Megathread The Lara-Su Chronicles and Ken Penders topic - READ PAGE 164, POST 4096

[horridus]

12 hours ago, Alpineredoubt said:

plus the satam season 3 project will be on his radar soon enough and he will bitch about it as well and threaten legal action or something and lie about it 

Dude, no. It's a fan project that has next to nothing to do with him and involves nothing of his work on Archie. Frankly it sounds like you WANT this to happen so that you can find something new to bitch out Penders over. 

[Adamis]

Ken was not even officially involved with the cancelled season 3 of the show, so I doubt he'd sue them or anything. He's made several bad choices and questionnable stuff, but people should really stop on making him the devil or something.

 

[SBR2]

So writers serious question. How often is "Who fucked who" really that important to the story you're writing?

[DabigRG]

6 minutes ago, SBR2 said:

So writers serious question. How often is "Who fucked who" really that important to the story you're writing?

He's gotta be trollin. Ain't no way he'd make that post at this point without realizing the climate.   

I get what he's trying to say somewhat, but that wording man....

[SBR2]

Please Be Someone Of Age. No Teen Pregnancy.

I'm not pushing this any further. Everytime I do my Notifications on Twitter friggin explode.

[Big Panda]

All we need to know is “Character C is the offspring of Character A and Character B”, not “Character C was conceived after Character A D’d Character B’s V”.

[Dr. Detective]

Who the fuck begins a statement by saying "I was working on character development when it occurred to me-"

It's like something an alien would say. Time to do the character development part of my story, huuuuuman~!

Also, how can he say it's not plot driven when he's got Lara-Su walking around in a bikini. Look at all that plot. Just hanging out in the open like that. 

[SBR2]

6 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Who the fuck begins a statement by saying "I was working on character development when it occurred to me-"

It's like something an alien would say. Time to do the character development part of my story, huuuuuman~!

Also, how can he say it's not plot driven when he's got Lara-Su walking around in a bikini. Look at all that plot. Just hanging out in the open like that. 

I'm sure many will read it for all dat plot. XD

[Rabid-Coot]

Sally has a secret child with with the skunk.

[DabigRG]

34 minutes ago, Rabid-Coot said:

Sally has a secret child with with the skunk.

Ah yes, With--The most memorable Penders character!

What a card!

[CleverSonicUsername]

You know, when you find out that this is Ken's thought process when laying out a story, the long confusing bullshit family trees in the Sonic comic start to make a lot more sense.

[horridus]

6 hours ago, SBR2 said:

So writers serious question. How often is "Who fucked who" really that important to the story you're writing?

Largely depends on the nature of the story- in a drama about intimate relationships and how they impact people (soap opera kind of stuff), it tends to matter. That said, Penders' framing of it here makes it sound like he just wants to arbitrarily assign partners and such for no real reason other than his bizarre love affair with minutia. In short? It's pretty complex and something that should only be brought up if it is in fact relevant to the plot, and it's doubtful that Penders actually understands that. 

6 hours ago, SBR2 said:

Please Be Someone Of Age. No Teen Pregnancy.

I'm not pushing this any further. Everytime I do my Notifications on Twitter friggin explode.

Normally I'd mention how astounding it is that his phrasing makes it sound like he honestly didn't plan any of this basic shit ahead before introducing characters, but given how he only 'recently figured out' who Rutan's father was, this sadly is in fact a legitimate insight into how he does things. He doesn't really think of the basics until AFTER the fact. Remember the family tree where virtually none of the Guardians spouses were even named? 

And I really have to laugh at him claiming this is going to be 'Character Driven'. In all the years that Penders has worked on Archie, he has never demonstrated any capacity for Character Driven works. All of his major storylines progress and advance due to purely to the plot demanding it, not the characters. Things proceed in Endgame because he forces it. Things proceed in Knuckles because he forces it. Things DON'T proceed in 25YL at all, and when it does, it's STILL forced. Character development is sudden and with no prior build up, and nothing feels organic. The guy is a parrot- he can speak (well, type) words, but he doesn't actually understand any of it. 

6 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Who the fuck begins a statement by saying "I was working on character development when it occurred to me-"

It's like something an alien would say. Time to do the character development part of my story, huuuuuman~!

Ken Penders, evidently. Every time he starts waxing philosophic about the creative process it becomes clear that his perspective is, to put it in the most gentle and polite terms imaginable, EXTREMELY unique.... and for all the wrong reasons. That there kinda sums it up- he sees Character Development more in terms of the arbitrary than in terms of how it enhanced the story, and this is born out in his writing given how little characters DO develop in a meaningful way, and the few cases where it sticks it hasn't been built up or implemented organically at all. 

This guy has such a warped and wrong-headed view of how storytelling works that it's almost hard to believe its real, and yet, there it is.  

5 hours ago, Rabid-Coot said:

Sally has a secret child with with the skunk.

The "Princess of Acorn", remember. Sally can't be used, so we have the "Princess of Acorn", who I am sure is TOTALLY unique and not at all a pathetic ripoff of a character he can't legally own. 

I despise the fact that this is something we can honestly consider him wanting, though...

13 minutes ago, CleverSonicUsername said:

You know, when you find out that this is Ken's thought process when laying out a story, the long confusing bullshit family trees in the Sonic comic start to make a lot more sense.

For real. It sincerely makes me wonder how on earth he got this way, given that consuming media a lot in theory gives you at least a LITTLE bit of insight as to what makes a story work or not, yet he is seemingly impervious to any kind of real understanding. 

[DabigRG]

27 minutes ago, CleverSonicUsername said:

You know, when you find out that this is Ken's thought process when laying out a story, the long confusing bullshit family trees in the Sonic comic start to make a lot more sense.

To be fair, it was only really Knuckles that that applied to.

17 minutes ago, horridus said:

 

For real. It sincerely makes me wonder how on earth he got this way, given that consuming media a lot in theory gives you at least a LITTLE bit of insight as to what makes a story work or not, yet he is seemingly impervious to any kind of real understanding. 

Something from Star Trek mayhap?

[CleverSonicUsername]

4 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

To be fair, it was only really Knuckles that that applied to.

I don't know who you could attribute it to specifically, but Sonic was given parents, Tails was also given family, Robotnik even got a brother and niece.

They definitely expanded family trees in that series, and a lot of times I would say it was totally superfluous. Granted, yes, all the Knuckles stuff was completely off the rails, since that's where Ken dumped the story he really wanted to tell.

[horridus]

17 minutes ago, CleverSonicUsername said:

I don't know who you could attribute it to specifically, but Sonic was given parents, Tails was also given family, Robotnik even got a brother and niece.

They definitely expanded family trees in that series, and a lot of times I would say it was totally superfluous. Granted, yes, all the Knuckles stuff was completely off the rails, since that's where Ken dumped the story he really wanted to tell.

In fairness, Tails' parents were a Gallagher contribution. 

That being said, a rather large chunk of the family expansions DID happen because of him. He did indeed give Sonic parents who were still living in the present (despite it making little to no sense), and likewise he gave Antoine a father, Rotor a father (who showed up for a few panels in a single flashback), and likewise expanded Sally's family be including an unmentioned older brother (despite it making no sense), and revealing her mother Alicia was in fact alive, to say nothing of the various ancestors that showed up in her family history, as well as her grandfather and grandmother. And then of course we have Nic the Weasel, identical twin sister to Nack... 

Now in fairness, on paper these are not really BAD things. The problem is that Penders doesn't put a lot of thought into any of this and seems to include them more due to wanting a sense of 'completeness' (due to his intense fixation on families) and to give the characters an automatic degree of significance , rather than taking time to flesh them out and so forth. A lot of it just feels arbitrary, and it shows. 

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, CleverSonicUsername said:

I don't know who you could attribute it to specifically, but Sonic was given parents, Tails was also given family, Robotnik even got a brother and niece.

They definitely expanded family trees in that series, and a lot of times I would say it was totally superfluous. Granted, yes, all the Knuckles stuff was completely off the rails, since that's where Ken dumped the story he really wanted to tell.

Well yeah, they added families for the characters, but that's not necessarily an issue.

The issue is how many relatives there were and whether they were used well, hence my specifying Knuckles as the really out there one.

1 hour ago, horridus said:

 

Now in fairness, on paper these are not really BAD things. The problem is that Penders doesn't put a lot of thought into any of this and seems to include them more due to wanting a sense of 'completeness' (due to his intense fixation on families) and to give the characters an automatic degree of significance , rather than taking time to flesh them out and so forth. A lot of it just feels arbitrary, and it shows. 

That's essentially the take.

Nic in particular stands out in hindsight as probably the most egregious example to come out of it.

 

1 hour ago, horridus said:

He did indeed give Sonic parents who were still living in the present (despite it making little to no sense),

and likewise expanded Sally's family be including an unmentioned older brother (despite it making no sense),

In what sense are you thinking of?

[CleverSonicUsername]

3 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Well yeah, they added families for the characters, but that's not necessarily an issue.

The issue is how many relatives there were and whether they were used well, hence my specifying Knuckles as the really out there one.

 

Yeah I get that. I would also say the vast majority of extended family in that comic were not used well at all. They mostly just... exist.

[DabigRG]

11 minutes ago, CleverSonicUsername said:

Yeah I get that. I would also say the vast majority of extended family in that comic were not used well at all. They mostly just... exist.

Fair.

Like in terms of game characters, I liked Jules, Tails' folks, Athair, Hawking, Spectre, and superficially Thunderhawk, but the others were excessive for the most part.

[horridus]

8 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Nic in particular stands out in hindsight as probably the most egregious example to come out of it.

Given that her entire design and character essentially boils down to "Rule 63 Nack"... 

8 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

In what sense are you thinking of?

Think about it- Sally had absolutely no clue that she ever had a brother, at all. His existence came as a complete surprise. This would mean that, somehow, EVERY last adult she knew while growing up at absolutely no point in her life took her aside and told her that she once had a brother. Her father never told her about her brother when she was young. Her mentor never told her about her brother. Her nanny didn't say anything. The doctor who was her family's physician didn't. Uncle Chuck said nothing. And then you get into the circumstances behind his supposed death- he and his mother were shot down during the Great War on route to Angel Island. The loss of a queen and the royal heir isn't something that would be kept quiet in the kingdom, and so we have to believe that, SOMEHOW, this never once came up in Sally's life and that this incredibly infamous incident was somehow forgotten or never spoken of within Knothole. 

Elias' entire EXISTENCE being a secret only works through sheer narrative contrivance and a mountain of violations of basic logic and sense, and ultimately only 'works' because of Penders' authorial feat rather than being able to stand up on it's own internal logic. 

Likewise, Sonic's parents being alive as Robians the whole time, and evidently as FREE Robians shortly after Charles was liberated, also means we have to believe that in all that time, they never wanted to talk to Sonic, and Chuck was happy to go along with this prolonged deception. Nor are we ever given a real reason WHY they wanted this or why any of this proceeds- there is a vague notion of 'not wanting to distract Sonic' or some crap, but at the end of the day, we are basically told why Sonic's folks stayed away rather being shown why, and what we are told doesn't really hold water to begin with. 

All of this functions purely on the basis of drama rather than anything concrete. In short? Nonsense, all of it. 

[SenEDDtor Missile]

2 hours ago, horridus said:

The problem is that Penders doesn't put a lot of thought into any of this and seems to include them more due to wanting a sense of 'completeness' (due to his intense fixation on families)

Wasn't it said somewhere that he had issues with his Dad that eventually got put in via Locke and Knuckles? Maybe he's got a lot of unresolved issues deep down that he can't help but continually put into his works even if they make no sense.

On a different note, considering his need to make Star Wars and Star Trek references and borderline plagiarism of them in many cases, ya think he'll probably toss in a Rey and Kylo Ren expy and make some really fucked up relationship out of...it...

...

Oh. my. god.

What if Lara Su ends up being a Rey expy?

[Shadowlax]

2 hours ago, horridus said:

Largely depends on the nature of the story- in a drama about intimate relationships and how they impact people (soap opera kind of stuff), it tends to matter. That said, Penders' framing of it here makes it sound like he just wants to arbitrarily assign partners and such for no real reason other than his bizarre love affair with minutia. In short? It's pretty complex and something that should only be brought up if it is in fact relevant to the plot, and it's doubtful that Penders actually understands that. 

Its soap opera stuff. The furry Soap opera claim that people make about that era of comic is accurate .

2 hours ago, horridus said:

Normally I'd mention how astounding it is that his phrasing makes it sound like he honestly didn't plan any of this basic shit ahead before introducing characters, but given how he only 'recently figured out' who Rutan's father was, this sadly is in fact a legitimate insight into how he does things. He doesn't really think of the basics until AFTER the fact. Remember the family tree where virtually none of the Guardians spouses were even named? 

And I really have to laugh at him claiming this is going to be 'Character Driven'. In all the years that Penders has worked on Archie, he has never demonstrated any capacity for Character Driven works. All of his major storylines progress and advance due to purely to the plot demanding it, not the characters. Things proceed in Endgame because he forces it. Things proceed in Knuckles because he forces it. Things DON'T proceed in 25YL at all, and when it does, it's STILL forced. Character development is sudden and with no prior build up, and nothing feels organic. The guy is a parrot- he can speak (well, type) words, but he doesn't actually understand any of it. 

25 years later was weirdly nothing yet somehow the worst version of that premise, that one could come up with. I dunno, making a hypothetical comic about the future of sonic characters sounds neat, but he made something that goes nowhere is largely nothing then goes somewhere incredibly forced. And on a side note, still hate that Ian tried to salvage that and many other stories.

2 hours ago, horridus said:

Ken Penders, evidently. Every time he starts waxing philosophic about the creative process it becomes clear that his perspective is, to put it in the most gentle and polite terms imaginable, EXTREMELY unique.... and for all the wrong reasons. That there kinda sums it up- he sees Character Development more in terms of the arbitrary than in terms of how it enhanced the story, and this is born out in his writing given how little characters DO develop in a meaningful way, and the few cases where it sticks it hasn't been built up or implemented organically at all. 

Not to insult FanFiction writers by comparing them Ken, but its basic my first Fic Stuff. He only really cared about having the characters interact in arbitrary ways not the things they needed to and had only thought out vague plot points to connect all those things together. And when they need to go plot point, they force it. This isn't to say every writer has everything thought out, but its very clear Ken doesn't and it doesn't work for him.

2 hours ago, horridus said:

 

For real. It sincerely makes me wonder how on earth he got this way, given that consuming media a lot in theory gives you at least a LITTLE bit of insight as to what makes a story work or not, yet he is seemingly impervious to any kind of real understanding. 

There are people who choose to only absorb what they want from media and that's it. A famous example is the Chappelle Show, parts of audience purposefully ignoring the messages he wanted to put out in the word and just laughing at racism caused Dave Chappelle to stop doing the Chappelle show. Sometimes people just ignore stuff in media so it all sort of coincidences with what they desire.

And ignoring media so it lines up with what he desires, its a pretty good explanation for how he treated a lot of adventure era concepts and characters. God he did a number on rouge.

1 hour ago, horridus said:

In fairness, Tails' parents were a Gallagher contribution. 

That being said, a rather large chunk of the family expansions DID happen because of him. He did indeed give Sonic parents who were still living in the present (despite it making little to no sense), and likewise he gave Antoine a father, Rotor a father (who showed up for a few panels in a single flashback), and likewise expanded Sally's family be including an unmentioned older brother (despite it making no sense), and revealing her mother Alicia was in fact alive, to say nothing of the various ancestors that showed up in her family history, as well as her grandfather and grandmother. And then of course we have Nic the Weasel, identical twin sister to Nack... 

Now in fairness, on paper these are not really BAD things. The problem is that Penders doesn't put a lot of thought into any of this and seems to include them more due to wanting a sense of 'completeness' (due to his intense fixation on families) and to give the characters an automatic degree of significance , rather than taking time to flesh them out and so forth. A lot of it just feels arbitrary, and it shows. 

Its very weird. His fixation on families is strange, you mention the completeness. But there is this need to legacy-ify everything, and this isn't unique to him, nor are the problematic associations that come with it in some scenarios But his desire to do it, with sonic is kind of contradictory to what sonic's kind of about. That isn't to say the sonic franchise doesn't delve into destiny or things like that. But for the most part the characters familiar ties are irrelevant. With knuckles especially, yeah he has an ancient echidna stuff but outside of feeling an obligation to guard the M.E. His family is largely as a bunch of folks who ended up destroying themselves. And what largely defines knuckles is his actions, same with all the other characters. Most of the characters could be read as orphans , are orphans or in one special case have very bad parents. Outside of a special exception being cream.

Now obviously this stuff was introduced while he was writing it ( And he chose to ignore a lot of things while he was writing ) , but its just weird that this series happened to get a writer who's whole theology on writing is contradictory to one of its consistent presented themes. The only thing that makes you, is you.  And even with characters that were active horrible people like locke were treated with this reverence because legacy. " Forget all the bad things they have done, its the dynasty " . Mean while characters are literally murdering their parents in game.

1 hour ago, horridus said:

Given that her entire design and character essentially boils down to "Rule 63 Nack"... 

Think about it- Sally had absolutely no clue that she ever had a brother, at all. His existence came as a complete surprise. This would mean that, somehow, EVERY last adult she knew while growing up at absolutely no point in her life took her aside and told her that she once had a brother. Her father never told her about her brother when she was young. Her mentor never told her about her brother. Her nanny didn't say anything. The doctor who was her family's physician didn't. Uncle Chuck said nothing. And then you get into the circumstances behind his supposed death- he and his mother were shot down during the Great War on route to Angel Island. The loss of a queen and the royal heir isn't something that would be kept quiet in the kingdom, and so we have to believe that, SOMEHOW, this never once came up in Sally's life and that this incredibly infamous incident was somehow forgotten or never spoken of within Knothole. 

Elias' entire EXISTENCE being a secret only works through sheer narrative contrivance and a mountain of violations of basic logic and sense, and ultimately only 'works' because of Penders' authorial feat rather than being able to stand up on it's own internal logic. 

Likewise, Sonic's parents being alive as Robians the whole time, and evidently as FREE Robians shortly after Charles was liberated, also means we have to believe that in all that time, they never wanted to talk to Sonic, and Chuck was happy to go along with this prolonged deception. Nor are we ever given a real reason WHY they wanted this or why any of this proceeds- there is a vague notion of 'not wanting to distract Sonic' or some crap, but at the end of the day, we are basically told why Sonic's folks stayed away rather being shown why, and what we are told doesn't really hold water to begin with. 

All of this functions purely on the basis of drama rather than anything concrete. In short? Nonsense, all of it. 

Elias is the only cool member of the acorn family and nothing you said was wrong. As for the drama thing, Ken would have been really good at writing Soap Opera's

[CleverSonicUsername]

4 hours ago, horridus said:

 Nor are we ever given a real reason WHY they wanted this or why any of this proceeds- there is a vague notion of 'not wanting to distract Sonic' or some crap,

This is especially funny considering the "parents just don't understand" dynamic he has with them later on. Which is pretty much all they exist for after returning to Knothole.

Really the whole thing of these characters living with their parents and sneaking out and going to school is some whole other lame-ass addition the never should have been introduced, although it's a byproduct of Pender's need to have family be a focal point in his stories.

[DabigRG]

10 hours ago, horridus said:

Given that her entire design and character essentially boils down to "Rule 63 Nack"... 

Yeah, there's that and even more, there's the question of whether she needed to be a thing. Like, again, the idea of Nack having a sister he doesn't really get along with sounds kinda fun.

But looking back on it, specifically her introduction, I can't help but feel it would've been better if she had simply been Fiona or at least some random escort who would've really matter.

10 hours ago, horridus said:

Think about it- Sally had absolutely no clue that she ever had a brother, at all. His existence came as a complete surprise. This would mean that, somehow, EVERY last adult she knew while growing up at absolutely no point in her life took her aside and told her that she once had a brother. Her father never told her about her brother when she was young. Her mentor never told her about her brother. Her nanny didn't say anything. The doctor who was her family's physician didn't. Uncle Chuck said nothing. And then you get into the circumstances behind his supposed death- he and his mother were shot down during the Great War on route to Angel Island. The loss of a queen and the royal heir isn't something that would be kept quiet in the kingdom, and so we have to believe that, SOMEHOW, this never once came up in Sally's life and that this incredibly infamous incident was somehow forgotten or never spoken of within Knothole. 

Elias' entire EXISTENCE being a secret only works through sheer narrative contrivance and a mountain of violations of basic logic and sense, and ultimately only 'works' because of Penders' authorial feat rather than being able to stand up on it's own internal logic. 

Eh, its essentially a matter of "Remember the New Guy" regardless.

Where Sally is concerned, I can sort of understand not telling her about her older brother and the intended heir to the throne in-universe; plus, out of universe, it's way of sidestepping her specifically never mentioning him. The rest of the Kingdom servants however, I do concur as being weird--wait, did Uncle Chuck know?

Also, apparently Mr. Penders made him for the sole purpose of giving Mr. Bollers something else to play with where the Kingdom is involved for the main book. And we know Alicia was originally gonna be the antagonist of the Princess Sally Miniseries.So there's that.

11 hours ago, horridus said:

Likewise, Sonic's parents being alive as Robians the whole time, and evidently as FREE Robians shortly after Charles was liberated, also means we have to believe that in all that time, they never wanted to talk to Sonic, and Chuck was happy to go along with this prolonged deception. Nor are we ever given a real reason WHY they wanted this or why any of this proceeds- there is a vague notion of 'not wanting to distract Sonic' or some crap, but at the end of the day, we are basically told why Sonic's folks stayed away rather being shown why, and what we are told doesn't really hold water to begin with. 

All of this functions purely on the basis of drama rather than anything concrete. In short? Nonsense, all of it. 

On that note, I understand.

It also arguably crosses into the field of "We can't spend too much time on Sonic's parents because adventure and excitement!," but either way, it is sketchy.

10 hours ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

 

What if Lara Su ends up being a Rey expy?

Not sure how that could happen.

7 hours ago, CleverSonicUsername said:

This is especially funny considering the "parents just don't understand" dynamic he has with them later on. Which is pretty much all they exist for after returning to Knothole.

Really the whole thing of these characters living with their parents and sneaking out and going to school is some whole other lame-ass addition the never should have been introduced, although it's a byproduct of Pender's need to have family be a focal point in his stories.

I think Bollers was the head writer during that particular era. HIm and/or Romy Chacon, anyway.

[BaronGrackle]

15 hours ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

Oh. my. god.

What if Lara Su ends up being a Rey expy?

Then she'd be a generic female protagonist with obscure origins and a mysterious destiny.

There's not much to plagiarize.

[Kellodrawsalot]

On 6/3/2019 at 7:38 PM, SBR2 said:

So writers serious question. How often is "Who fucked who" really that important to the story you're writing?

...I guess he is still upset after the storm he got with the whole Sally comment or when people point out his comments about asexuals came of as very bigoted. But not too surprising this is a man who thinks its  asexuality is a bad  because it doesn't produce offsprings (that's what he said not me)   so ofcourse he thinks character development is best way trough what's going on between the sheets..