I'd like to make an announcement - two actually. Firstly, you will not hear from me for ten days since I'm off with my family to Italy for a week or so. I'm coming back on July 21st. I also hope to continue with my Season 3 afterwards.

Speaking of which, since I'm coming to an end with Season 3 with only 4 episodes to go, I've decided to totally alter Season 4 which I promised. I am developing a new story, using some things from my Season 4. It is somewhat of a new era of Ace Lightning, but it is a continuity of Season 3's finale.

I give you my new future story...I hope:

Ace Lightning: Next Level

It will be set about two years after the events of Season 3, which will wrap the television show. Mark, Chuck and Kat have left high school and are now in Conestoga Hills Community College. The Lightning Knights still live in the Thunder Tower, but have little to do since the villains surrendered and went into hiding at the Kent Bros. Carnival. However, Lord Fear still possesses one piece of the Amulet, as does Mark, and a brief connection causes a dangerous Nexus Storm that affects all of the game characters. Ace manages to stop the storm but learns a rift between Earth and the Sixth Dimension has been created and must be sealed. New characters are appearing through this rift with help from the recovered pieces of the Amulet. Most of the characters will recieve upgrades via the storm and a new Ace Lightning game. Rick and Mr. Cheseborough will both have some kind of role to play too.

Characters confirmed into story (these will survive the series):
*Ace Lightning - Still leader, gained controlled of his emotions.
*Sparx - Hasn't changed much. Will recieve a fire upgrade.
*Lady Illusion - Still Ace's lover. Will recieve some type of upgrade.
*Mark - Will be in college, 16 or 17 years old.
*Chuck - Will be in college, 16 or 17 years old. Still dating Jessica.
*Rick - Has left town but returns a couple of times to aide the Lightning Knights.
*Mr. Cheseborough - Will be Mark's college tutor.
*Duff Kent - Currently sharing the carnival with Lord Fear and his gang.
*Lord Fear - Still a major threat. Will recieve several upgrades.
*Staff Head - Will recieve three upgrades.
*Dirty Rat - Lord Fear's spy.
*Anvil - The muscle in the Carnival of Doom. Will recieve one upgrade.
*Pigface - Will recieve two upgrades.
*Googler - Will recieve no upgrades but will have enhanced abilities.
*Rotgut - Will recieve one upgrade which is hardly used.
*Kat - Will be in college, no longer dating Mark but still friends.
*Heather - Become more of a friend now, but still dislikes Mark.
*Brett - Dating Heather again, but on a more friendlier basis.
*Wayne - Still annoying Chuck, will be in college.
*Simon and Fiona H. - Simon will wear glasses, Fiona still obsesses over gnomes.
*Jessica - Still dating Chuck.
*Freaked Out Janitor - The janitor from Season 2 will appear in cameos.

Possible Returns
*Mrs. Kutcher - She may return, if I find a role for her.
*Mr. and Mrs. Ratburn - The Texans may return in one chapter.
*Coach - He may return to work in the college.
*Two characters who die in Season 3 will return in the final chapters likely.

New Characters (there will be several others)
*Count Delusion - Lady Illusion's brother.
*Voltage - Will be a rebel Lightning Knight.
*Necromancer - A powerful warlock, becomes Lord Fear's partner.
*Agent Hayate - A Japanese FBI Agent who doubles as a college teacher.
*Bruce Burgstein - A former acqaintance of Rick.

If anyone has any ideas they would like me to feature in the story, please just say.

Awesome, Italy! :D I hope you have a great time.

I like the latest chapter, by the way. Getting very good. :) Hopefully I'll get around to reviewing, but if I don't know that there should be a good "squee" or three for it. And the next one also sounds interesting! I have a bit of a soft spot for Count Delusion, so I hope you'll keep writing even if it takes six years this time. :P

Ditto what Sarah said. And I really look forwards to seeing that story, 'Gut. :)

Edit: I've changed my Season 3 story to go with the next story and plus the confirmed character list has been narrowed down, as I've decided to kill off more characters - so the list will be much shorter than before to keep you wondering.

[Confirmed Characters]
Ace Lightning
Sparx
Lady Illusion
Lord Fear
Staff Head
Mark Hollander
Chuck Mugel
Kat Adams
Mr. Cheseborough
Duff Kent
Rick
Heather
Brett
Wayne
Jessica
Fiona and Simon Hollander
Janitor (cameos only)

[New Characters]
Voltage: Rebel Lightning Knight.
Necromancer: Lord Fear's new partner.
Count Delusion: Lady Illusion's powerful brother.
Rapid Shootout: A cybernetic crocodile sniper. May become a major character or just be in a guest appearance.
Poison Ivy: A young tree spirit who can control plants.

Agent Hayate sounded cool, wish he was gonna show up, but neat.

Whoops! I left him out! He's still in it! So is Bruce Burgstein.

Oh goodie ^_^

I've sorted out all of the fates of the characters for Season 3, except Anvil and Pigface. I love them so much, but I had this idea that at the start of my next story, they are "reformatted" into new characters. However, I don't really know if the world of Ace Lightning can do that - plus there is a similar concept like that in the Transformers Movie and I don't want similar plot points. However, it would narrow down having too many characters instead of keeping Anvil and Pigface, plusi introducing the new ones (who I have yet to decide). I know I'm introducing several new villain and heroes into the fold, but it is a little complex even for me.

I'm also having trouble fleshing out a lot of the characters (Mr. Cheseborough, Heather, Wayne, Kat, Mr. and Mrs. Hollander, several of the minions). And haven't even featured Brett in the story!!! I need some advice on how to portray these.

However, for my friends, would you like to see any sort of specific plot element or gag, or something like that? (NEED TO KEEP A GOOD PACE FOR 13 EPISODEs WITH LIMITED IDEAS!) :blink: :nuts:

This is probably the longest post I've...er...posted... :P

I think I need :help: - both mentally and with this story.

I'm sure the world of Ace Lightning can do that, but you don't want to lift something directly from Transformers without reworking it to suit yourself. :)

You don't have to include all your characters in just the one fic; series like George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire have a huge cast, but that works because they're geographically separated (evil Queen Cersei is in Lannisport, Jon Snow is at the Wall, the Onion Knight is with Stavros, Brienne the Beauty is travelling around the country, Daenerys Targaryen is far over the sea, Arya Stark and Catelyn Stark are also travelling, both to different places, each of them has a largeish retinue as well) and the books are...really, really long. For you, though, all your evils and Knights are generally going to be turning up in the same place, and trying to do crowd scenes while showcasing each one of them is...tough to do, and big battles where everyone's fighting aren't necessarily that interesting (with so many characters, they can't show their individuality so well).

Don't worry about including everyone in your latest fic; maybe you can do some Sixth Dimension Adventures as individual one-shot fics, including all the characters you wanted to include but just didn't have the space to. You've got some really good characters there, but two giant huge armies hacking at each other all at once is a bit messy, not that it isn't sometimes wonderful to see a whole heap of great characters all together. Most of your characters are perfectly good characters, but you don't have to put them all in this particular fic. Same goes for the canon characters--for example, Brett doesn't have to be much in your fic either; he isn't involved with the CGIs and isn't as close to Mark as Chuck, so a reader can assume he's just busy with something else while your fic's happening without a problem.

I can't give you any solid advice on fleshing out characters, not knowing the circumstances you're working with, but some general advice: rewatch the episodes or reread the transcripts where the characters in question have a reasonably big part, and try to imagine them saying and doing what you write them saying and doing. You can also ask yourself questions about them: what are the three adjectives you think describe them best (eg. kind, brave, emotional)? What's their family life like? If you didn't like some of their behaviour, what do you think they were thinking and feeling when they did it? What were they thinking and feeling at one of their key canon moments? What do they want most to achieve in life? What do they plan to do in the future? What are they like with their friends, their enemies? What sort of person would be their perfect friend/girlfriend/boyfriend? What food best expresses their personality? That sort of thing might help you get a handle on what they're like, and how you want to portray them in your fic.

There's nothing in particular I want to see happen. Keep writing the way you want to write it, and good luck.

Urgh, sarah there are SO things you'd want to see happen, you're just not saying em :P

But anyway, rotgut, Ursula LeGuin (famous fantasy write) once said the following: "A story that has nothing but action and plot is a pretty poor affair; and some great stories have neither. To my mind, plot is merely one way of telling a story, by connecting the happenings tightly, usually though causal chains. Plot is a marvelous device. But it's not superior to story, and not even necessary to it. As for action, indeed a story must move, something must happen; but the action can be nothing more than a letter sent that doesn't arrive, a thought unspoken, the passage of a summer's day. Unceasing violent action is usually a sign that there is, in fact, no story being told"

What Sarah said about character development is important – a lot of very good stories I’ve read in the past aren’t necessarily doom, action and plot all the way through. Certainly you have to have at least some plot running right the way through to tie the whole thing together, but even THAT’S not necessary. Lightninhflash is a great fan of a series called Jane and the Dragonwhich is made up entirely of stand alone episodes.

Ever seen Justice League, rotgut? There’s an episode in the second season called “Comfort and Joy”: most JL episodes are two or three parters spread out, but “comfort and joy” was a Christmas fic and a standalone episode (like many of Ace’s were), and it’s one of the best episodes out there. There was no massive battle – in fact there was hardly even a battle at all.

Flash travelled all the way to Japan trying to find a toy for the kids at the orphanage (and even called a temporary truce with one of his main villains in honour of the season), Green lantern had a power-ring infused snowball fight (that would SO work for Ace, btw :P) Hawkgirl takes green lantern to a bar on a distant planet (her idea of celebrating Christmas, you know?), Superman took a Martian home for Christmas… :P you get the idea. All these little things joined together to make a whole and very entertaining episode which showed some cool character development by telling us ABOUT the characters and just watching them have FUN (well ,except for Green Lantern in the bar). It doesn’t NEED to be action packed to be a good story.

And some of the best fics in our own section on fanfiction.net are like that (you know PWP’s aren’t necessarily graphic NC17) – Sarah Frost’s Halloween Blueswas a very entertaining one shot, even thought there really weren’t any fights or battles to speak of – Mark just took the kids trick or treating and getting a bit paranoid. She also wrote another fic, “Mending” which was set after a battle, and the only REAL action in the story was the fact that thwe character were stitching up damaged clothing after a fight.

Then there’s hyperpsychomaniacs “Kent Brothers” and “Oblivion's a Click Away” which do feature some fighting, but the stories really aren;t about that so much as the relationship between the characters. Xin Fyrrae’s “A Weird Kind of Evil” is brief and amusing, with no fighting, really and Lightningflash’s The Toad Prince is also a one shot (and has been reviewed by someone we believe to be Rick Sigglekow himself :D) And I have to boast a bit here and say that my own fic “Word Games” (where I basically locked Mark and Kat in an elevator for the entirety of the fic), is pretty good too.

See, you don't need action and plot to make a good story, and your series could probably use some more light hearted escapades. Couldn't hurt, right?

Hmmm...some good advise there. I'll take that into account and may make my next series a little light-hearted. Thank you Sarah and Scarab. Superman takes a martian home for Christmas?! :blink:

Oh yes, he does. Well J'onn had nowhere else to go and... was being kinda a grouch, so superman took him home ^^ Mrs Kent gave him a wolly jumper! :D

Also - they used to wrap supermans presents (no, no wait... SANTA used to wrap them) in lead paper so he couldn't peek :P