[LNH/ACRA/WRIMO] Anal-Retentive Archive Kid: A Judicious Use Of Overkill #7

Saxon Brenton saxonbrenton at hotmail.com
Sun Nov 21 22:43:38 PST 2010


On Sat 20 Nov 2010 Scott Eiler  <seiler at eilertech.com> wrote:
> On Nov 19, 8:52 pm, Saxon Brenton <saxonbren... at hotmail.com wrote:
>> Anal-Retentive Archive Kid: A Judicious Use Of Overkill - part 7
> 
> I'm enjoying this story.
 
Thank you.  As I've noted in the past, I tend to be a very wordy writer.
So when I'm doing a story composed a lot small pieces posted in rapid 
succession I sometimes worry that I may not be able to polish the story 
and have to get the balance of action versus info correct the first time.
  
> I think Anal-Retentive Archive Kid should consider just calling
> himself ARAK. It makes as much sense as OMAC instead of One Man Army
> Corps, and it contributes a lot to ARAK's dignity.
>  
> I hear that some LNH characters are avatars. (Clueless Lad is
> probably going to be mine.) Is ARAK one of yours?
 
Well, yes, for the most part.
 
Limp-Asparagus Lad was my first author avatar/writer character/whatever-
other-descriptions-fits-here.  I deliberately poured a lot of my 
introverted nature into him.
 
ARAK wasn't designed to be like that, but several years after he first 
appeared I realised that I was putting a lot my nerdiness into him, and 
I designated him my second writer character.  The paradox is, however, 
that I was *also* deliberately putting in a lot of elements that were 
quite different from myself.  This makes him a somewhat more complicated 
character.  But also a bit harder to write, in the sense that I'm an 
introverted person from the centre left, whereas I deliberately chose to 
make ARAK a gregarious person who's politically on the centre right.  
(Which in turn meant that at one stage I had to ask people here on 
rec.arts.comics.creative for examples of moderate conservative political 
thought in the USA - because the unfortunate fact is that the principle 
that 'the squeaky hinge gets the most oil' meant that most of the examples 
of American conservatives who appear in the news here in Australia are 
the loons from the far right.)
 
While it's true that objectively a codename like 'Anal-Retentive Archive 
Kid' is silly and in some quarters more than a bit blunt/offensive/outride 
rude, (a) this is the Legion of Net.Heroes and silly names are almost 
expected, and (b) ARAK is comfortable with himself not only as a non-combat 
nerd but also as a member of a minority religion and being out and loud 
about the fact that he's a pagan.  Other people's opinions are interesting 
but ultimately nothing more than an opinion.  But best of all from his 
point of view as a Norse neo-pagan and therefore a nominal Thor worshipper, 
he gets to use the acronym ARAK as a pun on the old phrase (actually, old 
DC comics character) ARAK son of thunder.
 
---
Saxon Brenton
'In fact in a superhero universe, teenagers may be even stupider. After 
all, the brief moment in the real world where the thought "this may kill 
me" forces it's way into their head would be followed by "this may give 
me super powers" in a superhero universe.' - jlbarnett Scans_Daily Nov 2010
 
  		 	   		  


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