[0949] - It Is Important To Her, "you understand this crap."

Okay, I admit it. I was one of those who thought Kimiko had gone upstairs to Piro and Largo's apartment. Apparently she saw Piro coming and hid, as some had suggested.

I'm reminded of strip [674] when Junpei was explaining to Largo why magical girls are "As dangerous as most skilled ninja." He went on to say "Ninja live by code of honor. Magical girl live by code of love." Largo and Junpei have a good deal in common. Neither is comfortable in the emotional realm and neither fully understands those who live there. That which is poorly understood is potentially dangerous, which I always thought was the gist of what Junpei was saying. Witness Largo's halting, awkward "There is a woman I am attracted to." [921]. He barely got the words out. Largo recognizes that for all Piro's "mo4ny and w33py, grumpy and wussy" side, he does understand the emotional side of things (and of Ping) better and is better equipped to deal with them.

This post has been edited by 'zilla on Dec 28 2006, 03:50 PM

It makes you wonder... if Ping-chan will end up like Chise from Saikano.

Naaaaah, that's Miho

By the way, a thought that just happened to strike me: given the relationship they are in, wouldn't it be likely for Ping to call Miho "Oneesan"? And for those who are going to reply that this is an american-language comic, I'll say that this is also the first american manga with fake translation notes (the "Konaida domo" thingy....)

Great comic.

Umm doesn't ping usually attack when you ignore her?

Piro should stop staring at kimiko and listen to largo for once he might be crazy but i think he knows what he's talking about.

Emotional purge? would that be like a low level format? or would it be like all the different emotions happening at once?

EDIT: because i suck at spelling

This post has been edited by DylanTweekes on Dec 28 2006, 03:48 PM

Word of the day. Catharsis.

I was starting to think no-one would notice this, but way at the bottom of the page I see a comment by Zahooee.

Cartharsis is refered to in art very often and it's always, so far as I've been able to tell, a good thing. A good artist, be it writer, singer, actor, whatever, is one that makes the audience experience catharsis. I was starting to think there were no artists on this forum. If your an artist, you need to learn this word.

Piro should understand this, that emotional purging is a natural, good, thing that resolves conflicts within ourselves. Her crying is good and normal. Nothing is wrong with Ping.

The problem is making Largo understand that purge and error aren't necessarily bad things when it comes to emotions. Many physical expressions of emotion, screaming (fear) crying (sadness, fear, anger) and laughter (joy, confusion) are results of some kind of inner conflict. You were expecting one thing, but got another. I.e. you experienced an error and your purged the emotion and relieved the tension so you can get on with your life.

It's catharsis that keeps us from holding grudges for every single wrong that was ever done to us, being sad all the time, being angry all the time, being happy all the time. etc..

This post has been edited by infidel on Dec 28 2006, 04:15 PM

Thank you! I couldn't remember the term! It's been so long since I used it for my essays in Creative Writing - I had almost entirely forgotten it.

I'm probably just taking this for face value, but my opinion is similar to infidel's. I think Largo is overreacting. It's already established that Largo has... issues, I guess, when it comes to emotions. I think he's reading her sudden "purge" as an error or possible crash when it's just a normal, emotional reaction. (Well, as normal as an EDS' programmed emotional reactions can be.) I just couldn't remember the exact word for it. And there it is - Catharsis.

I studied it in my Creative Writing class by using it in a short scene (one actually kind of similar to this one). One character believes her best friend is having an "emotional breakdown" when all it happens to be is a release.

However, something I found interesting about the definition infidel posted:

Anyone else hoping Piro has one of these?

This post has been edited by Wedge McCloud on Dec 28 2006, 04:30 PM

o..........snap.....XD


Nice one fred. Was worth the Wait.

It's going to take a lot more than a moment of expression to free MT characters of their issues.

What, a consciousness?

As for a 'Primal Scream', Ping could probably control her voice enough to shatter panes of glass and destabilise bowels for a few miles in all directions.

And as for Ping having an 'Emotional' OS... Does that mean she's running on Windows ME?

Noooooooooooo! what is Largo "doing wrong"? I don't want to see Ping burst into flames! Piro, tell Largo to back off.

Maybe Miho can come and download some seduction routines for Ping...

I heard something about this a while back. The general theory is that the victim's memories and emotions are wiped clean. After that they are implanted with new ones, ones that can controll them. They become a kind of living doll.

If it happens to ping, I hope she recovers her lost data. I just want to see her chase Largo with a telephone pole again.

mostlyharmless, I half agree. No F1R3, as much as it pains me to say it, and none of that programming either. Piro's life is complicated enough!

'tain't necessarily so. She headed off in the direction of the rest of the shop, including the second floor access and staff rest area. No Piro, so sher returns.

I'm not sure either way, and I don't think it's too important. We know that she had steeled herself up to see Piro, but was dreading it. If it was another delaying tactic, thet's not giving us anything new.

---


Of course, it was never going to come down to a simple KxP conversation, was it? Fred weaves the threads together very nicely here.

---

I tend to think the "Emotional Purge" is under way - the crying at school, the outburst with Kimi - Ping is clearly "upset". It may well be, though that meddling by Ed or Miho, and/or the EMP have interfered with the process and it hasn't had the desired effect.

The "end user" question is an interesting one. It should be Piro, unless Miho has subverted that, and I don't think that would fit with her intentions at that time. If KxP reaches some sort of resolution, that should help Ping, too.

---

My suspicion is that Piro has reached "@@@@ it" point, and will play the upcoming conversation pretty much straight. Of course with 2 languages and lots of subtext, there's still plenty of room for error.

How far down the line are we going to get before Erika shows up to drag Largo off to dinner? That could throw yet another spanner in the works.

Everything is nicely off-balance at the moment - I love it!

Perhaps Largo's "You understand this cr4p" is partly a P.C. gamer v.s. console gamer quip. Largo knows l33t computers not gaming consoles, or console accessories (like Ping).

Great comic as usual Fred. Can hardly wait to see how this all shakes out.

Largo's difficulty in understanding the "emotional purge" is tied up with the fact that he can't actually understand what Ping is saying. All he hears is, "lalalalakakak [something Piro calls me] dadatsu [something I heard on the import of SFAlpha2]," which is not very useful in determining if an unknown process is running. Even with Largo's level of emotional development (as demonstrated with Erika and his Endgames flashbacks), one could tell that Ping is trying to have a good cry to let it all out IF she wasn't speaking an indecipherable language that could just as well be white noise coming off a system crash.

So let up on the dude. It's hard being all sympathetic (and it looks like EDSs need therapy to be covered under their warranty) when you have no idea what the chick is talking about. I've done it, and its tricky to say the least.

And as for the Emoko stuff, its really a product of the day-to-day progression of the story, stretching out the character growth well beyond human patience in a RL relationship (two MT days=rapid and dynamic; 6 months of RL reading=painful). So we are doing our best. You make it hard on us, with characters we actually care about and want to see happy and not miserably broken i.e. we want to have the whole story. When we go back and reread, and buy the book, it won't be there. And it won't be on the forum, either. I guess this is why people shouldn't read their own forums

Frankly, once I started hearing, "Emoko" bandied about, my frustration as a reader faded. It's cathartic. Oh, the irony.

This post has been edited by Clementx on Dec 28 2006, 08:08 PM

So now's the time for Piro to display his leet dating sim skills in 'real life' so to speak, but not the 'full monty' with a real girl, just with a machined girl programmed to respond perfectly to his leet dating sim skills.

What more could he ask for to suddenly actually appear cool for once? Jump in Piro!

aaah AAAAH!! Romantic awkward meets! Or not so awkward, how i adore these! More more! *falls in love*

Catharsis is a good word. It's definately part of my lexicon. Katabasis is another good one. You could say i'm a fan of these terms.

fredrin

edit: yknow, now that i think about it, the greeks were pretty Emo, weren't they?

Greeks were writing sad poetry before Fall Out Boy was cool...

Um. Anyway. I hope Piro and Kimiko finally talk. If one of them decides to duck out, I'ma coming for you, Fred.

Yes. Everything was "Oh woe is me! I am accursed by fate! My life is horrible!" followed by murder or suicide or self-mutilation or something along those lines. Plus the occasional divine intervention just to complicate things further.

At last the meeting of the two. But how will it turn out? Only time will tell.

I really like the idea suggested by some posters (which is probably the exact opposite of where Fred is going, but hey, that's what we do here) that Ping is really not too badly damaged, although Largo does not yet know this. The EMP caused by Ed's weapon just temporarily destabilized her emotional factors, creating a need for an emotion purge. When Piro figures this out and tells Ping that a fairly simple reset (foreshadowed long ago, as others have noted) will let her start over, he will be unconsciously (or maybe even consciously) sending a similar message to Kimiko: I'll forgive last night if you will. Of course, we're probably in for a few dozen more misunderstandings before anything like that happens, but we do seem to be headed in the right general direction; at least they're not running away from each other at the moment.

This post has been edited by Greybeard on Dec 28 2006, 09:28 PM

So...let me get this straight...

Ping undergoes an emotional catharsis.

Kimiko reaches an epiphany of sorts following a possible catharsis of her own.

Piro suffers a possible hallucination between a night of tribulation and a morning of disorientation.

Largo proffers a morning of diversion followed by instruction, interrupted by destruction and general mayhem, trailed by investigation and attempts at restoration.

Yuki receives an astonishing revelation resulting in an precarious predicament.

Miho exposes a fraction of her enigma while vanquishing a treacherous adversary and coercing another into stupendous feats.

Ed was once again disintegrated.

So who suffered the Katabasis?

Oh yeah...that was us...

The Underworld was never quite this fun before, though...

Not at all. The katabasis was Piro in the subway.

I don't think that the emotional purge is going to happen.
it is equivalent to 'saving every five minutes' and results in no growth for the character.

So, I suspect that Ping will get to work through this, which is what will be necessary to stop being someone else's fantasy.

I suspect that Piro will prevent Largo from resetting her emotions, and will support Ping's working through the emotions and learning from them.

This will indicate to Kimiko that Piro has learned that being honest in the moment, and working out the wrinkles is better than fantasy... you get to be real.

Good word! Though using such a term in this context..