Megathread The Lara-Su Chronicles and Ken Penders topic - READ PAGE 164, POST 4096

[Paul-Agnew]

On 8/9/2016 at 6:07 PM, Tylinos said:

Changing the subject a bit, but re-reading Paul's old post there just answered a question that was brought up in this thread a week or so ago.

That seems to be the original M25YL cliffhanger Ken recently said he planned to restore.

Thanks for the mention Tylinos. To be honest I'm genuinely shocked people still read 'that' post, let alone make it past the first paragraph. Looking back, there are parts I probably shouldn't have said or worded better. I didn't go into it planning to insult or tear anyone down, but once I started (combined with the personal circumstances at the time), it pretty much snowballed from there. Live and learn I guess.

Anyway, that part about 25YL's original ending was something I can go further into. The screenshots still exists on my hard drive, and have been copied here in all their jpg glory. The whole debacle started back in September 2008 when superfan Brian Walmer made an open discussion on the original message board, asking whether or not Archie Sonic was "Dying a slow death". Things remained pretty calm until BobR dropped this bit of trivia an hour later:

At the time, nothing was known about Mr. Penders' ideas for the conclusion. Little is still known today (unless I'm misremembering, the only person to read the whole script was Dan Drazen), so I guess some things never change. This revelation wasn't exactly welcomed with open arms. When pressed for an explanation, this was the response:

Now to be fair, the wording can be open to interpretation. There's always the possibility that the timeline would be restored in the end (just as equal opportunity exists that it wouldn't). However, having the character "wiped from existence", never existing in the first place, along with Mr. Penders later stating that a happy ending was possible "for most characters" doesn't exactly inspire much confidence of her coming back.

The discussion shifted to whether or not Mr. Flynn did the right thing with his continuation of the story. One fan wasn't too thrilled about the "poor continuity" accusation:

The admin's response:

And back to the fan, who's got it with the story going another direction. Mr. Pellerito wanted a change (i.e. King Shadow) and allowed Mr. Flynn to write his own thing around 22 pages (which he documented in the old BumbleKing 'Script Bits' he used to write. Anyone remember those?):

In reply:

This is a fair point, except:

Which could've also happened in the original ending, though the odds were pretty stacked against the young Guardian-to-be. Either way, gotta love wasted character potential.

Ultimately the discussion went back and forth from there before fading out, and the full outline remains unavailable to the public. So much for that. 

Hopefully this sheds a little more light on the subject.

[Tylinos]

Oh wow.  Thanks a ton for the screenshots, Paul!  It's really weird seeing all of this stuff eight years later, especially since the old forum is pretty much gone.

I find it kind of silly that Bob said Lara-Su being in Ian's M25YL conclusion was "poor continuity" that ignored the end of Ken's story, seeing as how the first few pages of Ian's conclusion directly addressed that ending.  It made a plot point out of how the only ones who remembered the original timeline without Tails' special bracelets were Lara-Su and Sonic, the two who were effected by Eggman's time machine.  (Plus, as the person in that last screenshot pointed out, even if Lara-Su was erased, she could have easily been restored by whatever Sonic did to save things.)

But yeah, thanks again.  This was pretty interesting to see.  And don't worry so much about the old post.  We all end up picking apart our own little mistakes like that.  Overall, you did fine with it!

[Big Panda]

Tbf, the part with Lara-Su disappearing could have been interpreted in a number of ways. I, personally, just assumed everybody outside of the machine were fading away at that point, and she was the only one we actually saw.

[Salamander]

...So the moral of the story was meant to be "screw everyone else over to benefit you and yours"?  That does sound like a Ken Penders sort of message.

[horridus]

11 hours ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

Ooh, how did that go down? Please tell me there was all the pompous ridicule, condescension, and grandstanding we've come to enjoy from him before reality took hold.

A little bit. Since the person asking didn't know themselves, they didn't seize upon the fact, and so it didn't turn into the clusterfuck these kind of things tend to become. But yeah, Penders earnestly didn't remember that he was the one who originally came up with that fact and that the fate of it being canon was dependant upon whether or not he or Flynn came up with it. Given how he harps on how he plans 'everything in advance' and how much he cares and all that, I found it rather striking that he could forget that such a major plot twist originally came from him.

8 hours ago, Paul-Agnew said:

Thanks for the mention Tylinos. To be honest I'm genuinely shocked people still read 'that' post, let alone make it past the first paragraph. Looking back, there are parts I probably shouldn't have said or worded better. I didn't go into it planning to insult or tear anyone down, but once I started (combined with the personal circumstances at the time), it pretty much snowballed from there. Live and learn I guess.

Given what Penders had done and his utter refusal to talk to you about it, despite finding ENDLESS hours to scream at people on twitter and make a general ass of himself, I'm amazed that you were as restrained as you were during that post. 

7 hours ago, Tylinos said:

I find it kind of silly that Bob said Lara-Su being in Ian's M25YL conclusion was "poor continuity" that ignored the end of Ken's story, seeing as how the first few pages of Ian's conclusion directly addressed that ending.  It made a plot point out of how the only ones who remembered the original timeline without Tails' special bracelets were Lara-Su and Sonic, the two who were effected by Eggman's time machine.  (Plus, as the person in that last screenshot pointed out, even if Lara-Su was erased, she could have easily been restored by whatever Sonic did to save things.)

BobR, dissing on Flynn and ignoring actual evidence that contradicts his initial statements in favor of screaming against the defiler for daring to go beyond the mighty Lord Penders deific visions of perfection? Gasp of horror. I am shocked, shocked I tell you. 

In all seriousness, it's kind of astounding that he has such a bug up his butt about this, given that the original story didn't showcase Lara in a good light, like at all, and in this we could at least see the character as she had been *promised* to be, rather than the whining, entitled teenager we got saddled with. And I say that as someone who thought the King Shadow thing was one of the most patently stupid ideas out there. 

6 hours ago, FFWF said:

...So the moral of the story was meant to be "screw everyone else over to benefit you and yours"?  That does sound like a Ken Penders sort of message.

It's pretty consistent with the rest of his warped views about the importance of family- you have Knuckles entire relationship with Locke for one, and Julie-Su and Lien-Da having zero problems with one another 25YL despite the fact that Lien wiped her mind twice and had a hand in murdering her mother along with all the other times she tried to kill Knuckles or Julie. Family Trumps Everything, evidently. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

So uh, I'm really surprised no brought this up yet.

But Penders/BobR were talking out of their asses once more and contradicted themselves. If you guys remember, Penders did write a conclusion to M25YL, and he even released it, with several plans for issues/story arcs such as one where Sonic gets guilty over Snively giving up his life to save everyone. The conclusion in which Penders/BobR is claiming was contradicted? Penders confirmed already that Sonic would go back in time, but be unable to fix anything because his body would be like a ghost, where he couldn't speak to anyone, or touch anything. The only thing he could do was watch events unfold. So yeah, Ian contradicted shit all.

[Tylinos]

I can't tell if he's trying to be coy about what we already know, or if he's going to intentionally retcon the backstory he gave Remington and is just messing with us here.

[horridus]

One of three outcomes presents itself to me- 

1) He's remembered that he came up with Remington's background and is gonna use it and is just being coy. 

2) He DOESN'T remember the background he came up with and thinks he's being clever with something new. 

3) He remembered, but is intentionally going to retcon the backstory because he thinks the surprise reveal has been ruined, which it has been.

Anyway, a bit more on that-

I wonder if he's even aware that the Sonic Comic Encyclopedia already told that story... assuming it even remains the same story. 

[Dr. Detective]

"Because family is the most important possession you have. Things, even a planet, can be replaced. But you can't replace the members of your family if they're gone."

I d-...what? ... Fucking what?

I'll be honest, reading through that, it was becoming clear to me that all the plot points being dropped could stand in as perfect evidence for why Sonic stories need to stay as far away from time travel nonsense as much as possible. I didn't even like the 30 years later Sonic Universe arc. I hated it. Finding out it was an alternate future didn't help because everything surrounding it was astonishingly weird. 

I hate it whenever people refer to the comics as fan-fiction but I doubt I'd have been able to blame them when it came to that. Just... Sonic's married and he's king... and he's got kids. They've all got kids and all the kids look exactly like their parents except with different hair and... Tikchaos... 

Fucking Tikchaos...

Everything about the way the characters acted was so odd to me. This is especially true when it came to my favorite unintentionally cringe worthy part with the cat newsreporter in SU#5 when she's recapping the King Shadow stuff that happened before hand. In every panel, she's unprofessionally reacting to every different plot tidbit she's ex-positing. She looks completely bored in one panel. Then in the panel where she's discussing Shadow and Sally's marriage she makes a disgusted face on camera. Then when she talks about Sonic retaking the throne she stops and wipes a tear from her eyes and goes "Ahem, scuse me" like someone's standing just off to the side ready to hand her an oscar. I'm grateful this really weird cat person reporter was telling me how I should be feeling about all this, because I got absolutely nothing from it other then a reminder that I once wrote a fan-fic where I forced Charmy to swallow vomit.

Sorry to the lot of you who actually liked those stories but I just...

...the idea that Ken is mad about someone not sticking to his original vision for this weird shit is baffling to me. Not as baffling as him actually believing he owns the rights to Evil Sonic because he "created" the concept of Evil versions of the Sonic characters within the book but it's... pretty up there.

 I hated it when Ian wrote for this timeline and I didn't even know that it was already an actual pre-existing thing with 25 Years Later back when I read it. I didn't even know who Ken Penders was at the time. Going back and reading all those stories didn't change my mind on the Sonic Universe arc either. 

[horridus]

Aaand we have yet ANOTHER possible unnessary addition to look forward to.

Taking a page from Sonic Underground's book, are we?

Seriously though... no one asked for this. No one at all wanted this. Stop speculating on these 'what ifs' and just focus on your damn book already. Or are you going to deem it neccessary to somehow bringing a full cinematic experiance to a friggin phone app, complete with the scent of popcorn?

[Tylinos]

That one's probably just him giving a nod to his son's band.  It's harmless, honestly.

[horridus]

I had legitimately forgotten that his son was in a band. The only muscial talent I remember him mentioning turned out to be a guy who did generic background music for crappy Direct to DVD movies. 

And more of him hyping Remington's backstory. 

Man, he is laying it on a tad thick. I kinda almost hope he's decided to go somewhere different with this, if only because of how cringe inducing it would be for him to hpye up a plot twist that he revealed *years* ago and then promptly forgot about. 

Then again, 'cringe inducing' would seem to be the fate of this revelation no matter what he decides to precisely do, given his inability to actually execute ideas in a meaningful way.... I guess a lesser cringe would be better than a 'how the heck did you forget this or that we already know about this?' cringe. 

[Tenko]

Haven't been on for a bit, caught up and decided to pop on Twitter and ask for clarification on the Remington thing you are all talking about. I assume, at least its how i have translated his oddly worded posts, that he is meaning people will be amazed how the old backstory fits into place with his new material, so he didn't have to retcon it. But it is worded rather poorly so let's see if that's the case.

It's either that or as has been said hes forgotton the material that ended up in the old encyclopedia, as he also mentioned he didn't get to delve into Remington's past before...so it's anyone's guess unless he replied, then we might have a more concrete answer.

[horridus]

Well, just in case he's still forgotten that he was the one who came up with the backstory of Remington being Kragok's son, here's the chat log where he revealed that fact.

http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bauerle/chat10ed.txt

Other highlights include claiming Star Wars somehow had a hand in the cancellation of the Knuckles comic... but yeah, it's clearly mentioned right there. 

And just to verify that I'm not making up that he had evidently forgotten that he had come up with that detail himself, here is an ancient tweet on the issue:

Sooo yeah, assuming he doesn't start getting coy with you about the 'mystery' and flat out says that it didn't start with him, the link says otherwise. Also, while he never went into detail about HOW it happened or why, and as such what Flynn wrote technically might not align to how he originally saw it, the Remington-Is-Kragok's-Son thing was something that started with him even if he never got around to actually revealing or addresing it while he was on the book. 

Also this:

This has nothing to do with the subject at hand, I just stumbled over it while looking for that chat log and just wanted to remind people that this is a real thing that Penders said and an actual idea he had, just because of how goddamn out of left field it is. 

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

Uggh, I just can't get over how dumb it is that he flipping forgot something major he established about Remington's character, even if it wasn't revealed in the book itself. Frankly, it dampens my already nonexistent enthusiasm about the Lara-Su Chronicles. It gives me serious doubts that this guy actually knows what he's doing in terms of tying everything together and making a sequel to his work that's actually satisfying and ties up lose ends, as if the fact that he's apparently still "figuring things out" this late in the game and his general dubious competence wasn't enough.

[Agie]

I'm pretty sure I already said this, but it's gonna be confusing continuity no matter what.

New readers will be confused by the story assuming they know who these guys are and expecting them to know every little thing.

Those who do know every little thing will be confused on what was retained and what wasn't.

It just isn't very well thought out at all.

[horridus]

4 hours ago, SurrealBrain said:

I'm pretty sure I already said this, but it's gonna be confusing continuity no matter what.

New readers will be confused by the story assuming they know who these guys are and expecting them to know every little thing.

Those who do know every little thing will be confused on what was retained and what wasn't.

It just isn't very well thought out at all.

You might have already said this, but it's still a valid observation to be brought up- Penders has never been entirely clear as to how this is meant to work, given that there are huge amounts of backstory needed to bring things up to speed for newcomers, as well as neccessary changes to several aspects of the setting that will take away the experiance from people who knew this first and foremost as Sonic material. It's even in his 'advertising' for this- he is treating M25YL as if it was some kind of cultural phenomenon like Star Wars or Star Trek, where you need only see the Enterprise or a Lightsaber to know what's up.

Given his stated desire to print and sell his Knuckles stories independently of Archie or SEGA, I have to wonder if what he's gunning for is being able to turn a profit over that in addition to selling LSC stuff. How this is not meant to alienate potential new readers further, who would be told they 'need' to purchase merchandise belonging to another franchise in order to get up to speed, is still lost on me. 

[Mad Convoy]

TBH, I think Penders isn't too focused on worldbuilding or the mechanics of this world. He just wants to make a quick buck on Sonic's name. Hence why he can't stop referencing and relying on Sonic stuff even though he should be establishing his comic as something that can stand alone.

Though he could go the Sonic Boom route and claim that this is a separate universe that reinterprets Sonic rather than a continuation of the main Sonic canon. That would solve a lot of continuity problems, actually, and he could still reference Sonic when talking about it. Unfortunately, I doubt he has the originality to pull something like that off considering that he'd have to radically alter the characters' backstories and make some significant changes to personality while still keeping to the spirit of the characters, not to to mention that he'd probably forget his own backstories and events after awhile and start contradicting himself. Sigh...

15 minutes ago, horridus said:

Given his stated desire to print and sell his Knuckles stories independently of Archie or SEGA, I have to wonder if what he's gunning for is being able to turn a profit over that in addition to selling LSC stuff. How this is not meant to alienate potential new readers further, who would be told they 'need' to purchase merchandise belonging to another franchise in order to get up to speed, is still lost on me. 

I hope not. He's already skirting the line with K'nox seriously why did he choose that name?, considering that Knuckles still belongs to Sega. If he goes full merchandiser, and especially if decides to print comics independently, he'd likely incur a lawsuit or at the very least a DMCA and/or cease and desist for his stuff. From his perspective, that wouldn't be very good. Future readers who may not like Sonic won't want to buy Sonic comics anyway, so reading Archie Sonic shouldn't be a prerequisite.

Penders baffles me sometimes with his poor decisions.

[Zaysho]

58 minutes ago, horridus said:

Given his stated desire to print and sell his Knuckles stories independently of Archie or SEGA, I have to wonder if what he's gunning for is being able to turn a profit over that in addition to selling LSC stuff. How this is not meant to alienate potential new readers further, who would be told they 'need' to purchase merchandise belonging to another franchise in order to get up to speed, is still lost on me. 

This is something I still don't understand and I'm so mystified by the fact that he would even consider this in light of his and other creators' complaints of Archie selling the comics featuring their characters after the last lawsuit (with the current state of affairs surrounding Scott Fulop's lawsuit). I mean, hypocrisy isn't a new thing with Ken, but I just can't wrap my head around how this thought even crosses his mind in the first place. Is he so assured the company he's dragged to court and trash talked so much is that willing to sign just the right kind of licensing agreement so he can have free reign of a character he didn't create?

As someone who's made an effort to calm down over this nonsense, dumb shit like this continues to justify everything I've ever said about him and I don't know why I keep falling into a cycle of disappointment over this. I've said it before, but I'd really like him to just take what's his and go away.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

You know, I was thinking about Penders. More specifically, his tweet claiming SEGA should be giving him Knuckles.

And you know what? I finally think I have the perfect scene to describe the situation.

"I don't need Knuckles..."

*flashes of angry tweets towards Penders*

"I don't need Knuckles..."

*flash of his con booth being empty*

"I definitely don't need Knuckles..."

"I don't need Knuckles..."

"I don't need Knuckles..."

*Flash of his forums being empty of positive comments*

"I don't need Knuckles..."

"I don't need Knuckles..."

"I don't need Knuckles..."

*Flashes of positive feedback to Knuckles in the post-reboot Archie era*

"..."

"I NEED KNUCKLES!!!"

[DaddlerTheDalek]

On 18.8.2016 at 9:27 AM, FFWF said:

...So the moral of the story was meant to be "screw everyone else over to benefit you and yours"?  That does sound like a Ken Penders sort of message.

This sound like a backstory for a tragic villain & not for a hero.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

You know what? It's been oh so very long since I did this, but for the luls....

Praetorian IPhone 5 Cases Unsold: 3/3

Acorn Badges Unsold: 9/9

Oh, and for added comedy, I found Sonic #144 listed on his Ebay with the name "Mobius 25 Years Later CONCLUSION".

For those who don't know, that actual conclusion is #167. He's just that desperate that he won't state that Ian's conclusion is the actual conclusion to the story.

[Mad Convoy]

43 minutes ago, DaddlerTheDalek said:

Quote

...So the moral of the story was meant to be "screw everyone else over to benefit you and yours"?  That does sound like a Ken Penders sort of message.

This sound like a backstory for a tragic villain & not for a hero.

That actually reminds me a lot of the lawsuit. Regret quitting because you realize that the comic you used to write for isn't and never was reliant on your genius to survive? Never to fear, just sue away and take everybody you can for yourself with legal technicalities. Actually Penders does a lot of purely selfish and petty things. Something that recently came to my attention is that he signed a comic book that he didn't actually work on... and that the person who bought it from him never asked him for.

I wonder if that's going to be the moral of The Lara Su Chronicles. I hope not, but knowing Penders, it wouldn't be unlikely for him to accidentally screw up the morals. That all assumes that he actually finishes the darn thing in his lifetime though.

2 hours ago, Zaysho said:

This is something I still don't understand and I'm so mystified by the fact that he would even consider this in light of his and other creators' complaints of Archie selling the comics featuring their characters after the last lawsuit (with the current state of affairs surrounding Scott Fulop's lawsuit). I mean, hypocrisy isn't a new thing with Ken, but I just can't wrap my head around how this thought even crosses his mind in the first place. Is he so assured the company he's dragged to court and trash talked so much is that willing to sign just the right kind of licensing agreement so he can have free reign of a character he didn't create?

My guess is that either yes, he is serious, because he thinks highly enough of himself to believe that Sega and Archie need him and just need to be informed of that, or no, he isn't serious, he's just trolling everybody for attention and doesn't intend on making good on this idea.

Either way, my confidence in him isn't high.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

6 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

You know what? It's been oh so very long since I did this, but for the luls....

Praetorian IPhone 5 Cases Unsold: 3/3

Acorn Badges Unsold: 9/9

Oh, and for added comedy, I found Sonic #144 listed on his Ebay with the name "Mobius 25 Years Later CONCLUSION".

For those who don't know, that actual conclusion is #167. He's just that desperate that he won't state that Ian's conclusion is the actual conclusion to the story.

At the risk of this being buried, I'll just bump this.

1 minute ago, Mad Convoy said:

That actually reminds me a lot of the lawsuit. Regret quitting because you realize that the comic you used to write for isn't and never was reliant on your genius to survive? Never to fear, just sue away and take everybody you can for yourself with legal technicalities. Actually Penders does a lot of purely selfish and petty things. Something that recently came to my attention is that he signed a comic book that he didn't actually work on... and that the person who bought it from him never asked him for.

I wonder if that's going to be the moral of The Lara Su Chronicles. I hope not, but knowing Penders, it wouldn't be unlikely for him to accidentally screw up the morals. That all assumes that he actually finishes the darn thing in his lifetime though.

My guess is that either yes, he is serious, because he thinks highly enough of himself to believe that Sega and Archie need him and just need to be informed of that, or no, he isn't serious, he's just trolling everybody for attention and doesn't intend on making good on this idea.

Either way, my confidence in him isn't high.

He does think himself as that important to Archie/SEGA. He literally stated he is the one and only who brought value to Knuckles, and if he didn't, SEGA would've dumped him long ago.

[Tylinos]

Well, that's a complete lie.  Come on, Ken.  We have the freaking logs of when you said it back in 2002. (Thanks again, Horridus.) He's either forgotten it wasn't just an Ian thing, or he remembered and just decided to retcon it anyway, hoping no one will notice. (On a related note, I like how just a few days ago he said he wasn't going to retcon anything with this.)

...Or this just might go back to what he said in 2014(?) about how The Storm will explain changes in TL-SC.  Like I said a while back, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he uses The Storm for his own brand of Genesis Wave styled retcons to characters' histories. (Such as insisting that K'nox totally isn't Knuckles, or removing Athair from the family tree.)

Even then, though, it sounds like he's trying to imply he never planned for Kragok to be Remington's father, which is just ridiculous.