Digital Complex: Plot/Story Thread

[Kami-Tux]

No, it's not supposed to be the main character... I just started having many Linux-tan ideas when thinking about the comic.

Another idea would be the user sometimes stealing away, the OS-tans want to find out what he is doing, ME-tan tries to sneak behind him to find out what he is doing - the eventually see that he's at a friend's house to use a real computer, where the OS is no girl (the OS might be NetBSD?). ME-tan climbed up to look through the window and upon seeing and hearing the user and the friend, ME-tan gets angry and beat on the window, since she is ME-tan, she does it incoherently and falls down. Only reason, why sshe is not injuredis because some guys were carrying a mattress and ME-tan falls on it.

[Kami-Tux]

I maybe forgot to say: I thought it would be a good idea that in the basic idea of the action (Nerdish User, who never came close to a cute girl and his countless OSes suddenly coming alive) there are several episodes, and those users here, who can think of episodes with their favorite OS-tans, should provide them so they can be assembled into a bigger story...

[NewYinzer]

I suddenly had a thought:

Why don't we start with 4koma strips, based on gags, and then move up to longer stories?

BTW, Kami-Tux, it is an unspoken rule to edit posts rather than post twice. No penalty, just a little reminder.

[Alex Stankevitch]

With a multitude of weaponry.
....That needs to be updated constantly.

Well for this I had the idea of a Yu-Gi-Oh stryle of summoning  *.exe girls or *.dll girls like in the gallery. Then they would fight the worms and stuff.

[eadsja]

[note: Directly following this concise post is the long and drawn out - "this is me thinking" post so you can see how I came up with this]

The point to this post is - here is a story, from start to finish - down on paper.  Something I havn't seen yet in regards to the comic.  You guys start with panneling first without an idea to where your story is going.  This gives a 'road map' as in what to pannel...

That's bare bones what we need to do in the first issue.

1)  The user plays with new equipment he needs to work on from home
2)  Rat gets into the computer and does his thing without being noticed
3)  Master Goes to Work
4)  Girls Manifest
5)  Girls "Fix" the bachelor pad and ruin everything
6)  Master Comes Home
7)  Much arguing and screaming go here
8)  Master realizes what caused it but doesn't know how to fix the problem
9) Conclusion:  Master agrees to let the girls stick around and they try to get along while he tries to get them back into the computer.

Cast-

Gordon:  Aka "Gordo" - Geeky Otaku Sys Admin for Microsofts R&D/achive servers.  "Master"

Mikey:  Gordon's Co-Worker and friend

The Boss:  Faceless guy who works Gordon and Mikey to death

3.1 - Quiet reserved curioius girl who likes to try and figure stuff out, the pioneer!

ME  - Green hair'ed 'blond bimbo' who is a walking eating machine and disaster area

2K  - Upstanding, by the book professional.  think high society girl with manners and ediquete.

The rat - Catalist that takes a loo break on the mother board and might get chased around by Dos from time to time...

Settings-

The Appartment/house/studio - whatever!
The Work Place!
OS Girls virtual world

And the plot broken down more specifically

*****************************
1)  The user plays with new equipment he needs to work on from home
   1.a - Gordon is talking to Mikey using a bloototh wireless ear thingie as he is on his knees working on the internals of a tower case. (2 panels)
   1.b - During the conversation (with bubbles in the fore ground) we look around Gordon's appartment to show personality and sloppy bachelor living. (3-4 panels)
   1.c - Gordon talks about the new system he is beta testing for the company, a central server with legacy compatability and the new holographic user interface (1-2 panels)
   1.d - Gordon talks about the holo chip as he is plugging it in and saudering it to the mother board, and turns the system on without closing the case.
   1.e - Call on the other line - It's boss and a server went down.  He needs Gordon and Mikey to come into work imediately for system recovery.  This will take 32 hours of straight work!

*****************************

2)  Rat gets into the computer and does his thing without being noticed
   2.a - System boot, show terminal
   2.b - Show the rat come in.  He is plucky and has personality
   2.c - Rat grabs a little tiny roll of toilet paper and walks on two legs into the tower case.
   2.d - Show the computer monitor
   2.e - Make a spark sound
   2.f - Show the monitor with strange characer glyches on the screen as it is booting the server.
   2.g - show a crisp black plucky rat staggering out of the tower case with his toilet paper in hand.

******************************

3)  Master Goes to Work
   3.a Spend a whole page on the boys working furiously, elbow deep in cables and removable drives with screw drivers in their mouths working fruriously to get the servers back up.

******************************

4)  Girls Manifest
   4.a - '3.1' is shown in her little 'diety kiosk' running her little windows with her cat on her shoulder when a big giant storm barges in and envelopes her (similar things happen to the other girls...) 2-3 pannels  "Uh oh!" She says
   4.b - '3.1' is 'spit' out of the holo projectors next to the tower case at high velocity and impacts upside down against the book shelves and is buried.
   4.c - '3.1' explores the house and finds something with a button that says 'exit' on it and hits the button (a gag neon light sighn and she is just turning it off and on repeatitly)
   4.d - Same storm with ME, who's diety kiosk is a bit more cluttered and she just kinda flops out in a face plant as though she fell from the ceiling...
   4.e - xp discoveres the kitchen and begins eating everything, then mentions that the place looks like it could use a defrag...
   4.f - 2k and her little storm bubble, she manifests on her feet in perfect pose "What in the matrix?"
   4.g - 2k walks around and talks to the other two girls, wondering what happened to the server line and where the command line went to send a message to the system admin.
   4.h - 2k notices the appartment is in complete chaos and decides to do a 'system repair' on it...

******************************

5)  Girls "Fix" the bachelor pad and ruin everything
   5.a - Girls realize something is not quite right and start trying to figure out what everything is.
   5.b - ME has 'defraged' and broken most of the kitchen appliances and decides to use the cook book on the table to to execute the program and follow directions (end result is cooking oil in a pan set on high)
   5.c - 3.1 follows dos around and pushes anything that looks like a button, turning on and off all the lights in the house
   5.d - 2k is busy cleaning the house and putting it into order as a girl would, with fluffy girl things appearing.  She finds his porn collection and puts in a box that she writes "Recyle bin" on it...

******************************

6)  Master Comes Home
   6.a - Master is exauhsted and comes home in a zombie trance.  He drops his coat off on the couch and crashes out
   6.b - Hazy awakening slumber bit.  He hears voices - "Is that the sys admin?" "Is that master"  "Do we need to reboot"  "Where is the executable?"  "I think this may be an 'on' swithc..."
   6.c - Gordon bolts upright in bed with his sheets bunched around his groin region with XP reaching in...  Suddenly the smoke alarm goes off!

******************************

7)  Much arguing and screaming go here
   7.a  fast scene after scene montage here... He puts out the fire, notices all his stuff is rearanged!  Freaks out about having 4 girls in his house.  ME is xonstantly smiling and being cheerful, 2k is trying to be calm and reasonable, 3.1 is still pushing buttons (because she has a job to do).
   7.b Things calm down, time for one liners and witty banter.

*******************************

8)  Master realizes what caused it but doesn't know how to fix the problem
   8.a Gordon checks the tower and sees the melted silicone and figures if he turns it off then everything will get fixed.
   8.b ME brings up the fact that she can't access the hard drives to make a system back up or save current settings before a reboot (question of mortality comes up here)

*******************************

9) Conclusion:  Master agrees to let the girls stick around and they try to get along while he tries to get them back into the computer.
   9.a 2k and Gordon talk it out and gordon agrees that untill he can figure out a way for 2k to talk to the hard drive that he won't turn the power off or attempt a re-boot.  For now the girls will help out around the house (where gordon gets all evil and has a fantasy flash, to be slapped by dos the cat to snap out of it)
   9.b The eppisode ends when Gordon is called by Mikey to see if he can come over.  He says no, and ME says "Oh! A Lan Party"  the eppisode ends with "WhoA! YOU HAVE GIRLS OVER THERE?!"

*******************************

Scripting and panneling layouts still need to be done.  At this point I've got to figure out what gag jokes were going to trhow out there and start working on the diolouge. With this, send me any ideas, just give me a number refrence (ie. 8.a.1)  To know where it's getting placed and I'll do my best to fit it in.

eadsja added the following  7 minutes after last message :

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For those in need of serious punishment...

This is me just 'talking out loud' for the first comic issue.  Just to show the thoughts that went in behind it.  It's formula style writing.  For ease of everyone's mind, a condensed and simplified 'bare bones' outline will be posted directly after this post.

This is long and boring but shows my process in writing which may help others.  Notice that I took concepts of how and what to push the story forward.  All I ever asked is what do I need so I can make what I want happen.  This kind of thinking allows a lot more freedom than "What can I do with the tools at hand"

Allright lets take a more mechanical approach to this...  Everyone is wrapped about the axle on concepts, lets look at it through a mechanical viewpoint...

Now everyone is wondering about story story story.  Let's look at what we have to do for any introduction to anything that's entertaining:

1st Comic = Introduction (as in to introduce the following)

Setting - When and Where
Characters - Who (roles and personality)
Plot - (Aslo sets theme and tone) Conflict(s) to make things interesting and grab your attention
Ending - Open ended or incomplete resolution to make the reader want more.

Now those are the -parts- of an introduction.  But all of that is meaningless without a goal.

What is the main goal of the 1st issue?  Get the OS Tan girls into the "Master's" life and have them cause all sorts of angst and mischif!

At the start we have our Master, his house and his job.
The girls are in cyber space doing their things.
-We need a vehicle, or device to get the girls from cyber space to the real world.

Okay so what's our vehicle?  What cheesy plot device are we going to use to get them from cyberspace to the real world?

Hipshot:  Malfunctioning VR hologram interface makes girls real!  We can grab a power surge, lightning storm, bug on the motherboard, something.  Since I stated we needed to just go ahead and make a definative decision to keep it moving, we will say a rat took a bathroom break on the open circuitry before it was booted.

This is feasable with the suspension of disbelief because:  (1) experimental technology + (2) act of god = (3) The wierd Science rule of manifesting Big Boobie Women!

Now the girls are in the real world.  We want angst...  Whats the worst thing that can happen to a Bachelor?  Girls redecorating the whole house for fun and profit!  Which means they should manifest while the poor bloke is at work.

1) XP' eats everything in the house and tries to cook (Sets the kitchen on fire as he gets home)
2) 3.1' and Dos decide to go see what toys there are to be played with (cant figure out the blue tooth stuff and makes a mess in the gadget room).
3) 2000' Cleans and re-organizes the whole house (including moving furnature and cleaning unmentionables) - Don't know about you guys, but as a bachelor this last one would be a terror!

Plot and Conflict:
- Next up - Plot angst!
The Master reacts, deals with and tries to get rid of the unwelcome house guests - much funny to occour here.  It's the case of three girls invading a single man's living arangements and being unable to leave.

Resolution:
-After plot angst our "master" and the girls are going to accept that they are unable to be returned to cyberspace immedately and must stick arround untill they fix it.  So the four of them are going to have to Learn to live together...


That's bare bones what we need to do in the first issue.  Here is the recap

1)  The user plays with new equipment he needs to work on from home
2)  Rat gets into the computer and does his thing without being noticed
3)  System is booted up, seems to work normally
4)  Master Goes to Work
5)  Girls Manifest
6)  Girls "Fix" the bachelor pad and ruin everything
7)  Master Comes Home
8)  Much arguing and screaming go here
9)  Master realizes what caused it but doesn't know how to fix the problem
10) Conclusion:  Master agrees to let the girls stick around and they try to get along while he tries to get them back into the computer.

And that's the first issue...  Simple, Difinitive and from start to finish.  Now we just need to make decisioins on details and flesh it out.


*********
Now that the mechanics of what we want to do in the first issue are set down, we just have to flesh out details of why, which will give us direction on where we are going.

The problem I see with visual artists is that they put too much thought into EVERYTHING.  You guys are reluctant to shoot from the hip and play with it later.  I understand where hat comes from - You guys want to maintain consistancy and have an explination for every piece of furnature and object that is put into place.  Let's try to, let's say, quash that for a bit and just go with hip shots here.  The key to get a story moving is to keep it simple and make difinitive decisions on the spot.

1 - Setting:  We want two to three locations we can explore early in the series.  We stick to that few and it's easier for the reader to identify what's going on.  Each place has a function to serve with the story.

My suggestions:
1)  The house - Our dear user's place
2)  User's work place - IE a cubical at microsoft
3)  Cyber space -

Since this is comic style we don't /have/ to pinpoint it's exact location, but we do need to know what's in the .  We don't need to explain where or how this place came to being - its extended detail we can throw out and save for later.

Parts of the house:  (think of this like movie set pieces)

Bedroom
Kitchen
Living room
Computer room
Basement
Attic
Garage

- If we take out the Attic, basement and garage we can pass the place off as an apartment or studio apartment.  If not we are stuck with a house.  But remember we don't have to explain how or WHY he has the place in the first issue, we just have to give him a place to live, the readers will instantly accept that the guy lives somewhere...

Work Place:
The massive office pit of doom (Cubical City)!
The Bosses Office
The Server Room

CyberSpace - Place where the girls are their own dieties in fantasy environments that fit their personality.  (I remember the 'magic' wizards/sorcereses of power pics and we can go with that).

We can also throw in a few city street scenes if we need to for transistions...

Cast and Characters:

Gordon:  "Aka Gordo" - Geeky Otaku Sys Admin for Microsofts R&D/achive servers.
Mikey:  Gordon's Co-Worker and friend
The Boss:  Faceless guy who works Gordon and Mikey to death

3.1 - Quiet reserved curioius girl who likes to try and figure stuff out, the pioneer!
ME  - Green hair'ed 'blond bimbo' who is a walking eating machine and disaster area
2K  - Upstanding, by the book professional.  think high society girl with manners and ediquete.

The rat - Catalist that takes a loo break on the mother board and might get chased around by Dos from time to time...


Now for the characters:  Here is where I will probably get flamed for grabbing a stero type and running with it...

Master:  Let's make him a sys admin.  Admins KNOW the operating systems, server hardware and enough coding to make it feasable to reader to have the stuff he is going to need and do the stuff he is going to do.

So let's make good old - 'Gordo' Gordon... read that in a post somewhere... Gort???  no no...  Gordo works...

So let's make good old Gordo a sys admin for the R&D/Archives department of Microsoft, we can make him an assistant server admin so we can keep his age in the mid 20's (23-24?).  I know there are a LOT of manga fans out there that want traditional 'younger' protagonists and to do that we can tack on 'prodigy' into the description to push the age down to around 17-21 or younger if you REALLY want to streach it.  But it is a moot point.  All that is really going to change is some of the back ground props and visual apperance of the character, and not necissarily our behaviors or plot line in any noticable impact.

Now, my brother in law (RL) is a sys admin for defense company here in the DFW area, and he gets calls all the time to go into work to repair and recover downed systems all the time.  He has the ability to remote in from home and he has enough wierd computer gear here to make most people think he is a true geek though and through (not the case, he is a punk rocker stuck in a white collar world...)  That's what I am basing the mechanics of good old Gordo off off.

Mikey - The older, shaves every other day or so sys admin friend who is his co-worker and drinking buddy.  He is a complete womanizer and is the outlandish outgoing, ever confidant and ever slapped bachelor buddy.

The Boss - Un Named intentionally.  "Boss wants us to do this, boss wants us to do that..."  Shadow face (Think Dr. Claw type personality).  I've got a couple ideas where we could go in the long run for this (when vista is ready to make an antagonistic appearance) but for now, he is the slave driver at work to stress Gordo and Mikey out.  We only get to interact with him through phone calls in the first couple eppisodes.

The girls are simple:  We all know them.  Sure there will be debate on whats going on, but I think you all know which renditions I am wanting to use for this.

There we go cast, characters and basic outline.  We are now ready to piece it together in more detail.

This is slightly different from my conceptual outline, but an outline is a guide line, not a rule barrier.


Again with the outline:


1)  The user plays with new equipment he needs to work on from home
   1.a - Gordon is talking to Mikey using a bloototh wireless ear thingie as he is on his knees working on the internals of a tower case. (2 panels)
   1.b - During the conversation (with bubbles in the fore ground) we look around Gordon's appartment to show personality and sloppy bachelor living. (3-4 panels)
   1.c - Gordon talks about the new system he is beta testing for the company, a central server with legacy compatability and the new holographic user interface (1-2 panels)
   1.d - Gordon talks about the holo chip as he is plugging it in and saudering it to the mother board, and turns the system on without closing the case.
   1.e - Call on the other line - It's boss and a server went down.  He needs Gordon and Mikey to come into work imediately for system recovery.  This will take 32 hours of straight work!

2)  Rat gets into the computer and does his thing without being noticed
   2.a - System boot, show terminal
   2.b - Show the rat come in.  He is plucky and has personality
   2.c - Rat grabs a little tiny roll of toilet paper and walks on two legs into the tower case.
   2.d - Show the computer monitor
   2.e - Make a spark sound
   2.f - Show the monitor with strange characer glyches on the screen as it is booting the server.
   2.g - show a crisp black plucky rat staggering out of the tower case with his toilet paper in hand.

3)  Master Goes to Work
   3.a Spend a whole page on the boys working furiously, elbow deep in cables and removable drives with screw drivers in their mouths working fruriously to get the servers back up.

4)  Girls Manifest
   4.a - '3.1' is shown in her little 'diety kiosk' running her little windows with her cat on her shoulder when a big giant storm barges in and envelopes her (similar things happen to the other girls...) 2-3 pannels  "Uh oh!" She says
   4.b - '3.1' is 'spit' out of the holo projectors next to the tower case at high velocity and impacts upside down against the book shelves and is buried.
   4.c - '3.1' explores the house and finds something with a button that says 'exit' on it and hits the button (a gag neon light sighn and she is just turning it off and on repeatitly)
   4.d - Same storm with ME, who's diety kiosk is a bit more cluttered and she just kinda flops out in a face plant as though she fell from the ceiling...
   4.e - xp discoveres the kitchen and begins eating everything, then mentions that the place looks like it could use a defrag...
   4.f - 2k and her little storm bubble, she manifests on her feet in perfect pose "What in the matrix?"
   4.g - 2k walks around and talks to the other two girls, wondering what happened to the server line and where the command line went to send a message to the system admin.
   4.h - 2k notices the appartment is in complete chaos and decides to do a 'system repair' on it...
5)  Girls "Fix" the bachelor pad and ruin everything
   5.a - Girls realize something is not quite right and start trying to figure out what everything is.
   5.b - ME has 'defraged' and broken most of the kitchen appliances and decides to use the cook book on the table to to execute the program and follow directions (end result is cooking oil in a pan set on high)
   5.c - 3.1 follows dos around and pushes anything that looks like a button, turning on and off all the lights in the house
   5.d - 2k is busy cleaning the house and putting it into order as a girl would, with fluffy girl things appearing.  She finds his porn collection and puts in a box that she writes "Recyle bin" on it...
6)  Master Comes Home
   6.a - Master is exauhsted and comes home in a zombie trance.  He drops his coat off on the couch and crashes out
   6.b - Hazy awakening slumber bit.  He hears voices - "Is that the sys admin?" "Is that master"  "Do we need to reboot"  "Where is the executable?"  "I think this may be an 'on' swithc..."
   6.c - Gordon bolts upright in bed with his sheets bunched around his groin region with XP reaching in...  Suddenly the smoke alarm goes off!
7)  Much arguing and screaming go here
   7.a  fast scene after scene montage here... He puts out the fire, notices all his stuff is rearanged!  Freaks out about having 4 girls in his house.  ME is xonstantly smiling and being cheerful, 2k is trying to be calm and reasonable, 3.1 is still pushing buttons (because she has a job to do).
   7.b Things calm down, time for one liners and witty banter.

8)  Master realizes what caused it but doesn't know how to fix the problem
   8.a Gordon checks the tower and sees the melted silicone and figures if he turns it off then everything will get fixed.
   8.b ME brings up the fact that she can't access the hard drives to make a system back up or save current settings before a reboot (question of mortality comes up here)
9) Conclusion:  Master agrees to let the girls stick around and they try to get along while he tries to get them back into the computer.
   9.a 2k and Gordon talk it out and gordon agrees that untill he can figure out a way for 2k to talk to the hard drive that he won't turn the power off or attempt a re-boot.  For now the girls will help out around the house (where gordon gets all evil and has a fantasy flash, to be slapped by dos the cat to snap out of it)
   9.b The eppisode ends when Gordon is called by Mikey to see if he can come over.  He says no, and ME says "Oh! A Lan Party"  the eppisode ends with "WhoA! YOU HAVE GIRLS OVER THERE?!"

From here we have to come up with the details of the one liners, technical jargon and specifics (aka the diolauge and panneling).  The panneling is new territory for me, but I will get started on the script soon.

Just as an author's point, I chose only 3 OS tans to make the introduction simpler without having to worry about juggling too many characters.  This is still pretty skeletal.  If you want to throw something in, just use the numbers and lettering scheme to throw in more detail ie 8.a.1 or something like that and we will start hashing out the details.

I painted with broad strokes here, and we have a story from start to finish to introduce the girls.  Now we can start getting into the details.

[CaptBrenden]

And the writer speaks!  And as I expected knowing the person he is, he delivers in large quantitys.  Im used to him but it still boggles my mind when I see his work sometimes.  

Good format for presenting plot and Ideas, I think I can work well with that.  More spicific details/conciderations that should go into the outline tho:

Standard comic books normaly have page numbers in veriables of 8.  Your outline is currently limited to 8 which is good, but It may be a bit tight for a first issue.  If we want to do 8 later, it seems more feasable for us to get done on a time table, but for the first I think we shoudl be willing to open up and have a good first issue with the most common 16 page at least.  

Also... frame count is most commonly around 6 frames a page, tho this can change depending on the situation (say you want to do a large 2 page panorama type shot, or say you have a page with a bunch of small frames for what ever reason)

The first frame of a scean should nearly always be a establishing shot, something to let the reader know that the scean has changed to a differnt location.  It stops you from confusing the reader.   These are simple and are flexable.  It could be a wide angle shot of the street before focusing in on the characcters who are walking down the street talking, or it could be a micro frame in the corner of the page that simply shows the masters appt room number.  

When writting outlines it would help me if you had your dialoge at least somewhat written out.  I cant plan for speach bubble space if i dont have any idea of whats being said.  for each frame describe the action or the shot, possible sound effects, and dilalog.

Characters:

Eads, we discussed this before and I know we never came to any rock solid desicions but once again here or some of my thoughts on it.  We both agreed on the 2 buddies concept, but if you remember one was going to be a excentric/geek/otaku/domit while the other was going to be the more sensable normal computer illiterate person.  

The later was the master.  Reasons why I feel it should be such:  
1: Gives the main character more to learn and grow on. Not only does he have to learn to live with the girls, but he has to learn about computers to understand them.  Example:  me-tan comes down sick, and nothing master tries (chicken soup and the like) works then 2k-tan asks him if he tried antivirus software, and after a blank stare she explains to him about them...   That helps the readers know whats going on as well, because not every reader would understand the computer humor (such as the famose c:/dos/run joke)

2:  Knowing less about computers will let him view the tans as real people easier as where a techy would accept the computer solution and treat them as the programs they are based on.  Plus a techy may be more inclined to try to "take them apart" to see how they work.


On the other hand the buddy could be technologicly inclined.  He can be used as a source of info when the master dosent understand something, or a place of conflict if he decideds he wants to figure out how they work and the master has to defend them or stop the buddy.  It will also be a point of fustration for the buddy that he is the otaku and has all sorts of "ideas" for the girls but none of them are interested in him, they all like the more sensitive kind and non perverted master.

On a quick note... Gordo just reminds me of Gordon, as in gordon freeman in halflife.  a bit of a computer reference.  now I wonder if we could get away with that and call the other Adrian.......? Bwahaha.

Okay, onto the tans.  I know I talked to you on this one too eads.  As much as i Adore 3.1sama  I planned to leave her out at first for simplicity sake.  In her place I would saggest XP.  tho you seem to have confused/combined xp with Me-tan.  

Me-tan:  troublesome clutsy girl. full time trouble maker.
XP-tan:  The hip new girl that always has to look her best.  Shes also got one hell of an apitite (for memory or food)
2K-tan:  The reliable woman. the one that keeps the others in check and helps the master keep things from getting to far out of hand.

Now I do belive that we should keep it simple for the first issue, ive said it before and Ill say it again. thats part of the reason I saggested leaving 3.1 till later, however I think we could handle more then 3 at first, especialy as I cant think of a expliantion for all three of the girls Im sure I want to have in the story.  95tan and 98-tan may need to be there from the begining if we cant come up with a reason for them to show up later.

98-tan: she is the shy weak willed girl with an innocent crush on the master.   However she is one of the older sisters and dislikes it when XP-tan treats her like a kid.  Her box can serve as a mascot character, as well as her defender (if we get into combat sceans later, as she is the most frail in body)  
95-tan:  the mother figure.  Once was a powerful warrior against apple, now she sits thoughtfully thinking about the old days while preparing a healthy dinner for the master and messing anything "advanced" (such as USB) up.  

As we are doing sort of a harem manga, 3 girls may not really cut it especialy if we have 2 guys.  
I think if  we up the first issue page count we can handle introducing the 5 girls instead of just 3.

Roles for messing up the B Pad:

2k: your ideas are prefect, we will stick with them.. tho Maybe she should be orginizing the masters desk as a buisness woman would do and let the style orientated XP ad the floofy girl stuff.
XP:floofy girlstuff, and eatting all the food.  She may also discover alcohol here.
ME: takes over 3.1s button pushing as well as her previos defraging of things
95: She could be the one making cooking disaters at first.  
98: shes the only one Im not sure about.. what would she do in an older guys appartment?  sit in the corner and cry after finding the "recycling bin?"


However if the user is computer illiterate we will have to figure out why he had to go off with the buddy to work at the same time, and something that worked him into the ground so he passed out without noticing the changes.  

Other then that, with a few modifications I think wehave something we can work with for a first issue.  Revise or edit as nessicary, I will looki it over one more time, if we agree on everything I will sketch up a rough sketch of this issue and post the sketches on the artwork thread.

[eadsja]

This is a story outline, before scripting occours....  When we get generals hashed out I'll work the spartian dialouge together (comic style) then we work on paneling the thing out, as I still have no idea how to work that.

That and sorry for the rehash of old ideas, it's been a while since our last conversation...

Now we have definate workable material here, and some easy fixes...

Gordon is now computer illiterate *poof* - and we can explain why he has to learn all the server stuff and work with Mikey by saying he (old Gordo!) cheated on his job resume and Mikey promised that he would cover his but long enough to learn his job so they could work together.  Kind of the best friends stick together no matter what kind of thing.

Think of it like me pulling someone who is incompotent into the office but I like well enough to hold down their job for them untill they can do it themselves.  It's doable and would really illustrate the strong relationship between Gordon and Mikey.

So the things I need to do:  

-Increase the outline to support 5 girls instead of 3.

-Nix 3.1 and dos

-Fix the role of ME

-Insert XP to fill the blond bimbo role

-95 - I'll base her character loosly of of the samuri Chick from Love Hini (what I remember, it wont be accurate, which is a good thing).  And she will get to cook. So she is the quiet, studious perfectionist that can only do a few things well, and fails at everything else...

-98 - High maintinance - likes to play lots of games (Direct X was introduced in this one) and thinks it's better than it is. (Clayton suggested this one).  So we give her tiffany's up her nose and make her extremely athletically competitive (the JOCK)

Okay, I'll make the revisions to the outline tommorow and throw it back to you sometime in the late evening.

Visuals and diolouge will come once I correct the outline and start writing things in story mode.  I'll probably write it like a short story first then condense it to script format, all the while revising each step of the way.

I might have something tangable for you on Wendsday night:  I have the DAI institute, Police report (for the credit thing) and packing to do tommorow.  I'll pound out an easy starter script on wendsday, shoot it to you, and have a 2nd revision draft to you by, lets say, Next Monday (I have duty on Sunday, so I can work on the revision and simplification then...)

Once I get that 2nd script done, we will work it down into panels...  Because my script will be like a movie script, as I know nothing about the panneling or layout yet (but give me a little research time and I will).

[CaptBrenden]

Yeah it has been a while since we sat down and talked project stuff.

if we break the girls down to Love hina equivalents:

Me: come to think of it Im not sure of a Love Hina character that is close to her.  Look at Me-tan pics, youll get a feel for her character.  Ditzy,  and clubsy.  Must be watched at all times or else things may just explode.  or implode.   2k has traditionaly been her guardian, or at least the one keeping the tightest leash on her.

XP: kitsune: party girl,  food lover, and fashion type.  If there was a tan that would be all about "cute boys" it would probobly be her.  Loud music, drinks, tons of food, fashionable outfits, shes a mall girl.

98: Shinobu key personality trait would be shy, however you do have a point.  bill gats himself described as the os that works harder plays harder.  She would be the gamer girl of the group.  Tho ive never seen her potrayed as snobish.  

2k: Naru: THe responsible one.  Sometimes concidered bithy because she curbs the outlandish fun the others are having, just cus it happens to be taking down several walls in the process.  Book smarts but akward around emotional subjects.

95: not Motoko.. but her sister.. I dont know if you remember her.  She was once a powerful sowrds woman but now shes a gental caring family girl, almost mother like, however if you cross her she can turn terrifying in a second.


Dont worry too much about panel layout, thats more my job.  Ill probobly be drawing it several times before inking and tonage.  the first one will be just to get a feel for the frames. Ill post them and you can look them over and tell me what you think.  

But since it seams your going to be a little slower with something I can work with then I thought I will defintly be playing around in the short comic thread untill your done.

[eadsja]

I've got a quarter of the script done,  sorry about it taking so long.  I am just juggling a lot stupid shit here on base.   Dude, these temp/tap classes are killer....  Iee.....

[FFViper]

Its an interesting project you guys have going.  I see your referencing yourself to Negima and Love Hina (more Love Hina, then Negima at this rate.).  Out of the question I saw no reference to an solid objective deeper meaning.  In Negima and in Love Hina they had deeper meaning part of it which lead to it being very cool in the end, cause it made it despite all the humor seem that it was going somewhere cool.  The deeper means of those being...

Love Hina - Keitaro's promise when he was young to one of the girls. (Those have read know but I didn't say for those who HAVEN'T seen/read it yet.)

Negima - Negi's quest to find his father.  *Since it hasn't ended yet we don't completely know just yet.*

I mean I liked your plans and everything it all cool but it will seem a bit senseless without a objective that NEVER changes through out the story that will run and be answer at the VERY end.  The storyline is cool but without a deeper point it seem it could go on forever, which might sound super cool at first but then it would get boring fast.

FYI:  If you DID point it somewhere then I'm sorry for the above post... I did try to read all the posts but some of them are rather... long and easy to get lost in.

[SleepyD]

true true, the story should have direction.  otherwise, there won't be an end. I'm not the writer, so I'm not the one to be talking to.  

However, if I can ever get the 4koma thing going, we can have a venue for pointless things without a story. ^^

[FFViper]

Well I can see the storyline going two ways currently... ironicly compared to Negima and Love Hina.

If you want a more romance related story going for the main character falling in love with one of the girls is the way to go, maybe take a bit from Chobits and question the moral of falling in love something that is man-made, etc.  This would be the most 'Love Hina-ish' as he would have a similar concer to that of Keitaro, while being... 'distracted' by other things.

The other way more parrelle to Negima's.  The biggest difference is between to have battles and fights or not to have.  Negima had battles, had fights, and shows no sign that its going to stop anytime soon.  With Os-tans we can easly throw in virus, worms, and hackers into the mix.  Maybe the big wigs want the girls for something else but the main character wants to protect them?  This also makes some valid points to bring in characters like Norton, etc.  Heck, if you really wanted to make a mess of things throw in a few concepts from Digimon (A digital world turning/coming into the real world), it more easy to make this happen then it seems.

Based on the way you've written or say you have gone I would go with he Love Hina way, since if you guys said you have already written most of the scripts and everything it would be that diffcult to add small points in for the core theme, while if you went with the Negima way of things you would have alter much of the storyline.  Just some ideas to shoot out, I want to write a fan fic on the Os-tans so I had already did some thinking of plotting.  (Ironicly many of the ideas you guys posted was similar lines I was thinking.)  I got more ideas but I'll stop for now to hear how well you take my opinions on this.

[NewYinzer]

If you want a more romance related story going for the main character falling in love with one of the girls is the way to go, maybe take a bit from Chobits and question the moral of falling in love something that is man-made, etc. This would be the most 'Love Hina-ish' as he would have a similar concer to that of Keitaro, while being... 'distracted' by other things.

Go with the Hina-esque storyline. You won't have to change it that much, and it would make a more interesting, but oft repeated plot. Oft repeated plot being one in which a nerd is suddenly surrounded by girls. However, that's the plotline that got me interested in most Anime I'm watching! I say run with it!

[CaptBrenden]

Sorry for my absence.. the the absence of the main writter



Behind the sceans that has been a concern for sometime. as where I am a rabbid fanboy most of the time, he is not and has been very through at pointing out an major writting flaws like lack of theam.  Rest assured we are working on it.  Tho very.. very... slowly.... However, if you want to take up work on it dont let me stand in your way. Id love to hear your take on it, as well as I wouldnt mind doodling out some of your stories should you chose to write mini sub plots or anything

[FFViper]

I may just take you up on that offer.  I got to get my storyboard more properly together though and since my grammar often is semi at best.  I often take a very long time to do things.  I love writing but I don't have much in the sense of natural talent.