Growing Around Growing Around: A slow moving trainwreck. (General Thread)

[Master Shake]

@Optimus Prime: Wasn't that C.S. Lewis who said that?

In any case, though, the Sonichu parallels are piling higher than ever. When he puts in a 4-cent garbage-esque parody of us, then we'll know it.

"In this episode of Growing Around, Sally visits the Avocado Farms, and everyone there isn't very fond of her. She knows she has to do the right thing in this situation, so she has them all executed."

 

[Anchuent Dictata]

"In this episode of Growing Around, Sally visits the Avocado Farms, and everyone there isn't very fond of her. She knows she has to do the right thing in this situation, so she has them all executed."

So impressed by Sally's troll fighting capabilities is Lady-Mayor Christine Easton Sandler of the next town over that she immediately designates her as vice-mayor-for-childhood.

 

[Piga Dgrifm]

Here, one of Enter's favorite kids toons does Growing Around.

http://arthur.wikia.com/wiki/Kidonia

 

[Optimus Prime]

@Optimus Prime: Wasn't that C.S. Lewis who said that?

In any case, though, the Sonichu parallels are piling higher than ever. When he puts in a 4-cent garbage-esque parody of us, then we'll know it.

Yeah, my bad, I just remembered "Lewis" was part of the guy's name lol

 

[Konstantinos]

Speaking of stupid shit Enter would rather do than create a series bible, he has created an extended family tree for the Dunns:

Those names he's picked aren't suggestive of their lineages at all. They all have a very generic, chosen-at-random quality to them. If he was going make a point of their lineages, he could have used names that actually sound French or English or Irish or whatever.

[Lengthy atismu rant incoming, be warned]

See, if I wanted to make a family tree for these characters, I'd find a name that ends in "-son" or "-rick." Take Danielson and Dedrick for example. Those are much more indicative of an English heritage because they suggest the Germanic roots of English culture. Smith isn't wrong in that regard (as it has Anglo-Saxon roots) but it is an extremely common name. If you want to draw attention to a characters name, insipid names like Smith should be avoided.

The same goes for the other branches. "Malarie" isn't a proper surname in any language to my knowledge. Unless Enter meant Mallory in which case his laziness is showing again because that's English, not French. A better name to use would be Maloret, the Norman-French word that Mallory is based off of.

Dunn is correct surprisingly but it has its roots as an English word so I'd only reluctantly approve of it.

 

[Petronella]

At the risk of being "that poster", is it just me, or do the jobs the kids in that family tree have seem kind of sexist? Boys get jobs like running their own business or working on a farm, but girls are either homemakers or teachers. ("Girl Scout" is not a job in any universe, John.)

 

[Wabbu]

"Girl Scout" is not a job in any universe, John.

Apparently, he said on a livestream that girls and boy scouts are policemen there

 

[FK 635]

Hi, sorry if I'm a little late in replying to an earlier topic, but I'd like to give my two cents on writing kid characters.

Spoiler: Kinda Longish

It's hard.
Like really hard if you're going for a genuine kid character.

In some stories, the gag is that the kids are like mini-adults (for example, in Peanuts, Charlie Brown and his friends are all a bunch of anxiety-ridden adults in kids' bodies), so that's often the route that people take in writing. It's easier because many of us don't quite remember childhood down to a T. The problem is that Mr. Enter seems to be trying to go for a minor degree of realism in this show in the way the kids act, yet everyone is more of a stereotype or caricature than an actual character.

Just to put in a personal anecdote, I wasn't one of the normal kids. I was obsessed with storyboarding even in preschool. When other kids would point at trucks, I would notice interesting fire hydrants. Now, I'm not saying that every kid has to act like I did, but I'm saying that kids act differently from each other. No two are quite alike.

On another note, I think the best-written kid character I've ever seen was in the "Starkid" musical Trail to Oregon. The son just does random shit like eating all the family's food and throwing his shoe off a covered wagon and when asked why, he replies something along the lines of, "I don't know. I'm seven years old. I don't know why I do anything. I have to experiment with the world."

That just feels so right because kids just do random stuff for the hell of it. Think about it, didn't you just do shit...because? To really write a natural child character, you need to tap back into that time of innocence and mild stupidity.

 

[Wabbu]

http://www.deviantart.com/art/MUSIC-Growing-Up-W-I-P-530365910
Kyle recorded a song for GA
I haven't listened yet, how is it?

 

[Anchuent Dictata]

http://www.deviantart.com/art/MUSIC-Growing-Up-W-I-P-530365910
Kyle recorded a song for GA
I haven't listened yet, how is it?

On a scale from Phil Collins to that one guy who sang the Growing Around theme song? A mediocre American Idol audition, I guess.

 

[ZSponge]

Do you think Mr. Enter takes inspiration from Dusk's Dawn?

 

[José Mourinho]

Do you think Mr. Enter takes inspiration from Dusk's Dawn?

No.

 

[Ho Mo for Women]

http://mrenter.deviantart.com/art/Growing-Around-My-Sister-The-Pet-Sitter-529477512
With the Entersphere subforum on its last legs (and with good reason, to be honest), I didn't want to make an entire new thread for this, but Enter just wrote another craptacular episode of Growing Around called "My Sister, The Pet Sitter". It seems to be his attempt at doing "Pet Sitter Pat" (that one Spongebob episode he's always whining about) "the right way". On the bright side, lots of bad stuff happens to Sally in this episode. Also, Gumdrops falls down the stairs, but, unfortunately, she does not break her neck.

 

[Wabbu]

Someone told me it's been awhile since Sally has had an episode. So here's a Sally episode.

Is there an episode that isn't a Sally episode?
She's a creator's pet, she has too much "screen time" in every "episode"

 

[Piga Dgrifm]

Is there an episode that isn't a Sally episode?
She's a creator's pet, she has too much "screen time" in every "episode"

Doesn't look like it, there are episodes where she isn't the main 'focus', but she still shows up a lot in them. In episodes that don't focus on other characters, they usually don't show up very much.

 

[Jumpin Jenkins]

Doesn't look like it, there are episodes where she isn't the main 'focus', but she still shows up a lot in them. In episodes that don't focus on other characters, they usually don't show up very much.

Once again, Enter didn't follow his own advice. He gave the comedy relief the main character role in many "episodes".

 

[Shokew]

Once again, Enter didn't follow his own advice. He gave the comedy relief the main character role in many "episodes".

Now, that is quite the recipe for disaster there, due to the fact that if the comic relief is annoying, unfunny, or worse, a blank slate / mary-sue of any sort, any conflict focusing on them won't be worth the writing effort. Those are all the vibes and more I get from all of this.

 

[Wabbu]

annoying, unfunny, or worse, a blank slate / mary-sue

You just described Sally

 

[Konstantinos]

annoying, unfunny, or worse, a blank slate / mary-sue

You just described Sally

Isn't that pretty much every character?

 

[Crossed The _____________]

1. What characters? I thought this were carboard pieces.