"Atlas: The March Towards the End" Pop Culture Thread

hey, all. to try and keep things simple from now on, i'm gonna try just having one all-encompassing thread for popular culture in my ASB ATL, both to share my ideas in general and, hopefully, to promote discussion so that i can make them more defined

for starters, here's some of what i'm thinking of including:

  • one of the most popular alternate history scenarios ITTL is the Francewank, as opposed to, for example, an Axis Victory since World War II doesn't take place and the Nazis never come to power; these settings almost always have a more successful Napoleon (even considering Napoleon's legitimate greater success ITTL) with not only most of Europe but also the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, Russia, and Brazil as part of the French Empire; Britannia [1] is usually the independent power and opponent of France ITTL, though in much worse sorts, because most Francewanks are written by Britannians and Americans; the United States is usually present as a third-party which swings towards either Britannia or France depending on the writer's personal preference
  • Dial M for Monkey from Dexter's Laboratory (though probably with a different name in the final version) is its own series ITTL, in the vein of shows like He-Man or ThunderCats, still created by Genndy Tartakovsky but produced and funded by Marvel (so OTL's Marvel characters who got expys as the Justice Friends appear at times); the series follows the unintelligible Monkey as he defends Earth from various alien threats, up to and including Galactus; in terms of writing, some reference to other Tartakovsky series will be present, namely that the Monkey villain Huntor is an Imakandi, a race of lion-like aliens that appeared in Samurai Jack. some further mention of this at later times in the TL will probably include an offhand scene where someone brings up Monkey appearing in a new Avengers movie :p
  • i've developed an entire fictional Cuban film studio and a number of films for them (i'll go into more detail in a later post). the studio, Campo de Tiro, is most famous ITTL for a series focusing on an expy of OTL's Godzilla, collectively known as "gran bestia" films; their most famous one is a fire-breathing ape-like monster called Monarder, which wakes up deep beneath the Cuban countryside after its disturbed by chemical runoff (in part because Cuba is an expy of WW2 Japan and is subjected to a massive chemical attack on Havana in place of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki)
  • Godzilla himself has different origins ITTL, and is not an analogy for nuclear weapons because Japan isn't nuked ITTL. one possibility is that the film originates in the same way that King Kong did IOTL, inspired by real and/or extinct animals and it goes from there, with possibly the only major difference being that Godzilla has electric breath based on a misunderstanding of a further change to the TL where tyrannosaurs are commonly called dynamosaurs (meant as "dynamic," but dynamo also refers to electricity
  • Pulgasari is still created ITTL as Korea's answer to kaiju films, but the film is explicitly not propaganda ITTL because there's no North Korea; eventually, there's a crossover between Godzilla and Pulgasari where the metal-eating Korean monster is summoned to help fight Mehcagodzilla, after which he becomes a regular addition to Toho lineup
  • an expy of Roland Emmerich's Godzilla is created, but is more of an ersatz than an actual remake, more like Nosferatu to Bram Stoker's Dracula: the featured monster is called either Cebudel or Zebudel (based on the word origin for "gojira") and is still a marine iguana mutated by radiation that attacks New York. as an unlicensed foreign adaptation, it's decently well-received but Toho sues over copyright infringement and gets the rights to Cebudel/Zebudel as a character, becoming a semi-regular addition to their films (especially those which take place at least partly in or near the United States) though he's used as a joke character/butt monkey because of his origins
  • i'll go into greater detail on this later, but another idea of mine is that Star Wars is produced as a singular hexalogy starting with the Prequels and i don't fucking care what anyone thinks of the Prequels, they are intended to be received as middle-ground at the worst ITTL, and the story of each film will be changed accordingly given changes to the rest of the TL, given that Star Wars IOTL draws heavily from our history, and effects technology available at the time each one is filmed (since TTLs version of the Prequels will be available with less-advanced technology than they had IOTL). it's also possible that a Sequel Trilogy will be made ITTL which will be TTL's Prequels in terms of their reception and reputation among the fandom. an overarching theme of the Star Wars hexalogy ITTL will be passing the torch to the next generation.
[1] the British Empire, simply put; the name choice is inspired by Code Geass but it has few similarities to the Holy Britannian Empire
 
before i go to bed tonight, i thought i'd impart something i've been working on a bit more today. the short version is that i'm coming up with some ideas for what Western comics, particularly the superhero genre, will look like ITTL. my initial idea, in particular, was that the primary Justice League roster ITTL would be comprised of characters from the DC Animated Universe except for ones that appeared exclusively in Justice League Unlimited. so, for example, Superman and Batman are regularly accompanied by the comparatively obscure Doctor Fate and Etrigan, who are better-known characters ITTL as a result

my second and more recent idea, and the one that i'm running with, is that i instead look at characters from the DCAU and Watchmen who were either given expys or didn't appear at all, looking at external sources to the respective series. for example, the Justice League episode "Legends" features the characters ending up in an alternate universe where the meet the Justice Guild of America and their respective villains, which is comprised of expys of the Atom, Black Canary, the Flash, Green Lantern, and Wildcat. that gives a base of five characters to work with from the start. then i looked at DC characters that were restricted from appearing in the DCAU for one reason or another and add to the list further: ones like Blue Beetle, Impulse, Firestorm, and Plastic Man.

this goes for villains as well: while alot of the respective villains of heroes that have been included would appear ITTL (even if they aren't directly mentioned or elaborated on in my writing the TL) some of the other villains are based on the Justice Lords, also from the DCAU, and fit in with who they are at least partly based on: Owlman/Batman, Power Ring/Green Lantern, Ultraman/Superman, and Superwoman/Wonder Woman (that last one is probably in need of a rename though :p). these characters would be accompanied by other villains which were ALSO restricted, though the only one i've put any thought into is Nocturna, a Batman villainess who i distinctly remember was restricted from use in Batman:TAS because of the content that would have gone along with her, which would have involved Batman temporarily becoming a vampire and craving human blood

going EVEN FURTHER, i decided to look at Watchmen as well, particularly who and what the various characters in that were based on, since Moore deliberately did this in designing the characters. my current thinking is that these characters would be presented as the anti-heroes of DC Comics, straddling the line between order and anarchy, and would include the likes of Peacemaker/Comedian, Captain Atom/Doctor Manhattan, Batman/Nite Owl, Thunderbolt/Ozymandias, the Question/Rorschach, and Phantom Lady/Silk Spectre


another possibility which came to mind as i was writing up some of this earlier was a different adaptation of the Super Friends where Hanna-Barbera original characters to the show, plus some others, are adapted as that studio's equivalent to both Marvel and DC in an attempt to compete with them, and ITTL would include the "proper" DC versions of some of the Super Friends characters that they were based on or were later adapted into the DC canon. in addition to the actual Super Friends characters, i decided that some other Hanna-Barbera characters would work as part of that team as well, so the likes of Birdman, Atom Ant, and Captain Caveman are included as well (in the context of them being all in one show, there would be a more consistent art style, of course; a second's glance shows you how much those three characters clash with each other)

finally, going on what i mentioned in the previous post, a minor butterfly i decided on is that, quite simply, Genndy Tartakovsky goes to Marvel to produce his cartoons instead of Hanna-Barbera, and most/all of them later become Marvel additions instead of just Monkey. so that could turn into the awesomeness of Samurai Jack teaming up with Iron Man ITTL :D
 
hey, all. i'm back. since i was doing a power run of Arkham City over the past week or so, i ended up not having much time to devote to this. anyway, here's a little something i decided on a while back for one of the most iconic fictional character IOTL: Robin Hood

i'll need to explain a little bit about the TL itself before i go into more detail on the fictional character within the fictional world. i decided a long time ago to start writing in expys of some characters (mostly literary ones) and, from there, ended up coming up with whole lineages based on that. thus far, most of these have been Britannian (British) ones. some of them are historical characters (namely the Godwins, descendants of Harold Godwinson, and the Tudors) but also includes particularly two entirely fictional ones: the Huntingtons and the Rotherwoods, based on the featured characters of the stories of Robin Hood and Ivanhoe, respectively.

getting to the point, ITTL the fictional-fictional character of Robin Hood is based on the fictional-historical figure of Robert Huntington, and (at least at first) dates to the same era as Robin Hood IOTL, during the reign of TTL's version of King Richard, named John the Lionblood. in-context, the character is largely written to criticize the Papacy for supporting the Norman invasion (which fails ITTL), even moreso later when the Britannian monarchy splits from the Church. instead of TTL's version of Prince John (Rikard Lackland) being a major antagonist, it is a fictional member of the House of Rotherwood who stands in (John the Lionblood leaves Britannia in the care of the "original" Rotherwoods while he's out crusading and one of them becomes the unknowing de jure monarch while word of the king's death travels) and TTL's version of Richard III is also a Rotherwood. some stories even culminate with Robin Hood killing the Pope, depending on how the Pope is viewed at the time of writing; if such a story were written in the present-day with Pope Francis leading the Church, that would probably be excluded, while it may have been so with former-pope Benedict because of all the controversy surrounding him, though this would have had it's start with Pope Alexander (e.g., Rodrigo Borgia), arguably the worst pope in history

in the context of writing the TL, Robin Hood himself is a composite of his typical incarnations and Ezio from Assassin's Creed; this stems from the earliest versions of this where Robin Hood himself was a historical character in the TL name Savio the Fox, who lived in Sicily during the relatively brief period it was ruled by Britannia, in which i adapted Ezio's initial background to the character and combined it with Robin's: while Savio is off serving under John the Lionblood in the Third Crusade, his family back in Sicily is betrayed and he learns that his father and brothers are on death row when he comes back and tries to get them pardoned but is betrayed by a corrupt judge (basically Uberto, the first assassination target in AC2) and, in turn, he kills him. the story similarities to Ezio ended there, with him forming a group analogous to the Merry Men and becoming identical to OTL's Robin Hood. there's some artifacts of this in the current version: not only is more of Ezio's character going to be included, but i've also decided that Robin Hood's iconic outfit ITTL is going to be a green variation of Ezio's robes from his games



speaking of Assassin's Creed, i plan to not only include numerous references to that series (mainly as conspiracies and some differences from OTL; i've already written in a different expy of Ezio as another Huntington who basically fills his role from the Pazzi Conspiracy before disappearing along with John Cabot somewhere near North America), but not much else of the actual series is going to be present: there's an enigmatic group of people spotted throughout history at key events wearing similar white hooded outfits that very little is known about, but that's about it. there is an equivalent to the game series and it's expanded universe ITTL, but it's alot different from the one IOTL

the name i've chosen for the expy series is Apostle's Creed: it features similar themes and stories to the OTL event (and possibly the Animus framing device as well) but the first game will instead be set during Jesus' time, featuring some fictional apostles as well as historical characters with, of course, Judas being a pivotal character. all in all, it would be more in the vein of The Da Vinci Code and focus on conspiracies surrounding Jesus. that's pretty much all that i've worked out for it, though; above all else, i'll need to figure out what the actual Apostle's Creed is, but it will be based on the one from OTL. any idea would be welcome
 
bumping my thread again, one idea i've been considering is a slight change in some terminology.

IOTL, George Romero never intended to refer to his zombies in Night of the Living Dead, preferring the term "ghouls" which crops up every once in a while in OTL zombie fiction (if you've read World War Z, you'll notice that one of the nicknames for zombies is "G", which is short for ghoul). anyone who knows anything about zombies knows that they come from Haitian (and by extension African) folklore and, truthfully, the word refers to brainwashed slaves. ghouls, on the other hand, really ARE undead that eat flesh.

so, simply put, zombies in fiction ITTL could be consistently referred to as ghouls, while zombies are considered much more exotic and mystical because of their association with voodoo
 
i figured it would be better to bump this thread again (and i hope i actually get a reply this time; i may as well be blogging otherwise) rather than derail my other one

finally going into greater detail on Star Wars in this thread, i'm starting to get lots of ideas for who would play which characters in the alternate films. since it starts with TTL's version of Ep1 (again, i don't care what anyone's opinion of the OTL film is as that is not the focus of this thread), it's mainly character from that one so far. one thing i've decided is that no new characters will be invented for TTL's version of the films--it will all be OTL characters, even if i have to dig into the EU and what-could-have-been IOTL to do so.

characters and their respective actors so far are:
-- Jar-Jar Binks (Cleavon Little): more downplayed than IOTL, and i'm actually throwing a bone to Prequel haters here--he dies in TTL's Ep2 :p (in a heroic sacrifice, though ;))
-- Jango Fett (Jeremy Bulloch): Bulloch played Boba Fett IOTL's Original Trilogy, and since Boba is a clone of Jango, it stands to reason that Jango would have the same actor; here, Jango is a mercenary on the payroll of the Trade Federation, essentially being Nute Gunray's second-in-command, and he reappears in later films
-- Boba Fett (Jeremy Bulloch): Bulloch gets multiple roles here--any and all named clones of Jango are played by him, and Boba himself is more or less the same as IOTL
-- Jabba the Hutt (played by Declan Mulholland, voiced by Larry Ward): i haven't decided if Jabba appears in TTL's Ep1, but he definitely appears in Ep2 (in which he is killed) and is played by the stand-in Lucas used for a deleted scene with Jabba in Ep4; Hutts ITTL are styled to be more human-like, kinda resembling a walrus but without the tusks
-- Qui'gon Jinn (Brian Blessed): yes
-- Palpatine/Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid): i see no reason to deprive McDiarmid of this iconic role
-- R2-D2 (Kenny Baker): for the same reasons as McDiarmid
-- Annikin Skywalker/Darth Vader (William Zabka; Vader is voiced by James Earl Jones): as with McDiarmid and Baker, i see no reason to leave out OTL's voice of Vader, but Annikin as himself is different from OTL, being presented as a guy in his late teens when he first meets the other characters
-- Han Solo (Al Pacino): my intention is that Han actually first appears in Ep2 as one of Jabba's flunkies and briefly fights Annikin, later reappearing (kind of in a "hey, remember this guy?" moment for the audience); played by Pacino, he has much more of a gangster feel as opposed to Harrison Ford's cowboy air
-- Mace Windu (Toshiro Mifune): as a bit of an homage to Lucas' original casting idea for Obi-Wan, Mace Windu is played by Mifune instead of Samuel L. Jackson ITTL, partly accounting for their respective ages, though his role is essentially the same
 
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