Shag has a Digisona now, I guess.

The best part of the Digimon Adventure reboot?

This big adorable fluffhead! 😍 I love the fact that he's based on a komondor.

October 2024 status report

- Still working on New Dogs, New Tricks.

 - A few months ago I said I had a one-shot for a '90s movie in the works. The rough draft is (mostly) done, but the entire thing still feels... incomplete to me? And I might've gone and got distracted by this anime I used to watch, and want to do a short prompt fill crossing it over with Gargoyles, so, yeah lol. 

- I've been worldbuilding for stuff like my Sonic reboot, a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic AU, and my original stuff. 

- I'm in the process of working on the next entry for Character Corner.

- Regarding my old New Lease fic, I'm not sure what I want to do with it at this point. I have been seriously considering going ahead and just canceling it. The other Extinctioners-centric story I posted was removed (yeah, fanfics for a hyper-obscure niche furry comic, dry your tears everybody). Long story short, I no longer want to engage or associate with Extinctioners for personal reasons. If anybody cares enough, then I may post a summary of what I was planning to do with New Lease, since I'm doubtful I'll ever return to actively writing on it (even though the main character, who's from a completely different franchise, is one of my favorite fictional characters). 

The Character Corner: Exile, Part 2

It's story time with Uncie Exile, kids!

 INSPIRATION

Regarding his personality, my inspiration in writing him just comes from how I perceive him to be in the show. He strikes me as being a genuinely enthusiastic, generally happy character who typically openly expresses his thoughts and feelings there. The one time he wasn't, when he thought he had turned into a werewolf ("A Hair Of The Dog That Bit You"), I interpret his behavior there to stress and fear of hurting his teammates. He cares about others. I am just not a fan of this icy, closed-off Exile I tend to see in fan works. He's truly invested in the well-being of others and wears his heart on his sleeve: off my head, in "A Day In The Life", he comforted Colleen when she was upset about Hunter's potentially having a special someone (who wasn't her), he was very enthusiastic about Hunter's plan to free all of the imprisoned dogs in "Hunter's Heroes", in the same episode he apologizes to Blitz when the latter slips and falls on an ice sheet Exile had created to waylay some cano-mutants (and if you're someone who thinks Exile wasn't being sincere in that moment, then why he'd even apologize to Blitz in the first place then??? If he really didn't care, then he either wouldn't have said anything at all or just made a smartmouth comment when he did), he loves giving out hugs. We got thirteen episodes of Exile behaving this way, so I tend to feel like this is what his personality is typically like.

So why do so many fans either make Exile a jerk/or this ultra-serious stoic robot in fan works?

We don't know anything about Exile's past beyond what little we get in the pilot. He isn't a fleshed out character. We don't know what his personal hobbies, interests, dreams, and fears are. Many fandoms would salivate at this, getting to come up with their own takes on a major character's backstory and flesh them out further. Look at all the diverse ideas people spin for character histories in stuff like The Lion King, NCIS, the Transformers franchise, Power Rangers, or My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Countless fandoms. But the Road Rovers fandom... hardly anybody seems even remotely interested in offering up anything for Exile (based on what I've seen of a number of other people on Fanfiction.net and deviantART, I would say that I don't think any of them really want to either). It's the same for the other characters minus Hunter, whose backstory we did (kinda) get. Honestly, I feel like that's partly a side effect of how the show was written. The fandom treats the rest of the Rovers the same way the show does -- all of them play second fiddle to Hunter. They're just not as important as Hunter is (my original stance on Hunter has only hardened over the years), so who cares about explaining who they are and where they come from? The fact that original characters likewise heavily dominate fan works doesn't help matters any. It's sad.

The only two fans who I've personally ever seen demonstrate an actual interest in Exile (that was unrelated to shipping him with their fan characters) were Usami and That One Evil Writer. I borrow some of their ideas for my own story-verse.

As far as relatives for Exile goes, I use the original family members created by Usami for her story Power Of The Pack. It's a pretty solid story about Exile discovering that his family members have been turned into cano-mutants by General Parvo. I thought these new characters were cool, and decided to incorporate them into STARS. Oddly enough, out of all the canon characters, a lot of fans love giving Exile siblings who are either evil or get brainwashed into becoming evil the most. I don't know why that is. But Shurik, Illya, and Star (Zevezda in STARS; "zevezda" simply means star in Russian) are some of the better examples of this trope.

FUTURE PLANS

So what will Exile be getting up to in the STARS-verse? Well, right now my major guiding point would be giving his character more dimensions instead of just being a joke machine like in the show. I can say for certain that I'll have him revisiting his past, including having him meet up with his former owner to let him know what's happened to him and see how he (the sled team owner) is doing, an idea Evil Writer mentioned to me. Looking at fanfics in RR fandom, you wouldn't even know the Rovers have owners in the first place (their current masters and, in Exile's case, the sledder who used to have him back in Siberia). They're treated like they barely exist, and most of the time you never even hear anything about their existence. The Rovers just seem so indifferent towards them. One would think that when Hunter is going to marry Colleen he'd go "Oh wow, you know, I'd like to tell my master the truth about me being a Rover so I could invite him to the ceremony!" Or go and talk to him about marriage or whatever (although I know Bill Clinton is a controversial figure, so maybe that's not one of the better examples I could've used. But the only reason I picked him as my example in the first place is because guess the Rover who's most often shown getting serious in a relationship/or getting married? I'll wait). Pretty weird, considering how the Rovers acted so happy about getting homes in "Let's Hit The Road". Again, I think it's just more evidence to show that most fans are only vaguely interested in the show's concept, a few characters, and nothing else. 

Another fan named Bart Walls actually devised an archenemy for Exile named Boris "Hacker" Sanhusky. I really like the idea of Exile getting to have his own personal foe, so Hacker is a character I've chosen to incorporate into my own 'verse. He'll make his appearance sometime in the near future in a story I'm calling The Island Of Misfit Rovers. Of course, we'll learn more about him then.

I also plan to focus on exploring his relationships with other characters, both canons and original. Yes he will be getting his own love interest, which will be an original character. And... he'll also be getting a power up!

HEADCANONS 

• Early on he is the closest thing Colleen has to a 'girlfriend'.
• His favorite thing to eat are beef pirozhkis. 
• Out of all the Alphas, Exile is the one who keeps on top of the latest technologies. 
• I don't really understand the point of the cartoon's giving him night vision, since dogs can naturally see in the dark and all. Either the writers didn't know that, or did and his night vision was just supposed to be better then most dogs (the show never stated how good it was). I just say his night vision's on par with a feline's. 
• His heat vision relies on the heat within his own body, so if his body temperature drops enough, then he really can't use that particular power.
  
• Usami came up with a couple of interesting theories regarding Exile, including the ones that I'm using about his heat vision and his getting glasses. She pointed out how Exile seemed to have trouble locating a certain image in one of those "find this object" picture books and had to ask Shag for help, who found it right away, plus, how he needed glasses to read a manual. She was fully aware that all those instances were just gags, but suggested the idea of Exile having trouble with his eyesight could be turned into a serious issue. I think Exile would look nice in glasses, and his having to get some is a cool idea. 
• Exile and Blitz are best friends in the vein of Shawn and Gus (Psyche).

If you're someone who wants to approach Exile and Blitz's relationship in a testier manner however, then may I suggest you watch the series One Piece* and take notes from it? Two of the major heroes in it, Zoro and Sanji, often argue, fight, and poke fun at one another. At the same time however, the story demonstrates that when push comes to shove, both has the other's back. They've agreed with each other in certain situations. Zoro and Sanji also think pretty highly of each other's skills and abilities -- although they probably wouldn't outright admit it to the other's face lol. They're a terrific example of frenemies done right. 

ETA: Here's the link to the video showing Zoro and Sanji together; YouTube won't let me post it in video format here.

By comparison, the way that not only the Rovers but lots of heroes from other western media who work together in a group are written, having that one person that barely anybody else on the team likes and picks on, well, I don't think the good guys would actually function as a unit nearly as well as they do in canon. But I'll touch more on this issue when I get to Blitz's analysis. And I specified western media here because I noticed anime like the aforementioned One Piece tends to be much better about handling this kind of thing.

Now, when you're animating for a weekly show, the character designs need to be simple enough in order to be easier to animate and therefore meet deadlines. That's not a bad thing, it's just a thing in the industry. That's what they did with Road Rovers. In my setting, which I freely admit at this point is an AU from the Kids' WB show (that's right Canon Cops, my fics aren't canon because they're NOT supposed to be canon!), I've tweaked Exile's design to be more like a real husky's as well as more detailed, and so make him a little more interesting to look at. I'll try to get a pic of him up soon. His design in the cartoon isn't bad, just simplistic.

 PERSONAL 

Discussing Exile has been a different animal (ho ho ho 😏) when compared to my talking about Esteban before. Road Rovers, like many cartoons back in the day, is a lot more episodic in nature when compared to Elena of Avalor, which has plot elements that are carried on to later episodes. The show's also interesting in that no one character held the spotlight (though the writer seemed to have a strong bias towards a certain one...), and we didn't get much of anything in regards to consistent character development. This means that Exile, as well as the rest of the Rovers, are pretty flat when compared to some of the other characters I'll be talking about in future installments here. Basically, I have had to build his character from the ground up, but that's okay, because the show gave me some good stuff to go off of for him.

ETA: I wonder... why did the people working on the show decided to pick the name Exile for him, and not a more standard Russian/or Russian-esque dog name, like Boris? That'd be a far more interesting question for Tom Ruegger (the creative mind behind Road Rovers), instead of pestering him about when the show's coming back. 

I can answer that last one. It's not ever coming back. Never. It's been gone for two decades. If it ever does return, then it'd probably be as a reboot, and even then I cannot see that happening.

*"One Piece is a really mid anime, OLU!" Okay, but you're missing the forest for the trees. Please listen to the point that I was trying to make about how Sanji and Zoro are written.

July 2024 status report

Still hard at work on my two multiparter stories. In regards to how they're going... they're going, haha. I also have an unedited (very) rough draft done for yet another one-shot. This time it's for a movie from the mid-90s aimed at an older audience, so I don't think it'll get very many eyes on it.

And I haven't forgotten about the second half of the Exile character analysis!

The Character Corner: Exile

In Soviet Russia, milkshake drink you!

There's not a lot to Exile, but he still displays more interesting traits that one can play around with then either Hunter or Colleen do. I'm sure people are not going to like that I said that, but that's how I feel.

Exile was once my favorite character until Blitz edged him out of first place some years back, but I still really like Exile. Not simply because he's a Siberian husky, like I suspect a lot of people do -- not just furries either, but people in general (and I'm not trying to knock anyone for having a favorite dog breed, but liking a character based solely on their species or breed and absolutely nothing else is honestly kinda shallow, IMHO). I like nice characters, and Exile is a genuinely bighearted, happy, friendly guy. I also like Exile's accent and how he mixes up his English, all of which further adds to his charm. The fact that they played against type and made him the gadgeteer as well as the Rover who knew his way around computers and vehicles was also cool, since you wouldn't necessarily expect that from a character like him. 

I've never seen anyone who said they disliked Exile before, interestingly enough. Aside from him and Muzzle (who either gets treated as a deus ex machina or is just outright forgotten/ignored by most fans), I've seen at least one anti-fan for the rest of the Rovers (and some of them have more anti-fans then others do...). Hunter and Colleen seem to have the bigger respective fanbases though.

There's some strange fanon which has sprang up around everyone's favorite Ruskie. I started noticing it well after the fall of the first iteration of the fandom back in the mid to late 90s. I don't get why so many people depict Exile as being this massive hulking beast height-wise. Shag was obviously the tallest Rover, which makes sense because his breed, komondorok (plural form of komondor), can weigh up to 125 lbs and stand 27.5 inches at their withers (the area between a dog's shoulder blades and the back of their necks. This spot is used to measure height). Huskies are much smaller at 21-23.5 inches and 45-60 lbs for male dogs. Exile, while being pretty stout and muscular, was actually one of the shorter guys. 

This is the best screencap I could find of Exile standing relatively level beside another guy. He looks like he's a few inches shorter then Hunter, which he would not be were he 8'' tall or whatever. I mean, they both could be taller then Blitz, but I doubt it. I'd have find another screencap or rewatch the series again to see how he measures up to Blitz. I have a strong sneaking suspicion this whole "Exile is a giant" thing ties into sort of a macro/bear fantasy/fetish for gay male fans, since the fandom very strongly overlaps with furry fandom. Please note that I'm not attacking gay men or furries (though I will honestly say I do have strong criticisms regarding furries), I'm just pointing out something I've noticed. You wanna depict a 6'7'' Exile lovingly massaging your OC, go wild homie.

Some more fanon I don't really get is when fan writers make Exile an expert on anything supernatural that comes up. I assume this comes from the werewolf episode "A Hair Of The Dog That Bit You." It's something else I'm not... wild about.  Just because he related a legend from his homeland to the other Rovers when he thought he was becoming a werewolf doesn't mean he'd also know how to fight vampires or be knowledgeable about fairies. It's like someone expecting me to tell them all about jiang shi just because people talk about seeing Bigfoot where I live. Why not just have the Rovers, I dunno, research the legend or myth together, or go talk to a real expert?

His array of superpowers indisputably made Exile the team powerhouse in battle, but I kinda hate how the show underplayed his super-strength. The Master mentioned it in the first episode, then we never see him blatantly use it after that. Instead more attention went to his vision-related powers, which, granted are cool and useful, but still, I really wanted to see more feats of strength from him. It would've made him even more versatile, and it'd be fun watching a shorter dude toss cars and stuff around. This is just theorizing on my part, since nobody who's ever worked on the show before has ever come out and talked about it AFAIK, but I think the inspiration for his powers comes from the fact that he's a sled dog. Sled dogs can pull heavy loads, and they tend to come from colder climates.

Being single and one of the more desirable male characters, Exile tends to be a pretty popular character to pair off with OFCs, the vast majority of which suck, to bluntly put it. They're usually either horrible Mary Sues (or sometimes, Gary Stus) who were/are either bland or very, very very annoying. Not to mention that a number of ship fics featuring Exile tends to be really out there furry fetish stuff/or porn, especially if Exile is paired with Hunter/or Blitz. 

"Well wait, why are you kinkshaming, you uptight prude?!"

Listen, if you post some of the stuff that I've stumbled over (I'm not about to go into detail since there's no way I can not make it explicit, and I don't know who's actually looking at this blog. It's not just regular old "insert tab B into slot A" sex though), not everybody's gonna be up there oooing and awwing over it. It is legitimately bizarre stuff. Harmless yes, but still bizarre. For the record, if someone were to actually write a good ExileXBlitz fic that was an actual romance and not ultra weird OOC furry wanklit, I'd read it.

Moving on, if I was going to ship him with another canon character, I actually like the idea of him and Colleen together. Never in a million years would I have thought of this pairing were it not for Usami and her story Eye Of The Wolf. The both of them do get along pretty well in the show, and it's a refreshing change of pace from all the Hunter/Colleen stuff. In my main bunch of stories however, Exile's getting shipped with an OFC (holding off on revealing the character's identity for spoiler purposes).

Dokey-okay. :) So coming up next time you're gonna see my many Exile headcanons, my inspiration in writing him, etc etc.

About that talking space rock show

Earlier in the year, I was really glad to see a few people on YouTube reexamining Steven Universe as well as long-time fans standing up for it and correcting all the misinformation and outright lies that have dogged the series since it's arrival on the scene.

ETA: Decided to link to a different video:

 

The Character Corner: Esteban, Part Two

'I wonder how long it's going to take her to notice the 'kick me' sign I stuck on her back?...'

You thought we were done baby but I'm back for round two with a follow up to this post: link. I know it's a very last minute addition, but I decided to take this particular approach to my character analyses from The Spiral Writer. She writes for multiple fandoms like myself. If you like Henry Stickmin or Sonic The Hedgehog especially, then go check out her blog.

But yeah, it's a great way to keep headcanon separate from my discussing the characters as canon presents them.

INSPIRATION

My approach to writing him honestly stems from just my watching the show, really. I draw my own conclusions about his character. I think I've mentioned this elsewhere before, but Esteban does not prominently feature in a great deal of fic in the fandom, so it isn't like I really can find a whole lot of inspiration there anyways. There is one author who I can say has inspired me though, J.B. Blackwood. Unfortunately however, she's taken her stories down. One particular fic of her's featured a drunk, depressed Esteban mourning his parents during Dia de los Muertos, and their distressed ghosts could only look on sadly (if you thought it was tough finding Esteban-centered fics, think about how hard it is to find fics that actually touch on his parents). There was another dramatic fic she wrote exploring how things could've played out between him, Shuriki, and Victor right after the coup. Both were terrific little one-shots. You can check out the headcanon section below to see a few things she graciously allowed me to borrow.

FUTURE PLANS

Outside of my ongoing Elena Of Avalor rewrite, I actually have about three ideas in total. One is a fairly older idea I've had for a Friendship Is Magic crossover which has evolved quite a bit from when it was first devised. Of course it's an AU, diverging from canon right before the start of EoA's third season. Over time it's become more influenced by the concept behind isekais, except for lacking that particular subgenre's more annoying cliches, IE, there will be no harems, Esteban is not going to be an overpowered MC, etc. 

The second story idea is inspired by another fanfic concept I heard about and thought sounded interesting, called infinite looping. Basically, a character finds themselves involuntarily jumping from one different version of their universe to the next. So the basic premise will be about Esteban hopping about assorted realities. 

The last idea is a relatively new one, so I really don't have very many details about it to share just yet. I will say that it's yet another AU, a drama with romantic (as I'm gonna use it as an opportunity to write about a crossover pairing for Esteban that I think could be interesting) and supernatural elements.

HEADCANON

- He actually does not have a horse or ride in the show I believe (if I'm wrong then someone correct me please). I can see them giving some dumb reason as to why, like “He thinks horses are icky.” I’m sure if cars were around in his world he’d get one, but since there aren’t, he’s stuck with horses and it’d be incredibly impractical for him not to know how to ride one. In my headcanon, he is an equestrian who has grown up with horses and is pretty comfortable with them as a result. His newest horse is a buckskin Andalusian gelding named Arpegiar. 

- Speaking of cars, for a modern AU I imagine him being an aficionado of sports cars.    

- Due to the trauma he’s been through as well as his feelings of guilt he’s become a functional alcoholic. I was inspired by the aforementioned J.B. Blackwood.
 
- I would describe my interpretation of Esteban as being far less clownish and dimwitted then his canon self; IE, in my fics, he would never just grab unwrapped tamales and toss them into a cooking pot, no matter how hungry or impatient he was.

- Aside from the palace, he sometimes also stays at his parents' estate in Villa Rica.

- Both the names for Esteban’s parents here as well as what happened to him at Shuriki’s hands in the aftermath of coup is courtesy of J.B. Blackwood again. Regarding the latter... yes, she did rape Esteban. I don't know how obvious that was to readers. I do know that at least one person picked up on it. The 'rents names are different here so as to differentiate my fanon from the source material. 

- I love the idea of Esteban's father being voiced by the late great Raul Julia. His parents were largely ignored in the show, so I'd like to explore who they were here. 

- Time for a fun headcanon! If he gets enough alcohol in him and there’s music playing, then Esteban will cut loose and start dancing. He’s actually pretty good at it.  

- EoA is inconsistent as to whether or not he’s supposed to be a coward. The Disney wiki write-up flat-out calls him one, and he was shown in this light in a few episodes. But earlier on when an evil fairy was invading Avalor and had giant vines attacking the palace, Esteban was right up there with Francisco chopping away at them. And he was the one who stopped Shuriki from casting a spell on Elena and Sofia. So?.... Look, he’s got plenty of flaws as is. I don’t even mind his being scared of Shuriki. That’d be completely understandable, especially within my setting. But does he really need to be a coward too? That said, this does tie into my idea about his having PTSD. I’m dead certain the show didn’t even intend for this to be a thing, but some of his behavior (the irritability and his fear when in Shuriki’s presence) could be construed as his having it. 

- It was confirmed on Twitter (I think? I was only told this secondhand) that canonically Esteban is not of the Royal House/royal bloodline, being only related Elena through his mother. Here however, he is actually part of the Royal House, which gives him a stronger claim to the throne and further fuels his feelings towards the matter.

- I plan to play up an "opposites" angle between him and Elena in a couple of ways: I.E.: she's a swordsman... girl, while he prefers the musket and enjoys target shooting.

- I do intend for my Esteban to actually possess a sense of humor. We did see him try to joke around that one time with Isa in "King Of The Carnivale", and he's had some excellent snarky comments here and there, but otherwise, he was set up to be the humorless killjoy as yet another way to make Elena and the rest of the perma-happy characters look good (refer to Isa's reaction to his joking around). So I made him dry-humored to counteract that (plus I prefer dry humor and find it works really well in prose form). I think it fits his personality.

- In my fics, Esteban's last name is not Castillo-Flores. That's Elena and Isa's last name. Since Spanish surnames combine the mother's first surname and the father's first surname, it'd have to include his dad's surname. And since the father is a non-entity in the cartoon, I decided to make his surname Bandera-Mazariegos. So Esteban's surname in my works would be Bandera-Castillo.

PERSONAL

What else could I add here that hasn't already been said? He's one of the most relatable characters in the show for me (under different circumstances I might've included Mateo as another relatable character, but meh, I'm not really big on EoA's younger characters). In addition to his more dramatic moments and deeper characterization, he has some pretty funny lines and scenes, like his spats with Doña Paloma, and he winds up stealing the show for me. I would argue that he is more complex than the characters we tend to see from these sorts of shows.

As much as I detest the last season of the show, and for all the issues I have with how Esteban was approached early on and his blatant character assasination later, I'm still glad that we got to have a character like him around.