June 2020 Writing Update

I haven't updated in several months, and that's because I have written very little in the last several months.

Magical March -- I managed about four stories I think.  I continued to try and write on these stories throughout April and May without much success.  In June I finally decided to switch and write some regular Grandpa Anarchy stories, and also I started posting to my Grandpa Anarchy Blog again.  Things have gone slightly better.

Stories I have written this month:

Disposable - Grandpa must contend with a sidekick whose entire goal is to be the girl whose death motivates Grandpa enough to defeat the villain.  This is a play on the stereotype of a disposable love interest/sidekick/friend who serves no other purpose in the story except to die and advance the plot.  Of course, death is not permanent in Grandpa's universe, but he still objects to having his sidekick die just as a plot device, even if it's been done before.

Loopholes - Grandpa objects to cheap tricks to resolve seemingly impossible situations -- such as "no man of woman born can slay me" and the hero was born by cesarean section so somehow that works.  All the while, Grandpa employs the same sort of cheap tricks when it's convenient.


Stories I've been working on:

Balrog - I got this idea while rewatching Lord of the Rings (obviously).  The idea is that Death Medal summons a Balrog, and then geeks out about it because he's a Tolkien fan and just thinks it's really cool.  I haven't actually got a plot or a joke/twist ending for this one yet, but it was very easy to imagine the scene and the dialog and I'm sure I can come up with a way to make it work at some point.

Fox Con - This is a story about a Chinese security company soliciting to install a security system for Grandpa's mansion.  Of course, there's a Chinese tech villain involved.  This is a story I've had on the back burner for a long time, and I think I could make it work but in a way it feels too similar to Punch 'Em All.

Spanish Restoration - with the recent news of yet another botched art restoration in Spain, I thought, what if there were a villain behind all of these botched restorations?  My first idea was a villain whose entire goal is to deface works of art by "restoring" them.  My second idea was some sort of demon who possesses people and does this, which explains the woman who defaced Ecco Homo for example.  My third idea is maybe it's a villain who can bring these botched painting restorations to life so that Grandpa has to fight Monkey Christ.  Anyway, I don't have a fully-fledged story idea for this yet.

To Punch A Hitler - I've written quite a bit on this one.  The idea is that every May 8 Grandpa Anarchy becomes depressed because it's Victory Day in Europe, and he never got the chance to punch Hitler in the face.  He's punched Hitlers from various other timelines, he's punched Hitler's brain in a shark, he's punched all sorts of alternative Hitlers, but he failed to punch our timeline's Hitler in th face and it's one of his greatest regrets.

My biggest problem with this particular story idea is that it's all setup, and I don't have a satisfying punch line yet.  However it did give me an opportunity to explore more of Grandpa's comic book/film history, including the realization that there was a black Mr. Anarchy in a 1970's Blaxploitation film called Funky Anarchy (black Mr. Anarchy got to punch Hitler, of course).

University of Hard Knocks - This is a dialog between Grandpa Anarchy and the villain Idiot Ball about whether villains are born or made.  Idiot Ball naturally subscribes to the theory that he was forced to be a villain, that he had no choice.

I don't actually know where this story is going at the moment but I liked the idea of including this sort of discussion in the middle of a fight.  I think this stems from some podcasts I listened to which explored the idea a bit.

Pyramid - The idea is that a villain is running a create-a-villain pyramid scheme or "Multi-Level Marketing" company, which is code for it's a pyramid scheme but it hasn't been proven in court yet.  ^_^  Possibly this is a create-a-hero pyramid scheme, I haven't worked out the details yet.

Pillar of Light - Having just watched Suicide Squad, I noticed that they also use the famous "pillar of light" trope that you see so often in fantasy/sci fi/superhero/horror movies.  I need to write at least one Grandpa Anarchy story that involves one of those.