[1497] More skilled than sparkly

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[1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by paarfi » Sun Oct 22, 2017 8:09 pm

Fred posted the new comic to his Patreon. He'll post it to the main site and elsewhere tomorrow.
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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by DracMonster » Sun Oct 22, 2017 9:19 pm

Ouch. I know this is probably going to get poor Yuki out of this situation, but that's gotta hurt a bit.

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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by jkhartl » Sun Oct 22, 2017 11:48 pm

They're a bunch of meanies.
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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by paarfi » Mon Oct 23, 2017 11:37 am

Yeah, there's some food for thought in this one.

The fanboys' impression of what a magical girl should look like is clearly different from reality. But maybe it's more a matter of which reality. What they're describing is like what they see on TV, and that wouldn't be the first time something on TV looks more dramatic and sparkly than reality. Ririka understands the difference, having been a magical girl herself. But will Yuki understand that she's fine the way she is, much like Ririka says Meimi was, or is she going to take the fanboys impressions of what she should be to heart?

It's interesting how Ririka talks about Moeko and Erika being her "primary one". It almost sounds like Ririka knows the real Moeko, like she does with the Lovlies [1418]. Do all anime magical girls have a real magical girl as a basis?

I wonder how Yuki will take Ririka's comments about Yutaka. Yutaka fell for her before she fell on him, before he knew she was a magical girl. Even so, I wonder if Yuki will be afraid Yutaka likes her because magical girl rather than just because of who she really is inside.
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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by DracMonster » Mon Oct 23, 2017 12:47 pm

paarfi wrote:
Mon Oct 23, 2017 11:37 am
It's interesting how Ririka talks about Moeko and Erika being her "primary one". It almost sounds like Ririka knows the real Moeko, like she does with the Lovlies [1418]. Do all anime magical girls have a real magical girl as a basis?
I think she meant Moeko's primary VA. After Erika had her episode they probably got someone else to voice the role.

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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by paarfi » Mon Oct 23, 2017 1:26 pm

DracMonster wrote:
Mon Oct 23, 2017 12:47 pm
I think she meant Moeko's primary VA. After Erika had her episode they probably got someone else to voice the role.
Yeah, Erika was just the VA for the Moeko anime character. But something about the way Ririka phrased that seems to imply more. Like she was talking about Moeko as a real person, and Erika being the primary vehicle for expressing her character to the fanboy horde.

Maybe I'm reading more into it than is really there.
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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by HakuRyoku » Mon Oct 23, 2017 3:36 pm

Largo, you'd better be tellin her to evac, or use her popularity to subvert the impending disaster... you never, and I mean never, say that a plucky 15 (Yuki is 15 right? -man have I been letting things go-) year old girl that she isn't cute enough. esp. one that can bound across the city in a flash and makes you wet yourself when your MG detector starts going off.
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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by Roborat » Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:05 pm

Yay, a bit of backstory fill in here. So, as I see it, this could go in one of two ways. Either she will realize that it is smarter to play along and pretend she isn't a magical girl, helped by Erika; or she will get all indignant and decide to prove to them that she is indeed a magical girl, which will likely escalate things severely, particularly if (more like when) daddy decides to make an appearance to see who or what is destroying his hospital.

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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by BetaCygnus » Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:14 pm

Well, they’re being rather harsh to Yuki… not that I don’t understand them, but it might be common courtesy to not express thoughts like those in front of the person involved… >(

Poor Yuki… =(

I’m glad Largo is there — at least he takes her seriously, just the way she is, and he values her for who she is as an ally.
I wonder if Erika will really catch on Largo’s drift, or just play along from the POV of her (very skillfull) crowd control thing.

But Yuki… I hope Ririka, maybe Erika and possibly Meimi will be able to comfort her and talk her out of the ‘m-m-monster!?’ mindset Miho put her in… The things those thoughtless ‘heroes’ are saying about her might just hit home too much…

Thanks for the new post, Fred, and I am looking forward to some encouragement for Yuki. =)

Oh, and by the way, yes — that was a reference to Eternal Squire Oon — who actually taught me that even the mere imagined powers of a no more than ordinary lance can summon up great courage. I wonder if having real powers can be daunting…
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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by Patty Acer » Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:21 pm

The fact that all the fighters feel safe if it's Erika being the magical girl totally cracks me up. The woman is nuclear armament personified. This is starting to look like the male half of the MT population have a collective head injury.

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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by BetaCygnus » Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:38 pm

I do wonder, though, if Ririka chose to introduce Yuki as the magical girl so openly with the expectation of them ‘silly boys’ rejecting Yuki as a possible candidate for the alarm party. =?
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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by Wesker888 » Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:56 pm

...

*cracks knuckles*

Lemme at 'em.

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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by Invisigoth » Mon Oct 23, 2017 5:18 pm

I am wondering if Erika is being caught more than a little short here. Recall that her reaction to Meimi was a mixture of dread and a desire to please which is nothing at all like Erika's general demeanor. Now we see her having a burned out MG introducing Yuki as the magical girl that is causing all the fuss and Largo shushing her.

You can be pretty casual with high level Idol power but to suddenly come face to face with a cataclysm class MG whom you'd previously only known as an awkward teen would be a serious shock

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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by Rapierman » Mon Oct 23, 2017 6:14 pm

Good lord. I don't know if I should feel sorry because she's been outed or because she's being slated. :P
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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by Fujii Yakumo » Mon Oct 23, 2017 9:52 pm

Yay, comic!

Sorry 'bout that -- it's not much in the way of commentary. I'm just happy that the strip is getting back to something like a regular schedule.

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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by Initial B » Tue Oct 24, 2017 8:24 am

Waitaminit, is that Largo showing some... restraint and/or caution? What kind of parallel MT have we fallen into? :D

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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by eomdal » Tue Oct 24, 2017 9:00 am

Largo does have his moments when he can think strategically, and he knows Yuki. If he can also get her to notice his shush gesture - and she is looking in the right direction - she can get out of this with here anonymity intact. If she or Ririka blow it then she faces a life of fulfilling orders posted to magicalgirlyuki.com.

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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by darrin » Tue Oct 24, 2017 9:21 am

some total dumbass wrote:She's not cute enough.
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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by Yl33 D4 N00b » Tue Oct 24, 2017 9:56 am

Yuki definitely isn't in a happy place right now, and Ririka isn't making things any better. Largo to the rescue? I did have to laugh at Ririka "locking her boys up".

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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by darrin » Tue Oct 24, 2017 1:47 pm

Also,
an even bigger dumbass wrote:Her eyes are just a boring brown.
Seriously??? WHAT THE DAMN HELL?

I so want these "fanboys" to die right now, like really painfully. :x Please tell me we can soon add "Scanners-style remote-head-exploding" to Yuki's list of potential powers being bandied about last thread.

EDIT:
Or are they Stability benchwarmers? I wouldn't expect fanboys to have MG detectors (or can you just get a cheap one in the MegaTokyo equivalent of Radio Shack?)... but then they are sure talking a lot more like dumbass fanboys than official personnel. Meh, either way, I will be happier once they get a nice methodical beatdown.

EDIT2:
Ah, I get it now, they are fanboys, specifically Erika's minions. Presumably the horde of Miho fanboys contained a proper subset of folks who were also Erika / Moeko fanboys, some of which she was able to peel off from the horde for her (and Largo's) own purposes. Again, the weak part of this claim is the assumption of widely-available consumer-grade magical girl detectors. But it fits for everything else (mainly these goobers talking like fanboys as opposed to talking like they think they're in charge). So I'm going with this until Fred starts sewing labels on these guys' underwear or something.
Last edited by darrin on Tue Oct 24, 2017 6:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by paarfi » Tue Oct 24, 2017 2:20 pm

BetaCygnus wrote:
Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:14 pm
Poor Yuki… =(
I’m glad Largo is there — at least he takes her seriously, just the way she is, and he values her for who she is as an ally.
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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by TarsTarkas » Tue Oct 24, 2017 2:22 pm

Perhaps Largo is making Erika aware of something we and she don't know. Or maybe he is going to trash all those guys.

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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by darrin » Tue Oct 24, 2017 3:36 pm

Ririka wrote:The magical girl is right here.
Is Rirka trying to publicly out Yuki? (Which I would expect ought to be a serious breach of magical girl protocol...)

Or is she following Bean's mantra (Ender's Shadow), that "since the truth would not be understood, [she] told the truth." (Paraphrasing, don't have my copy in front of me.)

EDIT: (@Invisigoth, below)
Sure, I understand why Stability would want them properly "identified" and kept under close watch. But presumably it's in Yuki's own interest to at least try to remain as anonymous as possible for as long as possible. (Not that she's very likely to succeed at that for long, not arguing with you there; I am thinking right now more in terms of her motives, not how realistic they might be.)

So I am curious whether Ririka is The Man here (or siding with The Man), or just engaging in a little hijinks because she fully expected this outcome (that the dumbasses wouldn't believe her anyway). I'm currently leaning toward the latter, but I may be biased there; her eye being stuck for the time being in "cute wink" mode is making it hard for me to be as clinically objective as I'd like to be. ;)
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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by Invisigoth » Tue Oct 24, 2017 4:39 pm

As for Ririka outing Yuki, Yuki is a Cataclysm Event Level MG with a Sparklogen reading of over 8. You may as well get it out there because she's about a subtle as an asteroid strike

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Re: [1497] More skilled than sparkly

Post by iffy » Tue Oct 24, 2017 5:44 pm

It seems Largo is telling Erika to let this play out via Ririka's lead. Erika doesn't know what Yuki is, maybe better if she just downplays it along. Sure Largo rather might not get how powerful Yuki has become, although perhaps as far as he's concerned she hasn't, at least in the confidence part. Which is probably good.

For what Ririka looks to be doing, it's almost overly obvious that none of these solid snake rambo types would believe Yuki is an MG, much less the MG setting off everything. Diffuse it by lampshading it then. In a way that (hopefully) Yuki will catch onto rather than get all extensively weepy and such, beyond that outwardly clear deference to age and authority.

As far as not believing the truth stated so plainly, especially added to the unassuming non-egotistical persona of Yuki. The reaction of these guys isn't much (or at all) different than that of the otaku that were stalking Erika, or Kimiko, or Miho. Following Piro in various ways. Restricted mindsets, ignoring things that don't match their preconceptions, making snide rude blatantly -ist comments about whatever that makes them disbelieve the reality. Nothing new there.

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