General On-topic Conversation

Why am I making this? Because little updates here and there keep getting thrown into threads that don't fit because we don't have one that does. Well, now we do. This is the thread for discussing pretty much anything about the show that doesn't fit anywhere else. I'll start us off with two comments:

First off, congratulations on our 1-year anniversary! (I can't check the exact day, but I do know that I was working on the project on the 22nd of March, so we've passed the 1-year mark by now.) If we keep this up, we might just have storyboards for our pilot by March 2011!

Second, I was talking on Vent and realized just how disappointing the romantic/sexual relationships in the show are. If anything, I'd say that the majority of the non-canon ships are Better Than Canon—perhaps it has something to do with the subtlety of non-text stuff. For Ironeye alone, I'd say that all of the following relationships are more interesting than Ironeye->Matrix and Ironeye/Ironeye's Season 1 boyfriend.

• Ironeye/Cody (especially if you take the Alternative Character Interpretation that Cody is deeply in denial about his sexual orientation because of his upbringing, leading to the pair having hatesex off-screen)
• Ironeye/Hikari (though the ending of this one dodges the Narm bullet only because it's platonic, everything other than the end of the climactic scene would be an interesting romance)
• Ironeye/Kara (she's even The Not-Love Interest)
• Ironeye/Korg
• Ironeye/Murky (he's terrified of her; she sees through his Stepford Smiler facade and doesn't know how to approach him as a result; a mutual friend brings them together, but complications ensue; they clash over the person they've each tried to take under their wing; after more complications, they open up to each other in a moment of "weakness"—it'd be sweet if Ironeye weren't gay and Murky didn't have eyes only for Faw)
• Ironeye/Jinxed (ignoring that it's Loli—and perhaps Shota, depending on how you look at it—we still get the story of two people who have opposing ways of viewing the world, but who share 2/4 of their respective best friends, leading them to bond over their appreciation for each other's specialized knowledge—even getting to the senior character getting training from the junior—leading to a slow, tentative romance...)

Do I think we should make any of these canon? No. On the other hand, is it a problem that I can put the canon attraction in the bottom 3 (of 10) main relationships? I think so. (And, honestly, I wouldn't have any problem making Ironeye/Gabriel more interesting than Ironeye/Matrix if I actually put some thought into it.)

Now sure, you say, I have a biased perspective since I'm talking about my favorite character. Well, let's take a look at the non-Ironeye stuff:

• Murky and Faw seem to be headed towards Strangled by the Red String territory—they're the only couple in the show pretty much because the plot says so (and I do mean that both ways—that the are a couple for that reason and there are no others for that reason)
• Cody->Murky lasts for all of a week (in the backstory, to boot) and ends up being dead on arrival
• Matrix->Murky isn't going anywhere, and everyone except Matrix (and I'm including the audience here) can tell.

So, yeah, my question: if someone wants to bone someone else, why does the relationship end up so...blah?

edited 23rd Mar '10 4:34:34 PM by Ironeye

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

It's about time we had a thread like this. I've always wondered if we were going to keep using "New Forum" for that.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

You may not like my answer...I think it's because all those of us who regularly work on the show are sick of the usual romance tropes that TV shows throw at us, but we're too romantically awkward ourselves to come up with good replacements for them.

Stuff what I do.

Also, if we try to force it, that'll just make it worse.

Video Game Census. Please contribute.

I agree with both of you. I've also noticed that I'm a lot more fond of a relationship on the show (platonic or otherwise) if Stuff Happens  ^TM

—that's why I find Murky/Faw and arks/Hikari so boring. I mean, in the former case, the two core ideas are what Jinxed thinks of the relationships and allergies, while in the latter case, the only stuff we've got before the demon takes over are the Cooldown Hugs.  ^A

^{How do the characters figure out that those work, anyway?}

 ^B

^{With Hikari/arks, Hikari/Murky, and Hikari/Ironeye all fitting the same basic mold by the end of the first season, why is it that Hikari/arks ends up going the extra mile to Heterosexual Life-Partners?}

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

I honestly hadn't given romantic arcs much thought. I seldom pair up characters in my writing.

Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text-Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The Staff

Another possibility is that we're all well aware what it could be construed to imply if we did too much pairing up between our Author Avatars.

edited 23rd Mar '10 6:48:22 PM by Karalora

Stuff what I do.

I think Kara has hit it on the head - for our characters to be going around boinking eachother, we'd have to want the same IRL.

I don't see why that should be necessary. Our characters aren't "us". Some of us our nothing like our characters.

Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text-Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The Staff

Not all of us are sufficiently divorced from our characters for that. Take Korg, Matrix, and Kara, just off the top of my head.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

But even then, the characters have been through adventures together that we have not, and that will have greatly affected their personalities and the way they think about one another, to the point where realistically they'd be quite unlike us and possibly more affectionate with one another. Or, conversely, absolutely loathe one another.

Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text-Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The Staff

It's still a can of worms that we're better off not opening.

Stuff what I do.

Well, you're the boss. But I really hope this isn't going to become the rule for all character-related decisions. The characters are not us, and I think viewing them as ourselves hinders good storytelling and encourages an RP-like mindset and overprotectiveness.

edited 24th Mar '10 7:53:16 AM by BobbyG

Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text-Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The Staff

I'm being descriptive here rather than prescriptive. I mentioned in the Vent chat the other day that we may find, as the project goes along, that the characters develop in ways we hadn't anticipated that makes romance a better prospect. Plus we'll get better at writing them as time goes by.

Stuff what I do.

And by that token, I don't consider most of the plot to be canon.

Buy the bye, I'll be on Vent soon. I've been busy lately, plus my clock is currently kicked toward the early day.

Video Game Census. Please contribute.

I agree that we should let the character relationships (platonic or otherwise) develop naturally.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Just a funny little thing I noticed: about half the team is in the tallish-medium women/shortish-medium men range. In fact, every inch increment from 5'5" to 5'9" is represented exactly once. (Murky, Kara, Hikari, Matrix, Ironeye, from shortest to tallest.) arks and Jinxed are both a bit shorter (well, much shorter in Jinxed's case—she's 4'10"), while Korg, Cody, and Gabriel are all 6' tall or taller. (We have no clue about Faw.)

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

For some reason, I keep wanting to suggest the Jabberwock as a one-shot fictite-of-the-week. There's a few definite details (jaws that bite, claws that catch, eyes of flame, etc.), but the rest of the details could be pretty much anything. Since, you know, they're not real words at all.

As long as it looks something like a manxome foe that lives in a tulgey woodland, anyway.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Go ahead and add it to the Monster Of The Week Bin.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Almost forgot we had that page...

Do all those thing listed as "Penciled In" still apply? I don't recall any Goddamned Bats during the last discussion of Ep. 2.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Oh, dear. I'll go update that.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

We should totally have a Jabberwock episode! Classic children's lit FTW!

In fact, let's have that be one of the cases where the fictional setting has started to intrude on our side of the Fourth Wall. Only because "tulgey" isn't a word, the team won't be able to articulate the specific variety of eerieness they are encountering in the woodland.

Jub-Jub Birds and Frumious Bandersnatches are strictly optional.

edited 1st Apr '10 12:24:43 PM by Karalora

Stuff what I do.

I think it'd be a good choice for Season 3.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Wait, an episode of Tropers in Wonderland? I like.

Also, I apologize for not being around much. School has picked back up, what with finals coming up and papers needing to be written. I probably won't be here much until May.

People are mirrors. If you smile, a smile will be reflected.

"Bandersnatch" doesn't sound like something that belongs in children's lit XD