Trivia

Trivia about the series!

Most of these tidbits are gathered from the Wordpress blog, but neatly arranged in one place. Read with caution because there are some spoilers!

• Anathema to Commonsense
• Extra! Chronicles

Anathema to Commonsense

Episode 2

• The phone booth is based off of one of the world's earliest phone booths, built in 1880. The first phone booth that used coins was from 1889. It wasn't shown in the panels, but Aurora had to purchase a ticket to operate it.
• Renegade Midnight Conductor's outfit was redesigned to be easier to draw while reflecting another aspect of her character. Her previous outfit was meant to reflect her wishes to be an adventurer and to be a soldier for the Academy for Time Travel after she returned and graduated, but it was difficult to draw. It had so many details that were difficult to keep consistent, even when using vectors.
• Her redesigned jacket is inspired by those 1980's-style jackets with bold, blocky colors on them, which reflects her love for 1980's fashion, and a change to her characterization: She's more against the Magestablishment, of magical society, and the Academy than she was in the previous version.
• Since her magical weapon is called the Altair, the color scheme of it is modeled after the Altair 8800 computer.

Episode 3

• Renegade Liberty's weapon, Pistol Star, originally had a morning glory motif on it, but was changed to a rose motif so I could sneak in a Guns n' Roses reference. The name of her weapon in its supercharged form (Sweet Bazooka of Mine ~ Pistol Star Supercharge) also has a reference in it!
• The color scheme of Pistol Star is now modeled after the PDP-1, one of the earliest computers to inspire the hacker culture of the 1960's, when mainframes were dominant, but their dominance started to be opposed. The Magical Renegades' philosophy has parallels to the 1960's hacker culture, but are about making magic more accessible to the common people rather than software, and opposing the magical bureaucracy.
• That change was a last-minute decision after changing the color scheme of the Altair weapon.
• The Nova-class mages and the Magical Renegades were one and the same, until some people who aren't affiliated with the Magical Renegades got a hold of the magical weaponry that makes a Nova-class mage.

Episode 4

• The flower in the background of the large panel of Renegade Midnight Conductor and Renegade Liberty is a clematis, a flower symbolic of ingenuity. When deciding on a flower symbolism for the Magical Renegades, this seemed to be one of the most fitting.

Episode 5

• The narration in the time portal is a spoof of the opening theme to the The Future is Wild TV series.
• The 3D backgrounds were made in Infini-D 3.0. The first ones are the same model, but the first was rendered as a wireframe, and the second was rendered in the "Better" render setting, as if it were getting more polished after entering the portal. The other 3D effects were rendered in the "Best" and Ray-tracing settings.

Episode 6

• The students were retconned into being older, around college-age, if they weren't already. The prep schools are schools in between high school and college, and prepare students for college or employment. The prep schools offer life skills and employment skills for the students that need them, or courses to get their diplomas if they missed the chance for it in high school.
• The capital city has only two prep schools despite its size. This school sharply contrasts itself with Pretentia Academy:
• Pretentia is an elite school, which with few exceptions, has very high admission fees, and requires having connections to enroll. Attending it has a lot of prestige.
• Students and staff at the remedial school tend to have a self-deprecating sense of humor, but take their studies seriously, and the school's programs boast a high success rate. It started with an unfortunate acronym that was chosen by the founders and school board who had to put something on their paperwork.
• Rather than go through the costs and extra paperwork to change it, the founders and school board went with it, and decided to keep the name.
• The two schools have a rivalry, and it traces back to the each of their founders.

Episode 7

• The header image in the blog post is a redraw of Chelsea's introductory panel, meant to be drawn in a classic shoujo manga style.
• Chelsea's middle name is in reference to Daisy from The Great Gatsby. Other relatives may have names that are also references to this book, or others about high society.
• Kayla's reaction when she saw Chelsea's golden spoon was inspired by the eyes emoji.

Episode 7.5

• The title panel is modeled after the Mac OS startup screen introduced in System 7.5, because it's episode 7.5!
• The portal in the header image is also the framed picture in the cafe background.
• Aurora didn't bring over instant photography when she visited the 1880's. Cameras in the mid- and late 19th century had exposure times measured in minutes. Staying still that long was inconvenient, and was satirized back then!
• It was also satirized in one of The Scattered Archives stories!

Episode 8

• Kayla's phone is a Motorola Razr. I brought out my old Razr to use as a reference when drawing the panels she's holding it, and for the screen on her phone showing the date.
• The bus number 815, is a reference to Lost.

Episode 9

• Claire's phone is a Motorola DynaTAC, the first portable cellphone. It was released in 1983 and had a talk time of 30 minutes.
• Katt's phone is based off of a prototype Apple cellphone concept from the 1980's.

Episode 10

• Several of the backgrounds, and the crystals in this episode were made in Infini-D.
• The header image was modeled after 1980's aesthetics and a 1980's anime style. That's supposed to be Claire wearing a power suit with shoulder pads, and checking the time on her DynaTAC!
• The cloud pattern that appeared when the space-time continuum was rebooting is based off of the Windows 95 and 98 boot screens, which someone needed to comment on, but to be honest, I don't hate either of them.
• The space-time continuum isn't that prone to crashing, but reboots and fluctuations in it generate the crystals of concentrated magic used to power the weapons used by the Magical Renegades, and the bootleg weapons.

Episode 11

• The title, and the header image are references to (Don't Fear) The Reaper by Blue Öyster Cult.
• 12 panels in this episode had backgrounds rendered in Infini-D.
• The Fomalhaut superweapon has a ring around it because the star Fomalhaut has a very large distinctive ring about it. This superweapon can use binding spells.
• The beige and gray colors, and the gray lines on the Antares superweapon are inspired by most of the Apple computers from the mid 80's and early 90's that used the Snow White design language. The reason? Antares is the codename of System 6.0.4, which was from that era, and is the first Classic Mac OS version to have a codename.

Episode 12

• The blog post was late because I had no ideas for a header image when I was making this episode. The idea sprung up after I published it: Camelia defecting to the snark side!
• That pun was going to be in title before I replaced it with Snark Side of the Court. That part of the title, and the title panel in the webtoon are references to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

Episode 13

• The celebration panel has references to dances in them: The dance from Napoleon Dynamite, the "Caramelldansen dance" dance that's actually from Popotan but played with Caramelldansen, and the Numa Numa dance. Remember when those were everywhere?...

Episode 13.5

• The header image, and the background for the episode title panel were rendered in Infini-D's "Shade best" setting, which is the highest setting you can get a preview of without rendering. An image needs to be rendered as Ray-tracing for translucency, reflections and glowing to display to their fullest.
• Correction to the above: There's a tool in 3.0 to ray trace render a selected area in the window. It's helpful to get a preview of what a part of the image looks like without ray tracing the entire image.
• I liked how the header image looked in the Shade best setting to use it, but I rendered a ray-tracing of it that shows those effects:

Episode 14

• Chelsea and Claudia were retconned to being the only two new recruits. Monica, Christina, Roberta and Lily joined earlier. It made more sense for some of the elite officers to have prior experience.
• The League insignia features a Crown Imperial flower for its symbolism of power and majesty.

Episode 15

• As I began the finishing touches to this episode in Krita, I thought of an alternate second part to the title of "Legionnaire Imperatrix Stops to Gloat!", and my mind drifted towards the original Wacky Races and Dick Dastardly and Muttley In Their Flying Machines, so I based the header image off of the classic Hanna Barbera style!

Episode 16

• Not only are the lines near the end of the episode based off of lyrics to AC/DC's Hells Bells, the bells are based off the bells from promotional artwork for the song!
• I was going to draw the bells, but changed my mind and rendered them, and the lightning! The bells have red light objects in them to light them from underneath.
• The black and white panels were made in HyperCard, and the drawings were imported from Mac Paint into it!
• Legionnaire Imperatrix was dressed to steal in the middle of the night on the second card, but didn’t want to wear a typical burglar outfit because she doesn't think it's classy!
• The black and white card panels bring an element from a hypothetical HyperCard spin-off game into the canon!

Episode 17

• This episode was the first to break a new limit for the webtoon! It was the first with a title over the 100 character limit on Tapas! XD
• Thutmose's remark to Santana has two references to the band Santana: "...warmer than the welcome..." and "...his evil ways..." He's the most pop culture-savvy of the Gatekeepers.

Episode 18

• Since this is a short episode, there's less to say, but for a small piece of trivia, there's an homage in Chelsea's and Imperatrix's outfits in the photos although they're posing as mechanics and not plumbers.

Episode 19

• The title of this episode, and the remark right after it are inspired by Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann! This is one of my favorite anime, and it is inspirations for the tone of Magical Renegades!
• There was a partial Title Drop in this episode in the line "Then someone anathema to commonsense needs to go out there, and do the impossible!"
• This is the first episode to include translations for Ragnar's lines, which are in Middle English! It's different enough from Modern English that translations could be helpful. I thought about whether to also include them for the Shakespeare-era English spoken by Santana.

Episode 20

Episode 21

Episode 22

• The name of Renegade Liberty's supercharged attack is a reference to the Impact events of Evangelion. It's and the title of this episode are also references to Final Countdown!
• The header banner is based off of visuals from the official Final Countdown music video.

Episode 23

• This episode expanded on the events that it adapted from the comic pages, and brought a Scattered Archives drawing and story with a couple of extra comic strips into the webtoon!

• This is a scene that happened in the aftermath of the showdown, but it was one of those ideas I didn't think about including until the prompt for this drawing during Inktober 2018: "Scorched".
• Extra drawings and comic strips that depicted some events that happened off-panel. Webcomic pages and webtoon episodes have their strengths and limitations. Working with webtoon episodes has been far easier for me. When I was working with pages, I had to leave some scenes out to fit the pacing and layouts of the pages, and the chapter lengths I intended.
• A pair of extra comic strips were also made about the aftermath in the earlier webcomic version before the 2020 reboot:

• These strips were the only depiction of the king and queen in their combat outfits. The webtoon adapted them in full-color!

Episode 24

• The color scheme of the Royal Military Police uniforms was tweaked a bit. The guards appeared behind the king and queen and two of them weren't as silhouettes so they could be important later!

• It was similar in the earlier comic pages before the reboot. Green was the main color. It's associated with the classical mages, who tend to pride themselves on upholding order, and is a color associated with stability and harmony. Their detractors would say their ideas of stability and harmony are tyrannical, and that they stifle creativity and green is not a creative color!
• Their uniforms' tweaked color scheme is inspired by the color schemes of the IBM 7090 mainframe line, which seems very fitting: It symbolizes how the Royal Military Police are a military, and firmly on the side of The Establishment or rather The Magestablishment. To put the comparison together, IBM was for decades The Establishment of computing. They were the largest company with the largest and most successful mainframe lineup, and would be associated with the old status quo of mainframe dominance after the rise of minicomputers. Let's also not forget the reputation the IBM PC had in the 80's!
• This also ties into how the Magic Gatekeepers also having a computer based off an IBM mainframe: The design of theirs is based off of the AN-FSQ/7!

• Which company gave rise to the minicomputer revolution? DEC! The Magical Renegades's weapons (and the League's, because of Christina designing weapons for both factions) take some inspiration from the design elements of DEC's iconic computers because their designs are so cool IMO, and DEC was very much a scrappy company compared to the mainframe giants.
• Also tying the military connection together with the Royal Military Police, The 7090 was used for several military programs.

Episode 25

• Ainslie was alluded to in chapter 4 of Extra! Chronicles as the member who was afraid to say anything in the argument in case she escalated it due to being (former) royalty.
• Her description in this episode hinted that she changed her name. She did. She used to be Chelsea Daisy Mallory II!
• Felicity's other names are references to Dada artists and one of the early iconic pieces of Dada art!
• Avogadro hasn't been completely disowned by his original family, but there's a lot of tension. Many of his relatives see him as an enemy and would fight him, but would welcome him back if he tells them that they were right, follows their lead, and gives up on the Magical Renegades.
• Mildred was introduced in one of the Scattered Archives stories. She dislikes the League and feels humiliated that she and the military work as a subcontractor for them.
• The purple-haired soldier standing next to Mildred is one of Avogadro's estranged brothers!

Episode 26

The end of the episode is very heavy on dialogue since it has a phone call between Susana and her mother, but the dialogue reveals details about their family:

• Her mother's parents co-own the family farm and also have a ranch. The ranch is a more reliable source of income than the farm.
• Susana's and Claudia's father is from a family that moved to the city at least one generation prior. He grew up in the city but left because life in the city seemed too unstable and hectic.
• Susana, Claudia, and their other family on their mother's side witnessed some years of bad harvests, and mages who'd flock to their village to take advantage of the suffering. Some of the animosity between humans and mages are because of the mages who sell fake medicines and faulty magic tools to humans to make a quick buck. This is why Susana never told her family nor anyone else from her village exactly who she works for when she joined the Magical Renegades.
• That's also why Susana thought the Magical Renegades were initially a scam when she was first given the offer. The Magical Renegades hate being lumped in with the scammers and want to fight scams, but magic weaponry that bypasses the magical bureaucracy and its rules tends to sound too good to be true to many!
• Claudia is still alive in the third timeline, but her family don't know if she is since this episode is in 1884, and Claudia didn't return until 1887.

There's more! Here are a couple more bits of trivia for this episode:

• Susana's family and other people in the rural areas speak a dialect that's heavy with Old West slang. Since the S.O.C is an island country that claims to be founded by pirates, the dialect spoken across the country may also have pirate slang in it.
• Christina's outfit and hairstyle in this episode are from another drawing:

Episode 27

• The Internet cafes that exist in this new timeline are rather limited. Their capabilities are comparable to 1980’s BBSes, but they use teletypewriters and teleprinters over a telegraph line.
• Myra debuted in Extra! Chronicles (chapter 2), and this is their first appearance in Anathema to Commonsense!
• Myra has power over the fourth wall like Camelia does, but is a newcomer, and by far the youngest person to have this power at 24 years old. They're a student at Capital Remedial to finish catching up on education they missed, and to hone their business skills.
• Lucy is one of the court jesters in the Magic Gatekeepers' court, but her usual jobs are managing a resort and being a tour guide!
• The clock at the front desk of the hotel has a color scheme based off of the 1995 promotional Apple Watch!
• The episode title has reference to two Weird Al songs "One of Those Days" and "Here's Johnny". It was fitting for this episode to have a Weird Al reference since the number 27 features in several of his songs!
• There were a few different ideas for titles that were considered such as "It's Hip to be Stranded in the Town Square?"
• Each (completed) chapter of the previous version of Magical Renegades was 27 pages.
• The typewriter on the left of the computer store is modeled after the IMSAI 8080. The others are modeled after the Apple II, but the wooden one in the back is modeled after this famous Apple I built into a wooden case which might've been on display at the Smithsonian museum, though this description of the Apple I the Smithsonian has on their official website shows an Apple I without a case.

Episode 28

• This episode was going to be chapter 14 of Extra! Chronicles, but was expanded into a full episode to show more of the hotel! Chapter 14 will take place at the same time.
• This episode was going to be about twice as long or longer and cover most of the events during the first night at the hotel, but it was split into two because of the length. The rest of it will be the next episode!
• If it hadn't been split, it would've surpassed episode 26 in length, which is currently the longest Magical Renegades episode.

Episode 29

• The first part of the title for this episode is based off of Microsoft’s tagline of "Where do you want to go today?" for Windows 95 and 98. Isn't it fitting because it was hinted that the space-time continuum runs on Windows 9x with the cloud-patterned panel when space-time rebooted?
• The logo of the phone service is a phone receiver with a cord and beams below it. The receiver is a design used on late 19th and early 20th century phones, and the lines below the cord represent support beams of a bridge to represent the bridging of space and time.
• Just as this was split off from episode 28, this episode was going to be a lot longer but the next scene in the auditorium was split off into episode 30. It was split for length, and to reduce the mood whiplash in this episode.

Episode 30

• Catherine's stage name has puns and a pop culture reference in it! Katzenjammer is a reference to The Katzenjammer Kids, which is one of the oldest newspaper comic strips and had the longest run. In her stand-up comedy acts, she's loud and boisterous since katzenjammer can mean caterwaul, or wailing cats! She doesn't even need a microphone when she's on stage!
• The first sign she held up is a reference to a line in Hardware Store by Weird Al.
• McCool has black hair and wears a tuxedo because some black and white cats have a tuxedo-like coat pattern.
• The start of this episode adapts a Scattered Archives story and drawing!
• That drawing and story helped produce this episode.

Episode 31

• The first part of the title is a reference to the song Running in the 90's by Max Coveri.
• The second part references two Smash Mouth songs, All Star and Radio!
• Legionnaire Imperatrix's outfit in her last panel is the outfit she wore in one of the cards featured in episode 16.

Episode 33

• The names of Renegade Knockout Tango’s weapon and the attack she used have references to Bad Company. Swooping With the Pack is a reference to the album Running with the Pack and What I Wave is What You Get is a reference to What you See is What You Get.
• Her weapon taking the form of a fan references how her normal self is a prop comic, and Knockout Tango swoops in to attack as a reference to Aladfar meaning "The talons" or "The swooping of the eagle"
• The first part of the title is based on a line in Mighty Wings by Cheap Trick.

Episode 34

• The face on the clock form of Midnight Conductor's weapon has a stylized Angelica flower on it with 12 flower clusters radiating out from the center for each hour. In Victorian flower symbolism, Angelica represents inspiration.
• The color scheme of her weapon in its clock form changes to include black, the main color of her outfit, but the rest of the colors are kept. The rivets along the face were going to be metal rivets but were changed to "blinkenlights" or the panel lights on early minicomputers and microcomputers!
• Midnight Conductor created the barrier by freezing time around her; her spell is called Temporal Standstill (a reference to Time Stand Still by Rush).
• The sunset backgrounds of Temporal Standstill is a reference to the visuals of the official Time Stand Still music video!
• Midnight Conductor also created the aurora with magic. She likes to fight in a flashy way and stealth isn't her strong suit, but it's better than she created the aurora than for it to have happened naturally. In low-latitude regions in an Earth-like world, auroras only show up from disastrous events!

Episode 35

• The first part of the title is a reference to a line in Livin' On A Prayer by Bon Jovi. This is a holdover from how Katt was going to say she was "living on a prayer" about the initiation process and if she'd be able to handle it since the Magical Renegades' leader, Avogadro didn't know about Katt and she feared he wouldn't approve and think she would be going against the values that he taught.
• Renegade Midnight Conductor would've remarked she's effectively a leader since she's the lead recruiter for new members. This could still lead to a bit of a conflict in the dynamics between her and Avogadro. It'd show they work together but don't see eye to eye on everything.

Extra! Chronicles

Chapter 11

• Galvani is one of Avogadro's older siblings and he had a cameo appearance in episode 25. He's one of the generals of the Royal Military Police.
• He's from the Gagliardi family, which is part of the nobility and has close ties to the Mallory family. They have a reputation for being warriors that the Mallory family wanted to recruit them, and wanted to form a political alliance. Everyone in this family is trained to be a soldier to enlist in the Royal Military Police. Avogadro dropped out and changed his surname to show that he is estranged.
• Avogadro changed his surname to Bonaventura "good fortune" to symbolize his hopes of achieving good luck and success with his inventions. He wanted to be an inventor, not a soldier. He believed that if he must fight, he'd rather as part of a group he wants to be with.
• Felicity's parents and siblings have the surname Fontaine. Felicity kept Fontaine as a middle name and changed her surname after she joined the Magical Renegades to show she still follows in the traditions of her family as an artist and architect, but took an avant garde path.
• Her choice to leave classical art that was a guaranteed source of income behind for an avant garde path was controversial within her family and the S.O.C's high society. Her mother referred to her as "the rebellious daughter" when she spoke to Eminence, but her tone was concerned instead of scornful. Felicity's family don't want to fight her, but there's always the risk that they'll be called to fight each other since the rebellion of 1879.
• Ainsley is completely disowned by her original family, but she also disowned them, and fought in the rebellion of 1879.
• That event is another major one in the timeline. It was the first major crackdown the Royal Military Police had against the Magical Renegades that led to casualties.
• Episode 26 will reveal some more backstory about Susana's family. She's still on good terms with some of them, and they're affected by Claudia going missing. At this time of that episode, she's still presumed to be missing.

Chapter 12

• Aliverti is Galvani's and Avogadro's sister. She married into royalty through marrying one of Princess Mildred's brothers. Aliverti is a princess, but the rest of her family would gain titles of nobility if they didn't already have them (Avogadro's aren't acknowledged by them or their in-laws because he was shunned by much of his family and he defected from them).
• This episode reveals the names of the king and queen! The queen is named Etheldreda, a name that means "noble strength". She prefers to go by Ethel because she's not sure if she can live up to that "strength" part of her name, and she might not care for formality as much as her in-laws do.
• The king is from the Mallory family, but his name fits a different theme than several of his relatives or descendants that have been introduced. His name is Gareth, which is a name that appears Le Morte d'Arthur, written by Thomas Malory!
• Several other members of the Mallory Family are named after characters from The Great Gatsby which include: Daisy(Chelsea's middle name), Myrtle (Mildred's middle name), Carraway and Nicholas (both named for Nick Carraway).
• Nicholas' sister Rita has a name that follows the name theme of their mother's side of the family. The Gagliardi family are named after famous Italian scientists, though this is a family with a reputation for being warriors!

Chapter 13

• Mildred and Galvani are both 3-star generals in the royal military's army division as of 1884, and have their sights set on higher ranks yet.
• If you read the earlier comic version, Yumeko was introduced as being a former member of the royal military police and had just left to join the League. This chapter introduces her 3 years earlier as a cadet.
• In another of her time travel achievements, Eminence introduced pizza to the royals in this timeline!
• There are extravagant pizzas in real life costing thousands of dollars!
• The recording devices that Paige used in the interview are based off of acoustical recording technology.

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