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Recent Journal
The Third Ingredient?
2 weeks ago
So as I typed away at some of the ideas I purposed in the last journal, I noticed that I had some common ideas popping up, as well as how each of the purposed ideas had some glaring flaws to them (well, except one of them). And what did I come to with all of this?
Well for the easy-to-read of it, a common pattern I noticed in all the ideas was:
- A competent lead character (or characters) who were constantly having to put with incredibly inept characters (both as side characters and as villains), in which the whole conflict was essentially about how long the lead character(s) could go before they snapped and took over the situation. Essentially "comically serious" characters living in a world running on sitcom logic or pure bathos. It's less about "will they fail?" and more "how long before the hero just shoots the villain while the villain is monologuing?" sort of ordeal.
- Generally a satirical tone, with the main characters pointing out certain things or being genre savvy enough to see through certain things (although depending on the situation, they may be wrong about what was to happen).
- Promotions, titles, and special abilities being given to people who absolutely don't need them or deserve them while the main characters just kind of have to accept that their just not "the favorites".
- Lots of meta-humor and meta-philosophy.
So I generally have a sort of strong theme that essentially boils down to "A lot of fiction can only really happen because of incompetent people are involved" that in of itself is a pretty good thing to work with... But what about the flaws of all those ideas I proposed though?
Well, for "Monster at the Movies", it would become too much of a personal soap-box in regards to media literacy and my overall opinion on a lot of "dumb boy's media" that people like. Sure it had the best potential for slice of life moments and some clever meta-gags, but I don't think people really want to read a comic where they're getting lectures from some big ass minotaur in a movie theater bar about why the need to not be afraid of watching an R rated movie.
The DnD misadventures idea, while a lot of the plot elements are going to be used in my final rough draft, ended up being something where I felt it would get too goofy and out of hand. Sure we all love our wacky Tabletop RPG inspired stuff, and there's plenty of material in it that was based on my own DnD campaign that I did for a while, but there's only so many times you can put up with the likes of "The draconic cult of Unaliveflap" and "the only organized guild is the Thieves Guild" before it gets stale. Not only that, the different locations involved would result in a very messy and all over the place aesthetic... Although I think everyone would wonder what would happen in the "Fetish Dungeon" arc...
The whole "Minotaur in the Backrooms" was a case of just being too disjointed and messy. While it is only natural for me to just want to do something else every time and never focus, just giving into that would result in something that would make a David Lynch movie look more logical than what I was making. And honestly, the whole reason I did this reboot of myself was to get away from the "just do whatever and never progress".
As for the pirate stuff, well, I think it ended up being something that I felt like I couldn't do enough with on its own, but I could see a pirate arc or two show up in what we're left with.
And what we're left with is well... the Kung Fu Furry setting.
I mean to be fair, I've always kind of leaned into the East Asian themes since even before I scrapped everything, but I always felt like it was just an aesthetic at best (and Orientalism at worst). Yet apparently out of all the rough drafts, it was the one where I was able to quickly throw down some ideas really fast and come up with actual arcs (that you couldn't reduce down to a simple gag or criticism of a trope). I don't know; a lot of the philosophy, martial arts, the architecture, and the thought of watching noodly dragons, pandas, monkeys, and tigers beat the crap out of each other is just my thing I suppose, and there really isn't going to be much to change that.
But instead of getting to worked up the specifics of why I did what I did, I'm instead going to look at how this works for the kind of overall theme I'm going with, in which as I mentioned earlier, it's "A lot of fiction can only really happen because of incompetent people are involved". But who are the incompetent people in some fantasy Asian setting with talking animals?
The answer: Most Shonen Heroes.
If there's one big reason I can't stand most anime, lost interest in Pokemon, and constantly take shits on movies like Kung Fu Panda and TMNT, it's mainly because of this particular character and most other elements and tropes of Shonen anime and the stuff inspired by it (which I love to dub as "Dumb Boy's Movies" given that they very much appeal to the dumb obnoxious boys between 6-12). Having to deal with loud obnoxious dudes who seem to only succeed through upwards failing is already bad enough in real life, but do we have to put it up with fiction too?
Thus, the entirety of this comic series is pretty much going to be about how some three generally all around competent, powerful, and smart people have to basically take constant backseats to "brats and bros who are trying to be the very best" and at the last minute be the ones to deliver the killing blows on villains or put corrupt people in their place all while never getting credit for what they do (but at least they have each other and some other stuff).
Because again, "Fiction can only really happen because there's incompetent people involved."
If anyone here has suggestions on some examples that have been done before, potential ideas that I should work with, or really any other suggestions, you're welcome to share.
Now if you excuse me, I have more drafts to write up and some things to design for our "A24 Kung Fu Furry special" that's going to be coming sometime soon when I'm not busy trying to keep my jobs from wearing me down...
Well for the easy-to-read of it, a common pattern I noticed in all the ideas was:
- A competent lead character (or characters) who were constantly having to put with incredibly inept characters (both as side characters and as villains), in which the whole conflict was essentially about how long the lead character(s) could go before they snapped and took over the situation. Essentially "comically serious" characters living in a world running on sitcom logic or pure bathos. It's less about "will they fail?" and more "how long before the hero just shoots the villain while the villain is monologuing?" sort of ordeal.
- Generally a satirical tone, with the main characters pointing out certain things or being genre savvy enough to see through certain things (although depending on the situation, they may be wrong about what was to happen).
- Promotions, titles, and special abilities being given to people who absolutely don't need them or deserve them while the main characters just kind of have to accept that their just not "the favorites".
- Lots of meta-humor and meta-philosophy.
So I generally have a sort of strong theme that essentially boils down to "A lot of fiction can only really happen because of incompetent people are involved" that in of itself is a pretty good thing to work with... But what about the flaws of all those ideas I proposed though?
Well, for "Monster at the Movies", it would become too much of a personal soap-box in regards to media literacy and my overall opinion on a lot of "dumb boy's media" that people like. Sure it had the best potential for slice of life moments and some clever meta-gags, but I don't think people really want to read a comic where they're getting lectures from some big ass minotaur in a movie theater bar about why the need to not be afraid of watching an R rated movie.
The DnD misadventures idea, while a lot of the plot elements are going to be used in my final rough draft, ended up being something where I felt it would get too goofy and out of hand. Sure we all love our wacky Tabletop RPG inspired stuff, and there's plenty of material in it that was based on my own DnD campaign that I did for a while, but there's only so many times you can put up with the likes of "The draconic cult of Unaliveflap" and "the only organized guild is the Thieves Guild" before it gets stale. Not only that, the different locations involved would result in a very messy and all over the place aesthetic... Although I think everyone would wonder what would happen in the "Fetish Dungeon" arc...
The whole "Minotaur in the Backrooms" was a case of just being too disjointed and messy. While it is only natural for me to just want to do something else every time and never focus, just giving into that would result in something that would make a David Lynch movie look more logical than what I was making. And honestly, the whole reason I did this reboot of myself was to get away from the "just do whatever and never progress".
As for the pirate stuff, well, I think it ended up being something that I felt like I couldn't do enough with on its own, but I could see a pirate arc or two show up in what we're left with.
And what we're left with is well... the Kung Fu Furry setting.
I mean to be fair, I've always kind of leaned into the East Asian themes since even before I scrapped everything, but I always felt like it was just an aesthetic at best (and Orientalism at worst). Yet apparently out of all the rough drafts, it was the one where I was able to quickly throw down some ideas really fast and come up with actual arcs (that you couldn't reduce down to a simple gag or criticism of a trope). I don't know; a lot of the philosophy, martial arts, the architecture, and the thought of watching noodly dragons, pandas, monkeys, and tigers beat the crap out of each other is just my thing I suppose, and there really isn't going to be much to change that.
But instead of getting to worked up the specifics of why I did what I did, I'm instead going to look at how this works for the kind of overall theme I'm going with, in which as I mentioned earlier, it's "A lot of fiction can only really happen because of incompetent people are involved". But who are the incompetent people in some fantasy Asian setting with talking animals?
The answer: Most Shonen Heroes.
If there's one big reason I can't stand most anime, lost interest in Pokemon, and constantly take shits on movies like Kung Fu Panda and TMNT, it's mainly because of this particular character and most other elements and tropes of Shonen anime and the stuff inspired by it (which I love to dub as "Dumb Boy's Movies" given that they very much appeal to the dumb obnoxious boys between 6-12). Having to deal with loud obnoxious dudes who seem to only succeed through upwards failing is already bad enough in real life, but do we have to put it up with fiction too?
Thus, the entirety of this comic series is pretty much going to be about how some three generally all around competent, powerful, and smart people have to basically take constant backseats to "brats and bros who are trying to be the very best" and at the last minute be the ones to deliver the killing blows on villains or put corrupt people in their place all while never getting credit for what they do (but at least they have each other and some other stuff).
Because again, "Fiction can only really happen because there's incompetent people involved."
If anyone here has suggestions on some examples that have been done before, potential ideas that I should work with, or really any other suggestions, you're welcome to share.
Now if you excuse me, I have more drafts to write up and some things to design for our "A24 Kung Fu Furry special" that's going to be coming sometime soon when I'm not busy trying to keep my jobs from wearing me down...
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