Things I won't do in my JLE stories · 9:09pm Feb 13th, 2014
I've been watching too much Atop the Fourth Wall lately. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it's gotten me to thinking about all the stupid things that could happen in my stories.
So, here's a few things that I promise won't happen:
Amazons Attack: other than trying to parody the "Bees. My God" line, I will not have Hippolyta go ax-crazy and try to kill everypony in Equestria. It's out of character for both the character and the setting, considering that Equestria is ruled by two princesses and there seems to be a disproportionate number of mares to colts.
Fridge Stuffing/ Fight Scenes involving major/powerful characters that are resolved offscreen: Cry for Justice had Green Arrow and Green Lantern beat up a bunch of villains offscreen. Now, GL and Green Arrow are powerful heroes, but could you at least show the fight so we have some idea how they did it instead of saying "Oh, we beat Black Manta" or "Yeah, Bizarro's over there. We beat him" (they didn't actually say that, but given that Bizarro is shown beaten in one of the panels that's pretty much what happened). That stuff only works in Squirrel Girl comics (which are supposed to be silly, and she did beat Doctor Doom and Iron Man onscreen), or when you know that the fight is disproportionate in the hero's favor (Like Superman catching some common street thugs). When it's evenly matched or in the villain's favor, people want to see the hero struggle against the villain, have an actual fight scene for a change (imagine how much Avengers would have sucked if all we saw was the Chitauri and Loki running back to their portal as soon as the Avengers show up). If you just have all the fighting happen offscreen, then the audience feels let down.
The first part of this section deals with the fact that they killed a bunch of other superheroes who had little to no connection to the story except to show that the villain means business, and then killed Lian Harper off just for shock value and so they could make Red Arrow an anti-hero (all of this happened offscreen, and Lian's a little girl). I'm not against killing children in stories, but at least have it have some connection to the story. In Cry for Justice Lian was mentioned in all of one line before (with Red Arrow saying he had to go make a phone call and wish her goodnight), and was killed with no buildup that she was going to die, and after having no impact on the story beforehand. If they really wanted to make that effective, they would have introduced her a long time ago, gotten us to like her and want to see more of her, and then her death might have meant something... not much, but it's still something (Watchmen did this better, with a bunch of developed side characters that got fried in Vedit's attack on New York).
What does this mean? Well, if I'm going to kill someone off, I will at least spend some time with them and connect them to the story. Also, if there's going to be a large scale fight scene between equally matched foes, I am going to show you that fight scene.
Large scale religious/philosophical debates: This has been done before by writers who are way more knowledgeable than me, and this is fanfiction, not philosophy class; if I believe something, I'm either a) not ram it down your throat or b) try to present it as best as I can and not rely on stereotypical or unresearched responses. I'll actually read up on my stuff if I feel so inclined to go philosophical, so I don't get my facts wrong.
Frank Miller Syndrome: I hate clop. I will not spend paragraphs worth of story describing how sexually attractive Diana, Rainbow, and anypony else look in their costumes. They're animated talking ponies, I don't want to make them sexually appealing!
Also, I'll try to avoid repeating every sentence I write over and over again just in case you missed the first one.
Too much shallow parody/ forced comedy: this isn't exclusive just to comics; one thing I hate about many of the so-called "comedies" and "spoofs" of our time is that they treat us like a bunch of five year olds and feel they have to explain every joke they present.
Mr. J says it all; if the joke's too obvious, or if you tell me what I'm supposed to laugh at, then it's not funny. I think humor should be more subtle, witty, and less "Oh haha, it's funny because X". Take "Evil Things That Are Evil"; I would have ruined it if I'd said at the end "It's funny, because a lot of that stuff happened in the Silver Age". I know you guys are intelligent enough to get the joke.
So if I get too stale or forceful in my attempts at humor, please call me out on it and I'll try to make things better.
Also, I'll try to keep my Take That's and references creative to some extent.
Yeah, that's all I can think of for now. These are the things I will try to avoid in my writing
No love for Frank Miller I see.
1830681 Well, he was good before he went batshit insane
1830684 So was Alan Moore. Well... he's still good I suppose but I don;t think the man himself even really knows what he's talking about anymore when he rants about everything.
.... Are you secretly Linkara from Atop the Fourth Wall?
1830794 I wish
So we're not going to see Rainbow punching someone while screaming "I AM A MARE!" or Blueblood complaining about rock music?
1830828 If I ever do a follow up to the Maxima storyline, "I AM A MARE!" might show up (although it's not in the original context)
Well, I wouldn't mind a little philosophy myself, but overall, I like this.
Especially the Miller part. There's not a heck of a lot that he's done that I can thoroughly enjoy.
1830903 true. I might delve into philosophy a little, but I'll be smart about it and not filibuster about it
You forgot to mention about not emphasizing random words in your sentences.
1831299 That too, although other comics do that as well (unless they're trying to channel Miller)
1830681
His stories are grim, dark, way too over-the-top, and make Batman WAAAAAY too overbearing and dickish for my tastes.
By the way, nice icon.
1831803 And sometimes they're not even that; sometimes they're just BAD. http://io9.com/5969808/a-childs-treasury-of-horrible-frank-miller-comic-panels
1832156
...Arceus, those are horrible.
You like the Sixth Doctor, by the way?
I think you're thinking of Infinite Carnage; he was the guy with the Colin Baker profile picture.
1831803 Thank you, the Sixth Doctor likes yours as well
1832421 Oh. Sorry!
1833656 'sallright.