Why you should not rule things out arbitrarily

Perhaps you would not have to panic if you did not put so much in your own way!

To give examples of the problems with being arbitrary, I am using my problematic old characters, the Comic Five. They had endless abominations and prohibitions, virtually none of which were things they had ever even tried. And as if the list of abominations was not useless enough already, they never actually wrote it down. (Once I had rules based on what really worked, I made sure to make them properly defined and recorded. 15 rules is still admittedly a lot, but so much fewer than these, and those 15 rules are all set for a reason.)

Abomination: Change

This abomination was perhaps the worst of them all. It caused any number of fun things to be missed, only because they had not been done before, and also meant no abomination could ever be removed from the list.

Abomination: Any parody whose subject or original song is unfamiliar to the readers.

That is called pandering, and it is wrong. One who is good at entertaining should have the time to educate the audience if need be. Besides, I can write a parody for my own amusement. Why not?

Abomination: Allowing anyone other than the Five to take center stage.

A character will never have a chance unless you give them one.

Abomination: Allowing a barnacled mutant to survive.

This not only closed off options relating to said cursed sailors, but it never changed anything, either.

Abomination: Letting a hideous sea creature give his side of the story.

You can see me letting the villain sing. Killing sprees were better than these why, again?

Abomination: Letting anyone tell us otherwise.

This is just pure, unhealthy arrogance.

Abomination: Skipping any of our regular appearances.

Among the main reasons my later characters are an immeasurable improvement over the Five is their realization that going a day, or even a year, out of sight and out of mind is not going to kill them.

Abomination: Romance.

This was based on my own disinterest in romance, but the limits of the creator need not be those of the characters.

Abomination: Expecting us to come up with our own ideas.

If you cannot do it yourself, and it is not because nobody can do it, that raises questions.

Abomination: Introducing a character who does not give us something to do.

Again, spotlight hogs.

Abomination: Empathy or love of any sort.

Hence the callous nature of their parodying, and the fact that they could not have seen the error of their ways with a telescope. They could not know the disservices they did to me or other characters, because they could not know what it was like for everything to be changed about lyrics you love. A video game character can love nothing.

Abomination: Things that Lego characters do not have.

Why? By having the villain not be in a form where he would have no nose anyway, I have been able to ask the funny question of where is your nose? a couple of times.

Abomination: Allowing realism to concern you.

Can be attributed to their hailing from a video game, the sort where, for instance, characters can be up all night with no reason why.

Abomination: Disengaging from a fight.

My going against this abomination has actually made some pretty nice results.

Abomination: Letting barnacled mutants be anywhere out there.

But how nice it is to forget them when you can!

Abomination: Not having blind faith in us.

That is the way of the video game protagonists. No matter what they do, we are assured they are always right, just because the controller in your hand tells them what to do.

Abomination: Ugly looks.

On the one hand, I have to agree this is unpleasant. On the other hand, it does not justify killing.

Abomination: Not doing as we say.

They were the height of hypocrisy, thinking I owed them everything and they owed me nothing. They thought they were above ever owing anyone anything.

Abomination: Anything delicate.

And, of, course, all the individual delicate abominations would stay there even after this one made them redundant.