I like Darkmyst's idea that Snuggly could take several strips to say one thing, and in the meantime keep attacking Dominic like it wasn't talking at all. Yours is good too, mwchase. Let me ponder the theory instead of showing actual creativity.

I think we can all agree that Snuggly should be unfathomable. Right? Bizarre looks and bizarre powers are nothing special, so its biggest selling point is the way it's alien and wrong. The trick with the crystal ball on Monday was actually really cool.

Smugness, pettiness, and conversation are right out, at least at first - the theories about Snuggly growing more human are great. Pure fury, hatred or whatever is also off-limits. It can't be an animal. A big rabid dog may be dangerous, but it's hardly eerie. One of the reasons the final boss of Earthbound (MEGA-SPOILERS IN THE VIDEO) is famously scary is that it's mindless, but not a mindless beast. The player is facing the remnants of a sentient being's destroyed mind, which may briefly seem to make sense but never do. That's how you do wrong.

It needs to do things that are inexplicable, but not lolrandom. Some writers can do this. Stanislaw Lem's Solaris is of course an example. In The Tripods, our alien overlords aren't scary and can be talked with, but there are these little details that I remember fondly. They have only one disease, and the way they talk about it makes it sound more like a sin. One that's captured by The Resistance proves talkative on their city, their goals, their defenses, but says nothing about what looks like a ball game. Similarly Snuggly can be studied, he can be defeated, things about him can be understood, but he must never be comprehended.

I wish I could write like that.

Quote Originally Posted by Darkmyst View Post
The "Mookie Modifier" was meant to imply the traits a strip crafted by Mookie posesses, rather than any attributes of the man himself (To wit, a concept in DD generally appears less intelligent, less likable and more prone to bogging the plot down purely by dint of its source).
I'm sorry.

Once agan, I'm laid low by my misdirected righteousness. Maybe this time I'll learn humility.