Tan

Better late than never. Thanks for all the replies guys and girls. It was great reading all the varied views. You know, it's funny. . . I thought I wasn't worthy of getting published either. Then I looked at the best selling books of recent years and 2 were such astounding pieces of garbage that I was utterly befuddled and vexed got published. Usually books have to be reasonably good to get published, but from the success of Twilight and Fifty Shades, they publish ANYTHING now. Think about it. Twilight completely butchers vampires and werewolves, condones abusive relationships(and even pedophilia in the last book), and is chock full of sues. What about Fifty shades? It butchers BDSM and condones abusive and manipulation and weak females. If that wasn't bad enough it began life as fanfiction, and if that isn't the nail in the coffin it was TWILIGHT fanfic. They let Twilight fanfic, and Twilight itself get published. So in my eyes, it's not getting published, it's finding one that will be the challenge. When I first took writing seriously, one of the first things I learned wasn't about standard procedure or proper formatting, it was avoiding the sue type character. I always loved making up characters and stories but I didn't take writing seriously until recent years. And besides a bunch of cliches, flawed characters was the first thing preached other than show don't tell. Back when I was in school, The first Twilight movie was coming out, and many girls were carrying the book and talking about it. Being an average teenage boy, I knew nothing about it. The only thing I saw was the cover of one of the books, and the red headed chick on it was kinda hot. She looked like Katrina Crane from Sleepy Hollow and was even wearing an archaic dress. I didn't see the movie, but I did do a little research. One of the first complaints I heard was "vampires don't sparkle" so I wikied it and the more I read, the more the work disgusted me. I like real vampires, like Christopher Lee's Dracula. Then twilight sexualized them and made them stereotypes of stereotypes of stereotypes of stereotypes. So many characters are boring sues and it has one of the weakest female protagonists ever. Didn't actually read the books but I did wiki them. Fifty Shades. It butchers BDSM, and condones being weak and submissive along side straight up abuse. This one isn't as bad as Twilight because it doesn't butcher supernatural stuff. Arguably it's worse while being less extreme than Twilight. The stuff featured in that book isn't accurate and is abuse, and that is not okay. The characters are boring and it is really bad fanfic. Fanfic shouldn't be an insult, but in this case it's a fanfic of something that was garbage in the first place so no hope of being good. In my story one of the main 3 characters actually had the surname "Gray" before I heard about this garbage. The name was symbolic of the character's nature, teetering on the line between good and evil with questionable and reprehensible acts that are motivated by a selfless end. It was the perfect name for my character and then Fifty shades ruined that name and I can't have my main being a Gray now. I am mad at mrs James for that one. And of course, anything condoning abuse and submission is not cool, but that was at face level. The name thing was just an extra knife twist in my back. Despite how I feel about Fifty shades, I still want to read it oddly enough. I have to see the bad writing for myself and learn from it. I learned important things from other giant success like stick to your guns from George Lucas, and it's a really good idea but not essential to plan out everything before hand from Jk Rowling. I personally don't care for Lucas, but I have nothing but respect and admiration for Rowling. I haven't read the Harry Potter books, except the first one. I have them digitally and physically and do plan on reading them, but I seen every movie. . . I really do love HP alot. I keep hearing the books are so much better than the movies and I seen how with the first book, because quite a bit was cut from that. So Order of the Phoenix must be like utterly ridiculous with all the extra content that wasn't in the movie. . . Sorry for the rambling. You guys are awesome.

Any pony here writing something serious? I don't mean a Fimfic(not knocking that if it's your cup of tea), I mean something you intend to publish through a publishing company. I ask because I am wondering how many aspiring writers are here. I always loved telling stories, but I didn't take writing seriously until I was 20(I'm 22 now.). I would like people to discuss literary devices with, and talk about the greats like THE legendary David Xanatos for example. You don't have to be an aspiring writer the moment you read this, but if this post inspires you to take it seriously I would like to hear about it. I am looking for people who are interested in the craft to discuss it and share their perspectives. I would also like a few new faces to be a sounding board for what I am working on, but that might be asking a bit much. If you're interested, great, if not, great. . . Don't let my wishes be a turn off, I mainly want the discussion part anyway. Sorry to put you on the spot like that.

welcome to the forum glide. Have a drink and be merry.

Online im practically and open book, talkative, confident, and maybe a tad extreme with honor and pride. But offline? I'm very quiet, business only, stoic, and boring. Unless my girl is in my presence, then I smile. I don't speak anymore than I have to and I try to draw as little attention to myself as possible. If people don't notice me? I am on the right track.

Anyone can add me if they want. Mine is Tan4500.

It may be the depression talking, but I think I fit the bill of loser quite nicely. I am male, 22, still live with my parents, can't do spit, didn't finish school, mentally ill and need pills, overweight, spend nearly all day on the computer, virgin(because society made me think this was a bad thing and I felt alien when in school.), very few RL friends, Skype dependent. Yet I do have one thing going for me. I met a girl in high school, and she is the main reason I didn't take my life. I love her, and she loves me despite my loser status. We admitted to each other our love on numerous occasions and my first kiss with her is my fondest memory. We keep each other sane and have crap lives in different ways, but are happy and rejoice in each other's presence. How did we meet? I gave up on getting girls after 8th grade. Only had 1 girl before her, and I tried my hardest to learn EVERYTHING I could from it. So I would go to library because the cafeteria food stinks. I sat next to her without even batting an eye. I made the world's crappiest stick figure kick with pivot and she saw me looking at the gif I made and asked me how. We got to talking, and before long were greeting each other with hugs. I preferred her company to any other friend I made. I would have dropped out sooner if it wasn't for her, she was the only reason I would show my face in that shit hole. As time went by I slowly realized, I loved her, and she was ready at the exact same time I was. We been together for 5 years now and despite my baggage, she accepts me. I even told her every filthy little secret from my childhood and she didn't flinch or judge me at all. I didn't clear out my skeletons from my closet until 6 months ago because I have trust issues, but she accepts me and I can tell her anything. Her baggage doesn't turn me off either, and most people would probably avoid her if they knew what I know now. She is the best and I don't deserve her. She deserves a real man, not my squishy ass. All I can offer her is that I will treat her right. And she is perfectly fine with that. I told her my kinks and she found them adorable and never once tried to exploit me. In our ship no one wears the pants. It was built with brutal honesty and mutual respect. I did accidentally make her cry with my honesty before, but I never intentionally hurt her. I'm sorry if this was TMI. ~Tan

the future scares me. Go to school and look around. . . these animals are going to be ruling the world one day. I cringe at the thought of the monkeys from my generation becoming politicians and other figureheads in positions of power. It's like a train wreck though, despite my fear of being caught in the collision, I cannot look away and am awe struck waiting to watch stuff burn. . .

I don't really get mad over this sort of thing. I get a tad peeved when people make judgements with intent to arouse anger. I'm not so hopelessly loyal to childhood stuff really. I like the past and nostalgic stuff is a pleasure to watch again when I have time, but I am not blinded by love or anything else to the point where I am blind to faults. Nostalgia is really powerful stuff, but it's not the end all be all. Still reminders of the better days are always nice.

It's just not profitable. Adolescence is an awkward phase and teens are not known for their critical thinking skills or impartiality. children have no desire to be mature usually and see cartoons without hesitation. Then they become teenagers and get this obsession with maturity because of all this new hair they have. Then they become adults and gravitate towards south park and the like, or continue to show lack of interest in toons at all. Money is the reason shows are made. Sure there are some passion projects by people with artistic integrity and thats nice and all but if it doesn't sound like a good idea to the suits, it won't be aired. This is also the reason toons die, they don't make enough money to justify their existence anymore. Sure the show creators get attached for a myriad of reasons, but when the views reach that death threshold, nothing will stop the suits from canceling the project. Its quite sad actually.

Sorry if I am a tad late, and sorry if this isn't exactly an issue for you now when you read my post, but here is my 2 cents. First off, there is a quote(and I have a few quotes for you.) that really holds water and is very profound yet simple. "There is nothing new under the sun." Every possible thought you could ever have will be the byproduct of your environment, intellect, emotional disposition, and a myriad of other factors. Everything that you could ever say has been said before countless ways in every form of entertainment ever since the birth of writing. This is NOT a bad thing. in other words, there is no such thing as originality because every thought and saying is a remix of something the person seen. Here is another quote for you, also related to the creative process. "Artists copy, great artists steal." Initially this one might be more upsetting on face value but think about the quote for a moment. Regular artists copy, what exactly does this mean? well they see something and they capture/remix/recreate it. All artists do this, be it writer, drawer or animator, etc. Now the second half. Great artists steal. Inherently stealing is bad. . . but this is a very judgmental view. Allow me to elaborate with a paraphrased quote from the legendary George Carlin "There are no bad words, it's all about context." So stealing alone is just stealing, nothing more, nothing less. It's not the act of theft that's important, it's what you do with it. So you want to make a character for example, and for the sake of example you are writing and need a character. Now then before you can move on, you could sit down and think about what motifs and tropes could bring an original character to light, BUT this takes time and alot of effort and can slow the work. Also, this approach is the non theft way but its alot easier to come up with cardboard characters and stereotypes this way, which is why I don't recommend it. One more reason before I move on, it makes a character harder to identify with. Now back to stealing. Let's say you watched Danny Phantom and your story needs a perky goth character(regardless of gender). Now you take Sam and insert her in the role, you don't leave her there, because that would be abuse of stealing. You are just using her as a placeholder. Now look at Sam, consider why she "fits" and why you stole her for place-holding. A number of things happened with little to no effort on your part. You got a rough idea of: How they dress, color palette, personality template, and a connection. If other people see your character think of Sam, well its up to them on how they react, obviously there will be morons who say expies are bad(even though tropes are TOOLS) but the more educated ones will admire the connection and have more interest in the new character regardless of gender. Now there are a few things to consider, like everyone has a rip-off threshold and they vary quite significantly. But back to using Sam as placeholder, consider her quirks and what made her work. How many goths do you see caring about the environment? This is a subtle thing that had serious gravity on what made Sam so interesting. But you have a placeholder, and it gave you stuff, what's the next step? Start changing things. You can go about changes in any order, and the more you do it, the more it will become yours. You can ask yourself questions like what makes this character stand out from a stereotypical goth? This can lead to thoughts like, "how goths do you see talking about Mario Kart or games in general?" This can give birth to a gamer perky goth. then you can change gender if it matters and suddenly your character gets an identity all their own. And despite how wordy I got, its actually a pretty simple process. I got probably a tad carried away with examples, but in this hypothetical, you created a character with their own identity and it was from the simple yet effective act of stealing. You don't even have to change much, just the stuff that has serious gravity on the character, and you may want to consider your verse's characters, setting, rules, and other things to see what you need to change to make this new character fit your work and be a believable byproduct of their environment. TL;DR first point: Being "original" is alot of work, nigh-impossible. Stealing gives you placeholders and templates, just change to make it fit in your work, and you're golden. Secondly, don't fret theft or originality so much. Stealing is. . . well you get it by this point. Context is key. I am going to illustrate a few extremes. taking a work and calling it your own. BAD, VERY BAD. using overly elaborate Expies that have gone through so many changes that they are truly original now and have no connection to their bases. BAD, it's a time sink and defeats the purpose, and the only reason writers/artists do this is for integrity delusions. Okay two extremes down and both are not ideal, but have been done by lesser beings and produced garbage on most prominently fanfiction avenues. So what's a good medium? somewhere between stealing and not changing to overly complex expy abuse, but more leaning towards little to no changes. Inspiration is a beautiful thing, all the greats are inspired by various things they seen. From lesser beings like me, all the way to greats like Shakespeare or Dickens. There is much more to "creativity" than stealing, though stealing is a great tool when used correctly. Another quote for you and this one is very profound(Albert Einstein said this one, and he was a textbook example of genius) : "the secret to creativity is hiding your sources." Initially, probably frightening. But when you consider it, it's very true. This shouldn't be alarming, hell its a very simple and effective strategy for creating original works. It doesn't hinder a work's potential, and when used right it can give birth to wonderful things. Art imitates life, and vise versa. Because stealing and changing is so simple and effective, and efficient many people do it. There is no shame in it. And bonus points for inspiring a generation to take art and entertainment to another level. At the end of the day, it's not about who can conjure up the least stereotypical cardboard cutouts, it's about inspiring the future generation to do marvelous things and further technology and other aspects of life. And bonus points if your work keeps somepony from committing suicide. When you get comments from fans that say how much love your work and how it impacted them positively on forums or other social media outlets, then you really did good, and it should bring you a healthy pride and sense of worth. TL;DR second point: Stealing and no change is just as bad as overly complicating things, and both defeat the purpose in their own right. A healthy medium is economically sound, and ideal. Inspiring others is the point, not showing off your creative muscles. If you can't tell by now, I myself am a writer. Not only a writer, I also draw and animate stick figures. I hope this eliminated any remaining fears you had about creativity. I said most of what I wanted to say but I have more advice for a fellow writer. If you don't already, I highly recommend spending as much time as you can on Tvtropes.org. I owe like 80% of my writing chops to that wiki and its written in informal speak. It's not always to the point, but it has examples of media that make the rambling much easier to understand if the article is confusing at all. They aren't but seeing examples really cements the idea in my mind with clarity. I'm also working on a story(with intent to publish) and I have gone through similar concerns, and am my own worst critic. . . the point is, I been there, if you want me to elaborate on anything else, or just want a creative sounding board, pm me your Skype and we can talk in detail. Hope you enjoyed my post and have a nice day.

are they out of ideas? Seriously, I have ideas but no one is gonna take me seriously w/o a college degree. T_T I have loads of ideas for kids shows and movies and what not. But they must be desperate if they are remaking teletubbies. I always hated em myself, I watched some of it and it didn't keep my interest, even as a little child. I was more of a Buzz Lightyear kid. Buzz Lightyear <3