by

bullets, but very little is known about its progress.

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Teleporters

Warp drive theory

he “transporter”, a staple of scifi, is probably impossible. But that doesn’t stop it making headlines.

In Star Trek and many other films and television shows, “warp drive” is a way to travel faster than light (which should be impossible) by bending space around a spacecraft.

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In a process called quantum entanglement, a change made to one particle in lab conditions can affect another one, some distance away. It’s a way to send information from one place to another, without it travelling in the space between, hence “quantum teleportation”.

But the particles involved, qubits, are information only, and there’s no evidence that it can be used for atoms, molecules and certainly not people, but it could lead to a futuristic internet.

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model of the Starship Enterprise, which coined the idea of warp drive, hangs in the Smithsonian museum. The closest we have is called an “Alcubierre drive”, after the mathematician who proposed it.

The idea is to shrink space in front of the ship and expand space behind it, so the ship itself never has to travel at light speed. But it has so many practical problems it may never actually exist, and Nasa generally considers it impossible, despite the occasional piece of research on the topic.

Found Artists

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Gabriel Picolo Winner of the Goodreads Choice Awards Best Graphic Novels & Comics Where to find them: _picolo

ICARUS AND THE SUN "Inspired by Icarus, who challaged fly so closed to the sun. If he had fallen in love with the sun, it would have also been a forbidden love story"

GabrielPicoloArt

DC COMICS

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abriel is currently working with DC Comics on the Teen Titans: Beast Boy, after the success of Teen Titans: Raven last year the author got issued says Gabriel about the a new chapter. webcomic.

"I'd very much like to do a complete series with the rest of the Titans, we'll see how it goes." says Gabriel in reply to a comment on his Instagram.

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he Icarus and the Sun series is yet to be concluded, among other works by the author, itself not only for its story of love and tragedy but also the art style.

Gabriel's style is recognized by his delicate lining and duotone sketches.

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THE

Umbrella

ACADEMY

Netflix new superhero-themed original series, The Umbrella Academy, opens with the birth of 43 superhuman children, all born on the same day, to mothers spanning the globe.

The weird part: None of these women had been pregnant when the day first began.

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hile the show may be a Netflix original, it is by no means Netflix’s ‘original’ content. Based on a graphic novel series of the same name, this story of a disbanded group of dysfunctional saviors comes from visionaries Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba. According to IGN.com, two other famous comic books – Grendel Tales and Doom Patrol – inspired Gerard Way’s narrative.

Considering both Doom Patrol and The Umbrella Academy feature a wealthy benefactor who collects superhuman individuals, it should come as no surprise that Way has cited Doom Patrol as a great source of inspiration.

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The original Umbrella Academy miniseries first appeared on shelves under the title Apocalypse Suite in 2007.

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fter success with the first miniseries, Way and Ba released two more: Umbrella Academy: Dallas in 2008 and Hotel Oblivion more recently in 2018. Way and Ba plan to close out the final comic book installation by the end of 2019.

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According to the two original creators the Netflix tv series is not direct take on the comics.

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tarring the acclaimed pregnant teen from Juno herself, Ellen Page, the show also features Mary J. Blige – who brings her soulful sound to the ‘super’ series – as well as 13 Reasons Why’s Kate Walsh.

Ellen Page stars as one of the 43 gifted children, Blige plays criminal assassin Cha-Cha, and Walsh portrays “The Handler”.

The series hones in on seven of the superhuman children, previously adopted by the same billionaire industrialist, who have since grown apart and must reunite to prevent an impending apocalypse.

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rom a powerless hero to a super strong kid desperate to please his father, a ghost, a mannequin and God, The Umbrella Academy brings a whole new perspective to a genre that previously seemed fixed in its approach.

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o those of you unfamiliar with the world of pop punk, punk rock, emo pop, or any other similar combination of the aforementioned genres, the name Gerard Way probably doesn’t ring any bells.

However, fans are likely to know him as the lead singer of My Chemical Romance.

The rock band from Newark, New Jersey, though most famous from 2001 to 2013, still boasts a rather loyal following of “killjoys”, as their fans so delightfully call themselves.

When accounting for the band’s musical history and the frontman’s overall outward persona, the show’s tendency to lean in the darkly gothic direction makes a bit more sense.

As for Gabriel Ba, he is a Brazilian comic book artist best known for his work on Casanova, Daytripper, and of course, The Umbrella Academy.

Writing comics for the past 15 years, Gabriel Ba has been published across the world from Spain and France to the US and Brazil however, he first started his comic book career alongside his brother in 1993.

They self-published their first comic book series, Sunflower and the Moon, together, in 1997.

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Luther Hargreeves, played by Tom Hopper, is born with super strength. Albeit a bit typical, there always needs to be one Mr. Incredible-esque character, except this one comes with a daddy complex.

Diego Hargreeves, affectionately called The Kraken, played by David CastaĂąeda can hold his breath indefinitely and boasts some pretty impressive combat skills.

Allison Hargreeves by Emmy Raver-Lampmans, may just be the most powerful of them all, as she can transform reality merely by starting a sentence with "I heard a rumor"

Klaus Hargreeves, known as the Seance, played by Robert Sheehan can levitate and commune with the dead, including his brother. Drug issues ensues.

Number 5, by Aiden Gallagher, is a time traveler trapped in his ten-year-old body.

Ben Hargreeves, played by Justin H. Min, passed before the show story even begins.

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Vanya Hargreeves, AKA The White Violon, played by Ellen Page, is one of the seven chosen ones; however, as the last child selected, she is the only one without a superhuman gift. What Vanya lacks in superhuman ability, she makes up for in instrumental talent.

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Welcome to the SCP Foundation Hello, and welcome to the SCP Foundation, we are honored to have you here on this beautiful day of [REDACTED] and we hope you enjoy your visit.

Before we start, we wouldd like to make sure you remember the rules, this is, that any information accidentally leaked that are assigned to you will bring with it harsh consequences. Here at the SCP Foundation, you willl find we like to keep things, well, secure.

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n the SCP Foundation the majority of works consist of “special containment procedures”: structured internal documentation that describes an SCP object and the means of keeping it contained.

The website also contains thousands of “Foundation Tales”, short stories set within the universe of the SCP Foundation. The series has been praised for its ability to convey horror through its scientific and academic writing style, as well as for its high standards of quality.

The Foundation has inspired numerous spin-off works, including the horror indie video game SCP – Containment Breach.

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W

ithin the website’s fictional setting, the SCP Foundation is a secret organization entrusted by governments around the globe to contain and study anomalous individuals, entities, locations, objects, and phenomena operating outside the bounds of natural law (referred to as “SCP objects”, or colloquially as “SCPs” or “skips”).

If left uncontained, the objects would pose a direct threat to human life and humanity’s perceptions of reality and normalcy.

The existence of SCPs is withheld from the public to prevent mass panic and to allow human civilization to function normally. When an SCP is discovered, the SCP Foundation deploys agents either to collect and transport the SCP to a Foundation facility, or to contain it at its location of discovery if transport is not possible. Once SCPs are contained, they are studied by Foundation scientists. Test subjects acquired by the Foundation (referred to as D-class) are used to interact with dangerous SCPs due to the danger posed by those SCPs and the expendability of the D-class.

The SCP Foundation maintains documentation for all of the SCPs in its custody, which can include or link to related reports and files. These documents describe the SCPs and include instructions for keeping them safely contained.

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n the SCP Foundation wiki, the majority of works are stand alone articles detailing the “special containment procedures” of a given SCP object. In a typical article, an SCP object is assigned a unique identification number.

The SCP object is then assigned an “object class” based on the difficulty of containing it.

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T

he documentation then outlines proper containment procedures and safety measures, and then describes the SCP object in question.

Addenda, such as images, research data or status updates, may also be attached to the document. The reports are written in a pseudoscientific tone and often “redact” information.

As of April 2020, articles exist for nearly 5,700 SCP objects; new articles are frequently added. The SCP Foundation contains over three thousand short stories referred to as “Foundation Tales”. The stories are set within the world of the SCP Foundation, and often focus on or reference SCP Foundation staff or SCP entities.

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regory Burkart, writing for Blumhouse Productions, noted that some of the Foundation Tales had a dark and bleak tone, while others were “surprisingly light-hearted”.

The SCP Foundation lacks a central canon, but stories on the wiki are frequently linked together to create larger narratives. Contributors have the ability to create “canons”, which are clusters of SCPs and Foundation Tales with similar locations, characters, or central plot. Many “canons” have hub pages that explain their basic concept and provide information such as timelines and character lists.

The genres covered have been described as science fiction, urban fantasy and horror.

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The Foundation’s Origin

DON’T BLINK

SCP-173

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The SCP Foundation series originated in the “paranormal” forum of 4chan, where the first special containment procedure, SCP-173, was posted in 2007.

Many additional special containment procedures were created shortly after; these new SCPs copied SCP-173’s style and were set within the same fictional universe.

A stand-alone wiki was created in January 2008 on the Edit This wiki hosting service to display the SCP articles.The Edit This website did not have moderators, or the ability to delete articles.

Members communicated through individual article talk pages and the board; the website lacked a central discussion forum.

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n July 2008, the SCP Foundation series was transferred to its current Wikidot website after Edit This switched to a paid model.

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owadays, every article on the wiki is assigned a discussion page, where members can evaluate and provide constructive criticism on submitted stories. The discussion pages are frequently used by authors to improve their stories.

Members also have the ability to “upvote” articles they like and to “downvote” articles they dislike; articles that receive too many net downvotes are deleted.

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The Game The SCP Foundation has inspired numerous independent video games.

SCP – Containment Breach, one of the most popular games based on the SCP Foundation, was released by Finnish developer Joonas Rikkonen in 2012.

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he player character is an unnamed D-class who attempts to escape from a containment facility.

The player must avoid armed Foundation guards and escaped SCPs, including SCP-173.The game includes a blink function, which makes the player close their eyes and allow SCP-173 to approach.

SCP Secret Laboratory is a multiplayer game based on Containment Breach.

Players have the option of playing as an SCP, an escaping scientist, a D-class, the armed militia of the defending SCP Foundation or the attacking Chaos Insurgency.

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Other video games include SCP-3008 (a planned multiplayer game set in SCP-3008), and SCP-087 (a horror game about walking down SCP-087).

Control, a video game created by Remedy Entertainment, was first revealed at E3 2018 and was released in August 2019. The video game was heavily influenced by the SCP Foundation.

Centered on a fictional Federal Bureau of Control that collects mundane objects imbued with paranormal influence to study and keep secure.

Containment Breach

Control

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The Classes

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Safe: SCPs that are understood enough to be reliably contained.

Euclid: SCPs that are either not understood enough to reliably contain or that behave in an unpredictable manner.

Keter: SCPs that either cannot be fully contained or that require overly complex and elaborate procedures to contain.

Thaumiel: SCPs used to contain other SCPs or are beneficial to the Foundation.

Explained:

SCPs whose anomalous effects can be fully explained by conventional science.

Neutralized: SCPs that are either destroyed or cease anomalous behavior.

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The Famous SCPs Object Class: Keter

DON’T USE

SCP-035

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Object Class: Keter

SCP-106

DON’T PROVOKE

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The Famous SCPs Object Class: Euclid

SCP-049

DON’T TOUCH

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Object Class: Euclid

SCP-096

DON’T LOOK

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Stranger Things parallels with D&D

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A

s much as Will pleads with his friends to play D&D in Stranger Things Season 3, he never realizes that he actually is in a campaign in real life.

The friends’ heroics to defeat the monster and save the village goes far beyond the tabletop as references, parallels, and homages make this season a huge, terrifying game of D&D. Roll an arcana check as we dive into just some of them.

I

t’s no secret that Dungeons & Dragons plays a huge role in Netflix’s Stranger Things. From the very first game we see the young friends playing together in Season1, to Will’s efforts to keep the campaign going with his friends in the show’s third season, and even to an official tie-in Stranger Things D&D Starter Set, the game is an integral part of the show and its characters.

But did you know beyond the shots of the famous red game box and obvious monster references, there’s a lot more D&D in Stranger Things than you probably realized?

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Eleven, the Wizard Eleven’s powers may be the result of scientific experiments, but any magic wielder in D&D will recognize the “spell” she uses for most of the season. Scrying is used to see any creature on your plane of existence, and the more familiarity you have with the target of your prying eyes, the better chance you have to succeed.

T

he object of your magical gaze has a chance to become aware of your presence, however, a hard lesson Eleven also learns when Billy stares right back at her.

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A

nd it almost goes without saying, but Telekinesis is another powerful spell in a wizard’s arsenal in D&D that also serves as Eleven’s primary means of attack.

Ripping the Mind Flayer’s head down the middle is the kind of impressive feat akin to rolling a natural 20.

The Party Meets in a Tavern...

Scoops Ahoy isn’t just an ice cream parlor in Stranger Things it’s also where the Scoops Troop begins their epic quest. Like almost all great D&D stories, our heroes gather in the “tavern” and recruit new allies, like the clever and, dare we say, rogue like Erica Sinclair. She thinks quickly on her feet and looks for ways to get out of tight spots (literally and figuratively), can crack complicated codes, and she’s definitely wily. We’d go on a quest with her anywhere.

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or Will the Wise and his party, their inn is Mike’s basement. Instead of ale, they swap stories and gather over Orange Crush and cereal. Truly brave adventurers.

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Dungeon Crawl A

fter the meeting at the tavern usually comes the dungeon crawl, a long trek through a dark cave or maze of rooms deep underground to defeat a monster and find treasure. Along the way the party battle enemies and find valuable items to aid them in their quest. Can you see where we’re going with this?

It’s the Scoops Troop who first scouts out the dungeon-like, labyrinthine maze under Starcourt Mall after solving the puzzle to make it inside. They’re successful in their crawl, uncovering the conspiracy that was right beneath their feet, until they roll that natural 1 on stealth and find themselves face to face with an enemy.

Later it’s Joyce Byers, Jim Hopper, and Murray Baumann who start the same dungeon crawl with the help of map that looks like it came straight from the notes of a well-organized Dungeon Master.

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Will, the Wise might be a wizard... ...but the show depicts Will Byers wielding a powerful ability that only rangers receive in D&D. Detect Favored Enemy, when cast, serves as the same sort of warning that Will often feels prickling his skin when the Mind Flayer is near.

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he Rangers get to choose the type of their favored enemy in character creation, but Will had no choice his enemy picked him.

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Dustin, the Bard When a party is in a pinch, it’s an opportunity for some of the more underrated classes to step up and prove their worth.

In Season 3 it was Dustin Henderson who surprised everyone with his dulcet tones, evoking the unassuming yet useful skill set of the Bard class.

A

s the group embarks on their final quest, Dustin Henderson sings a song of inspiration to grant everyone who hears it a boost. It might have been a boost of annoyance in some cases, granted, but it was also definitely a moment of joy and motivation for everyone else listening in, especially all of us in the audience.

Oh, and thanks to him and his song, the group solved the final puzzle.

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About That Mind Flayer…

Speaking of the Mind Flayer in Stranger Things, its name is one of the most direct connections to Dungeons & Dragons in the show.

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n D&D, mind flayers, also called Illithids, don’t look similar to the towering mass of body parts and goo in Season 3, but there are a few correlations. Mind flayers do have tentacles protruding from their face and nasty psychic powers. These creatures of the Underdark operate in a hive mind, and they’re insidious creatures that consume humanoid brains. Mind flayers communicate through telepathy, and often engage in mind control to combat their enemies, very similar to what we see happen to Billy, Heather, and more of the Flayed when they’re activated and mind-controlled to find more hosts.

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The Satanic Panic Was Real The epilogue of Season 3 mentions briefly the belief that a “rise in Satanism” is to blame for the strange events in Hawkins, a clear reference to the real Satanic Panic.

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he Satanic Panic began during the late 1970s. One of the most notorious examples of the moral panic over Satanism is the disappearance of a Michigan teenager in 1979, who was rumored to have run away under the delusion of believing Dungeons & Dragons to be real.

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he boy was found safe just a few weeks later, but an investigator continued to spout the theory to anyone who would listen that the game was dangerous and inspired violence and delusions. The “panic” and paranoia over Satanism continued well into the 1980s. The role-playing game survived through it all, reaching its current heyday as a nerd culture phenomenon that brings players together worldwide thanks to online play and livestreams.

That’s just the tip of the dungeon of D&D references in Stranger Things.

There are also some other small homages, like the disembodied voice proclaiming the dark funhouse at the county fair a “Cave of Horrors,” similar to the classic D&D module “Tomb of Horrors” written by Gary Gygax.

There’s also the name of the final episode, “The Battle of Starcourt,” which sounds like a campaign book you’d expect to find on bookshelves filled with tabletop RPGs. 77

Director:

Erica dos Santos Henrique

Editor:

Erica dos Santos Henrique

Coordenation:

Tiago Navarro e Célia Figueiredo

Revision:

Tiago Navarro e Célia Figueiredo

Writters:

Kelly Knox Serdar Yegulalp BBC News Team Bradley Russell Erica dos Santos Henrique Josh Lezmi Richard Edwards

Photography and Illustration:

Marvel Photographic Team BBC’s Photographic Team Netflix’s Photographic Team Bob Al-Greene Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes

Press Details Dimensions Cover Text Block Spine Binding

14.8x21 cm (A5) Couche Gloss / 180g Offset / 80g Saddle Stitch