[1483] Brawler

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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by iffy » Mon Jul 10, 2017 2:29 pm

How much this "Junpei's Sister" knows about the fight.... Okay, the 'Miho attacking Junpei so he'll kill her but he doesn't attack her in return' event. How much and why depends on who this girl is and if this is just some random 'visit that person Junpei brought to hide here' or not.

Given what ninjagirl has been doing and saying, it would appear she knows quite a bit of background on a number of things. It almost seems like both of these two are playing out some weird pretend story-time, some interrogation battle for position thing. Sizing each other up. Or maybe it's just too easy to believe this one could be something sent particularly because she outclasses Miho and at the same time believe that is just as wrong as everything else has been when it comes to what Miho is capable of.

Which is somewhat funny that some would not be able to believe Miho is Irish but could believe Largo brought her to life out of a book, or vice versa. Or think she's Irish just because the author at some point seemed to think that might fit and would be cool. That she told Kimiko some gibberish about heartbroken mindbroken semiinsane pregnant ex-pirate waiting for game players. And that she used a phrase in Gaelic once. OTOH, no problem being a mystical literary force, a particularly strong source of sorts of compelling stories that's a few centuries old? Or big problem being any those things even in a context that supports them and more. Rather inconsistent, but what else is new or surprising.

We have seen her neutralize Ed handily, jump with passenger high up out of a diner (or blink or teleport or whatever she did), vanish (perhaps) similarly from a barrage of energy weapons (but regardless show up a couple weeks later none the worse for wear), catch fleeing magical girls, gap hither and yon, move her and Piro through.... someplace, draw a nameless faceless mass of whatever, and more. None of what we have seen is really all that much more or less believable than any of the huge number of detailed things we don't know any of the answers to.

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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by Patty Acer » Mon Jul 10, 2017 5:10 pm

Ray Kremer wrote:
Thu Jul 06, 2017 5:41 pm
darrin wrote:
Thu Jul 06, 2017 12:43 pm
In 432 Miho refers to herself as "a fragile little Japanese girl", and nobody responds by saying anything like "But you don't look Japanese."

So while Miho may not be Japanese (or even Asian), it seems clear that she at least looks Japanese. I'm with DrunkenSailor on this one; Junpei's sister made the "you aren't Asian" comment not based on Miho's phyiscal appearance, but on something more subtle.
Miho's character has undergone a lot of evolution and revamping over time. Early on, the "big concept" about her was having been Piro and Largo's MMORPG nemesis, which Largo in his typical stopped-clock-is-right-twice-a-day fashion picked up on and proceeded to flip the fuck out over it. From there her main purpose was to hang around being creepy and egg Largo on whenever the story needed him to go aggro on something that turned out to be totally unrelated to her. The Pirogoeth/M0h romance angle may have been there all along too or snuck in somewhere along the way, leading up to the big reveal to Piro at the cake shop. And that was pretty much it. As far as I can tell she had nondescript super abilities more for Rule of Cool than anything else, and her fainting spells were inspired by Sarah's real-world health problems (her undiagnosed at the time Sjogren's syndrome) with no apparent greater purpose in mind.

It can be safely assumed that at this point Miho was fully intended to be Japanese, just like everybody else who was in Tokyo prior to Piro and Largo's arrival.

A lot changed when two major things happened. One, Fred suddenly developed the character analogue concept to explain what Miho's actual deal is, and two, he decided Piro and Kimiko as a couple no longer inspired him and that Piro with Miho held better possibilities. The latter resulted in a tremendous expansion of the backstory relating to the Endgames time period, and elements of both were appropriately meted out mostly in small bits over time. Miho's actual personal history and analogue origin story developed later still. I'm guessing the whole Irish thing came about because Europe seemed like a more natural setting for her to do the whole "fall in with sailors and have an adventurous life on the high seas" element, but one can't discount plain old Fred randomness either. She's supposedly Black Irish, which is meant to explain why she can pass herself off as an Asian girl rather than looking like Anne of Green Gables. But I figure Bellisario's Maxim applies to some extent also.

And there you have it. At this point none of that is really a spoiler, other than perhaps breaking any notion that Fred knew what the hell he was doing all along. This is pretty much how MT rolls, given that twice characters have turned out to be related just because Fred gave an important new character the same surname that he'd used on some other character a while back. Plus there are plenty of other examples of stuff where the big secret conspiracy crap was established to the audience well before the writers worked out where there were actually going with it, and many of those showed the cracks too.
Which is great, except for the fact that readers, when reading the end product of all this writing work, are looking for some kind of internal consistency and story-telling logic to the story, (and will attempt to apply same even in areas where it isn't there). I realize that with a comic that's been written in installments over the last umpteen years, that's asking for something well-nigh impossible; on the other hand, it makes recent changes to the characters hard to accept, for the simple reason that to a reader they may appear to come out of left field. That doesn't make the reader who can't suddenly make the sharp turn without skidding all over the story highway into some kind of 'butthurt' idiot, so it would be awesome if certain people could refrain from using said term to describe them.

It's also really irritating to have people who may or who think they may have inside knowledge of the story trumpeting said fact all over the forums while the rest of us have to plod along with only the actual comic panels for story spec fodder. It's spoiling the fun.

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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by Ray Kremer » Mon Jul 10, 2017 6:50 pm

arimareiji wrote:
Sat Jul 08, 2017 12:47 pm
Wow. And here I thought TV Tropes' owner had become too control-freaky years back, with The Great Japanese Purge being the last straw. It made me really sad to find out a moment ago that people are now told not to link to the MST3K Mantra. (Imo, it's perfect for this situation.)
Ha, really? Didn't know that. The two always were rather synonymous with each other, though the MST3K one has more of a Rule of Funny connotation while Bellisario's is more a connotation of Rule of Cool and making it up as we go.
Patty Acer wrote:
Mon Jul 10, 2017 5:10 pm
Which is great, except for the fact that readers, when reading the end product of all this writing work, are looking for some kind of internal consistency and story-telling logic to the story, (and will attempt to apply same even in areas where it isn't there). I realize that with a comic that's been written in installments over the last umpteen years, that's asking for something well-nigh impossible; on the other hand, it makes recent changes to the characters hard to accept, for the simple reason that to a reader they may appear to come out of left field.
Well, yes. That's a nearly universal problem in any fictional work that goes beyond one installment. Continuity errors, retcons, early installment weirdness, etc. The human mind doesn't like having to overwrite old facts with new totally different facts, but MST3K Mantra and all that.

And, well, like I said, a bunch of Miho things literally did come out of left field, so if it appears that way then that's only an accurate assessment. I've been marvelling for a number of years now at how well MT holds together as a whole, considering the recent retcons and such. Fred's more lucky than skilled, but many other series have fallen into incomprehensible messes under similar circumstances.
That doesn't make the reader who can't suddenly make the sharp turn without skidding all over the story highway into some kind of 'butthurt' idiot, so it would be awesome if certain people could refrain from using said term to describe them.

It's also really irritating to have people who may or who think they may have inside knowledge of the story trumpeting said fact all over the forums while the rest of us have to plod along with only the actual comic panels for story spec fodder. It's spoiling the fun.
Having less and less spare time during the workday was a major factor in my visiting the forum less, but also the more I heard from Fred about what was coming up, the harder it became for me to talk about anything in SD. It's impossible to contribute to or even properly comment on the wild mass guessing when you know what the answers are and what the foreshadowing and soft reveals mean.

Whereas Invisigoth has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer and apparently doesn't like just letting people be wrong for now. I could have lived without bringing up the whole Irish thing, but the neko was pretty much out of the bag already, so oh well. I agree it's not really been strongly confirmed in the comic yet. Hell, there are a few things here and there over the course of MT that are explainable by what Fred was planning at the time but then didn't actually follow through on. Personally I enjoy both Watsonian and Doylist explanations.

Anyway, I think at the moment I know fewer specific details about the near future than I have in quite a while, so it's nice to be able to get into a little more again.
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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by Invisigoth » Mon Jul 10, 2017 7:11 pm

As Ray has pointed out so succinctly at this point there are far fewer "insider" facts than at any time in the past. I believe that a great deal of this is in fact due to the much more regular posting of comics and less time spent putting backstory together. Nonetheless the entire point of Miho's exposition of her origin story to Kimiko and our kunoichi's observation that Miho isn't Asian should spark debate on why an Irish lady who fell in with pirates should be in Japan in the first place rather than, "It's obvious to me that she's Japanese"

Why is it that important that she be Japanese?

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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by maldrul » Mon Jul 10, 2017 7:20 pm

Invisigoth wrote:
Mon Jul 10, 2017 7:11 pm
Why is it that important that she be Japanese?
Oh, I dunno. The story occurs in japan?
When Miho first appears in the story, she is drawn as a goth Japanese dark magical schoolgirl trope?
Miho identifies herself as a Japanese schoolgirl?
Her 'followers' are Japanese otaku?
I could go on, but I think you get the drift. You don't appear to be *that* clueless.
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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by paarfi » Tue Jul 11, 2017 9:01 am

Ray Kremer wrote:
Mon Jul 10, 2017 6:50 pm
Having less and less spare time during the workday was a major factor in my visiting the forum less, but also the more I heard from Fred about what was coming up, the harder it became for me to talk about anything in SD. It's impossible to contribute to or even properly comment on the wild mass guessing when you know what the answers are and what the foreshadowing and soft reveals mean.
This is the reason I go out of my way to avoid hearing what Fred has planned. I love the speculating and debate here, and it would be hard to join in if I already knew where the story was going. Fortunately, Fred already has Ray, vis, chemi, and a couple others to bounce story ideas off of. He doesn't need my help there and has been kind enough to keep me out of the loop so I can have my fun. I was a bit afraid that folks would just assume I had inside story info once I got the mod hat. But I don't think it's been a problem yet.
Ray Kremer wrote:
Mon Jul 10, 2017 6:50 pm
Whereas Invisigoth has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer and apparently doesn't like just letting people be wrong for now.
It has to be hard to watch people wander off into la-la land when you know the answers. But it wouldn't be any fun if we always guessed right. Being wrong and then having Fred hit us with a comic later that makes you go "Ahhhhh, now I get it" is almost better.
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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by Invisigoth » Tue Jul 11, 2017 9:54 am

Paarfi, here's a fun fact. Ray and I can both get the very same plot directions from Fred as he discusses it and we will see it from completely different angles. Throw chemi in to the mix and you can have up to 4 completely different takes on a particular plot point.

In the past there were people who attempted to leverage access into influence and the most notable result of that was Fred killing off the Seraphim sisters storyline.

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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by Teddy-Werebear » Tue Jul 11, 2017 1:19 pm

Seraphim had sisters?

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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by paarfi » Tue Jul 11, 2017 1:24 pm

Teddy-Werebear wrote:
Tue Jul 11, 2017 1:19 pm
Seraphim had sisters?
Yeah, [613] shows seraphim yanking away one sister, and then [614] shows the "real" seraphim. There were two sisters, but I didn't track down a comic that shows the other one. It was all in that same arc though.
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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by darrin » Tue Jul 11, 2017 2:26 pm

Search ninja claim this sister (labeled "Seraphim2" in transcripts) different from sister in 613 (and 603) (labeled "Seraphim3" in transcripts). <bows humbly in thanks to search ninja>

Huh, I don't think I had ever realized those two sisters were meant to be different.
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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by iffy » Tue Jul 11, 2017 4:27 pm

A ) There are many more questions than there are answers, even ignoring obvious homages, inside jokes, and the like
B ) The nature of the story doesn't lend itself to determining which microstates are important or not
C ) Nobody merely consuming the output can know what's going to actually be true before it happens, no matter what it seems like beforehand
D ) Not even everyone who is more directly involved in creating or refining plans has the same perspective on it
E ) Not everything planned actually happens that way, including in the past changes made during the actual creation of art or dialog
F ) None of that necessarily matters in enjoying either the art/story or discussing where things might be headed... In fact, it's all just part of the charm

The truth doesn't matter, it's how it makes you feel. ;)

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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by Patty Acer » Tue Jul 11, 2017 5:26 pm

iffy wrote:
Tue Jul 11, 2017 4:27 pm


The truth doesn't matter, it's how it makes you feel. ;)
Truer words (about writing) were never spoken. :)

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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by Ray Kremer » Tue Jul 11, 2017 6:27 pm

Invisigoth wrote:
Mon Jul 10, 2017 7:11 pm
Why is it that important that she be Japanese?
It's not, really, but people need time to digest new information that's such a radical shift from what was previously assumed to be true.
paarfi wrote:
Tue Jul 11, 2017 9:01 am
It has to be hard to watch people wander off into la-la land when you know the answers. But it wouldn't be any fun if we always guessed right. Being wrong and then having Fred hit us with a comic later that makes you go "Ahhhhh, now I get it" is almost better.
Since Fred's stuff can be so complex and opaque, it's not really a big deal. It's fun when somebody actually picks up some of the subtle threads and stumbles into the correct analysis, and even more amusing when it's a minority opinion that falls by the wayside for a while.

I will say that being able to watch the creative process as a work in progress is a unique perspective that one doesn't usually get the privilege to see.
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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by Teddy-Werebear » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:31 pm

I thought it was a mirror universe Seraphim.
No goatee on account of female gender.
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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by darrin » Wed Jul 12, 2017 1:21 pm

Teddy-Werebear wrote:
Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:31 pm
I thought it was a mirror universe Seraphim.
No goatee on account of female gender.
Dirty Sera the sadist?
Don't even need to go to a mirror universe to see bad Seraphim... not that I would take Asmodeus' word for it, but the transcript for that one also calls her "Seraphim".

Full disclosure: when I was looking for "Seraphim sisters" for my post above, I had misremembered that 552 showed one of the bad sisters. Fortunately I reread Asmodeus' dialogue before posting. :oops:
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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by S1arburst » Mon Jul 24, 2017 9:28 am

Initial B wrote:
Tue Jul 04, 2017 9:46 am
The fact that Miho has allowed Ninjagirl to dress her up like that seems to indicate that Miho is holding back a lot of her power, considering what she did to Junpei. That threat by Ninjagirl might just be the thing to make her drop her limiter.
I don't think Miho's really "allowing" Ninjagirl to dress her up.

"I am not a doll. Stop it." And then she's obviously been resisting because at the opening scene Ninjagirl says "ow!" Yeah, Miho's not actually trying to kill her, but that's still different than really acquiescing to having her hair done. And Ninjagirl obviously hasn't been listening to the protests.
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Re: [1483] Brawler

Post by arimareiji » Sun Aug 13, 2017 2:49 pm

To anyone who sees this post and contributed to what's sadly now an old, dead topic: Well-done. I'm sorry I missed the original (having distracted myself too much with political Twitting {I refuse to call it tweeting}). Since I'm lazy, working backwards and keeping kudos terse (even when greater kudos are deserved). Apologies for the confusion working backwards might cause:
S1arburst wrote:
Mon Jul 24, 2017 9:28 am
I don't think Miho's really "allowing" Ninjagirl to dress her up.

"I am not a doll. Stop it." And then she's obviously been resisting because at the opening scene Ninjagirl says "ow!" Yeah, Miho's not actually trying to kill her, but that's still different than really acquiescing to having her hair done. And Ninjagirl obviously hasn't been listening to the protests.
*applause*

~~~~~
iffy wrote:
Tue Jul 11, 2017 4:27 pm
The truth doesn't matter, it's how it makes you feel. ;)
Ah, you've been reading some of the aforementioned Twits that I respond-Twit to? ;)

~~~~~
darrin wrote:
Tue Jul 11, 2017 2:26 pm
Search ninja claim this sister (labeled "Seraphim2" in transcripts) different from sister in 613 (and 603) (labeled "Seraphim3" in transcripts). <bows humbly in thanks to search ninja>

Huh, I don't think I had ever realized those two sisters were meant to be different.
*applause* (and I hadn't either)

~~~~~
paarfi wrote:
Tue Jul 11, 2017 1:24 pm
Yeah, [613] shows seraphim yanking away one sister, and then [614] shows the "real" seraphim. There were two sisters, but I didn't track down a comic that shows the other one. It was all in that same arc though.
*applause*

~~~~~~
Invisigoth wrote:
Tue Jul 11, 2017 9:54 am
Paarfi, here's a fun fact. Ray and I can both get the very same plot directions from Fred as he discusses it and we will see it from completely different angles. Throw chemi in to the mix and you can have up to 4 completely different takes on a particular plot point.
Hm. Invisigoth, Ray, chemi... who's #4? I'm guessing not Fred, since that would make it over a dozen. ;)

~~~~~
paarfi wrote:
Tue Jul 11, 2017 9:01 am
It has to be hard to watch people wander off into la-la land when you know the answers. But it wouldn't be any fun if we always guessed right. Being wrong and then having Fred hit us with a comic later that makes you go "Ahhhhh, now I get it" is almost better.
Indeed.
For myself, please keep throwing the occasional fact upside my head when I wander off the known path. Being corrected by future devs is spoiling; being corrected by in-comic info is gratefully accepted since I hate spreading/believing incorrect information. (Being corrected by available-but-obscure info such as stream chat is in a light-grey middle).

~~~~~~
Invisigoth wrote:
Mon Jul 10, 2017 7:11 pm
Nonetheless the entire point of Miho's exposition of her origin story to Kimiko and our kunoichi's observation that Miho isn't Asian should spark debate on why an Irish lady who fell in with pirates should be in Japan in the first place rather than, "It's obvious to me that she's Japanese"
*applause* It's an easy enough mistake to make, though. Look at how many people used to wonder why manga/anime characters were all white (when they're usually drawn to eliminate race as much as possible).
Random tangent (not that kind): Are wedding bells in the future? You seem to have become fairly respeckable, in a good way. ;)

~~~~~
Ray Kremer wrote:
Mon Jul 10, 2017 6:50 pm
arimareiji wrote:
Sat Jul 08, 2017 12:47 pm
Wow. And here I thought TV Tropes' owner had become too control-freaky years back, with The Great Japanese Purge being the last straw. It made me really sad to find out a moment ago that people are now told not to link to the MST3K Mantra. (Imo, it's perfect for this situation.)
Ha, really? Didn't know that. The two always were rather synonymous with each other, though the MST3K one has more of a Rule of Funny connotation while Bellisario's is more a connotation of Rule of Cool and making it up as we go.
Personally, I saw it more from the perspective of superior "Know your place, fanlings" (Bellisario's Maxim) versus P2P "You have a point, but isn't the greater point to create a good/fun experience?" (MST3K Mantra). Probably just my individual filters kicking in. (^_^)°
On reflection, it's perfect for TVT to demand that its contributors link to BM vs MST3K. Imo, the site's downfall was precipitated by Fast Eddie's increasingly-obvious BM attitude crushing the community's MST3K attitude.

~~~~~
Well, yes. That's a nearly universal problem in any fictional work that goes beyond one installment. Continuity errors, retcons, early installment weirdness, etc. The human mind doesn't like having to overwrite old facts with new totally different facts, but MST3K Mantra and all that.
That seems epidemic nowadays, or maybe it's just my nostalgia bias. No pejorative tone is intended, since as you said this is a VERY human trait:
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~~~~~
And, well, like I said, a bunch of Miho things literally did come out of left field, so if it appears that way then that's only an accurate assessment. I've been marvelling for a number of years now at how well MT holds together as a whole, considering the recent retcons and such. Fred's more lucky than skilled, but many other series have fallen into incomprehensible messes under similar circumstances.
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