Post by Solaris on Oct 28, 2016 1:05:41 GMT -5
For those of you new to the concept of The Abandoned, I'd like to welcome you and explain this concept just a little bit. With the Marvel Universe as vast as it is, it would go to say that there could be characters that the movies and TV shows don't cover. In the unforgiving world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, one would assume that any and all "Enhanced" individuals would be ostracized and neglected by their community and peers. Therefore, utilizing their special abilities and skills, these people form a loose association and team called The Abandoned.
For those of you who are not new to this concept and have been members of previously established Abandoned forums, let me be the first to welcome you back to this new and improved version of The Abandoned. OOC, I am Robb Foster, II; published author and professional writer. I and my associate, David Long, Jr. have discussed at lengths about bringing the Abandoned back within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The reasons being the specific setting rather than a loose and malleable universe generally accepted as A Marvel universe is due entirely to the ever changing status quo to the aforementioned landscape of the MCU. This would prove to be beneficial to the story telling process due to the infinite possibilities of our characters dealing with the aftermath of the movies and TV series that take place within this universe. How would our characters have dealt with the Fall of SHIELD after the events of Captain America: Winter Soldier? How would we have kept order in our respective ends of the world during the chaotic events of Thor: The Dark World? Could one of our characters procured advanced Stark Technology after Tony Stark's Clean Slate Protocol at the end of Iron Man 3? Maybe Hank Pym wasn't the only person to possess Pym Particles? Could it be possible that a copy of Ultron survived the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron and The Abandoned was the only ones able to take him down? The possibilities are endless! That being said, we discussed it would be a good idea to reel back to the origins of our characters rather than these stories be a continuation of the original Abandoned continuity. Put bluntly; it's been so long and things became so incredibly convoluted that simplicity and fun is the only way this is going to be able to work. It would also be asinine to ignore the overwhelming nature and the overbearing responsibility the old continuity had. Put simply, too many factors led to it's downfall; therefore, if this idea is going to work, there would have to be rules implemented to assure the main reason behind this new site. This reason being to HAVE FUN!
1) Strictly following the continuity laid out by the movies and TV Shows. One thing this means is the lack of inclusion of mutants, due to rights issues keeping The X-Men from crossing over with the Avengers. Despite this, the MCU has the inclusion of The Inhumans, which is literally a name change from the way they're depicting them in Agents of SHIELD, Avengers: Age of Ultron and even Captain America: Civil War. However, instead of focusing on the "Can't" we all should be focusing on the "Can" which I welcome you to base your character out of already established methods. Other than the Inhumans taking the place of Mutants, it's well established that aliens regularly visit Earth and stray advanced technology from Stark Industries, Roxxon, AIM, Wakanda and even Asgardian items of special interest are out there and have been out there for literally half a dozen decades. There are quite literally hundreds of ideas you could explore. Instead of a Weapon X Project, you can explore a Hydra-based Rebirth Project effort. What about the unresolved ending of Incredible Hulk? Samuel Sterns is out there and probably creating more Hulks or gamma irradiated enhanced people. Hell, with all these methods of establishing superheroes, whose to say Roxxon doesn't fund the establishment of an old comics-based business; Power Broker, Inc.? Vibranium is no different from Adamantium.
2) No Over Powered Characters. One overwhelming complain I heard from former members of the original Abandoned forum was the over powered nature of characters. At one point, it was established that a character who's name escapes me at the moment could lift Mt. Everest as if she were lifting a tissue box. The story telling process is based on the protagonist overcoming a challenge by becoming either smarter or in easier cases, stronger. I say the latter is the easier route because it's much easier to depict a character growing stronger with each passing enemy. Video games do it with a process Arin Hanson calls Avatar Strength; gaining all sorts of power-ups and items while maintaining a waxing and waning highs and lows of difficulty. However, with most story tellers going down this same road, its hard not to confront what David and I have dubbed the DBZ Effect. Put simply, when a main character achieves a new level of strength or power, what challenges came before him are no longer a threat; however, when the A NEW CHALLENGER HAS APPEARED cycle comes back, you eventually are left with two characters duking it out over the fate of the entire multiverse with just a sneeze. Eventually, this not only gets boring, but it becomes unrelatable. not only are you not able to write for a literal god of a character, no one is interested in this character anymore. Judge Dredd isn't interesting because he gets a better Law Giver every time he sets out to put foot-to-ass to criminals in Mega City One, he's interesting because he's almost always one man against hoards of these psychopaths and gang bangers with just his Law Giver 2 and a chin that makes Bruce Campbell jealous. Batman isn't interesting because he's got money that makes Scrooge McDuck bashful or because he has a contingency plan for his contingency plans; he's interesting because he's a guy who's had a bad day (just like you and me) who is gonna get pounded into the pavement by Solomon Grundy or drowned in mud by Clayface. Put simply, nothing is more interesting than the struggle to overcome and to come out on top despite the other guy having better toys or a higher IQ. It was said by many a comic book writer that a hero shouldn't be stronger than their rogue's gallery or fellow heroes, lest they be compared to a bully. What sets heroes aside from villains is their almost apparent inferiority to their foes EXCEPT for their slightly better clever nature. I could drive this point into the ground more and more, but lets end on this thought process. Would the better ending to Civil War have been Cap and Tony punching Zemo out and glad handing T'Chala while referring to him as "Chum" or would it have been better to show this guy who had ZERO SPECIAL SKILLS other than his whit actually succeed in destroying the Avengers from within like he set out to do?
3) One Profile, Infinite NPC characters. One minor problem I wanted to address was multiple accounts with different main characters. For those of you who are new here, I'm referring to a regularly used practice of creating multiple accounts on a forum for individual characters. You can imagine that this probably was difficult on some when it came to the Keep Up game after a short leave of absence. That being said, I propose the aforementioned solution of having one account/profile while having an infinite amount of NPCs to surround this main character with. Family for this character, allies, sidekicks, other heroes, partners, enemies; I welcome you to build an entire world around your character because I encourage you to come up with your own syndicated-style short stories around this hero character. Much like The Flash or Arrow with partners, allies, heroes, enemies and even family, I hope you to embrace this idea by seeing it as this. We all have our own live with friends and enemies alike. We are the superheroes to our own stories with our own cast of characters. Much as the Avengers is a collection of previously established characters with their own friends and enemies, that is how I envision The Abandoned. Our heroes inhabit our cities or towns and fight our enemies and struggles. I don't just encourage you to make a team mate, I encourage you to live vicariously through your character. Part of having fun is distressing and often times, we writers vent our frustrations through our works of art. Not only may we play with others on her, we may also play with ourselves... get your head out of the gutter, you know what I meant. Come to this site to distress.
4) Do not speak for anyone else's character when posting. The number 1 complaint I heard from everyone concerning the original site was others talking for characters they didn't control and completely misjudging how the owner would want their character to react to a situation. For example, where one person depict your character as a close minded dick to a situation, you might see your character reacting rationally and level headed. Therefore, with a method that has been already successfully beta tested, we've done away with a minimum word count and put full control of the Main and NPC Characters into the hands of the creator. Meaning, if all you can muster from your main character or NPC is one word, then its completely acceptable.
5) For the love of god, have fun. I cannot stress this more and I cannot put it in any other way. At the time of this writing, I'm working on a semi-autobiographical novella series that depicts the original Abandoned site as an actual web comic with hard ass editors who came down to hard with editorial mandates, changes and regular scolding for writing situations or ridiculous deadlines. This isn't a comic series, despite how cool that would be. This is for fun! If this site lives entirely in the Roadhouse board with our characters having fun and having fun, drinking, pulling pranks and fucking, then I've done my job on this site. It's that simple, I want you to have fun. So, LETS HAVE FUN!
I should also give an example of the writing style to be used, since the Script Style is not only easy to write in but easy to read quickly as well, so...
Paragraphs here are meant to depicted to intended character or characters interacting with their surroundings, events or actions stated from other characters. Their thoughts and actions are to be referred to in the third person. It's completely acceptable for the narration of these paragraphs to explain previous events or refer to events in other threads in a quick manner, quickly and not in a convoluted and lengthy manner. Spoken lines are to be depicted as follows.
Character: *Quick Action* Spoken Line
That all being said, I think all I have left to say is any already depicted Marvel Character within the movies are to be depicted as NPCs and not as someone's main character. If a character has yet to make their debut in the continuity of the MCU and you want to include them in some way in a storyline, ask me and we might be able to work something out. After all, we don't wanna be eating crow if we depict She-Hulk one way and she ends up as someone characterized completely differently. So, without further ado lets get to it!
For those of you who are not new to this concept and have been members of previously established Abandoned forums, let me be the first to welcome you back to this new and improved version of The Abandoned. OOC, I am Robb Foster, II; published author and professional writer. I and my associate, David Long, Jr. have discussed at lengths about bringing the Abandoned back within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The reasons being the specific setting rather than a loose and malleable universe generally accepted as A Marvel universe is due entirely to the ever changing status quo to the aforementioned landscape of the MCU. This would prove to be beneficial to the story telling process due to the infinite possibilities of our characters dealing with the aftermath of the movies and TV series that take place within this universe. How would our characters have dealt with the Fall of SHIELD after the events of Captain America: Winter Soldier? How would we have kept order in our respective ends of the world during the chaotic events of Thor: The Dark World? Could one of our characters procured advanced Stark Technology after Tony Stark's Clean Slate Protocol at the end of Iron Man 3? Maybe Hank Pym wasn't the only person to possess Pym Particles? Could it be possible that a copy of Ultron survived the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron and The Abandoned was the only ones able to take him down? The possibilities are endless! That being said, we discussed it would be a good idea to reel back to the origins of our characters rather than these stories be a continuation of the original Abandoned continuity. Put bluntly; it's been so long and things became so incredibly convoluted that simplicity and fun is the only way this is going to be able to work. It would also be asinine to ignore the overwhelming nature and the overbearing responsibility the old continuity had. Put simply, too many factors led to it's downfall; therefore, if this idea is going to work, there would have to be rules implemented to assure the main reason behind this new site. This reason being to HAVE FUN!
1) Strictly following the continuity laid out by the movies and TV Shows. One thing this means is the lack of inclusion of mutants, due to rights issues keeping The X-Men from crossing over with the Avengers. Despite this, the MCU has the inclusion of The Inhumans, which is literally a name change from the way they're depicting them in Agents of SHIELD, Avengers: Age of Ultron and even Captain America: Civil War. However, instead of focusing on the "Can't" we all should be focusing on the "Can" which I welcome you to base your character out of already established methods. Other than the Inhumans taking the place of Mutants, it's well established that aliens regularly visit Earth and stray advanced technology from Stark Industries, Roxxon, AIM, Wakanda and even Asgardian items of special interest are out there and have been out there for literally half a dozen decades. There are quite literally hundreds of ideas you could explore. Instead of a Weapon X Project, you can explore a Hydra-based Rebirth Project effort. What about the unresolved ending of Incredible Hulk? Samuel Sterns is out there and probably creating more Hulks or gamma irradiated enhanced people. Hell, with all these methods of establishing superheroes, whose to say Roxxon doesn't fund the establishment of an old comics-based business; Power Broker, Inc.? Vibranium is no different from Adamantium.
2) No Over Powered Characters. One overwhelming complain I heard from former members of the original Abandoned forum was the over powered nature of characters. At one point, it was established that a character who's name escapes me at the moment could lift Mt. Everest as if she were lifting a tissue box. The story telling process is based on the protagonist overcoming a challenge by becoming either smarter or in easier cases, stronger. I say the latter is the easier route because it's much easier to depict a character growing stronger with each passing enemy. Video games do it with a process Arin Hanson calls Avatar Strength; gaining all sorts of power-ups and items while maintaining a waxing and waning highs and lows of difficulty. However, with most story tellers going down this same road, its hard not to confront what David and I have dubbed the DBZ Effect. Put simply, when a main character achieves a new level of strength or power, what challenges came before him are no longer a threat; however, when the A NEW CHALLENGER HAS APPEARED cycle comes back, you eventually are left with two characters duking it out over the fate of the entire multiverse with just a sneeze. Eventually, this not only gets boring, but it becomes unrelatable. not only are you not able to write for a literal god of a character, no one is interested in this character anymore. Judge Dredd isn't interesting because he gets a better Law Giver every time he sets out to put foot-to-ass to criminals in Mega City One, he's interesting because he's almost always one man against hoards of these psychopaths and gang bangers with just his Law Giver 2 and a chin that makes Bruce Campbell jealous. Batman isn't interesting because he's got money that makes Scrooge McDuck bashful or because he has a contingency plan for his contingency plans; he's interesting because he's a guy who's had a bad day (just like you and me) who is gonna get pounded into the pavement by Solomon Grundy or drowned in mud by Clayface. Put simply, nothing is more interesting than the struggle to overcome and to come out on top despite the other guy having better toys or a higher IQ. It was said by many a comic book writer that a hero shouldn't be stronger than their rogue's gallery or fellow heroes, lest they be compared to a bully. What sets heroes aside from villains is their almost apparent inferiority to their foes EXCEPT for their slightly better clever nature. I could drive this point into the ground more and more, but lets end on this thought process. Would the better ending to Civil War have been Cap and Tony punching Zemo out and glad handing T'Chala while referring to him as "Chum" or would it have been better to show this guy who had ZERO SPECIAL SKILLS other than his whit actually succeed in destroying the Avengers from within like he set out to do?
3) One Profile, Infinite NPC characters. One minor problem I wanted to address was multiple accounts with different main characters. For those of you who are new here, I'm referring to a regularly used practice of creating multiple accounts on a forum for individual characters. You can imagine that this probably was difficult on some when it came to the Keep Up game after a short leave of absence. That being said, I propose the aforementioned solution of having one account/profile while having an infinite amount of NPCs to surround this main character with. Family for this character, allies, sidekicks, other heroes, partners, enemies; I welcome you to build an entire world around your character because I encourage you to come up with your own syndicated-style short stories around this hero character. Much like The Flash or Arrow with partners, allies, heroes, enemies and even family, I hope you to embrace this idea by seeing it as this. We all have our own live with friends and enemies alike. We are the superheroes to our own stories with our own cast of characters. Much as the Avengers is a collection of previously established characters with their own friends and enemies, that is how I envision The Abandoned. Our heroes inhabit our cities or towns and fight our enemies and struggles. I don't just encourage you to make a team mate, I encourage you to live vicariously through your character. Part of having fun is distressing and often times, we writers vent our frustrations through our works of art. Not only may we play with others on her, we may also play with ourselves... get your head out of the gutter, you know what I meant. Come to this site to distress.
4) Do not speak for anyone else's character when posting. The number 1 complaint I heard from everyone concerning the original site was others talking for characters they didn't control and completely misjudging how the owner would want their character to react to a situation. For example, where one person depict your character as a close minded dick to a situation, you might see your character reacting rationally and level headed. Therefore, with a method that has been already successfully beta tested, we've done away with a minimum word count and put full control of the Main and NPC Characters into the hands of the creator. Meaning, if all you can muster from your main character or NPC is one word, then its completely acceptable.
5) For the love of god, have fun. I cannot stress this more and I cannot put it in any other way. At the time of this writing, I'm working on a semi-autobiographical novella series that depicts the original Abandoned site as an actual web comic with hard ass editors who came down to hard with editorial mandates, changes and regular scolding for writing situations or ridiculous deadlines. This isn't a comic series, despite how cool that would be. This is for fun! If this site lives entirely in the Roadhouse board with our characters having fun and having fun, drinking, pulling pranks and fucking, then I've done my job on this site. It's that simple, I want you to have fun. So, LETS HAVE FUN!
I should also give an example of the writing style to be used, since the Script Style is not only easy to write in but easy to read quickly as well, so...
Paragraphs here are meant to depicted to intended character or characters interacting with their surroundings, events or actions stated from other characters. Their thoughts and actions are to be referred to in the third person. It's completely acceptable for the narration of these paragraphs to explain previous events or refer to events in other threads in a quick manner, quickly and not in a convoluted and lengthy manner. Spoken lines are to be depicted as follows.
Character: *Quick Action* Spoken Line
That all being said, I think all I have left to say is any already depicted Marvel Character within the movies are to be depicted as NPCs and not as someone's main character. If a character has yet to make their debut in the continuity of the MCU and you want to include them in some way in a storyline, ask me and we might be able to work something out. After all, we don't wanna be eating crow if we depict She-Hulk one way and she ends up as someone characterized completely differently. So, without further ado lets get to it!