why is victim (Animator vs Animation) grey?
and why did it take me a whole year to figure out why??? 😭
this was probably obvious to some people but im gonna ramble about it and explain my theory anyway just in case there's others like me LOL-
so here's how i reacted when i watched 'victim' for the first time, and also gathering other people's theories and opinions:
okay so ig entering the internet "stablised" him
and i guess he's old ?? so he's grey from being old man???
idk something something, "ink running out", losing color
commenters under the video thought it was just because he's "morally grey" and i accepted that theory
the animatorvsanimation fandom page says that he turned grey due to being "corrupted and desaturated by [the Outernet's] outer layer".
obviously alan mentioned they needed an easier way to differentiate victim and The Chosen One so I figured this was sorta just a way out that needed no explanation
...BUT THERE WAS AN EXPLANATION. IT WAS THERE THE WHOLE TIME.
first, we saw that victim was accidentally mixed in with mitsi's upload (or "life", as i like to view this lime-green magic. it's the same colour as TSC's awakened powers, which is why victim fixated on it briefly in AvA 10).
this forced victim to travel to newgrounds, and then become a part of the internet and outernet through unnatural means. keep in mind he is now completely enveloped by mitsi's life-particles during this transition.
and then, he turns grey? well...
...after victim crashes and meets the now-formed mitsi, it becomes clear.
victim didn't turn grey because of age, or different programs, or being an "unnatural/manmade" stickfigure in a space he should not belong...
it's time to get annoyingly technical about COLOUR.
if you don't want to bother reading all this, scroll until you find the red-coloured header.
keen eyes may notice that the grey of victim's new self is an identical grey to the hair of mitsi. and if you don't believe me, here!
"but chao, that's a style choice i'm sure. it helps to limit a color palette so animation becomes easier!"
here's some examples of characters having very similar colours and yet having different tones:
[caption in 3rd image reads: "these two are EXTREMELY SIMILAR. but if you zoom in, you can spot a very slight difference in shades."]
"chao, you're not considering lighting and shading!"
okay, you could argue the 3rd image has a bit of fancy lighting going on, causing tones to have a slight difference. but 1st and 2nd images have a basic lighting for all characters, causing none of them to become shaded or lightened. and even when lighting IS in play in a scene, there will still be a difference:
and hey, even victim and mitsi are not exempt from being different tones due to lighting and atmosphere. here, mitsi is a lighter colour due to being a distance away (victim being right up close to the camera) and so the foggy atmosphere changes her tone.
but in most scenes (even a frame 2 seconds after this), their matching colour is consistent/near-identical.
[caption in 3rd image reads: "Rendered images are not easy to colour-match, but these two still share small pockets of matching/near-identical colour."]
WHY DOES THIS MATTER??!?!
i simply wanted to prove that victim and mitsi share the same tone of grey to make my theory stronger than just "corruption" and "he's old!"
so the answer the big question, "why is victim grey?"
having been mixed in with mitsi's life and "uploaded" to the internet alongside her, victim was forced to adopt mitsi's colour palette. she only consists of 3 colours (white, light grey, dark grey) and does not go anywhere near the extremity of black. the dark grey, being the closest mitsi's palette can reach toward black, is what the upload "forced" upon victim.
remember, these stickfigures are made from data. combining victim and mitsi's data together would cause some overrides - palette, animation style (why victim "stablises" in his animation style), frame rate. mitsi's data was higher priority, so overwrote a lot of victim's data without destroying who he was as a stickfigure.
this affected his ship too! but i can understand that the team simply greyscaled this model, as colour-grading it to mitsi's limited palette would've been difficult and may look strange. but it explains why the ship changed colour too, at the very least.
THIS IS NOT CONCRETE. this has not been confirmed by Alan or anyone from the team. but it is a theory i have utmost confidence in!! and whilst i do believe this is a really "obvious" observation, i haven't seen anybody else talk about it, so i just wanted to ramble about it.
if you have anything to add or maybe you think my theory is complete bogus i'd love to hear it!! i love to discuss things about one of my biggest hyperfixations :DD remember, this is a canon-based theory. if you have any non-canons and headcanons that clash with this, i would like to respect your decisions and imaginations. ^^ if you tell me "but i headcanon X and Y!" that's very cool, and i think you should continue doing that! but this theory is based on fact and canon, purely derived from what we see in the episode and using some outside smarts.
okay this ramble is OVER!! thank you for readings :D