ITM - Disco Dagger

Here's a bit of a story, folks. Last year, I was offered a job to make a story about the fireflies in hopes for saving them in Malaysia as they are an endangered species there. I came up with various ideas for characters. One of them was called Flightning and he was the typical loser guy you feel sympathy for. I also came up with his family which is a muscle cook, a hyperactive delivery boy, an incredibly intelligent cashier, a dim witted one (both by brains and the butt), a little asisstant who doesn't talk much, an attractive waitress who has dreams and the boss who surprisingly isn't very greedy (at least not as greedy as Mr Krabs).

The story was about Flightning just holding up a sign to see in his family's restaurant called the Firefry. One day, a gust of wind came to the jungle and blew him away. In the unknown part of the jungle, he comes across various animals like a forgetful elephant, a blind and hungry sumatrun rhino, a sleepy crocodile, a show biz hornbill and more. While trying to find his way back home, his family then starts searching for him. Will Flightning be reunited with his family before the Firefly eating Flying Fox (which by the way is a Malaysian bat) comes out to hunt?

That's what I wanted for the story but the person who offered me the job decided to comepletely redo the story and have it about Flighting being taken care by the same elephant. The only thing worse than the idiot father cliche is the idiot baby sitter cliche (considering Pet Sitter Pat, that's why). And worse still, he wanted me to replace the flying fox with a human hunter. I said to him "Why would we want a hunter in a story about fireflies? What does the hunter have against the firefly? Was the story suppose to focus on the Firefly or the Elephant?". Something like has happened in something like Spongebob with Plankton going against Mr Krabs more than Spongebob but it worked there because Spongebob worked in the same restaurant Mr Krabs owns. What did Flightning have special for the Elephant? I tried some alterations like have the hunter have a pet lizard so at least it balances thing more like the main antagonist can go for the secondary protagonist and the secondary antagonist can go for the main protagonist but he didn't want that either. I wanted to kill off the hunter but he wanted it as a recurring villain.

And worse is that he wanted me to reduce the roles of Flightning's family to a role where they serve absolutely nothing to the story and can easily be cut out. Something like that worked for the BFG book because while the head of the orphanage Mrs. Clonkers and the other orphans have very little screentime, they do have a purpose. Sophie explains why living in that orphanage was horrid. Flightning's family on the other hand have no purpose in that guy's version of the story and it also has nothing about the restaurant Flightning was working in. Now because it's a bug world, it could lead to a lot of canibalistic jokes which is what Billy and Mandy did but that guy wanted me to remove all humor in the book and just have it plain and simple. The story he wanted was so dull and boring that I don't think kids or even adults who are reading it to kids would want to re-read it.

Because of our disagreements, we haven't talked to each other for months and I'm sure he's not going to go for the firefly story anymore. I thought maybe I can hold on to the firefly story for a much later date, maybe when I'm doing animation for business. In the meantime, I'm thinking of a story book involving the three asian rhinos (Indian, Javan and Sumatrun).

Anyways, this girl I made was based on the waitress character I made for Flightning. I call her disco dagger because he has the disco look and the dagger. She is a firefly and this gave me the opportunity to make her the Knight for the Light Element.

At that is the last of my Light elemental Skylanders.