Well, my blog post for this week also fell through. I suppose I will need to post the last 2 blog posts myself. So, I am opening the floor for anyone who would like to whip up a blog post and post it here for us to edit quickly. We will feature your post today in place of the article that was scheduled.

I will move the other two articles to the next schedule and post them myself, if need be.

Sorry, guys.

*rubs forehead and wonders if she can scrounge something up before dinner*

The post on the 23rd is my responsibility, I believe, so all you have to worry about is next week. Were the contest winners going on the ordinary schedule or running as specials?

*ponders possible post topics*

Yeah, the schedule works great unless members don't get their pms. That's when things can fall through. Oh well.

Yes, you have the system down pat, Katie, so I'm not worried about you at all. If another week falls through, I will probably use one of the two I'm now holding.

They are in the schedule, as opposed to specials, actually.

I'll see if I can whip something up, but I'm busy today, so I dunno...

I'll try my best.

Here's something I put together. I had been meaning to write an article about this, and praise God, the idea finally snapped today. Let me know if it works and I'll post it this evening.

***
3 PG Ways to Get Rid of Bad Guys
Bad guys – can’t live with ‘em, can’t write a story without them! Most stories have a main antagonist, a head bad guy to lead the minions on their dastardly mission; this is especially true of classic fantasy, which often features an evil overlord bent on lording over the world with evil.

As his name implies, this antagonist opposes the quest of his polar opposite, the protagonist. As such, it is usually necessary during the course of the story to dispose of this bad guy so that he can no longer interfere with the triumph of good. (Generally the minions aren’t a problem – if any of them live to the climax, they usually surrender or convert following the defeat of their leader.)

While occasionally it is convenient to lock the antagonist in jail, it is often necessary to imply the bad guy’s death and officially remove him from the picture. This ensures that he won’t continue to cause trouble for our protagonists. (Unless, of course, the author writes a sequel, in which case the bad guy can often be creatively resurrected.)

Unfortunately, such termination isn’t as easy as it sounds. There are a myriad of ways to dispose of characters, but many of them are just too gruesome, especially for family-friendly movies. Therefore, it becomes necessary to remove the bad guy in a clean, safe way.

Thankfully, Hollywood has addressed this problem nicely. Thanks to watching a lot of family-friendly movies, I have come up with three G- and PG-rated ways to kill bad guys. These methods have been tried and proven successful on countless antagonists, so they are fail proof (while still allowing for resurrection for sequels in some cases). If you’re having trouble getting rid of your bad guy, try one of these tactics – they’re guaranteed to bloodlessly wipe the antagonist from the picture.

1 – Have your bad guy fall from a height. This is tactic works wonderfully because you never see the death; the bad guy simply plummets out of sight. It works especially well if you have the bad guy fall because of his own foolishness (rather than being pushed); it leaves the audience with a good moral. (Plus it takes the pressure off the protagonist if he happens to be unconscious or wounded at the moment.) Any height will work – a castle (Beauty and the Beast), a cathedral (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), an airship (Up), a mountain (Snow White). Bonus – all these locations make for epic settings for the climatic final battle.

2 – Have your bad guy get eaten. Why kill a bad guy when something large and hungry will gladly take care of him for you? It doesn’t matter whether it is realistic (like a grasshopper getting eaten by a bird – A Bug’s Life) or fantastical (a mayor getting cornered by a giant mole – City of Ember); nobody seems to be bothered by the idea of a bad guy becoming lunch as long as the camera tactfully turns away. Sometimes you can even play it up that the bad guy’s own henchmen take him down (The Lion King). Just be careful; you have to make sure that whatever ate your bad guy doesn’t eat your good guy as well, so don’t leave anybody important unattended during this sequence.

3 – Have your bad guy explode in flashy-color-magical-things. If you must kill a bad guy on-screen, having them disintegrate into sparkles or light waves is much preferred over more realistic effects. Unfortunately, to pull this off you usually need the assistance of magic or mysticism. This works great if your bad guy is a wizard (especially one that is currently taking the form of a ferocious beast) – just stab him and his powers will melt (The Swan Princess, Sleeping Beauty). Otherwise, you might have to resort to your good guy pulling some weird secret move that will cause the bad guy to vanish in a blinding wave of special effects (Kung Fu Panda). It’s worth noting that this disintegration doesn’t always have to be colorful; some bad guys are so old when they die that they apparently simply crumble into dust (Tangled).

I hope these safe and family-friendly methods have given you a few ideas. Remember, if writers were able to successfully defeat villains like Gaston and Scar, so can you. There’s no writing problem that a few movie tropes can’t fix. After all, if Hollywood has done it a hundred times, it must work well, right?

*laughs out loud* That's brilliant, Aubrey. Absolutely brilliant. And I didn't detect a single spelling or grammatical error, so I think you're good to go.

Looks good.

*grins* Thank you muchly, Katie. I was going for the typical snarky-humor I usually use on my blog.

Well, if Jonathan didn't find any errors, than it must be good! He's my usual typo-catcher for blog posts.

*waits for Airianna's final approval* I'll post this when I come back in an hour or two. Will dig up some suitable screenshots to go with.

*goes ahead and publishes* Sorry I don't have time to announce it myself. http://www.holyworlds.org/blog/?p=717

Thank you, Aubrey. I'll announce it.

Looks awesome. Thaks, you guys, for helping get this taken care of today.

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