Declining Expectations

Declining Expectations was a short-lived comic series made by Dokuma using Xaniskit V1, only lasting for five comics. It was a spoof Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, telling the story of the orphan boy Dokuma, the mysterious fortune which falls into his lap, his snobbish rejection of his old friends, and his growth through pain and mishap into true maturity.
==Plot==
The plot of Declining Expectations was intended to spoof Great Expectations almost scene-for-scene.
After the first comic, an Introduction Comic, the scene moves to Dokuma standing alone in his house at night singing a Rascal Flatts song, when he is yelled at by his sister Mrs. Jo. He decides to go for a stroll in the Lent Marshes, and comes across a convict, who demands Dokuma fetch him an air katana so he can saw off the ball and chain attached to his ankle. He insults Dokuma in an obvious reference to Napoleon Dynamite.
Meanwhile, Dokuma's brother-in-law Ninjoe stumps Mrs. Jo with the paradox, "This statement is false."
The convict acquires an air katana and begins to slash the chain, but with no success. He instead asks for a file, a more conventional real-world object used for sawing prisoners' chains, and a reference to the fact that the convict in Great Expectations actually asked for a file.
It is at this point that Dokuma stopped updating the comic series. This was due in part to his feeling that Xanis' kit was too time-consuming, as at that point in time the kit featured virtually no premade poses.
==Style==
Notable for being made with Xaniskit V1, Declining Expectations combined seriousness and random comedy, though seemed to focus more on the latter with one comic being only 4 panels ending with a random nuclear explosion. Each comic also featured an extra joke from a talking Miru meant to represent Dokuma's head placed above the comic panels next to the title.
==Characters and their equivalents in Great Expectations==
Spoof 	Original
Doklip Umaripp (Dokuma) 	Pip
Mrs. Jo, Dokuma's sister 	Mrs. Joe, Pip's sister
Ninjoe (Ninjo) 	Joe Gargery
Rahi Zaku, a convict originally found in the "Lent Marshes"	Magwitch, a convict originally found in the Kent Marshes
==Trivia==
Mrs. Jo's name is not a typo for "Mrs. Joe," but intentional. The character was designed by a young woman named Lisa, whose nickname is Jo, to represent herself. Jo is the sister of "Inika Dutchess," a BZPower member and one-time spammer who is actually good friends with Dokuma in real life. Jo originally named the orange-Pakari-wearing black and white character "Debbie," but she was adapted into the series bearing Jo's name instead.
== Links ==
*Declining Expectations at Dokuma's Brickshelf
*Character Sheet
Category:Comics
Category:Abandoned Series
Category:Parodies