I think it’s fairly likely that we’ll be able to hold to our weekly episode release scheme now that the mid-season break is over… so, accordingly, we can expect the earliest we’ll be holding our long-promised season 2 powwow would be sometime in mid April.
Travis and I will probably conference before that to sort through our notes and things, but hopefully we’ll all be able to find a time across multiple time zones that works for everyone to confab.
We’re probably going to be looking at a very similar kind of structure for season 2: 12 episodes, with maybe 1-2 mid-season “specials.” It’ll be about one year after the events of season 1 (so for Fara, it’ll be the school year of 43-44). Among other things we should expect to see, the Shield will be re-powered and back to his old classic self again. Osprey will still be unemployed, at least at the start of the season, and the many mysteries of Bim will still remain unsolved (HOW DOES HE EAT!?).
Worth considering: although 12 episodes seems like a reasonable number, more writers could potentially mean more episodes…although one of my “lessons learned” from season 1 is that the episodes have varied a bit in writing length. (Though, sometimes its hard to tell that until you actually start writing them!)
…and Skype is going to be the best way for us to actually have a chat. Google anything really doesn’t work so well in China.
Well, if we want to be technical about it, Season 1 actually had 14 episodes if we count the “specials.” I think planning around a 12 episode skeleton (or 14, or 10, or 16, etc.) is still a good plan, because Season 1 had this definite structure that made it easy for us to say "Okay, by mid-season break, this and this and this should have happened, so here’s where things can open up and we can see Sean Kellington venture into the role of a vigilante and also have a big giant robot battle with a Hannibal guest spot."
I think one thing that may end up happening as a result of the more open process, though, is that you (Travis) and I may end up writing fewer episodes. If we still have a 12 episode main arc (not including any specials), maybe instead of each of us writing six we each write five, or even three.
Well, I agree that planning around a certain number of episodes as a skeleton is a good plan – I’m just saying that number doesn’t necessarily need to be 12, and we should consider a number based on how many writers are involved and how much they want to write.(…or if they’d just prefer to do ‘special episode’ type stuff.)
Makes sense to me! I’d love to participate and develop a cast member or two to bring in. I work a full-time, 8-5 M-F job these days so I have both less time to write (can’t at work) but more consistency (no more “FUCK SCHOOL BYE FOR EIGHT WEEKS”).
I am obviously down for this. I’ve already laid the groundwork for the introduction of Sean Kellington (aka Jimmy Calavera, aka Sebastian ‘Baz’ Bashka, aka Jack Marrow) in CoH with "Making Your Name."
When it comes to schedule, well, that’s where it gets a bit tricky. My schedule’s on a two-week cycle of 12-hour shifts (6am to 6pm). So I’ll work M-Tu, then F-Sat-Sun, then W-Th over a two week period. I just worked this past weekend, so I’m now working the next two days.
Basically, I’m saying pick a day or two you might wanna do the confab, and I’ll see if I’m free.
In planning I sometimes find it useful to jot down character notes.
Here’s the one I did for Marcus:
Marcus Heinkel
AKA: Illuminate of the Second Tier of the SIS. The Society has provided with a fake ID as an Albrooker resident named Rafael
Identity Status: Public, but believed to be a Missing Person. His face shows up on milk cartons from time to time. The Egmont Police Department has been unable to locate him, much to the consternation of his poor mother.
Armament: Erdnadel, (“earth needle") a rapier-style runeblade crafted by Marcus. The intricate runework on the blade enhances Marcus’s speed and reflexes while he holds it. It can also temporarily petrify anything he stabs, allowing him to incapacitate enemies easily.
Specialties: Fencing, Runekasting, being a very pretty man
Powers/Abilities: A prodigy in the art of Runekasting, most of his spells are weaved into his personal sword, the Erdnadel. He of course carries numerous runestones of the Futthark should he need to cast a spell on the spot. Runekasting allows for very flexible spellcasting, but requires a great deal of preparation.
Weaknesses: He’s only human – and a very vain one.
Origin/History: Marcus’s father was an SIS Illuminate and recognized the boy’s early potential and set him off to be educated in arcane mysteries at a young age. (His mother had no idea any of this was going on.) Showing aptitude for the rare discipline of Taznikanze rune magic, he received tutoring in secret while continuing to live a public life as an ordinary student at Egmont West High School. He showed a knack for swordfighting, especially the rapier (unlike his teammate and girlfriend Fara Somers, who favored the heavier longsword.)
His relationship with Fara was all a ruse to get close to the Mana Knight; the SIS had sensed the growing power of Mana and wanted to understand it. The two inevitably had to fight as Fara disrupted the ritual transfer of the Master’s spirit from one body to another. Marcus felt that he had an upper hand as the better swordfighter, but he was not prepared for the extent of her Mana Knight abilities.
Humiliated and ashamed to have failed the Master, Marcus spent his time preparing for the next confrontation. He visited Simafort to train under the fencing masters there (reputed to be the finest in all the Web). He worked with SIS runesmiths to create a magic weapon to match Fara’s.
HEY!
I STAYED AWAKE FOR BASICALLY TWO DAYS AND I FINISHED EPISODE 10 OF CITY OFHEROES, WHAAAAAAAT
SO NOW TRAVIS (WHO IS IN CHINA) AND I HAVE WHAT WE THINK IS A ROUGH MAP FOR SOME OF THE EPISODES WE WOULD LIKE TO WRITE IN SEASON 2.
WOULD SOMEBODIES WANT TO TOSS IN A GUEST EPISODE SOMEWHERE?
LET’S POWWOW! WHEN WILL IT BE? I DUNNO. BUT LETS DO IT ANYWAY
NOW I WILL SLEEP, BUT LET’S ALSO TALK LATER. OKAY BYe
I’d be happy to! I got some ideas. How much do y’all want/need? Are you looking for permanent cast or more like guest spots?
I wanna guest spot, I wanna write a story about a hivan superhero.
I am down to help with an episode or write one or something. I think I need to do at least one more ‘webisode’ for Baz/Jimmy to set up his doing a vigilante thing to provide an ‘in’ for the future meeting.
Well, couple of points:
-After season 1 (but before season 2) is a great time for any guest spots/introducing new characters. I suspect season 1 will wrap by the end of February, and maybe it will take a few months to launch season 2.
-Season 2 does feature a few status quo changes like a new major villain. However, we’re still Albrook-based and it’s still Fara’s college life (she’s a sophomore in season 2! Yay!!!) - and most of what Matt and I have planned for plots still revolves around our existing characters. (We’re not going to transformers movie them to make you buy new action figures…but the existing characters may get new costumes…)
-Because CoH is backdated, it’s still happening during Proper times. (I think season 2 is 44-45 WR, which is like ten years before our planned space race.)
-Matt and I currently have a (flexible) outline for season 2, but could easily add more regularly scheduled episodes (currently there’s 12.)
-I’ll expand on this when I do season 1 notes, but there are two important elements of CoH that I’d like to try to continue in season 2. One is better representation of women in Kupopolis. (I mean, I’m not enforcing some kind of affirmative action hard cap here, I just try to write more female characters that don’t suck.) The other is that life is precious, and that killing and death are a Big Deal. This isn’t a war story like Neo where slaughtering minor characters by the droves was entirely appropriate; this is a superhero story about characters devoted to protecting innocents. I’m not saying any new characters can’t kill, but if they do it should be treated as an appropriately weighty decision.
Getting ahead of ourselves (because it’s Kupopolis!): At some point (after season 2 or even 3), I wanted to do a CoH-like thing with different characters in a different location.
I know in the past the vast majority of my work fails the Bechdel–Wallace test. As a group that is predominantly middle age bearded men, we definitely could be pushing our creative chops in that regard better then we have historically.
Another thing worth noting: in Season 2 the Shield has his powers back. So, actually, we might have to re-issue a special Season 2 Shield action figure, back in his classic tights-and-cape look (which means the Season 1 Seraphim Shield figure will go up in value after the season finale).
It’s definitely a thing the story can improve on going forward. I think we’ve already made progress there but more is good.
Also I wondered when Terry got his powers back!
… we’re indulging in a LOT more ret-conning than I usually feel comfortable with in order to make City of Heroes work. The original post where the Shield gets his powers back is “To Mend a Shield,” on the Proper boards in the Esper thread. That post is being re-written as a mid-season interlude and will get re-posted after the Season 1 finale. I’ve actually spent most of the day going over it and cleaning it up… it was in desperate need of a re-write even without rejiggering it so that it jives with the CoH melieu.
I don’t mind the retcon so much; I think some retcons are fine. Sometimes, we gotta go “eh, I need to do this differently” just to make the current story work, y’know?
I don’t mind a retcon when it mostly applies to the collective memories of half a dozen people. 
I suspect most of the retcons you wouldn’t notice unless you looked it up on the old posts, or traveled through time to the circa 1990s AOL boards.
Yeah, it’s not like I’m retconning Sean/Baz/Jimmy’s age so he’s college-aged by the time of CoH or anything…
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