Mind Explosion

A plague has hit the establishment, everybody seems to have been ill recently. In fact, Carter was coughing blood a few days ago. Apparently. I wasn't there unfortunately, and missed this undoubtedly hilarious spectacle.

For some reason when disease and illness rolls around, I'm the last to catch it and for that reason I end up gloating and bragging about how my immune system is hardcore and isn't affected by puny colds. This is, of course, bollocks, because I always fall eventually. And that's what's happened right about now.

I read somewhere that if you catch every strain of cold in the world, you become immune to them all. I surely must have caught them all by now; I live life hoping each cold I catch is the last one, so that in a Pokémon-style scenario I'll have caught them all, completed the game and be left with nothing left to do. Until I'm able to transfer them to other titles at a later time. Wait, no.



It's been a long while since I've just written what's on my mind, the various bits and pieces that interest me at this time - probably because I never really feel like blogging these days. I don't know, it's difficult to talk about oneself, or so I find. I'm going to force myself today, even if nobody reads this until the end of the internet, and the collapse of the universe, at least we can have a little time to chat now. With a pipe and a fireplace and slippers.

This post has nothing to do with the Space Battleship Yamato

Somewhere far from here, over the hills and far away on the internet, Dominance War III is being fought, where tons of artists in both 3D and 2D duke it out, designing and creating a character to certain specifications, hoping to be the most interesting character and win the competition*. While there are some prizes - I think Wacom is contributing some Cintiq units, or maybe just one - the main thrill of winning is that in theory, you're pretty much guaranteed a job with some badass developer.

What's funny is, whenever I find myself talking about the Dominance War contest, one word keeps coming back up hideously, much like if it was flushed using this house's toilet, and that word is 'Generic'.

A friend sits at a computer, showing me the site, flicking through the list of designs and characters. He opens one every now and then with some hope that it'll be interesting, because the thumbnail looked pretty cool. Sadly though, he's always disappointed and says "Oh it's just a generic guy with a sword." or "Oh it's just a generic woman with boobs."



I don't know if my standards are rising, or if my personal taste in what I find 'cool' is too obscure, but I hardly ever see anything in terms of character design that impresses me. It might seem cheeky to just make sweeping generalizing statements about absolutely everything, but it's always a guy with a sword. It's always a woman with boobs. In some form.

That's the thing though, I don't have a problem with a guy with a sword, and I don't have a problem with boobs. Usually. DULLNESS is the problem. The act of being dull.

Dullness.

I like it and I'll write it again, because it'll make this entry seem all hip and pretentious.

Dullness...

I'm starting to be of the opinion that any 'dull' character is unforgivable. When you have the opportunity to create anything - which all of us do - whether it be writing, games, comics, pictures, sculpture, you name it, we have the ability to make things interesting. You could even speak out loud if you wanted to; come on, give me an interesting character.

"Well there's this guy, and he goes around killing monsters because his parents got killed when his village was attacked by them, and he wants revenge..."

NNNNNnnnnnnnnooooooooooo!!!

All we need to do is think!

What IS interesting? When you actually do see something that makes you go "Wow!" as in "That's good!" (As opposed to Vista's "Wow" which was "Wow that's a bag of arse."), what is it that causes that reaction?

I think this is something we all need to study. Your most loved books, films, TV shows, documentaries and whatever else; what was it in those that made them stand out from the rest. The answer is invisible, but it is there. You just have to eliminate everything until you're left with the power crystal in the core; and that's pure interesting.

Don't get me wrong; in my opinion, a man with a sword and a woman with boobs can both be completely entertaining and interesting characters, but they have to have the personality and traits to make that so. On top of that, their physical appearance just has to suggest their personality in at least a subtle way. They have to be the sorts of characters that you're actually curious to know more about.

Hey, maybe everyone really does find different things interesting, and generic sword guy A appeals to most of the world. Maybe I'm all alone, with nobody who shares my opinion...

Waahhh.


*Although I've no idea how they're going to judge it.


P.S: On a completely unrelated note...