[1509] - "the floor is lava"

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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by cidjen » Tue Jan 30, 2018 10:21 am

Initial B wrote:
Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:02 am
When I was a twenty-something, I never let my emotions run over logic.
How do I write this :) 'cos I was 20-something too, 19-something years ago ;)....

So please apply a grand dose of humour and self-conscience to the below, I write this in as friendly tone as I can express myself in text:

You should ask your parents/guardians, and/or your partner at the time, and/or your older responsible related adults, whether they had the same feelings about you at the time :)
Yes, I probably repressed a lot but I had my own code to follow. I'm pretty sure Piro does here as well and I think he will hold himself in check because that's just in his nature.
Kimiko, on the other hand, seems to be intent on having some fun. However, I think she might be looking at more of a playful kind of fun than sexual. I wonder if she's forgotten she's not wearing pants. Her actions remind me of those times when you were a kid and would make up scenarios with your friends and act them out on the playground or in the park.
She's probably twenty-something too, isthatright ;)

One thing I'm noticing is that Seraphim hasn't been on Piro's shoulder lately. Is that indicative of her trusting that he'll make the right decisions, or that he's internalized/stabilized his own moral code?
Better late, than too late ;)
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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by darrin » Tue Jan 30, 2018 11:56 am

NinjaDefenestrator wrote:
Mon Jan 29, 2018 8:10 pm
Darrin, Yuki has confirmed repeatedly through her magical girl powers that Piro and Miho are still in love.
Yes, Yuki figured prominently in the subsequent discussion toward the end of the 1504 thread. Don't get me wrong, Yuki is awesome, she and Yutaka are far and away my favorites out of the whole MegaTokyo crew; but as I said there, I have enough nagging doubts regarding her reliability on this subject that I'm not willing to consider it 100% established (yet).

Piro in the bathhouse, true he is paying attention to her as you say, but my feeling (again I said this somewhere in the 1504 thread) he looks more pissed off and exasperated than anything else; I don't at all get the vibe that this is a guy sitting next to the (again, naked) woman that he "loves".

(A very strong and well-supported post by the way; please don't interpret my shortish quoting and response above as dismissive, just trying to stay focused (and avoid too much repetition of my own walls-o'-text :().)
Last edited by darrin on Tue Jan 30, 2018 6:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by DracMonster » Tue Jan 30, 2018 1:48 pm

I tend to agree with Darren. I think the purpose of the Miho arc was to let Piro resolve things and move on.

It's not impossible that he has some residual feelings left (relationships and breakups are messy,) but he mostly struck me as wanting to get past this.

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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by Invisigoth » Tue Jan 30, 2018 2:23 pm

This is all a setup for Piro x Megumi and their eventual move up to the Sawatari clan's brothel where they will take jobs managing things....

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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by iffy » Tue Jan 30, 2018 6:58 pm

Given how young many people in MT appear, our decades or centuries old Irish goddess, or mistaking Meimi for Yuki, and the like. Many of us including myself are tending to believe that's Junpei's grandmother, as he mentioned in 1471, but quite a bit more helpful than teasing him. Like with Meimi a lot of an act seems to be there with this one, although sure nobody can compare to Miho being or becoming most whatever anyone wants Miho to be. So who knows, but we might put the odds pretty high.

Oh, walking into the lava room, yes. Piro is focused on practical matters to a fault, or it makes a great way to hide from facing what's new and uncomfortable. Either way he's also being to more than a fault gentlemanly, demure, chivalrous, non-threatening, reactive, diplomatic, non-harassing, tepid, and whatever else. He certainly doesn't want to be too forward or pushy with Kimiko or take her for granted, right not easy, but he seems to be way overcompensating too. Or at least that's how he seems to be acting. To do things right, to not assume more than he should -- to a point far beyond what anyone might think normal. Kimiko can push people away, or smother them too, but it doesn't seem so here, almost like she realizes he is being 'too nice'. That it's not a case of what most people might think it is, that it isn't that he's not interested but more than interested. Yet still he is more treating her like she's his sister and a nun and some mythical untouchable chaste virgin goddess something. So she jumps on him when he starts his crazy 'I'll get you some clothes' talk. Just like she started snuggling with him in the car, which seriously nobody is that oblivious. Especially not with somebody that's supposed to be his girlfriend, and while they're alone in a room at love hotel. Sure, anything is possible, potentially, until it happens. This is past being just philosophical and metaphysical.

Just recently, besides the earlier less direct things that have been going on for days, Kimiko proclaims her love, flashes him, kisses him, whispers to him. He carries her around, they get in a car, she crawls on him, they go into the room. And he's talking about getting her new clothes? No wonder Megumi just gave up and walked off. This also seems to be the sort of ultra cautious aren't even paying attention to yourself behavior Miho is thinking of in 1121 and is particularly mentioned in 1278. How to fix that, maybe Kimiko has an idea.... One that Miho wouldn't even bother trying, and hasn't, why, there is nothing there. Apparently.

Of course we don't know what Piro is thinking or wants, not any more than stating personal subjective guesses as fact. We don't know for sure what Kimiko thinks about him or Miho. Miho, who must we remind everyone, they both Piro and Kimiko as a team rescued from how the story is supposed to end. Actually, more than once they've done so, twice in a row so far.

One thing is more certain though. Piro has not been treating Miho anything like he's been treating Kimiko. With Miho he is and has been hostile, annoyed, blunt, direct, and almost totally unconcerned or shy or award about bathing, discussing their past online (chat or Endgames), being alone with her. Piro treats Miho like a friend or a pet or an equal or an enemy, but in no way like he is, or ever has been, in actual love with her. At times it's even uncertain there was any lust going on. And who knows what was irreparably destroyed when Miho dumped him unceremoniously online by words and pictures that the illusion was a guy pwning her, no matter how much her seduction-tricking some schoolkid's clothes off of him annoyed him. Aside from wisps of misremembered nostalgia, with the reality more revolving around feelings of failure and betrayal, with somebody he never met and he might consider never existed to begin with. This now isn't what was then, which before was lie and now is confusion, including his perceptions and feelings about it - which we might say are unclear at best. Piro in love with Miho - this Miho, here, now, in the physical, seems highly unlikely. If he ever was with the illusion is more possible, yet still doubtful. That he doesn't seem too enthralled with Kimiko is also true, but the two (how he thinks of Miho versus how he thinks of Kimiko) really have no bearing upon each other, they are not mutually exclusive or contradictory. It is however pretty clear he treats them very differently when interacting with them. Whatever that too might mean.

Whatever Yuki believes, that's also another matter. She's a teenage girl who until recently didn't fully know her own emotions, even after her mother helps figure some of them out was still lacking. She doesn't have any experience with such things, and can't probably properly read whatever information she's getting from the mess in the chats and the current data of Piro's behaviors and Miho's powers. When it comes to that, sure maybe she's quite at the end-of-the-subconscious luckily-correct about aspects of Miho and Piro, or as far as we know she's reading Pirogoeth and the Pirogoeth/Moh child mother-son/daughter instead. Regardless of how close or far she is on any given matter, Yuki's understanding of bits and pieces is hardly a reliable source of information. Just like what Kimiko thinks of what she did to Miho, Kimiko has no context and isn't aware of what she doesn't know anything about. Which that missing part is large, in Kimiko's case it's almost everything that happened all day long to everyone that's not herself. Which aside from Miho and Piro (in different ways) the only people who know most everything that happened is us.

Which then, Kimiko no more almost killed Miho by pushing her into a door than Piro almost killed Miho by after that asking her questions, or even that the ninja girl almost kills Miho in 1484 huf huf huf huf. If anything almost killed Miho, it was the story trying to make her do what she had to. To the point where her perfectly fine heart looks like it needs a pacemaker that doctors dutifully put in. Yet the truth is more difficult than it might seem, as nobody here at all knows if Miho is killable or can die at all to begin with. There's a 100% lack of experience with Analogues, the real thing, and sources of powerful stories among the viewing audience.

Although whatever gets perceived out of story comic is valid for each observer, regardless if it turns in the future to be factually correct or incorrect. They're still not facts as long as they remain perceptions.

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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by Mightion » Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:17 pm

Me, I just hope Piro can loosen up and actually ENJOY something. I can't remember the last time we saw Piro do something for just pure FUN. (Harvest Moon: Dust Bowl doesn't count because all his animals died. His little dog, too.)

Also, the hopeless romantic in me would be very disappointed if he pushes Kimiko away or manages to squash her... enthusiasm right now.

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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by Roamer » Wed Jan 31, 2018 3:01 am

iffy wrote:
Tue Jan 30, 2018 6:58 pm
One thing is more certain though. Piro has not been treating Miho anything like he's been treating Kimiko. With Miho he is and has been hostile, annoyed, blunt, direct, and almost totally unconcerned or shy or award about bathing, discussing their past online (chat or Endgames), being alone with her. Piro treats Miho like a friend or a pet or an equal or an enemy, but in no way like he is, or ever has been, in actual love with her. At times it's even uncertain there was any lust going on. And who knows what was irreparably destroyed when Miho dumped him unceremoniously online by words and pictures that the illusion was a guy pwning her, no matter how much her seduction-tricking some schoolkid's clothes off of him annoyed him. Aside from wisps of misremembered nostalgia, with the reality more revolving around feelings of failure and betrayal, with somebody he never met and he might consider never existed to begin with. This now isn't what was then, which before was lie and now is confusion, including his perceptions and feelings about it - which we might say are unclear at best. Piro in love with Miho - this Miho, here, now, in the physical, seems highly unlikely. If he ever was with the illusion is more possible, yet still doubtful. That he doesn't seem too enthralled with Kimiko is also true, but the two (how he thinks of Miho versus how he thinks of Kimiko) really have no bearing upon each other, they are not mutually exclusive or contradictory. It is however pretty clear he treats them very differently when interacting with them. Whatever that too might mean.
I don't know. To me, Piro and Miho interacting sound like what they are - a couple experienced with each other, who do the things that most couples do. Get angry, fight, hurt each other - and help each other, even to the point of saving one another.

I'm not saying Piro's in love with Miho - in fact, I'm increasingly convinced he's not in love with either of them - yet. Yes, he kissed Kimiko when she was lying on top of him in the car. This only proves he's a)Male, and b)Not dead. What he is right now is confused. He's been avoiding this decision - this choice - ever since he found out who Miho was. It's about to come to a head, and he's going to have to decide if his future lies with either of them.

I'd love to see a poll in the forum to see what everyone thinks (including a couple of people from the old forum I haven't seen here yet, especially our favorite Miho hater...)

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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by Roamer » Wed Jan 31, 2018 3:05 am

Invisigoth wrote:
Tue Jan 30, 2018 2:23 pm
This is all a setup for Piro x Megumi and their eventual move up to the Sawatari clan's brothel where they will take jobs managing things....
I would love to see Megumi catch somebody's eye. My interest in her took a serious upswing at her willingness to help Piro and Kimiko and the fearless way she handled that car. And then crumpled when she realized that Junpei simply didn't have eyes for her. Tough, but fragile.

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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by Teddy-Werebear » Wed Jan 31, 2018 4:55 am

Initial B wrote:
Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:02 am
One thing I'm noticing is that Seraphim hasn't been on Piro's shoulder lately. Is that indicative of her trusting that he'll make the right decisions, or that he's internalized/stabilized his own moral code?
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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by cidjen » Wed Jan 31, 2018 6:11 am

iffy wrote:
Tue Jan 30, 2018 6:58 pm

One thing is more certain though. Piro has not been treating Miho anything like he's been treating Kimiko. With Miho he is and has been hostile, annoyed, blunt, direct, and almost totally unconcerned or shy or award about bathing, discussing their past online (chat or Endgames), being alone with her. Piro treats Miho like a friend or a pet or an equal or an enemy, but in no way like he is, or ever has been, in actual love with her. At times it's even uncertain there was any lust going on. And who knows what was irreparably destroyed when Miho dumped him unceremoniously online by words and pictures that the illusion was a guy pwning her, no matter how much her seduction-tricking some schoolkid's clothes off of him annoyed him. Aside from wisps of misremembered nostalgia, with the reality more revolving around feelings of failure and betrayal, with somebody he never met and he might consider never existed to begin with. This now isn't what was then, which before was lie and now is confusion, including his perceptions and feelings about it - which we might say are unclear at best. Piro in love with Miho - this Miho, here, now, in the physical, seems highly unlikely.
You seem to be treating the situation described above as x-or... either that, or the other, no middle-ground... I think, for various reasons, it's more fair to treat their history as if the feeling was at some point mutual... and having elements of all of the above...

While claims of this being a long-distance sex-pic sending relationship (with Miho posing as a fragile teenager, to what she probably realized later, was a just-out-of-college young adult) might be exaggerated, i still like to take Piro's word for /why/ he started talking, stalking her - she said she was sick and everyone around her was treating her as if she was dying. He started it, because she said so. So although can't rule that completely out, it ultimately did turn into something 'deeper than just trashy pr0n game'.

Then, there is the case of how she decided to end it two comic years before... as to why, she didn't reveal yet - there is speculation going on that he may have tried to arrange travel to meet her then - he would have met the Horde earlier, making himself a target; she did not want that fate for him, for it'll be same as what happened to people that she loved... (the pirates/smugglers she lived, prospered and loved with, were killed because they loved her) (EDIT : zonk'd the legal part that @Paarfi told me to zonk, amazingly this actually still makes sense)

Sadly Miho misjudged the force of the blow she treated Piro with, 2 years ago... it must have been nuclear... not only did she wipe out whatever feeling he had for her, but also damaged his self esteem... he's held up to her pictures and the chat logs for two years, carrying them around even on a dead laptop, ffs... he totally has not put it behind him, as he claims...

And then, there were the taunts she landed on him, when he landed in Japan by his own misdemeanor... leaving him stupefied as she revealed herself to be a girl after all, then casually entwining the 'do you still love me' or 'good lover knows when to shut up' phrases, stupefying him as if she was thinking two steps ahead of him, questioning his judgement on Ping and so on. Can we even rule out, that she actually wanted to damage him even more when she saw him in t3h fl35h, make him want to 'go away' back to the USA as quick as possible ? I can't say for sure. To me it does look like that.

This is what I think, Miho seems to misunderstand why Piro loved her (she thinks, that everyone, without exceptions, only love her story BECAUSE she was a miserable character, that suffers and dies), however, I can't say that she hasn't been changing her mind recently - it starts looking like she pretty obviously IS (she seems to be genuinely miserable, when she describes to Kimiko what happens to people she loves, in /her/ story - if that is not a love confession, there are other signs (e.g. Miho's monologue in the class before they start passing notes) that she does not want to happen to him, what is going to [she thinks must] happen to her.
If THAT is not a clear enough signal that she loved Piro then (remember she only just started to let it be more apparent after the Megagamers flat conversation/fight) - the hints and emotions are the size of commuter trains here. There is also the case of the sad little polygon bump, that Piro's character ended up with, and Miho's reaction to that news. She was understandably shocked...

But now, looks like Kimiko has not just herself she wants to 'emboss' on him, but also that Piro would be getting the Lockart job. Or at least be a 'monkey boy' to one of the 'real' graphic designers. So, it looks like he would be there to stay at least that long.

Kimiko, who, we remember, he's not comfortable with, seeing him damaged and/or weak, that actually managed to make him gather his balls together and rebuild his self-esteem somewhat; he seems to be less of a mop, especially after they made up after Anna Millers, and after the Animate event, right ?

Kimiko may be trying to cheer Piro up (she certainly has cheered up herself: after all, she can not be accused of being the culpable cause of Miho's death any more) and find some more happiness for him and herself.

In doing this, Kimiko actually puts herself in Miho's path... but also with K+P working on Sight, they could totally change the story, so that the Horde could stop Miho from 'dying young', instead of repeatedly lusting and causing her death.

(edit) there is also the 'slight' issue of Dom now funding Sight project... wonder if he does this on his own behalf or is backed by Sega ? Having done that, he actually 'owns' Kimiko now, something he could not achieve by threats and woo-ing before...

But what happens when Piro finally gets the money required to fly back to the USA? (presumably after finishing the Sight project?) Where would that leave him, Kimiko and Miho ? Impending doom...
Last edited by cidjen on Wed Jan 31, 2018 11:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by garapagosu » Wed Jan 31, 2018 9:04 am

"Clothes? Where we're going we won't need clothes."
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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by paarfi » Wed Jan 31, 2018 10:43 am

cidjen wrote:
Wed Jan 31, 2018 6:11 am
Miho as legally underage
I'm going to try to head this off. Please, please, I'm begging all of y'all, no discussion of age of consent laws in japan. We've been through this here umpteen times before and it never ends well. Don't make me turn Tangent's orbital laser on anyone.
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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by cidjen » Wed Jan 31, 2018 11:11 am

paarfi wrote:
Wed Jan 31, 2018 10:43 am
cidjen wrote:
Wed Jan 31, 2018 6:11 am
Miho as legally underage
I'm going to try to head this off. Please, please, I'm begging all of y'all, no discussion of age of consent laws in japan. We've been through this here umpteen times before and it never ends well. Don't make me turn Tangent's orbital laser on anyone.
OK will edit this out, sry.
EDIT: I zonked that part, and ... wow it still sort-of makes sense...
EDIT2 : I even incorporated a new explanation into the fanfic :) came out pretty nice
Last edited by cidjen on Thu Feb 01, 2018 10:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by paarfi » Wed Jan 31, 2018 11:26 am

cidjen wrote:
Wed Jan 31, 2018 11:11 am
paarfi wrote:
Wed Jan 31, 2018 10:43 am
cidjen wrote:
Wed Jan 31, 2018 6:11 am
Miho as legally underage
I'm going to try to head this off. Please, please, I'm begging all of y'all, no discussion of age of consent laws in japan. We've been through this here umpteen times before and it never ends well. Don't make me turn Tangent's orbital laser on anyone.
OK will edit this out, sry.
EDIT: I zonked that part, and ... wow it still sort-of makes sense...
You didn't need to edit it out. You're new here and you didn't know. It's ok. I'm just trying to head off the spiral of doom that so often follows.

*fiddles around with the orbital laser controls and tries to figure out how Tangent used this thing*
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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by cidjen » Wed Jan 31, 2018 12:10 pm

paarfi wrote:
Wed Jan 31, 2018 11:26 am
You're new here and you didn't know. It's ok. I'm just trying to head off the spiral of doom that so often follows.

*fiddles around with the orbital laser controls and tries to figure out how Tangent used this thing*
I used this construct before in another and I wasn't caught (by a mod) doing that ;) so I'm no innocent :J
we don't need no downward spirals in SD, heh :)

*trips on the orbital laser fuse* owww...
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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by MoneyMan » Wed Jan 31, 2018 12:51 pm

Oh, hey I see the problem, it's not plugged in properly.

CLUNK

There that should be...

... uhoh.

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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by darrin » Wed Jan 31, 2018 1:54 pm

Roamer wrote:
Wed Jan 31, 2018 3:01 am
I'm not saying Piro's in love with Miho [...] What he is right now is confused. He's been avoiding this decision - this choice - ever since he found out who Miho was.
From what I can see Piro made his choice a long time ago, but circumstances keep dragging him back and rubbing his face in it.

706. He's not angry at the woman he "loves" having a spat with his friend, he is furious; uncharacteristically so with respect to "he-can-take-care-of-hiimself" Largo. We literally see Largo set himself on fire early in the comic, and Piro shrugs it off as business as usual. Here he lashes out without even bothering to find out what actually happened. Reading it now so long after the first time I saw it, his "Do you even care?" comes across as something he's been waiting to ask her for a long time, and is directed at much more than her antics with Largo.

1152, panel 6. Piro isn't reacting to someone sharing his concern for the woman he "loves", he's seriously angry, on the verge of blowing up despite Ping's imploring him not to "again"; he only manages to bottle that anger back in because of the look from Kimiko, but this is clearly not a subject he wants to hear about, let alone participate in.

1275. He's not flustered because the woman he "loves" has shown up on his doorstep, he wants her gone, RFN.

1277. By now he's managed to get his rage under control, but he makes the reason for it clear (and strongly suggests the real reason for the pent-up "[Did] you even care?" that burst out back in the Cave). "You... laughed at me." Expanded further in 1280: "I thought I understood you back then. And then... then... I haven't understood anything since then."

1324. Yes, yes, he's only "joking" when he voices his desire to strangle her. It's enough to give Seraphim the willies though. And after a huge buildup from Miho promising to tell him what he wants to know about her, she actually tells him... pretty much nothing at all. (It's not just Yuki and Yutaka interrupting them either; she was wrapping things up and suggesting they leave before those two made themselves known.) He wants to strangle her specifically because he strongly suspects that nothing has changed: she is still just messing with him. Now maybe she is telling the truth, and maybe she really needs his help, but he is putting real effort into mentally preparing himself for that to be yet another lie, that he's being played yet again.

1216 is the money shot for me though. He explicitly says that whoever he thought he was in love with at the time, that "girl doesn't exist", she was "never" real. Miho is not the girl he was in love with, Miho is the "jerk" that took his feelings and made a mockery of them. (Yes, Miho may have been doing this all to save Piro's life; I am willing to believe she was being honest with Kimiko, that "people who love her die." But Piro doesn't know any of that yet, and Miho apparently changed her mind at the bathhouse about telling him anything about it. Learning all that (and understanding and believing it, even bigger hurdles) might help him rebuild some burnt bridges, but it would be a much longer and rockier journey from that to anything like the love he thought he felt back then.)
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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by cidjen » Wed Jan 31, 2018 4:08 pm

I do not disagree with that it happened - my point is more about finding 'why' all of this had to happen;

So the explanation I thought about, that's turned taboo now, is extremely caustic and playing on the lowest levels. And we don't want that
A better one and equally powerful, is that Miho did not want Piro to be exposed to the Horde two years ago; He'd have probably pretty much instantly become one of the 'undead', given his state of mind (infatuation turning on love), had he visited her then; He might be not loving her any more, but it's pretty obvious that he would have loved her then, the intercepted chat logs tell the story .... (I think, Yuki senses the /past/ emotions here, and confuses them with present tense, as she senses emotions embedded in the drawings... for being a teen, she still thinks that /human/ love and emotion must be eternal) ... and as such he would have been much more vulnerable to Horde than he's now.

Was the way to bash him out of it the way she did, justified? "If you told me not to come, I wouldn't have, I would'a gone away, YOU KNOW ME". So HE says. But he speaks from present perspective. Two years ago, his perspective would'a been very different. Either way, either of them have misjudged the other one. So was it justified? We did not know Piro two years ago... maybe he was more happy-go-lucky than now, or Miho thought he was - but still the option she used was pretty much nuclear, there was no life left, and what survived, is sick to this day. (Or actually is getting a turbo Kimiko treatment).

The circumstances as you say, showing he made his choice long ago, I more like see these as a turbo charged replies to her own taunts ('the lovers crap', 'do you want to play with me', teasing him on not knowing Ping's user manual, are you and Nanasawa at the 'can't stand to be apart' stage, etc), preloaded with the accumulated remains of the aforementioned nuclear wasteland.

That about synthesizes it for me at present state.
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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by iffy » Wed Jan 31, 2018 4:54 pm

The short kinda thing is that we don't really know how Piro feels about anyone, but he appears to be avoiding everyone. And in a way avoiding everything. He's more interested in whatever he's doing whyever he's doing it than he is becoming something else, be that a famous artist, a returning traveler, or the lover/boyfriend/fiancé/husband of anyone. And right now what he's doing up until and including 1509 appears to be going along with what's going on. Not being proactive or aggressive with much of anything most of the time. Not a surprise, he's normally rather low-key and such. Maybe a surprise given the circumstances, although that Q&A with Megumi set the stage pretty much, so maybe not surprising at all. Perhaps acting time is over, or maybe it's never going to end.

Roamer wrote:
Wed Jan 31, 2018 3:01 am
I don't know. To me, Piro and Miho interacting sound like what they are - a couple experienced with each other, who do the things that most couples do. Get angry, fight, hurt each other - and help each other, even to the point of saving one another.
There's a familiarity of sorts there, which mimics a lot of "familiar relationships"; old friends, people you used to hang with at school, family members, spouses. Still, the bulk of Piro's actions interactions with Miho appear to be him trying to understand or trying to help or trying to work out how he went wrong before in whatever way he's thinking about it all, with little to no physical or romantic component. He doesn't treat Miho like he cares about how she feels about him, and she is kinda the same way. So while we might see that as some sort of "being exes" deal, if it's true, it doesn't appear there's going to be a return to it, but rather the removal of whatever is bothering him about it.

Currently, Miho doesn't appear to care about anything but whatever story is going on with the person she's interacting with now. She's off in the ninja compound.

For the two in the room. Piro seems to be focusing on being nice and proper to and with Kimiko. What more he's thinking about now or the future? I have no idea what that might be until he does something more than react to the situation in that way he has. Kimiko, it's still not clear she's not channeling somebody else. Or acting in some role. Or if she's just relaxing while not having to work on Idol sorts of things.

How aggressive does Kimiko get, how resistant does Piro get, we don't know. What else might happen that makes neither of those matter, Depends on who might show up that does, or what we cut away to.

cidjen wrote:
Wed Jan 31, 2018 6:11 am
You seem to be treating the situation described above as x-or... either that, or the other, no middle-ground... I think, for various reasons, it's more fair to treat their history as if the feeling was at some point mutual... and having elements of all of the above...
Most all we know is some of what we learned from the laptop, how Piro reacted and Kimiko reacted to that, Yuki's thoughts and what was on it, the conversations between Piro and Miho at apartment and bathhouse about the past and such. Some see fire between Piro and Miho now, but it's not clear how much was there before, or if it's as extinguished as it appears to me. Just because we can't necessarily trust the perspectives of Yuki doesn't mean she's not correct in some ways; same goes for the perspectives of Piro or Miho or Kimiko or Largo or Erika, depending on who or what mix somebody agrees with. That question is which if any perspective we might latch onto might be anywhere near the truth. But I don't think it's either or, there's probably some elements of truth in pieces of a lot of it.

In some ways Piro seems to think he failed before, like that girl in the hospital he drew that the nurses made cut her hair, she was sick and dying and alone. Then whatever he was trying to do, and whyever she felt the requirement to, she nuked it all. Fear? Protection? Something else? Or why did he start chatting with her. Maybe the same reason she was in Endgames; she creates working stories in some medium. Creates and gets pulled into them herself too seemingly. Was it her or the story that removed it all to the point allegedly everyone forgot? Was she in Endgames to find people immune to her and it seemed promising but then went off into story mode anyway and so she quit? There's more than just Piro there, she makes it a point to interact with Largo at the CoE, at Ikebukuro, and then there's the way Piro punches Largo in the face really hard. Almost like that situation Largo explained to Erika about Endgames contained far more rivalry than we'd been lead to believe, but showing that there was more known than previously admitted. Whatever conclusions we might draw from that.

If this was all ordinary plain non-powered people involved, not an Analogue and whatever Piro and Largo would be classified as on the story scale, perhaps we could find real-world sensible answers more easily. Yet there is the context of an entity that apparently creates actual implemented stories out of thin air and two protagonist-scale participants impacting what could be expected. That it's not non-story random events happening to regular people complicates it infinitely.

We can say the character Piro was playing online had various feelings and carried out various activities with the character Miho was playing online. We don't know for sure what they were or he thought they were, and ditto for her. Same goes for now and whatever anyone feels or thinks about it. It's pretty clear though that there are unresolved matters that somebody wants to resolve, because there isn't an ending or finality. Sort of like Miho's current lack of being dead that the story foretells and demands. If we're wondering what the resolution is, of course, because there isn't one yet.

On a meta sort of level, "Tohya Miho" doesn't exist. Has no biology, no nation of origin, no numbers of years on Earth, no substance but what a story gives her; such concepts would not apply. Instead, apparently is a force of nature acting out roles. Whatever the truth of any of that, the various situations we've seen or heard of (Meimi, CoE, Pirogoeth and Largo the legionnaire, Erika, Junko, Piro and Largo, Largo, Ping, Yuki, Piro, Kimiko, Yuki and Yutaka, Junpei, and now the ninja female) are like that story about Kotone. The situation and circumstances, and how believable she is, and how others take it, are all created for and by the story. There's nothing to be killed in a hail of fire; Miho jumps out or vanishes to appear elsewhere later for somebody else. Seems to happen all the time.

That's probably all a big lie, but we still don't know if there's anything to be killed, since indeed currently, and whatever Miho is or isn't, in Megatokyo at the ninja compound, she's not dead.

And the story isn't over.

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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by Invisigoth » Wed Jan 31, 2018 5:21 pm

Yeah Piro totally crushed Largo's face and hospitalized him because he has absolutely no feelings at all for Miho

Piro totally performed heroic levels of CPR to keep Miho alive long enough for her to make it to surgery because he feels nothing at all for Miho

Piro totally charged into a mudder fusking war zone through cordons of mercenaries and mass destruction because he TOTALLY DOESN'T FEEL ANYTHING AT ALL FOR MIHO!!!!

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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by cidjen » Wed Jan 31, 2018 5:28 pm

Invisigoth wrote:
Wed Jan 31, 2018 5:21 pm
Yeah Piro totally crushed Largo's face and hospitalized him because he has absolutely no feelings at all for Miho

Piro totally performed heroic levels of CPR to keep Miho alive long enough for her to make it to surgery because he feels nothing at all for Miho

Piro totally charged into a mudder fusking war zone through cordons of mercenaries and mass destruction because he TOTALLY DOESN'T FEEL ANYTHING AT ALL FOR MIHO!!!!
Mmmm so I might have overdone it with the 'nuclear' analogy... more like a gas attack. Only feelings that were masked, survived, and some of the others were scarred and blinded. Now nurse Kimiko is helping them to recover.

But then even Largo did not let Miho die in the bathroom (would not accept a honourless ending) when he totally could have.
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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by Invisigoth » Wed Jan 31, 2018 5:53 pm

cidjen wrote:
Wed Jan 31, 2018 5:28 pm
Invisigoth wrote:
Wed Jan 31, 2018 5:21 pm
Yeah Piro totally crushed Largo's face and hospitalized him because he has absolutely no feelings at all for Miho

Piro totally performed heroic levels of CPR to keep Miho alive long enough for her to make it to surgery because he feels nothing at all for Miho

Piro totally charged into a mudder fusking war zone through cordons of mercenaries and mass destruction because he TOTALLY DOESN'T FEEL ANYTHING AT ALL FOR MIHO!!!!
Mmmm so I might have overdone it with the 'nuclear' analogy... more like a gas attack. Only feelings that were masked, survived, and some of the others were scarred and blinded. Now nurse Kimiko is helping them to recover.

But then even Largo did not let Miho die in the bathroom (would not accept a honourless ending) when he totally could have.

Largo was expecting what he eventually got when she attempted to reconcile with him in the CoE and he stupidly rebuffed her. He never stood a chance

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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by cidjen » Wed Jan 31, 2018 6:38 pm

Another example of Miho's covered feelings for Piro, (1283) panel 4 and 5. Her reaction to him not being even physically attracted any more, genuinely sad. Him - not very amused either, but not as sad as she is.
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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by darrin » Wed Jan 31, 2018 7:19 pm

Yeah, good thing "is in love with Miho" and "TOTALLY DOESN'T FEEL ANYTHING AT ALL FOR MIHO!!!!ONE!!!" are the only two logical alternatives here. Heaven forfend there be any potential complexity to the issue.

Piro clocks Largo not when he calls Miho a "monstrosity", but when Largo berates Piro for his "demented fantasy". Piro made it clear to Kimiko how much he resented, and was hurt by, Miho playing him like a "sad loser". He may be willing to try to help Miho with whatever is wrong (which he doesn't understand yet, since she has completely avoided explaining anything to him), but he can't rule out the fear that it's all yet another lie, that she is playing him again. Largo with his typical idiotic serendipity stumbles right into that fear: yes, you are being played for a chump; you aren't making a rational decision to help a Girl in Trouble, you are being manipulated like a fool. It's not at all what Piro wants to hear right now, and in his stressed state he reacts without thinking. "You first" is responding directly to that "demented fantasy" accusation, which to Piro must come off as pretty hypocritical from the guy who stacks cardboard boxes on street corners and claims in apparent seriousness they are robots defending his perimeter. (If the punch was about Miho, then the "you first" would be commenting in some way on Largo+Erika, but Piro has generally been supportive of that, if surprised that it's even happening at all.)

Piro never saw a "war zone" or "cordons of mercenaries". He saw weirdly dressed fanboys and a hospital that had partially collapsed from what he assumed was an earthquake. He didn't even do much charging: Kimiko implied he needed to get her out of there, which he did before any serious numbers of fanboys converged, and then Megumi came and picked them up. As far as he is concerned he is having a really weird day, but only because fanboys are weird, not because of any danger he's aware of.

CPR. Would you only do CPR on someone you are in love with? Even if so, that's fine, it's your choice. I don't think it's the only choice that everyone on the planet would always make. Was the surgeon who installed Miho's pacemaker also in love with her? When I go to the beach, do I have to hope that at least one of the lifeguards will fall in love with my wife and kids in case anything happens? I like to think that if I saw someone lying on the ground needing CPR, that I would at least try to do something. Never happened, so I can't say, maybe I am fooling myself. If I saw someone drowning? I like to think yes, I consider myself a strong swimmer, was certified as a lifeguard in high school, unless they outweighed me by a factor of three or more I would consider the risk acceptable compared to trying to save someone in imminent danger of dying (even if I'm not "in love" with them). Go into a burning building to pull someone out? Meh, there, probably not, no training in that area, I'm not in the best shape physically, I would probably weigh my duty to my family not to die in the attempt as higher than risking it for a stranger.

Some would call me cowardly for that, others would say I'm an idiot for trying to rescue the drowning guy. I'm not a special snowflake, I'm pretty sure I am in the middle of the bell curve here, I'm no Seraphim Sarovsky but I am not about to slaughter villages of innocents either. Without a heck of a lot of evidence in the comic so far I'd put Piro somewhere in the middle too, if anything probably somewhere to the right of me. I am not assuming or claiming he is some kind of ideal altruist or saint, but I don't get any kind of impression that he is the sort of guy who would stand there and watch someone die when he knows CPR, not even someone he has "mixed feelings" for.

If Piro loved Miho, would he clock Largo and do CPR on her and all that other good stuff? Sure, that's pretty straightforward. Does it work the other way? Are those things absolute proof of "love" for her on his part, no other alternatives even possible? Sorry, I'm not buying it. It's at least consistent with his self-image as the would-be dating sim protagonist who must do what he can to help the damsel in distress, even if it's one he's not "in love with" at the moment.

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Re: [1509] - "the floor is lava"

Post by cidjen » Thu Feb 01, 2018 2:01 am

No, of course you are right here. We're being too binary in this 'selection'. I think I wanted to say something similar in response to what iffy wrote, but got too sidetracked to make it come out right.
...
Just how badly did Miho hurt him, that he can't shake it off even when an actress plays her?...
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