#ask norgatha

[l30b4r]

Why @ask-norgatha blog is protected?

I just wanna read the @ask-norgatha blog and i don't found some way to do it, someone knows why?

[whisperingrockandroll]

WR&R MYSTERY KIDS LORE & WORLDBUILD MASTER POST

Gear up, kids, because this will be a long one.

It's been a while since I posted a new comic. Pretty soon there'll be a bunch, because I've been sitting on a mountain of scripts and just started making progress on actually making them into comics. I wanna build up a nice little backlog that I can queue up and not worry about for a long while. In the meantime though, I have something I hope will tide you guys over.

There's been a problem with my comic from the very beginning I've never really thought to address for years, and until now, I never found a good place for it. That problem is "worldbuilding." Originally when this comic started out, it was just a Psychonauts comic. Then I got into Mystery Kids, and the MKs just showed up out of nowhere.

If you're still interested, click under the cut. If you already find this post boring and kind of long, just skip it.

We never got any information on how the Mystery Kids club started or how they all met. For the longest time, I kind of just defered to the collective fandom's various disorganized headcanons and ideas and stuff. But I think enough time has passed that those ideas have all changed, been forgotten about, or branched off into their own individual works.

So, it's finally time for me to fix that by giving this comic its own set of lore and backstory. In this post I'm going to explain how everything happened, how the kids came together and what order everything happened in. This is kind of written for my own personal amusement, but also as a guide to keep in mind when I'm writing new stories in this setting, to keep things consistent.

PART ONE: THE CANON HISTORY

The first step for this little exercise is to figure out when all the stuff in the original "canon" happened. This is where things get a little messy, because we have to figure out a proper order for everything so all the pieces can fit into place.

First, we have to come up with a system for naming the different eras and phases where things happen, so we can more easily compartmentalize the different events. So we'll call the first year the Mystery Kids are together "Year One." Anything before that we'll call Year -1 or -2.

Year -2 is where we'll put the events of Paranorman. They happen in Fall, around Halloween probably. Nearly the end of the year. It's important to set this part the furthest back for reasons we'll get into later.

Year -1 is where we'll put Coraline and Psychonauts. Dipper and Mabel are still in Pidemont. There are a few references in the comic to Raz still having a water problem due to "the curse." But in PN2 he conquers the curse. We'll chock that up to lingering after-effects and him trying to get past the mental block.

Near the end of Year -1, Aggie returns and reunites with Norman in events identical to how they played out in Ask-Norgatha. A lot of things that happen are very similar to that old blog, with the exception being Norman and Aggie don't get together. That comes later.

Year 1 is when Gravity Falls happens. Coraline and Norman are family friends (or cousins? I haven't decided, maybe not. Maybe 'honoary cousins'?) Anyway, so: things play out pretty much how they did in that fan episode people made. Doctor Loboto (during a villainous relapse, or a manic episode) comes to Gravity Falls, Raz and Lili chase after him, Coraline and Wybie come with Norman's family on a vacation to Gravity Falls. Aggie stays behind because Norman doesn't want her to get lost. At this point, her Poltergeist powers haven't kicked in yet and other people can't see her, meaning she'd have no way to get home.

So, during Loboto's shennanigans, the kids all come together to stop him. That's when we move into…

PART TWO: THE FANON HISTORY

Note: in this period, my comic has a lot of Holiday specials. We're operating on Peanuts rules here, where the time-scaling slides around to keep the characters from aging. But we'll say in the "real" canon, the stuff that happens on Holidays actually happen on regular days, for the most part. If things "have to" happen on a Holiday, they'll all happen on the same one, just at different times. We'll try not to think too hard about this, because it's just a cartoon. We're out to make a consistent world, but not to arbitrarily restrict ourselves. None of this stuff happened in the "real" world anyway.

Anyway, moving right along to the rest of "Year 1." This is for the comics I made while the show was still airing, so things all kind of click together.

This is where the first Mystery Kids Adventure happens. The kids are all united and save the day. All of this happens right in the middle of the events of Gravity Falls. From then on out, the kids have adventures together on and off, but its a little hard because they have to travel a pretty great distance to hang out together. They keep in touch on social media and stuff, occasionally finding ways to fake excuses to go out and travel together. But mostly, the group is pretty disorganized.

Dib is also a mindless fanboy of the group and wants to join, but everybody thinks he's weird and annoying, so they try their best to politely blow him off. Then he builds a teleporter that lets the kids get together easier, but the thing just barely works. Dib is made a "junior member" and just sort of hangs around.

The kids have a "clubhouse", but it's just a shanty shack built by Soos, half a mile away from the Mystery Shack.

At some point during this period, the Bedlam returns and the kids have to team up to stop her. Aggie helps somehow with her newly-emerging poltergiest powers. The Bedlam is defeated, and that's the last "real" adventure they have for a little while. They don't have a reliable way to meet up anymore, so they only get together for parties and stuff. This is where the Season 3 Finale happens, if you've read my archives.

PART THREE: THE CURRENT SITUATION

From Season 4 and onwards, everything that happens to the Mystery Kids happens in Year 2. That's where we are now.

It starts with Dib on one of his own little adventures. Somehow, he ends up stumbling on an abandoned treehouse that used to belong to the Kids Next Door. It hasn't been populated in years, but its full of still-functional tech that just got left behind. With it, Dib's able to power-up the teleporter technology and now the Mystery Kids can come together whenever they want. You need to stand perfectly still for like five minutes for the teleporter to work, so it isn't a "get out of danger free" plot device.

Seems like a REALLY important development to happen offscreen and go totally unmentioned, right? Well… I thought of it retroactively, so, whoops! But it's fine. We'll just have to make a flashback comic later where the kids find it.

So, from now on, everything that happens in the comic happens here, in Year 2.

If you've read this far, I'd like to thank you for humoring my nonsensical fanfiction ramblings for my silly mspaint webcomic. I hope you had fun and got as much out of that as I did. I'm really happy I was finally able to put it all together in one coherent place.

[clublilac]

i cant believe ask norgatha is dead... rip

[canvas-bird]

http://fascinationanimation.tumblr.com/post/71325108288/a-f-a-disney-gif-archeryandfrost-ask-norgatha

[whisperingrockandroll]

My quest to collect and archive the now-ancient posts from Ask-Norgatha are almost complete. I don't know if I'll ever find "everything" but I have TONS. My search is now focused around just two posts Some JERK in the anon asks calling aggie "a rude jerk" FOR NO REASON!

Thumbnail presented via wayback machine and the other one is pretty simple, from fairly early on in the blog before they finally get together. Norman makes an offhand comment, something to the effect of "its not like we're dating" or something and aggie looks troubled and blushes. Not super important storywise but def cute.

I feel like once I find both of these I can officially call my archive "finished" even if there's comics missing. They're just two that burn in my memory banks really hot that I feel the compulsion to track down.

[whisperingrockandroll]

Part two of what became our Halloween-Thanksgiving spooktacular! Sorry for the delay, but my poor sister -- who works her fingers to the bone with her excellent art -- got sick, and it slowed things down a bit. But now things should be much faster, and we'll have this wrapped up before November! It's took longer than expected, but like Toto said, love isn't always on time!

This comic actually marks the first time several of these characters have appeared on this blog! What fun! Mitch's BF's design is based on the one used on the old Ask-Norgatha blog I never shut up about. Of course, this all just gave my poor sister more stuff to do. Be sure to mention in the replies what a jerk I am for working for her hard XD

[whisperingrockandroll]

You have the @ask-norgatha blog comic collection?

I have a bunch of them, not a complete set but a HUGE amount. You want me to send them to you in DMs or link in a mega?

[whisperingrockandroll]

You might have noticed all the reblogs of ancient posts from the now-private Ask-Norgatha blog. I've been in a nostalgic mood today.

If you have any archived stuff from the old Ask-Norgatha blog, I'd really like you to share it with me. I'm still building up a collection of old comics and art from the blog to preserve. I've gotten a lot, but not everything.

If anyone has the post where Norman introduces Aggie to his parents, the one where he talks to Courtney about having a crush, or the one where they kiss for the first time on Christmas, be sure to send it my way :)

[whisperingrockandroll]

Day 4 of Prenderbomb.

The old “Ask Norgatha” blog was one of my favorite tumblr blogs of all time, and a big inspiration for my comic as a whole. I’ve been meaning to get these two dorks together since... well, since before the comic started! Of course, I always hesitated for the “right” moment, which has ended up taking too long. I understand people might have their problems with the ship but I really love it.

As for the strange love Dipper/Norman/Mabel/Aggie love square I haplessly created, there are tons of potentially disastrous and hilarious potential consequences of that, but I’m gonna leave that powder keg alone, You, however, can have any headcanon you like.

[whisperingrockandroll]

You make a comic: what comics do you like in particular? Any that were a particular influence on you? Webcomics, print comics, newspaper funnies, etc?

This is a great question and a terrible one. It’s great because I have a LOT to say about the subject, and terrible because if I don’t control myself I’ll end up rambling for 100 pages about this subject. So I’ll try to control myself.

When I was really young, the first webcomic I really enjoyed was Bob and George, a Megaman sprite comic that probably aged really poorly. It was the first comic of any kind that I ever read regularly and I enjoyed it a lot. But of course, the fact that it was a sprite comic meant it suffered from severe limitations in presentation and art. There was also a subcomic on the site called “Kitty Kaboom” that was even better than the main comic IMO. It mixed regular art and custom sprites. It mostly just told dirty jokes and it had surprisingly violent halloween specials. It was a lot of fun.

I used to make my own sprite comics. All of them are lost to time now, but don’t worry - they were unspeakably awful. If you hadn’t noticed, I use a lot of the techniques and tricks I learned from my sprite-comic days in this comic, except now I make my own character sprites instead of using something from a Nintendo game. I’ve heard people say I should try pixel-art, and I might move into that field some day.

I got into superhero comics a few years later, but I haven’t caught up on them in a long time. My two favorite series that I can remember are Geoff Johns run of Superman and Punisher MAX. Very different kinds of stories, but very fun. Johns Superman run, “Superman: One Year Later” showed Superman in a very human light, and had some fantastic writing for Lois. More than anything, it was a lot of fun. IMO, it was the perfect Superman story.

Punisher MAX is a different breed altogether. It’s dark, brutal, depressing at times, and filled with vulgarities and genuinely upsetting moments. That’s why I like it so much. It’s a very gritty vigilante book, and it’s basically the ur-example of what the Punisher should be.

Now, in terms of humor, I have so many different influences that it would be nigh-impossible to cite them all. In terms of source material, Gravity Falls and Psychonauts are obviously a big factor. But as for funny comics, “Little Spirou” really takes the cake. French comics in general are really funny and surprisingly raunchy. Little Spirou manages to balance being crass, dirty and immature with being fun and strangely heartwarming. That’s definitely something I’ve always tried to do with my comics. There are a lot of other great European comics that same vein, and many of them are published in the same magazine as Little Spirou, so it’s no wonder they feel so similar.

I also have a soft spot for the regular Spirou comics, just because I think it’s adorable that such a bratty (and astonishingly horny) child can grow up to be such a pure-hearted, good-natured adult. It’s a kind of character arc you don’t see very often, and it’s really heartwarming.

I also have to give a shout-out to @demongirl99. If it weren’t for her fantastic art, I would have never known about Mystery Kids. If it weren’t for her wonderful art, this probably would have stayed purely a Psychonauts comic - for better or worse!

@spitblaze is also an amazing artist and has a genuine love for the characters of PN that makes me look like an amateur. Their drawings/pics sometimes get me misty eyed because they’re so pure, even when they’re stupid. I don’t know how to explain it better, but they have this like, “shine” that my cold, black soul is too tainted to recreate.

Ask-Norgatha was another Tumblr blog I really, really loved. It’s gone now IIRC, but seeing Norman and Aggie in situations where they’re extremely happy and having fun, but still completely in-character really opened my mind on how flexible the characters were, and helped me realize you can make a character feel like themselves despite putting them into new situations and moods. It was a great blog while it lasted.

Finally, there was this really great Ask Raz blog I used to follow back in the day. IDK if it’s still running, but the art was fantastic and the writing was great. The blog ended by the time I started posting on Tumblr but they came back a few months after I started my comic. It was always a fun ride and the person who makes it writes the characters well. But the person who makes it apparently hates MK stuff and doesn’t want to see it in the PN tag, and I’m pretty sure they’ve blocked this blog. Not my main blog, but I can’t seem to reblog their stuff on this one.

I’ve rambled a lot, but this is a subject I enjoy and have a lot of passion about. I really love writing both from a creating standpoint and a viewing standpoint, so of course, I have a lot to say about it. IDK for sure, but I’m pretty sure this is the longest post I’ve ever written on this blog.

That’s all for now, thanks for asking! Come back anytime.