[1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

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[1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by piro » Fri Jul 21, 2017 12:55 am

Hey everyone,

New comic is posted on Patreon, I will post to the MT site tomorrow afternoon. Cheers

fredrin

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by paarfi » Fri Jul 21, 2017 5:53 am

Well. A few things that jump out at me.

That last comment from Ninjagrrl makes me think this really is Junpei's mom or grandma.

The swearing is unusual in MT. Miho is really distraught here.

Another sign of that is her falling back in to Irish, which seems a sign of real distress. Here it is for your google translate uses:
Tá mé dúr agus is fuath liom mé féin.

Ninjagrrl does not seem at all surprised or confused by Miho's outburst. I'm gonna bet she already knows what Miho is.

This also serves as a dump for the people who don't follow the comic as closely and are still a little lost about Miho's situation. That's not an unimportant thing.

I'm going to be curious to see what happens next. We've kind of hit the end to the mystery of Miho. It's been coming for some time now, but it all seems out in the open now. Now the question is what do they all do about it? Time for some action.
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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by marsonkhan » Fri Jul 21, 2017 7:19 am

"Oh my gosh! You are just like the rest of us!" So Miho is horrified about being...normal?

Of course, I suppose most of us are.

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by eomdal » Fri Jul 21, 2017 10:21 am

Ninjagrrl (Fred gave her a name in chat, damn if I can remember) sees clearly yet still misses the yuge picture: what is going to happen to their world if this situation is permanent? Does the trope just vanish? Does someone else take over? Does everything unravel? Or, does nothing happen and it all just goes on?
The swearing is unusual in MT. Miho is really distraught here.
The swearing is unusual in MT. Fred is really distraught here. And this does have a lot of disambiguation, like a key signpost that says "Entering Denouement Zone: Megatokyo Ends 2 Miles Ahead." This comic, combined with the tenor of his recent chat comments that sound different than his usual angst, (Tá mé dúr agus is fuath liom mé féin, indeed. Miho is channeling Fred here) it feels as if Fred has reached a small but decisive moment where he is ready to start wrapping it up.

Of course, even if this were true, this could still take a few years and and maybe one more chapter.
Last edited by eomdal on Fri Jul 21, 2017 10:24 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by DracMonster » Fri Jul 21, 2017 1:05 pm

paarfi wrote:
Fri Jul 21, 2017 5:53 am
That last comment from Ninjagrrl makes me think this really is Junpei's mom or grandma.
It could also be Fred trolling us.

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by Greymom » Fri Jul 21, 2017 2:34 pm

Wow! Lot going on here. I was confused by Miho's comments until I saw the word "fuath" (hate/anger)....wait...Miho speaks Gaelic??? :shock: and she is speaking it under extreme stress, so it suggests that is her first language. Probably Irish Gaelic, as the phrase would tend to translate a bit differently (and less appropriately) in Scots Gaelic.

Has Miho spoken Gaelic before? I have been following Megatokyo since shortly after it started, and I should have noticed something that unusual, but maybe I missed it. Wait...Fred....Gallagher...I am dense. Classic Irish name.

But I always thought Miho was Asian too, so I am really paying attention now!

Excellent strip, Fred!

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by paarfi » Fri Jul 21, 2017 3:33 pm

Greymom wrote:
Fri Jul 21, 2017 2:34 pm
Has Miho spoken Gaelic before?
Mo Dhia [1353]

As backup, a lot of the "Miho Origin Story" [1403] [1404] [1405] looks more consistent with mid-late 19th century Britian/Ireland than it does with Japan. Note the church steeple, clothes, big western-style bed, etc.

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by Greymom » Fri Jul 21, 2017 4:10 pm

Thanks for the welcome! I had registered years ago, but lost that somewhere. Thanks for the links, I knew I had seen something like this before. Now to think back to my research on Irish Folklore for anything that might fit Miho.

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by Greymom » Fri Jul 21, 2017 4:42 pm

Oh, "Mo Dhia" = "My God". Missed that entirely. : p You must have an incredible memory! Many thanks again!

Ah, those panels suggest that Miho is not one of the Tuatha de Danaan or Formorrrians, or one of their half-human offspring. So, did she make a deal with one of the Fair Folk (or was maybe cursed by one)? Somehow she ended up as a "Magical Girl".......

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by Invisigoth » Fri Jul 21, 2017 4:48 pm

At this time it'd be appropriate to point out that Fred is a fan of William Gibson and a great deal of MegaTokyo is in part informed by Gibson's novel Idoru.

In his novel Pattern Recognition the protagonist Cayce Pollard observes that Japan is a sort of mirror world to Britain and the UK

You should read more Gibson!

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by Greymom » Fri Jul 21, 2017 5:41 pm

William Gibson is one of my favorites too!

Thanks for your suggestion, Invisigoth - I need to re-read Idoru again, it's been a long time. (and that X-Files episode that Gibson wrote is at the top of my list). Hatsune Miku and the other vocaloid avatars are making Idoru real, and now they have come to the U. S. The concert where the crowd chanted "IDORU! IDORU!" for Miku made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck!

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by BetaCygnus » Fri Jul 21, 2017 6:04 pm

#[1485]: Good. Miho is really crying here. Let it out, girl! You need that. =)

@Greymom: Welcome! =)

@Fred: Thanks again! =)
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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by Heywulf » Fri Jul 21, 2017 6:56 pm

Awww... 'Ninja-girl' can't enjoy her refreshing ninja-drink. It looks like in panel 4 someone's gone high-speed to re-shuffle Miho's kimono-front.

It does look like maybe ninja-girl gets up close and respectful in panel 7 to reset things right. (Like the kimono.) At a polite and slow normal speed, too.

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by garapagosu » Fri Jul 21, 2017 7:09 pm

DracMonster wrote:
Fri Jul 21, 2017 1:05 pm
paarfi wrote:
Fri Jul 21, 2017 5:53 am
That last comment from Ninjagrrl makes me think this really is Junpei's mom or grandma.
It could also be Fred trolling us.
Soon she will make some comment about her ears, leading the forum to believe she'a a foxy (tanuki?) ninja.
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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by Wesker888 » Fri Jul 21, 2017 7:24 pm

So that's totally the first legit f-bomb dropped in the comic, right? o.O

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by Ray Kremer » Fri Jul 21, 2017 7:27 pm

marsonkhan wrote:
Fri Jul 21, 2017 7:19 am
So Miho is horrified about being...normal?
It's an unusual prospect for her at this point.

Of course, she might consider it a blessing, but I think she's expecting some remnant of her old existence to be stalking her (metaphorically or literally), which would be bad for a girl that is normal.
eomdal wrote:
Fri Jul 21, 2017 10:21 am
what is going to happen to their world if this situation is permanent? Does the trope just vanish? Does someone else take over? Does everything unravel? Or, does nothing happen and it all just goes on?
It's hard to unpack the technobabble when so much of it is metaphor/allegory and it's all coming from Fred's mess of a head.

Here's what I think is going on: Recall back in some Kimiko/Miho interaction where Fred put in his little mantra of characters being "more real" than actual people. What's packed into that is all about how fans treat things, fictional characters are "alive" because they have fans. Well, not literally alive per se, but alive in the same sense that a man is "truly dead" once nobody remembers him anymore. So you have all these fans of the sickly girl character type that is presumably entirely based on Miho, and it's enough apparently to actually keep her literally alive, though perpetually fulfilling the trope. After all, the dead character is back again if you start over from chapter/episode/etc. 1. So then the question is, what happens when Miho doesn't fit that character anymore, and therefore is not the recipient of this... fan energy (for want of a better term). I don't think it impacts the source, there's no feedback that erases the trope. The two options that make any kind of sense to me is it's either just wasted and nothing happens, or it falls upon some other girl that fits the trope and resurrects her as the new analogue. I'm not sure we're going to find out either way, that is, if it seems like it's the former, it doesn't mean the latter didn't happen somewhere else in the world outside the scope of our cast of characters.

Again, this is all very undefined stuff, like that I've said it's hard to really know what horrible doom would have actually happened had the fans of Miho's character type gotten a hold of the girl herself, and I think Miho didn't really know either, she just didn't want to take any chances. The natural order to things has been ripped asunder, and better the devil you know than the devil you don't.
Invisigoth wrote:
Fri Jul 21, 2017 4:48 pm
At this time it'd be appropriate to point out that Fred is a fan of William Gibson and a great deal of MegaTokyo is in part informed by Gibson's novel Idoru.
Come to think of it, I know Fred's a fan of Key the Metal Idol also, which seems relevant.
Heywulf wrote:
Fri Jul 21, 2017 6:56 pm
It looks like in panel 4 someone's gone high-speed to re-shuffle Miho's kimono-front.
Sure, let's go with that. It's totally not a result of Fred being horrible at keeping track of art details like that. (Compare with the previous two pages also...)
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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by eomdal » Fri Jul 21, 2017 8:42 pm

Invisigoth wrote:
Fri Jul 21, 2017 4:48 pm
At this time it'd be appropriate to point out that Fred is a fan of William Gibson and a great deal of MegaTokyo is in part informed by Gibson's novel Idoru.

In his novel Pattern Recognition the protagonist Cayce Pollard observes that Japan is a sort of mirror world to Britain and the UK

You should read more Gibson!
Damn! My favorite author and one of my favorite novels, Idoru, is an influence on Megatokyo and I never made the connection?

I was about to start reading The Peripheral but now I am going to re-read Idoru and Pattern Recognition (and then maybe the rest of the Blue Ant trilogy). Thanks, Viz!

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by paarfi » Fri Jul 21, 2017 8:46 pm

Fred is starting work on the next comic. You can watch him draw it live on twitch.
https://www.twitch.tv/fredrin
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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by Rapierman » Fri Jul 21, 2017 9:51 pm

So, after further examination, it would seem that Miho's afraid of the unknown (like a lot of us, only greater). Regardless of what her miserable existence was, it was an existence she had grown accustomed to. Now, she has no idea what will happen, and that truly scares her.

I'll bet a lot of y'all have trepidations about the great unknown.
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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by piro » Fri Jul 21, 2017 10:46 pm

eomdal wrote:
Fri Jul 21, 2017 8:42 pm
Invisigoth wrote:
Fri Jul 21, 2017 4:48 pm
At this time it'd be appropriate to point out that Fred is a fan of William Gibson and a great deal of MegaTokyo is in part informed by Gibson's novel Idoru.

In his novel Pattern Recognition the protagonist Cayce Pollard observes that Japan is a sort of mirror world to Britain and the UK

You should read more Gibson!
Damn! My favorite author and one of my favorite novels, Idoru, is an influence on Megatokyo and I never made the connection?

I was about to start reading The Peripheral but now I am going to re-read Idoru and Pattern Recognition (and then maybe the rest of the Blue Ant trilogy). Thanks, Viz!
FTR, the Sonadas were roughly based on the japanese family in Idoru. :) Check out what Yuuji is lke. :)

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by Greymom » Fri Jul 21, 2017 11:22 pm

Ah, I definitely must re-read Idoru soon. My memory of the family is faint. Also given what the Vinclu company is marketing now, the
"Virtual Companion", Hikari (a Hatsune Miku version is in the works):
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-3 ... loneliness

Thanks, Fred! Miho's story just gets better and better.

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by BakaJedi » Sat Jul 22, 2017 12:58 pm

Based on what Junpei said about his mother and grandmother when he left Miho there, I’m increasiny inclined to believe that "ninja girl" is his mother.
Last edited by BakaJedi on Tue Jul 25, 2017 11:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by richvh » Sat Jul 22, 2017 1:23 pm

So what's the translation of Miho's Irish comment? Google Translate fails to translate "dur", ending up with "Dur I am and I hate myself."

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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by paarfi » Sat Jul 22, 2017 1:27 pm

richvh wrote:
Sat Jul 22, 2017 1:23 pm
So what's the translation of Miho's Irish comment? Google Translate fails to translate "dur", ending up with "Dur I am and I hate myself."
You need the accent on the u for google translate to work on it.
Tá mé dúr agus is fuath liom mé féin.
It means "I'm stupid and I hate myself."
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Re: [1485] - "no idea what is going to happen"

Post by Yl33 D4 N00b » Sat Jul 22, 2017 8:31 pm

Not sure if Ninjagrrrl's "It's OK dear, everyone feels like that" consoling is going to work on MIho. Interesting that Miho loses it in front of a stranger......

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