March Madness Journal!

Howdy Deviants and Top of the Mornin'! 

I hope that everyone had a fantastic February and I hope that everyone is staying warm, healthy, and safe during this time where the weather isn’t playing to the seasonal requirements, at least in the USA. I have a few items I wanted to announce since I want to combine both the monthly update journal and the next step to the Character Concept Poll. So, without further or do let’s hit the ton of marble first:

Character Concept Step 2:

First off, I want to congratulate the winner of the contest “Arrowhead”. I want to thank everyone that participated in this and your inputs are saved on a separate Word Document to use when I work the official biography on this heroine; however, I ran into another idea (which was fueled and helped defined by several friends). Instead of going with the picture as the official costume for this heroine, I want to open this back up to the public and have YOU decide how this archer heroine is going to be seen by the DeviantArt community. How this will work is that one of two ways can be done:

1. Artistic Inputs- If you can draw (no commissions) you have the freedom to mock up an idea of what you want the heroine to be seen in. Be as detailed as you want and I will accept all ideas to be taken into consideration. No input will be rejected and no input is ridiculous. Feel free to spread the word and get some looks popping up.
   
2. Links- If you don’t want to draw a look, that is completely fine. All I require is an IN-DEPTH description of what the costume should look like with references. One reference fired up isn’t going to work, so scout, research, and present to me what you think Arrowhead should be fighting crime in. 
   

While this is open to the public here are some rules I will establish:

1. Be Realistic- First, I am not going to shun art that displays what she wears; however, understand the position she is in. She has no regeneration on the level of Wolverine, Invulnerability on the level of Superman, and no defenses that are beyond an Olympic archer. Please keep in mind that she will be out in the field and combat bikinis are just going to harm her should a villain hit the right vein or break the right bone. Be realistic in the sense that you need to keep in mind that she is going out to be a heroine on her own merit, skill, and equipment and has no powers to assist her. I might restate this again; however, I do take into the factors of biology, nutrition, and human health when writing a character so I just wanted to mention that item. I am not limiting the imagination but I will insert a filter and a level of expectation I will take when I start writing her.
   
2. No “Excessive” Pictures- Since this is her official costume, if you are going to draw a picture or send a link please filter it so that it isn’t anything that would find its way to more….”explicit” websites. Again this works in the sense of functionality, fashionable, and useful along with this being taken seriously. She has taken a place that is shared by my benchmark and longest crafted character and deserves the same respect. Also as a writer I take into account of such facts like biology, nutrition, and other sciences that would disagree with her body being overly exposed.
   
3. Submissions- I will accept two forms of submission. I can either accept you commenting in this journal and posting the picture there or noting me privately with the picture. I will collect the pictures and if the submission exceeds 10, then I will create one more journal to host the official poll.  All notes need to be labeled “Costume Suggestion” so that I can filter it accordingly. Same applies to links
   
4. Civilian Guise- I will also accept suggestions for her look when she is out and about with the public. Granted I have a Beta design for her civilian and heroine looks; however, I am more than open to suggestions, inputs, and creative opinions.
   

Again the future look of Arrowhead is reflective to how you as the watcher, friend, and visitor participate in this. Arrowhead will only be as well crafted as the participation of the community, this isn’t just my heroine but it is the heroine that you chose to favor and trust to expand and explore more into the community of a super heroine. If you haven’t noticed, 90% of my roster is composed of non-female characters so this is not only a new character to join my big, happy family but it allows me to write from another perspective.

In terms of her career I will treat her the same exact way as my other characters. Even though I do post a lot in it isn’t the default group I write stories for. The reason why I am working with them a lot is that they are the first group I got associated with, helped nurture the soil of creativity that I am using now with writing, and have given me lots of practice in terms of collaboration. I am open to collaborate with other owners who own characters of the Super Hero genera.

Now, with that out of the way I want to inform everyone that the picks you have chosen that weren’t Arrowhead won’t necessarily get deleted; however, I will be using some of their skeletons in an attempt to establish my own version of a rogue’s gallery for my roster. I want to thank you for taking the time to comment, vote, and pass the poll around so that the community can get as much of an input as possible. There is a likely case that the second placer Southern Belle will be created in the future; however, as for now the concepts will go back into cold storage.

My last parting words are that if you want to contribute to this Heroine’s future look, please go to the polling options and comment after voting. southernnerd.deviantart.com/jo…

Rogue Gallery

Like I said before, I will be taking a crack at trying to establish the first ever rogue’s gallery for my roster. The set-up will be that I will try to create 3-4 villains for my heroes and my vigilante. I feel that my villain is just too large to have a small gallery to work with and he isn’t they type to leave those behind to develop a agenda against him. How my policy will develop with the rogues is that:

1. Level of Involvement- While I hate to do this, I feel that the Rogues will be nothing more than a sort of thorn in my character’s sides to be involved in a story. Should you find a rogue interesting, there has to be a part involvement of the hero or vigilante that he/she is associated with. I am not going to discourage collaborations; however, it is like taking the Scarecrow and trying to use him without Batman. You can get somewhat of a story together; however, Scarecrow works best when Batman is around.
   
2. Reoccurrences- As taking the position of rogues, they will have to be active and free to do their own dirty work as they see fit. I would highly discourage killing or incarcerating any of the rogues because I would like to use them in the future for future stories. Minions are fair game; however, the rogues need to remain constant in the lore of my characters.
   
3. Collaboration Association and Ownership- Even though I stated that these characters are minor at most, they are still my property. With that said, please keep in mind I still would like to be respected that I would like a note or message stating that you are using him/her in a story, piece of art, or some other outlet and a rough draft to be sent my way. I don’t like my ideas being taken advantage of and I like to think of myself as respectful enough to respect another’s work to at least notify the owner and keep him/her in the loop enough to get as close and unique to the character’s identity.
   

Monthly Topic

I would like to do this as often as possible as to get some sort of window into how I think, behave, and feel so during the monthly journal updates I will give a piece of my mind to a topic(s) that are recent, relevant, and ongoing into the matters of popular media. I won’t get political I neither have the patience nor tolerance to deal with the leviathan that is the political world. With that said, let’s get started:

1. Extreme Changes to a Solid Comic Book Character- This occurred to me rather recently as when I found out some items that are rather drastic and unnecessary to a character’s identity. It isn’t new to me but I do have more ammunition to add to my holster in this discussion. So, we all know that Marvel announced that they were going to change the owner of Mjolnir to a woman, the Human Torch will be Black American for cinematic purposes, and other drastic changes like that. I, as a fan of Marvel heroes, do not like these changes and I will give my thoughts to the different areas:
   
1. Thorette- I do not like it. This isn’t a stance of sexism, a stance of refusing to commit to change, nor is it contributing to the rather ignorant and idiotic stereotype that “Men don’t like seeing women as dominant characters”. I don’t like this change because not only is the woman unknown, she is sudden, and it seems to coincidental to be considered an intellectual idea that the heads of Marvel created when they were looking for ways to evolve their fan base. I have high respects and admiration for the women of Marvel and comic books in general. I find Pre-52 Wonder Woman, Batgirl (Barbra Gorden), and others to be very interesting in terms of character, lore, and interactions because they have been handled with the upmost respect and opportunity to grow, change, and mold into a unique identity. The problem with Thorette is that not only is it a sudden and quite obvious move to try and draw in the female readers that haven’t read Thor before but it withdraws the opportunity to allow strong women like Valkyrie, (get the name of Thor’s sister), and other women in Thor’s history to step up to the plate and get a chance to shine. What also irritates me is when I stumble upon articles and videos of women proclaiming that, “This is the era for women to shine in comic books”. The only problems I have with this are: 1. Where were they in trying to push for other women who weren’t a result of gender changes to get their own spotlight? And 2. Read Thor’s history and more specifically the list of people who have previously owned Mjolnir. This isn’t going to be permanent and I believe when the All Father comes back that this error is going to be corrected and the Odinson will take his hammer back and his mantle will be restored.
2. Black Human Torch- First I want to define a term that will occur a lot in this item. When I say “Black America” I will refer to American citizens who are black. This isn’t a racial term, but to be realistic when was the last lineage in the bloodline that originated form Africa as a continent? The term “African American” should only apply if the person has a strong percentage of African blood in their heritage, they practice their heritage from Africa, and they respect and they try to merge their American home experiences with their native African traditions. Calling everyone who is black “African American” is like calling me “Scottish/Irish American” because of my traces of Scottish/Irish blood from my great, great, great, great…grandparents. I am White American and I will not be ashamed of that. This isn’t a form of racism but what I view and how I separate Black Americans and African immigrant Americans. Now, with the issue of the Human Torch being black is that this is blatant minority bait that Sony is trying to use to get the audience to pump some revenue in the mishandling of the Fantastic Four. I am not a fan of the previous two films that flopped; however, this is the same cinematic company that owns Luke Cage and Blade, so why is the Human Torch being changed to black? After much research, I can safely say that this film is going to flop at the box office and I am going to say that we are going to have another “Spiderman fiasco” where Sony is going to be crawling to Marvel Cinema/Disney and ask them to handle the Fantastic Four. There is a margin of error where the movie will surprise me and do spectacular; however, when you name your film “Fant4stic” I am going to make my judgments.
3. Bizarre Changes- While I did find out recently that Deadpool is going to be killed off (more like an extended vacation), my main focus is going to relate to the news that Robin, the iconic sidekick of Batman, now has super powers. First, when has Robin ever shown any chance of growing with super powers? You can research the Bat family and see that 0 of the previous Robins had ever had super powers. This is both stupid and beyond idiotic. The charm of Batman and his family is that they are human beings trying to shape and defend justice through their skills, abilities, and moral codes. Having super powers defeats that concept entirely and it is DC’s way of trying to get new readers to refer back to their comments. Of course there will be a story where Daminan Wayne will most likely be killed off or get his powers removed; however, I don’t like it when comic book companies make left field changes like this. It shows that DC has ignored creativity, lore, and inspiration so that they can try to crack the safe and steal funds out of the reader.
2. Opinion vs. Negativity- Recently, I saw a deviation where a friend of mine did a spectacular job of art and portrayed a character brilliantly. When I scrolled down to the comment section to leave my appreciation, my stomach turned, churned, and almost revolted at a couple of comments that made me take a moment to rub my eyes, regain my composure, and report the individual(s) to the moderators of DeviantArt. I did leave a comment discussing that I didn’t approve of the opinion and the views of the individual bashing both a friend and artist that I happen to like. Before I continue let me explain something:
1. I have left my opinion on various artworks, but I have never attacked an artist directly. I might make an outsider’s viewpoint; however, I separate emotion from comments because I don’t want to give off the wrong impression.
2. When I favorite the work, it means I like it a lot. I might or might not comment on it because time, quantity of deviations, and emotional state come into play when I make comments. Regardless if you have gotten a notice that I have favorite a work of art it isn’t because I am collecting pieces without looking at them, I like them and want to view them again at another time.
3. Opinion is something along the lines of, “I love the way you drew Frank eating that hotdog! I love the texture of the buns and the toppings that you put on it!” or “I might not like how this image looked; however, I do like the effort put into the drawing and I must say that it is indeed an impressive piece.” Negativity is when someone goes out of their way to attack an artist’s work, life, or what they perceive as personal opinions as opposed to the realistic look of them bashing the artist.
1. With that being said, I loathe any comments that attack an artist’s life. It takes a lot of courage, time, and effort to create a work of art whether it is in words or in a form of painting (whether physical or digital) and an artist has to swallow his/her own pride to submit something that he/she has worked on. I come from a background with heavy depression and anxiety induced depression. I wake up some mornings that I don’t want to get up and the only relief I feel throughout the day is taking a pain killer. I understand that artists have swallowed a lot and deserve a lot more than despicable sub-human commenters making attacks on the artist because, “He/She doesn’t draw the way I like.”
2. DeviantArt is about artistic freedom to all. We live in the age where the Internet can expose anything and everything. If you want to see a squirrel…just google it, if you want to see motorcycle stunt jumps…google it, if you want to see squirrels on fire while making motorcycle stunt jumps to Kenny Loggin’s Danger Zone…google it.  Just because an artist on DeviantArt doesn’t’ draw your “fancy” doesn’t mean you have grounds and freedom to attack a person’s live and livelihood. I hope that in the future that we as fellow observers can gather together and filter out various trolls, ignorant commenters, and pieces of sub-human life forms from a website devoted to artistic freedom in all forms.

Final Words

I have been doing some thinking over the course of a few weeks, and I have decided to focus my story writing into more solo universe oriented stories. The reason behind this isn’t that I hate ; however, I want to create a buffer zone that I can fall back to in case one day I wake up and discover that the group of like minds, original character owners, and friends is going to disband. I am actively looking around for other Superhero Genera styled owners to collaborate with and get to know; however, the next train of thought has possibilities of me breaking out of the superhero genera and incorporate other means of universal writing.

Before getting into DeviantArt, I was a curious chap and with curiosity bore seeds of several unique character concepts. These aren’t superhero and often fall inside other universes whether they be video game, movie, anime, or other universes. I am still debating on getting these designs done; however, I may expand on this soon and breathe life into other unique OC’s.

I hope everyone has a fantastic March! Hope that everyone stays safe and relaxes during their respective Spring Breaks! Also, I hope that everyone has a good, safe, and fun time celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in one form or another! I will see y’all in April!

-SouthernNerd 

PS: I was actually supposed to be born on St. Patrick’s Day, but instead was born early on Valentine’s Day. I guess I traded one Saint’s Holiday for another!