#tss project

[cihojuda]

Ho-lee sheiittttt, this took for-fucking-ever. I just have so many emotions about it that I can’t really even right now.

If you’ve been in the fandom as long as I have, you may remember that I actually tried to do this fancast without owning Photoshop a few years ago on a sideblog that no longer exists. The post was archived thanks to @thesecretsaturdaysvault, but wow is it bad; not to mention the “Click the pictures for names in captions” doesn’t work anymore either. I’d like to think I learned a little while I was doing this project but all I can see sometimes are the inconsistent font and picture sizes and animation errors. Also, making giant picspams with transparent gutters like this is tedious, y’all. I had to go through upwards of fifty layers per picspam just to crop out the extra, not to mention the fact that the process of making gifs is ridiculously repetitious in its own right. TSS has so many instances of the same frame being repeated a bunch of times that I had to delete if I wanted manageable gifs. Then to make a gifspam you have to go through and turn on every layer you want visible in every frame, which is SO MUCH. If anybody has found a more efficient way to do any of those things without merging all the layers in a group, please tell me in case I try to do this again. pls hlp.

Regardless of how I feel about the creation process itself, this has definitely been a labor of love. I absolutely adored this show when it was first airing and it’s been so good to get back into the fandom as a young adult. In fact, my boyfriend read the other posts in my TSS project and used them as evidence to encourage me to join the anthropology program when I originally wasn’t sure. Looks like this is my job in the fandom, rather than the mediocre tracings I did and mini-fanfics I wrote as a preteen. (Don’t worry. This sounds like an ending to the project but it’s still going to be going on in the background of everything on my blog and inconsistently updated just like it has been for the past year.)

And now, since I couldn’t have done it without them and because I promised here’s a giant shoutout to my friends on the Secret Saturdays Discord server, especially Avery @solarcore, Bee @air-commander, Rachel @wildandwhirlingwords, Alexiel @elluka, Sarah @a-promise-that-i-keep, Randi @doyleblackwells, Jules @taw00s and Wallace @metaveil.

[cihojuda]

TSS Project part 7: The Tea is Hot

Warning as usual, long post. I think this is the longest single thing I’ve written for a non-academic purpose since my middle school fanfiction days lmao

Section 1: Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby

oo look a section header

What do I mean by titling this section Let’s Talk About Sex? Well, technically, I mean Let’s Talk About Disproportionate Representation of Gender and Stereotyping, but there wasn’t a catchy song lyric to go along with that. I am an anthropology major but I’m also a sucker for pizzazz.

I’ve noted in the past that there’s a ginormous gender imbalance in TSS- and pretty much all kids’ tv in general except things that are explicitly marketed towards 6-year-old girls. Don’t believe me? Google it. Shows that are “for everyone” or “for boys” only have a female:male ratio of 1:3 or 2:5 if we’re really lucky. And those female characters are usually ascribed one of a few personalities, which you’re no doubt familiar with if you, I don’t know, have eyes and ears.

Granted, this show and the other example I was thinking of, My Little Pony, are shows that play into the characters’ main traits by linking them to their ~Special Powers~ but that still doesn’t change the fact that they are VERY stereotypical Girls. Especially Rarity, Fluttershy, Flora and Stella. Like, goddamn.

Here’s a disclaimer, though: stereotypes exist for a reason. Whether that reason is prejudice or observation changes the nature of the stereotype, but it doesn’t change the fact that that’s the reason why it’s there. Playing somewhat into stereotypes is a good way to play to the things that people know, which in turn draws them in. The problem is making up your entire cast with reductive character tropes à la 1970s Super Friends cartoons, and you do NOT want to go full Super Friends.

Their names are literally just Apache Chief and Samurai. That is, like, uncomfortably racist to a 2018 (or 2000 anything) audience. But shit like that isn’t just limited to the 1970s. Reductive- sexist or racist, usually- stereotypes are permeated into American society so thoroughly that we usually don’t realize that there needs to be more nuance to the characters we’re showing our kids than “this guy is Native American. That’s who he is.” Because that’s what happens with most stereotypes. “This girl is the music girl. That’s what she does. She sings in the shower and has music tattoos and all her fairy powers are music based and...” It’s just So Much.

I had another point. Right.

~Girly~ shows have a main cast made up of entirely of female characters; with supporting males entering every so often just to be “there.” Romantic interests tailored specifically to the protagonists’ wildest dreams, usually. This does happen in ~~boys’ tv~~ too, but not in the same way. You know. The swoon-y, heartfelt love poem, I-can-change-him way. It’s different than how female characters are “just there” in boys’ tv, because then they’re either nagging mothers or coveted prom dates. I was going to say I don’t know why that is, but I do know. It’s the patriarchy. What I don’t know is why the “just there” thing happens in girls’ tv. What I do know is that I could write my goddamn thesis on why the “just there” thing happens in boys’ tv- and it is a thing- and why I hate it, but I don’t think you can swear in an undergrad thesis and I’m not sure if I’m ever getting a master’s degree. yaaaaay

So here’s a TL;DR for what’s coming:

http://secretsaturdays.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Characters

If you’d like to fact-check me about the gender imbalance in TSS, the link for the character section of the wiki is above. I only counted characters who were on the show (TGIS? new fone who dis) and important enough to be included in the wiki, not the ones who only made an appearance in the comics. (Don’t fucking @ me for not including people like “security guard who refused van Rook’s American money,” although most of those people were men too.) Otherwise the ratio would have been even more skewed blue because there were literally no new ladies introduced in the comics? At least none important enough to be included in the wiki? And there were literally only four recurring female characters in the entire series at all period, sixteen females total if you count the single-use randos (not mentioning whether those characters said lines which advanced the plot or anything either, because some did and some didn’t). SIXTEEN. Let me break them down for you:

Drew: second-tier protagonist

Miranda Grey: second-tier main character (both pro- and antagonist)

Abbey Grey: love interest/second-tier antagonist

“Charles and Lily’s Mom”: single-use background rando from s1e9

Lily: single-use plot device character from s1e9

Dr. Pachacutec: single-use plot device character from s1e11

Drew Monday: third-tier antagonist

Rani Nagi: third-tier antagonist

Ruby: single-use rando from s1e21

Sita: fourth-tier antagonist from s1e16

Tica: single-use plot device character from s2e3

Unnamed Agent #1: single-use background rando from s1e23

Wadi: third-tier protagonist

Zon: could be replaced with a potato and nobody would care

Anti-matter Zon: could be replaced with an anti-matter potato and nobody would care

Drew and Doyle’s mom: single-use plot device character from s1e7

Does that look like a lot of characters? Well, sure it does, when you write out descriptions like that for all of them. Let’s do all the guys, though, just for shits and giggles.

Zak: main progtaonist and story focus

Doc: second-tier protagonist

Doyle: second-tier protagonist

Fiskerton: second-tier protagonist

Komodo: second-tier protagonist

Argost: main antagonist

Munya: secondary main antagonist/Argost’s second and third pair of arms

Ulraj: third-tier protagonist

Dr. Beeman: second-tier main character

Dr. Cheechoo: second-tier main character

Dr. Cheeveyo: third-tier main character

Dr. Bara: single-use plot device character from s1e25

Odele: fourth-tier protagonist (whose side was he on in the Secret Scientist fight?) in two episodes

Epsilon: second- to third-tier antagonist

Francis: third-tier antagonist

Having fun yet?

Joseph: fourth-tier antagonist from s1e16

Ron Bantington: single-use plot device character from s2e1

Pierre Groshomme: single-use plot device character from s2e6

Professor Misuki: fourth-tier main character

Shoji Fuzen: fourth-tier antagonist in two episodes

Eterno: fourth-tier antagonist from s1e11

Maboul: fourth-tier protagonist (barely)

Baron Finster: fourth-tier antagonist

Basil Lancaster: single-use plot device character from s1e15

Bud Harger: single-use plot device character from s1e21

Charles: single-use plot device character from s1e9

Dr. Lee: single-use plot device character from s1e15

Cody: single-use rando from s1e21

Gokul: single-use plot device character from s2e5

Ian: single-use background rando from s1e9

Since Tumblr doesn’t allow numbering to continue after linebreaks, we’re up to 30 now.

The Constable: single-use plot device character from s1e9

Leonidas van Rook: third-tier main character

Piecemeal: fourth-tier antagonist and source of much wasted potential

Zak Monday: third-tier antagonist

Doc Monday: fourth-tier antagonist

Komodo Monday: third-tier antagonist

Fiskerton Monday: fourth-tier antagonist

Unnamed Agent #2: single-use background rando from s1e23

Unnamed Agent #3: single-use background rando from s1e23

Wyatt: single-use rando from s1e21

Drew and Doyle’s dad: single-use plot device character from s1e7

Ulraj’s dad: single-use plot device character from s1e6

FORTY-TWO 👏 GODDAMN 👏 MEN👏 AND 👏 SIXTEEN 👏 WOMEN. Y’all. Oh my god.

Going further, I want to look at stereotyping. Now, you can get some of that by looking at the other parts of this post series (torpedo tits discussion in the character design post whaaaaaat) but I want to go deeper.

Of the sixteen TSS women:

5 are love interests of male characters (Drew is Doc’s wife and she also dated van Rook, Drew Monday is Doc Monday’s wife, Abbey dated Doyle, Wadi is Zak’s crush) + everybody ships Miranda Grey with Beeman in some capacity

4 characters are explicitly known to be mothers, and in two cases it’s central to their identity insofar as that it’s how we refer to them  (Drew, Drew Monday, Drew and Doyle’s mom and Charles and Lily’s mom)

4 have no speaking or communication with humans other than through Zak’s cryptid powers (Unnamed Agent #1, Drew and Doyle’s mom, Zon and her antimatter counterpart)

3 of them aren’t human or humanoid (Rani Nagi, Zon and her antimatter counterpart)

3 have no names (Unnamed Agent #1, Drew and Doyle’s mom and Charles and Lily’s mom)

8 of them only appear in one episode apiece (Sita, Tica, Lily, Charles and Lily’s mom, Drew and Doyle’s mom, Unnamed Agent #1, Ruby, Dr. Pachacutec) + the reappearance of Zon’s antimatter counterpart is very short and doesn’t add much to the episode it’s in.

Only 1 of them is depicted as being “older,” or in the “gray hair and wrinkles” stage (Dr. Pachacutec)

I know what you’re going to say. “But Lilly, if you divide them all into categories, of course it’s going to sound bad!” Well...

Only 5 of the men are without names, which makes there be a higher percentage of unnamed women than men (18.75% of women to 12.5% of men)

The main pro- and antagonists are both male (Zak and Argost)

6 men are explicitly known to be fathers (or raising a child), but in only 2 cases it’s central to their identity insofar as that it’s how we refer to them (Doc, Doc Monday, Maboul, Epsilon, Drew and Doyle’s dad, Ulraj’s father). Although, in the case of Ulraj’s father, he’s often referred to as the King of Kumari Kandam as well, so that adds another layer. There’s no concrete way to refer to the female characters without names because “Blackwell” is only suspected to be Drew’s maiden name (Jay Stephens can @ me about that) and Charles and Lily’s mom can be referred to as something like “Owlman victim” but not really much else.

10 male characters are non-humans (Argost, Munya, Fisk, Komodo, Fiskerton Monday, Komodo Monday, Eterno, Professor Misuki, Ulraj and Ulraj’s father) but of those non-humans nearly all of them can speak or communicate with humans (Fisk, Fiskerton Monday, Komodo and Munya don’t speak) as opposed to the three non-human female characters (Rani Nagi, Zon and her antimatter counterpart) two of whom can’t do either unless you have cryptid powers (Zon and her antimatter counterpart)

Only 2 of the men have no speaking or otherwise communicating during their appearances (Drew and Doyle’s dad and Ulraj’s father) out of the whole 42 of them, even the plot device characters say something except for two who only appear in flashbacks. That’s opposed to 4 of the 16 women who don’t speak or otherwise communicate and 2 of the female characters can’t communicate at all (see above). Those two percentages are hugely different. (4.76% of men vs. a full 25% of women)

At least 6 of the male characters are in the “gray hair and/or wrinkles” stage. (Dr. Lee, Professor Misuki’s human body, van Rook, Baron Finster, Basil Lancaster, Ian) Now, 6 out of 42 is NOT a high number (see above). But it’s a lot higher than the number of women who were allowed to look that way. Thank God they treated Pachacutec with some dignity, even though she only appeared in one episode.

How’s that for “bad if you put it that way?”

Now, listen. I’m not calling TSS a bad show. I fucking lived and breathed this shit for YEARS as a kid, and I’m still very impressed with it- on other levels than gender equality. The thing about it is that it was most likely intended for boys, the idea was conceived by a man, and it was produced in 2008 American society. The whole thing is covered in latent sexism like a minivan is covered in snot. Just because you don’t see the nasty doesn’t mean it’s not there.

I still like the show for reasons that tie into my earlier point about stereotyping: TSS breaks a bunch of them.

A highly educated, rich black man

A happy interracial relationship

Parents who are just the right level of involved with their child instead of being helicopters or ignorant assholes

Not drawing negative attention to the hijabi character at all

The women aren’t nags

No one is reduced to labels like “woman” or “Native American guy”

That’s the thing that we miss sometimes: you can love something while still realizing its faults, and TSS has faults along with its goodness. Namely the gender imbalance, but you can read my other problems with the series in my other posts tagged #tss project.

[cihojuda]

TSS Project Part 6: Equipment

Warning: hella long

So.

While doing some screenshot-taking for Part Five- specifically s1e24/Where Lies the Engulfer- I started thinking about the Claw. Doc tells us in s1e1/The Kur Stone that the Claw has “spring-loaded cable, telescoping shaft, grappling hook, vaulting and retrieving functionality.” I’m not really concerned with any of that, because we see that it does what it’s supposed to do. My nitpicking has to do with the fact that, in this kids’ show about animals that don’t actually exist, I have a hard time suspending my disbelief about the function of the Claw. Take a look at its various functions:

You get even more than is listed on the package with the Claw. It does everything Doc says it can do, plus some things that Zak thought of himself- helping him throw things, letting him cut things with the talons on the Hand of Tsul Kalu (and probably the bird head thing on the other end too), etc. But mostly, what we see are the grappling and dragging functions.

Zak rescues Doyle from the demon lake. (s1e24.)

What am I saying? Well, basically: when in non-combat situations Zak just uses the Claw like one of those T-rex shaped grabby arms.

I mean, wouldn’t you? He is only twelve after all.

T-rex grabbers aside, I have serious questions about this thing. Namely the spring-loaded cable and the telescoping shaft. Let’s look at the first time the Claw is introduced.

Doc is very proud of himself. (s1e2) This is the Claw in its most basic form, ie without the Hand of Tsul Kalu in it. We never get a reference for how long it’s supposed to be exactly. It looks to be around the length of Zak’s arm, but that’s before the changes in the length of the shaft. Which raises these questions:

How does it do that?

Where does the extra length come from?

Where is the cable stored?

Where is the cable-retrieval mechanism?

Can it get even shorter than we see it in this picture?

How do the length of the shaft and the cable mechanisms interact?

It seems that it can get shorter, as we can see by the way Zak can hook it to his belt when not in use.

If it was the same length it usually is, it would swing all around and whack him in the knee and it would look decidedly less heroic. Or, alternatively, the shaft would go up his shirt; and given the amount of times this child falls over that would be a bad situation for everybody. How he never got a puncture would from that ridiculous bird on the other end is beyond me.

However, that doesn’t mean I have answers for the other questions. The shaft of the Claw is too skinny to possibly house a cable-retrieval mechanism strong enough to move a person, much less Zak and Doyle like in s1e24/Where Lies the Engulfer.

Whee! (s1e24)

There’s simply no room in the interior of the Claw for that fuckery to go on. There have been attempts to re-create classic grappling hook type things in the real world, and they all look similar to this:

which could be a real grappling hook gun or it could be a promo image for the newest spy movie coming out this year. I’m inclined to think it’s real because it has a humongous storage area for cable and fictional depictions of grappling hook guns apparently just have portals in them with unlimited amounts of cable, except when it runs out just short of where they need to be for comedic effect. The Claw has no place to house a reeling mechanism. Unless the cable inside the Claw is thinner than thread and stronger than steel, I just don’t see how there’s any room for it to be able to forcefully launch and retrieve.

Speaking of no room, let’s look at the telescoping shaft. How u do dis?

For the Claw to be able to expand and contract at will, I’m assuming that Zak has to press one of those buttons at the top. We don’t actually know which of the buttons does what on the Claw. Thing is, there are only two buttons as far as I can see- and as far as they showed us with the toy.

weird bird head and all.

Is that red bubble a button too? It could be, I don’t know. That still doesn’t answer the “what button does what thing” question. The functions that should be button-controlled are:

Opening/closing of the Hand of Tsul Kalu

Extension/contraction of the shaft

Launching/retrieving of the cable

I would think that you would want some functions and their opposites to be controlled by separate buttons, but I guess Doc is just a minimalist or something. Again, I don’t know what button controls what thing. It’s really too minor of a detail to be shown in the show at all, but I really wouldn’t mind having an overview of how it works. (I’m used to not knowing how things work. I watch Star Trek and everybody just mashes random buttons when they’re told to do something.)

But back to my point about the telescoping shaft.

The problem with the shaft works on a similar principle as the problem with the cable: Where does the extra length on the shaft come from? Usually, for something to be expandable, either there’s another layer hidden inside it or it stretches. I don’t think metal staffs can stretch, so in this case we’re using the dictionary.com definition of telescoping: “adjective: consisting of parts that fit and slide one within another.” Going off of that (and a single cursory Google search), I’m assuming that the Claw works on this principle:

which leaves even less room inside the shaft for the cable to move around. Also, it probably should make the Claw more unstable the closer it gets to its maximum length, because telescoping poles are notoriously collapse-prone. Unless the Claw can extend and stay there permanently like a police baton,

which it may, because this is Doc Saturday’s handiwork we’re talking about. I still don’t understand how circuits/mechanics can be so small and fine as to control the telescoping function without being destroyed and replaced pretty often. Is it tiny hydraulics? Computer? Air power? I don’t know! Plus, it still leaves a big question open as to how it auto-retracts. How in the fuck does that work?

I have no idea. My last big question about the Claw is about the interconnectedness of the telescoping shaft and cable/reeling functions. Since by the dictionary definition of telescoping the Claw has to be made up of smaller, sliding parts somewhere in the interior, how does the cable fit in there at all, much less a pulling mechanism? Does the Claw require a power source? I want to know these things!

Moving on to my next topic: the Firesword.

This, apparently, is what the Firesword would look like in real life.

As opposed to this- which, I know, is a hokey plastic kids’ toy; but that look could easily be achieved with the right color of materials. I guess I’m just going to have to accept that not everything in my life can be shades of orange. (No i’m kidding i accepted that in the 4th grade when my mother refused to buy me anything else orange after the horrible orange turtleneck and corduroy pants I made her get for me.)

All pedantry aside, the people from the website where I got the picture did a really good job. I think their Firesword looks really cool; but it’s not the one I’m going to be talking about.

History lesson, for those who never read the Cartoon Network website and may not remember the throwaway line about how Drew got the Firesword: it was given to her by the monks in Tibet who took her in after the Yeti killed her parents. We learn about the monks in s1e7/Van Rook’s Apprentice, but we don’t see them until s2e9/And Your Enemies Closer. That’s also the episode that tells us that V. V. Argost was actually the Yeti in disguise the whole time, which was all very convenient plot-wise. How do we learn this? Drew, Doyle and van Rook- and, for some reason, Zon- go to visit the temple where Drew grew up.

pew pew (s2e9)

The monks fire on van Rook, Zon and Doyle because they’re strangers whose intentions are unclear. We can infer from the fire that either the monks have laser weapons or they also have Fireswords like Drew’s. Most of us had probably assumed that the Firesword was a completely unique weapon, but this shows us that there’s a possibility of there being more. I mean, what’s more likely: that Drew’s Firesword is the only magical fire-shooting sword in existence and the monks just happened to give it to a magical orphan child they adopted (Jesus Drew you’re so anime) or that a remote religious sect that has little contact with the outside world has a security system that they probably commissioned from Tony Stark?

So the monks have their own Fireswords.

Now, I don’t really have any issues with the way the Firesword works. I can accept the fact that it’s a magical sword much easier than I can accept the lack of space in the Claw for a reeling mechanism. Why? I’m like Zak. I know how to toe the line between magic and science. In science you have to look for rational solutions to things, and with magic there’s sometimes an explanation and sometimes you just have to accept that it’s just “because magic” and move on. (see also: the entirety of the Harry Potter series.) We’re never going to know how and why the Firesword can do what it does. But don’t think that that doesn’t mean I don’t have questions!

How does Drew tell it to shoot fire?

Was it blessed by a god or cursed by somebody?Was it consecrated by the monks?

How old is it?

Where do the retractable blades at the end come from? How does Drew tell the sword to retract the blades?

Are there other, similar weapons?

Is there any real difference between using light from the sun vs. light from the moon or is that just aesthetics?

Does Drew know the answer to any of these questions besides the ones about making the sword do what she wants?

I also wonder about the circumstances surrounding Drew being given the sword.

How old was she when she first started learning to sword fight?

Did they start her off with a wooden dummy sword first?

Was the Firesword a going away present? We know that she left the temple to go to college, and obviously then got married to Doc and had Zak and whatever whatever.

Unfortunately we aren’t ever going to get to know anything about Doc, Drew or Doyle’s backstories. *sad trombone* I need to know these things, dammit. For science.

This post is going to be long, so I’m going to cut it here. Coming up next: Doyle’s jetpack and the Power Glove.

[cihojuda]

TSS Project part 8: Etymology

Everybody: hoe don’t do it

Me: *rereads the entirety of this series and starts another section I probably don’t follow up on*

Everybody: oh my god

Today I decided to write about something equally as obscure and weird as I always do and talk about the Saturday family’s names. That’s why I titled this post “Etymology.” If you’re like me, you’ve probably looked up the family’s names on a baby name website before because there are exactly twenty people and a Dorito making up this fandom and ten of us and the Dorito are the content creators of the group.

Both fortunately and not, it would make for much too short of an update for me to be the human version of Let Me Google That For You (which, I mean... I guess I am, but shut up), so I’m going to discuss what I find out, because that’s what good researchers do and I’m three months away from my thesis. Learning is fun, y’all.

Some people choose baby names (or names for themselves) based on what the name means; because they think the qualities of the name might rub off on their kid, or something. That’s why virtue names are so popular, despite the percentage of us who know somebody who has a story of a stupid Knowledge or a lying Honesty. Or parents don’t know the name meaning and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. There are also regional, national and even generational variations in spelling and name frequency, in addition to different versions of the same name in different languages like John/Juan/Jean.

I’m going to be getting my information from these websites plus the top result on Google and cross-referencing them all to each other. I realize that there are literally a million websites out there that tell you the meaning of things like this, but I don’t have the time to re-confirm with very many; plus isn’t that what search engines are for?

I’m also going to be looking at information from the government of the countries where we think the characters were born. Government censuses and other data collection are usually the most accurate source on the popularity of naming trends. Every website you go to otherwise could have a different answer for the most popular baby name from a certain year and you wouldn’t know whether it was true or not, because did name-my-baby dot com literally record every live birth in America in 2017? No? Shut up.

First up: Dr. Solomon “Doc” Saturday

I’m starting with Doc because I actually know something concrete about his childhood. This is, of course, assuming that the fandom is correct in thinking that he was born in New Orleans in addition to living there as a child. Either way we’re all pretty damn sure that Doc is American and that’s a start.

The name “Solomon” originates in Hebrew. It has its roots in the word shalom, which means “peace.” Depending on where you search, “Solomon” either means “peace” or “man of peace” which is unsurprising given who the name is associated with. In Abrahamic (Christian, Jewish and Islamic) tradition, King Solomon was an incredibly wise and just ruler in ancient Israel. He’s the one who is supposed to have solved the dispute over who is the real mother of a child by suggesting that they kill it and separate it between the two women arguing over it. So the name is attributed the qualities of wisdom, peace, and fairness. Remember the self-fulfilling prophesy thing I said? This is one of those.

If our information is correct, then Solomon Saturday was born in New Orleans, Louisiana to a wealthy, presumably religious or history-minded, African-American family some time between 1967 and 1974. I searched the American Social Security website to see if I could find out anything from the real world around that time, but people have apparently been naming their kids pretty much the same 200 names since, like, forever; and “Solomon” is not one of them. However, I don’t think the popularity of the name “Solomon” would have really mattered to Doc’s parents if they were devout religious people or very much interested in history. It’s been a thing to name your kids after significant people for a really long time. Especially when they’re known for doing significant good things.

#2: Drew (Audrey?) Saturday

Drew. Let me just say really quick, “Drew” is not usually a name that parents in the generation we’re assuming she’s part of would have given their daughter. Regardless of how many women take the name themselves, it’s still very male-coded, which makes it a little problematic that the mother of the Saturday family is portrayed as not stereotypically feminine and also has a male-coded name in addition to that. Don’t get me wrong: I think it’s awesome that Drew is allowed to exist as a strong- well-written AND kicky-punchy- woman in a show that’s nearly 100% men. (Science is basically just a high-tech men’s locker room. At least the show got that right.) And she does have her stereotypically feminine moments, too; just look at Guess Who’s Going to be Dinner. My issue is more with the fact that female characters who perform womanhood in non-traditional ways often take masculine-coded names like Drew and Sam and that that’s not good because they‘re still women and it’s kind of like they’re not being recognized for it.

So, yes. Apparently there was also an idea during the character development stage that her name was going to be Audrey, which some of the content creators in the fandom (and the Dorito) have latched onto as being her given first name and that everybody just calls her Drew the way everybody- including Zak- calls her husband Doc. (”Are you saying Argost is tougher than Doc Saturday?” s1e2) Nobody but the show’s creators could tell us why the name change happened. Did they feel like Drew needed to be less feminine but Zak wasn’t allowed to just have two dads outright? Given the Science Bros! (Banner/Stark) hysteria I experienced just a few years later here on Tumblr, there are people who would have absolutely had a fucking field day with that. Or imagine if Doc was a single father. There would be even more fanfictions of him fucking every other adult in the show and some cryptids (lookin’ at you, deviantART).

Anyway. I’m going to be looking at the data for both “Drew” and “Audrey,” just to cover a little more of my butt with this one. I doubt I’m going to get a lot of hits for “Drew” under the “girl’s name” section. There’s also the question of what country Drew originally came from, which is going to limit my research capabilities somewhat. If she’s not American then there’s no conclusive evidence on what she is. There’s a suggestion that Drew and Doyle might be Irish because of the fact that people think her name is Audrey and his name is Doyle and he’s a redhead. (We know his given name is Doyle because that’s how Drew refers to him when she goes to meet him in s1e7.) I’m going to say that’s inconclusive until we find something to definitively tell us one way or another. I’d even accept a scene where one of their parents talks in an Irish accent to validate the theory. They could be Irish. But they also could be Scottish. Or British. Or Irish immigrants to America or Canada. Or descended from Irish immigrants to America or Canada. My overall point for this is that I’m going to have to look at American Social Security information again instead of going to the site for the country where Drew may have actually been born, which is inaccurate research at best and will probably be inconclusive.

The sites I’m using can’t get a good handle on whether “Drew” is the diminutive form of “Andrew” or if it isn’t. It also apparently either means “manly” or “wise,” depending on where you look; and it either is of Scottish, English, Welsh, or even Greek origin according to some sources. Overall I really can’t get a good picture of what it’s supposed to be, although I know I don’t like the word “manly” to be used in this context. If Drew’s parents really intended to name her Drew I can’t imagine that they knew the definition.

“Audrey” looks a lot better- and it’s a lot easier to get a clear story of where the name came from. Apparently it’s rooted in the Old English name Aethelthryth (don’t ask me to pronounce that). It means “noble strength,” and was apparently the name of a saint who started a monastery in the Middle Ages. I still don’t know whether I think Drew’s real name is Audrey or not but I can’t say I’d be offended by it.

Drew was born sometime between 1971 and 1974. The American Social Security website doesn’t say that “Audrey” cracked the top 200 names that decade; but again, Drew have easily be from a country that’s not America and maybe her name was popular there. The name “Drew” doesn’t appear on its own, but “Andrew” appears in the boys’ names column. I still hold out that “Drew” just really isn’t something parents in the 70s would have called their daughter, but then again, they literally took two elementary schoolers up into the Himalayas, so you do you, Blackwells.

#3: Zak Saturday

Zak is a little weird, like his mom, insofar as that we don’t know if his full name is “Zachary” or something or if they got to “Zak” and called it a day. At least both of the possibilities are masculine-coded, because it would be tough to go through that whole speech from Drew’s section again but in reverse. I’m really glad Zak doesn’t go by “Petunia” or some bullshit like that.

Also, if you’re not noticing how weird it is to see several instances of the same word back to back, now you are. If I have to notice it so do you.

Depending on where you look, “Zak” is either Hebrew or English, and it could either be the diminutive form of “Zachariah” or it’s its own name that means “the Lord remembers.” Apparently spelling it with a K makes some sort of difference as opposed to spelling it with a CH? Because his name could have so easily been Zac, Zach, Zack, or Zatch. Cartoon Network actually spelled it wrong on their website at some point, so I’m not the only one who noticed that.

And before you say anything, yes, I fact-checked myself against the credits. I’m not completely bullshitting my research on this.

That’s really not as concrete of a definition as I’d like, so I’m going to look at “Zachariah” and “Zachary” in addition to just “Zak.” You can see from my screenshot that the credits won’t show a character’s given name if they commonly go by a nickname. It’s just as possible that Zak could be a nickname as it is that it’s his given name. Note that I’m only going to be looking at the most common English spellings of the two longer names, so if Zak’s name is “Zackery” or “Zaykeryyahhhhhh” or “Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Saturday” I’m not going to have data for that.

There’s a general consensus across most websites that “Zachariah” and “Zachary” are both of Hebrew origin like “Solomon” is. They both mean “God/Jehovah has remembered” or “remembered by God.” Or one website is literally just telling me that everything I type in is a diminutive or derivative of something else and it’s super annoying. (Did you know that Lilly can be a diminutive of everything from “Elizabeth” to “Lillian?” Fun fact: in my case, it’s just my fucking name. It means “flower.” Wow.)

I’m not inclined to think that either Doc or Drew was interested in having named their son something that they knew had a religious meaning, so I’m not inclined to think that they looked it up before deciding on it. It’s possible that Drew is one of those people that would want to give Zak a name with good meaning so that he wouldn’t grow up to be a dickhead, but Drew really isn’t religious in a Western sort of sense and both Zachary and Zachariah are tied to Westernized religion in terms of meaning. Doc really just strikes me as an atheist. I know that plays into the stereotypes of both the atheist Scientist Man and the White Supposedly Non-Western-Religion Conforming Middle-Class-Or-Higher Woman Who Probably Misspells Their Child’s Name On Purpose, but I’m working with what I have here. Plus, when you think about it, Drew is actually sincere in her belief system, regardless of what it is. I think it’s likely that the people who created the show just liked “Zak” and thought it would sound cool and entice kids to watch it because of how “X-TREEM” it sounded or something stupid like that. If you’ve ever Googled the show, you know that Jay Stephen’s original conception of the idea had Zak as a completely different character whose name was Francis, so I’m pretty glad they changed it.

Zak was born in 1997, and he’s the only one whose birth year is certain because he’s the only one whose age is ever mentioned in the show. “Zachary” was the 16th most popular American boys’ name in the 90s according to Social Security. “Zachariah” and “Zak” didn’t appear at all. If Zak was born in America, then it’s possible in-universe that Doc and Drew were just following a naming trend without paying attention to what it actually meant.

[cihojuda]

wtf spellcheck, why are you trying to turn my “segway” into “nosegay”

is that even a word anymore

[cihojuda]

TSS Project Part 5: Location, Location, Location

Warning: may be a long post

So far I’ve talked about the religion, clothing choices and genetic data of imaginary people. Now I’m going to talk about something else just as irrelevant:

Where exactly is Saturday HQ?

This is the first view that we get of the house. All the information we get is that it’s on the Pacific coast of what I’m assuming is America. I don’t know what the text said in other countries (if it was even broadcast there), but I think that in English it was ambiguously worded on purpose. They could be Canadian- Jay Stephens is Canadian- but I’m going to say that the Saturdays are American. Why? Because fight me.

The Pacific coast of America is composed of the states of California, Washington and Oregon. Out of all of them, California has the biggest coast-to-total-land-area ratio. The farther north you go in California, the more forest-y it gets, and it becomes less like a beach party and more like the beginning of a cabin-in-the-woods horror movie. Knowing that, I’m going to say that the Saturdays probably live somewhere within the red circle:

Or, more specifically:

They could live in Washington state or Oregon. That’s totally possible. However, based on how big California is in relation to the other two, it’s much more likely that it’s northern California. More evidence? The trees.

This very unflattering shot of Zak, Fisk and Komodo is from Guess Who’s Going To Be Dinner, one of the two episodes that takes place entirely at Saturdays HQ. We see from it and the aerial shots in the other episodes

that the house is surrounded by tall trees. What kind of trees? Most likely, redwoods and pines.

According to these two websites, these are most likely the species of tree surrounding the Saturday house. Now, the article on redwoods does say that they can’t grow very far from the coast, but that’s not a problem at all because when the show said they lived on the coast, they meant it.

At the end of Guess Who’s Going to Be Dinner, Piecemeal gets blasted through that wall in the cryptid crops greenhouse and falls into the ocean directly below the house. Combined with the fact that that’s how he originally got onto the property in the first place, we know that the Saturdays are in fact close enough to the ocean to sustain a cover of redwood trees. The pine trees are just an educated guess based on my tree-identification skills and a minimum amount of Google research. (Shut up, I’m not a science major. >.>)

Based on that evidence and the fact that we never see any other identifying factors around the house (like snow or landmarks), I’m going to stick with my assumption that they live in northern California. I don’t know why I originally decided that they lived there in the first place, but at least now I have data to back it up!

I’m going to split this post into two parts at this point, because next I’m going to segway into a dissection of the features of the house itself.

[cihojuda]

TSS Project Part 4: Clothing

Warning: this may get long

I already did a bit on how we can use Wadi’s clothes to determine where she might live, so now I’m going to move on and talk about the Secret Scientists’. Going based off of the lab protocols I remember from high school, I’m going to infer that the Saturdays and their colleagues all wear jumpsuits to protect themselves against lab accidents. If something spills on you in the lab, you’re going to want it to hit Spandex, not flesh. This adds a mostly plausible in-universe explanation to why they always wear the same outfits- plus, it looks more sciencey.

There are variations based on location/climate and personal preference, but for the most part they all come from the same model. You can then break that down even further into male vs. female models. Remember how I said any two characters of the same sex will look the same? Here’s more proof.

The main components of a uniform in the Secret Scientists seem to be zippers on shirts, oversized boots, long sleeves and skintight pants. 95% of them also have gloves, belts, and turtlenecks or popped collars. One of my biggest questions about the character design in this show has always been about those giant boots. In comparison to the rest of their bodies they’re huge, and NOBODY has feet that big.

What is wrong with everyone’s feet?

Apparently, nothing. The only time you ever see Doc and Drew in civvies is in “Guess Who’s Going to be Dinner,” and in the beginning of that episode you can clearly see that Drew, at least, has normal human-sized feet:

When not in uniform, Drew’s feet look totally proportional. It could just be a fluke of the animation, but... Huh???

I’m going to wager that Drew’s uniform boots are around twice as big as her actual feet. Why is that? Even the bulkiest pair of footwear I own- my snow boots- doesn’t double the space taken up by my foot. In case you don’t believe me, here’s a side-by-side of all Drew’s outfits:

wat.

I honestly have no explanation for it; I never have. It’s probably more a stylistic choice than anything but I’ve always had a minor annoyance at it. Why the hell are all your characters’ feet so huge, Jay Stephens.

Other than that, I get why the Secret Scientists made most of their fashion decisions. Skintight clothing is effective at regulating temperature, it’s practical in a laboratory setting, and jumpsuits are “in” right now; never mind that the show aired from 2008 to 2010. (Ugh, I feel old.) The real questions I have about the clothes in The Secret Saturdays mainly come from a technical standpoint.

Are those boots that Drew wears, or at some point do they transition into being pants legs? Do they connect to the orange part of her uniform, or is it like a leotard-type thing where the orange part is tucked into the boots? Are those gloves or is everything from the thighs up one piece? Are the shoulders just black for shits and giggles or do the orange and black pieces separate? And what’s with the little yellow ring? Is that a zipper pull? That’s huge and could easily get snagged on something. Safety hazard.

Are all the black parts on Doc’s outfit one piece with an orange vest? Is it pants and a shirt and a vest? Because, looking at him, there’s no way that that shirt’s all one piece. The zipper part could just be for show ad he could put it on like a regular shirt, but I’m pretty sure it’s a separate vest thing. Similarly, it looks like his boots connect to his pants in some kind of way, but how, exactly? I’m not exactly an expert on that kind of thing.

The big question: if everybody is wearing one-piece suits all the time, how do they pee? You’re telling me grown-ass genius adults are just going to willingly make it so that they have to get naked just to take a piss? Multiple times per day? Nooope. Now I know why Beeman wears a jacket and pants.

Something else to think about: why doesn’t anybody but Doyle wear jewelry? I’ll admit that this is a pretty minor thing to think about, but that’s what I do. We get up-close and personal with quite a few of the characters and when you think about it, it’s kind of odd that nobody except Doyle even wears earrings. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that maybe 8/10 people have some kind of piercing- maybe not one you can see, but it’s there- so proportionally, more Secret Scientists should have them. Probably it was intentional to show off Doyle’s “bad boy” attitude but the “oh look how cool I am I have multiple ear piercings as a man” stereotype is falling out of fashion.

[cihojuda]

TSS Project part 3: Color Palettes

While I was still convinced that I was going to be scientific and take genetics into account in my creation of the characters of Zak and Wadi’s children, I decided to create color palettes and reference chart-type things for Zak, Wadi, Doc and Drew. Mostly I wanted to find screengrabs of them all in profile so I could figure out what shape to make the kids’ noses. It turned out that that literally didn’t matter at all, because when I rewatched the first two episodes last night I saw that the people whose noses are just triangles have noses that are just triangles at pretty much any angle. And aside from that, when those characters are in profile, their noses all just go straight down anyway.

As far as I know, Leonidas van Rook may be the only one with a defined nose that you can see no matter which way he’s facing.

Either way, it doesn’t really matter at this point. The first post in this series was the one all about the lack of variation in TSS characters, not this one.

Please note: These colors aren’t really in any order. Usually I put the skin color swatch first, but the skin color swatch and the color to shade the skin color aren’t always next to each other. Let me know if I forgot something.