Hello. I am Peace and War here with a terribly long introduction so that everyone understands me, where I’m coming from, and hopefully agrees and can render aid where possible. Since I was a little boy of about six or so, I always knew I wanted to get into storytelling somehow, someplace–someplace where a warm hand waits for mine to reference the famous Heart of Ice episode of Batman The Animated Series. One of the greatest animated things ever and definitely a top ten contender for greatest animated superhero shows of all time by the way.
h t t p s://youtu.be/7EtHfr0eBA4?t=22
I heart stories. I love stories. So much. So many stories have made me feel the emotions in the immediately following links that if I listed all such tales and not just the most important ones I can think of off the top of my head, we’d be here till the return of the King.
h t t p s://youtu.be/mZIuBVhDAtc?t=2157
h t t p s://youtu.be/gV7fi9Ayze4?t=1920
I love stories more than most real people even, which I know is sad, but is a bitter truth for someone with my personality profile and with the stroke of aspergers I have. Sometimes I love stories more than real people I actually know and who I consider very staunch family and allies I wish the best for and who I would seize the world for if I had the capacity.
I am literally on the verge of crying pretty much everyday now thinking about how hollyweird has not only ruined so many stories but has even gone so far as to try and retroactively alter my fond memories of stories often by retroactively changing the context. Especially with stories that are supposed to be fun, innocent, light, happy, and healthy and especially such stories heavily aimed at kids.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to me knowing my life’s purpose was to write because I heart-loved stories with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns.
Thing was, despite me knowing what my calling was, I was lazy and even slower in realizing it let alone fixing it. I’m talking snails mixed with sloths mixed with koalas mixed with pandas mixed with tortoises here. So, I spent a sad chunk of my early life where I should have already written reams and ream of stuff, even if it did read like it was written by someone at whatever age I happened to be, sitting around and just absorbing stories like a good little couch potato and taking the classic Disney route of just wishing upon a star to become a director and later on game designer.
High School and College reality soon disabused me of this notion since being either a director or game designer means you have to have great technical expertise in things I found mad boring, especially with game designing requiring extensive game programming knowledge. Plus you have to play the intra and extra political game of currying favor with people I personally and politically could not and will not and will never stand.
So, I decided to become a published author for novels, novellas, and other things just involving plain old boring pros but with the bent that whatever I wrote was going to be heavily narrative driven and character focussed like an ongoing comic book series–western or eastern–or like the many, many hours of television I grew up watching.
In fact, my big goal in life since about 2013-ish has basically been to make the world’s best and greatest, most exciting, atmospheric, and insightful saturday morning cartoons for boys in a similar manner to how My Little Pony Friendship is Magic is the ultimate saturday morning cartoon for girls. Except in a literary medium with the operating paradigms being that I keep things as clean and good and true and beautiful and kid friendly as I possibly can. Which is a lot. Certainly more so than what hollyweird even then was permitting before completely going off the deep end in recent years. After being saved and finally putting all my faith in Christ for my salvation after a long, long journey in early 2019, my zeal has steeled to basically be what Disney, Hasbro, Warner Bros, and so many other companies should.
I have not been successful, for a variety of reasons. The biggest one being that in years past I just could not write even a first draft to save my life. The only novel length first draft I ever wrote was in 2016 and the only novella length first draft was in 2017. Aside from that, I completed the first act of a novel earlier in 2017 than the aforesaid novella, but everything has just been a giant wash.
A big reason for this is that while my laziness in cranking out lots and lots of text quickly enough has vastly improved since I was a kid, as everyone rolling their eyes reading this long-winded post doubtlessly agrees, text with substance, a point, and well executed and bigly efficient was ever elusive as was my muse.
Plus, ever since 2020, I’m still recovering from a big accident I got into that has left me physically and mentally incapable of engaging in writing the way I used to. Still got shaky, achy hands from all that and I do prefer pencil and pen on paper when writing my work and then converting it to 1’s and 0’s by typing, which hurts by activating different pain receptors than traditional writing does.
However, thank the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–the Blessed Trinity–I am recovering and I do believe that sooner rather than later I’ll have it in me to not only finish a first draft, but all subsequent drafts and even publish my first ever novel.
But, before I do, given my mixed and muddled memories of what going through the writing process was like, I’ve realized that if I ever want to achieve my goals, especially after taking the hit I did, I need a gameplan. A blueprint for success. A pre-story schematic covering plotting, characters, setting, and even more nebulous ideas like just what to include and not include and how to keep things consistent and exciting and integrated and moral and ethical with other stories in the same verse or otherwise operating under the same basic rules just expanded or even contracted in some cases.
In other words, I need help getting organized and assembling the totally comprehensive instructions I need to follow to build the house built of the material I want and built on the type of stone I want before I go actually building it, lest I end up building it of graham crackers on sand somewhere in yellowstone when the big one finally erupts and erases north america as we know it.
So, to the people of this board, I ask, please help me if you can. Please help me to make good, clean, work like what we grew up with and remember growing up with and somehow find the way to make it ever better and even stand up the test of time better.
If you don’t understand what it is I’m trying to emulate while also bringing it in line even further with Christ as much as I can, here is the post I made on one of the videos on the Christian Geek Central youtube channel after a recent event gave me the catalyst I needed to finally find like minded people to render aid:
“Hey Christian geek central, I have a problem and I think you can help. Basically, I want to know how to pull off making a series with characters that are just as fun and interesting in peace time as they are in war but are still kid friendly and biblical in both instances as well as really genuine and endearing and heartfelt. Basically, think the mane six from MLP:FIM but in a setting with superheroes on the eve of a big supervillain resurgence that eventually leads to a big geopolitical nightmare that leads to wars and rumors of wars. High concept I know. Difficult I know. But I just can't right anything that gets ugly without the backdrop of beauty and fun and innocence and cleanliness and righteousness and godliness. As much as I am able, anyways.”
If you still don’t understand what it is I’m trying to emulate while also bringing it in line even further with Christ as much as I can, here is the list of tales I alluded to earlier–I think–of very formative, generally very good shows and just things I grew up watching that got me into storytelling to begin with.
In no particular order:
- Batman the Animated Series
Superman the Animated Series
Batman Beyond
Static Shock
Justice League/Justice League Unlimited
Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes
Gargoyles (even if it was kind of meandering even by my standards, and yes, it was like that BEFORE the Goliath Chronicles)
Spectacular Spider-Man
X-Men the Animated Series
Spider-Man the Animated Series
Teen Titans (not Go. NEVER Go!)
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (till season 5. Never could get past that into six and later and honestly I don’t think I could)
Ben 10
Danny Phantom
Generator Rex
Life and Times of Juniper Lee
Code Lyoko
Totally Spies
American Dragon: Jake Long
The Power Puff Girls
Dexter’s Lab
Kim Possible
Young Justice (before Weissman and company went off the deep-end when the series got its revival on streaming services. Seriously, while there’s a lot to love, it goes so far off the deep end it’s basically a parody at some points, and not a good or wanted one either. Just really violent and vulgar).
Jimmy Neutron
Fairly Oddparents
Spongebob
He-Man (2002 series, though I have watched a little of the original as well)
Samurai Jack
Megas XLR
Codename Kid’s Next Door
Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends
Jackie Chan Adventures
Xiaolin Showdown
New Adventures of Johnny Quest (also watched some of the original, but this one is the one that sticks most in my mind even though both theme songs are about the same in the awesomeness department, which is very awesome indeed).
Sonic SATAM
SWAT Kats
Courage the Cowardly Dog
DuckTales (original)
New Adventures of Whinnie the Pooh
Lilo and Stitch the Series
The Proud Family
Buzz Lightyear of Star Command
Recess
Doug (both the nick and disney versions)
Lloyd in Space
Hercules the animated series
Tarzan the animated series
Aladdin the animated series
Goof Troop
Pepper Anne
Catdog
Rugrats
The Angry Beavers
Rocko’s Modern Life
Hey Arnold
Rocket Power
The Wild Thornberrys
ChalkZone
My Life as a Teenage Robot
Ed, Edd, and Eddy
Johnny Bravo
Scooby-Doo (various)
Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy
Star Wars: Clone Wars (Original 2003 mini-series)
Hi Hi Puffy Amy/Yumi
Camp Lazlo
My Gym Partner’s a Monkey
Squirrel Boy
Class of 3000
The Incredible Hulk the animated series
The Batman
Dragon Ball
Dragon Ball Z
Dragon Ball GT
Zoids (Chaotic Century and New Century)
Pokemon (various)
Kirby Right Back At Ya!
Yu Yu Hakusho!
Fighting Food-Ons
Ultimate Muscle
X-Men: Evolutions
Yugi-Oh!
Duel Masters
Godzilla the animated series
Kong the animated series
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003)
Sonic X
Shaman King
Stargate Infinity
Atomic Betty
Mucha Lucha
Krypto the superdog
Duck Dodgers
Baby Looney Tunes
Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers
Talespin
Bonkers
Mighty Ducks the animated series
PB&J Otter
Blues Clues
And last, but certainly not least because it’s actually objectively the best of the list, Avatar: The Last Airbender. Korra is a non-starter for me. And a total, living, breathing, series wide non-sequitur.
Sorry for sounding way more dramatic than I intended, but ironically, despite being autistic, I feel very strong emotions for what I love and can’t help wearing them on my sleeves. I especially feel strongly when things that I love go down the wrong path because I expect better out of what I love and want the best out of them and for them. Looking at you MLP and Young Justice and the broader Avatar franchise to name a few.
Keep in mind, these are just animated television programs. If we expanded to live-action tv or other mediums entirely like film or video-games or comics or books, the list of things I love I’d like to take inspiration from or emulate would be much, much, MUCH larger.
Yes, I watched a lot, played a lot, and read a lot as a kid. It’s almost like I was a couch potato who wanted to create himself one of these days like I’ve repeated way too much in this post, dontchya think? ;P
Ironically, I always find writing essays a lot easier than making narrative pros for the purposes of enjoyment and this is the most I’ve written at all in the longest time.
Again, sorry!