[1552] All of either of them

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[1552] All of either of them

Post by paarfi » Sat Apr 13, 2019 9:38 am

Fred has posted the new comic to his Patreon. He'll post it to the main site and elsewhere probably tomorrow.
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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by Invisigoth » Sat Apr 13, 2019 10:23 am

That's got to hurt as bad as that suplex

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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by Teddy-Werebear » Sat Apr 13, 2019 11:03 pm

A lot of messy emotions in this... I will need to think of a joke later.

This is Miho's fault, somehow...

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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by HakuRyoku » Sat Apr 13, 2019 11:36 pm

This...... this could get complicated.... I wonder what Junko is thinking right now.
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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by cidjen » Sun Apr 14, 2019 2:10 am

Teddy-Werebear wrote:
Sat Apr 13, 2019 11:03 pm

This is Miho's fault, somehow...
Hah you may not be far from the truth y'know... Never thought I would say that to a Werebear lool.

It's Miho who's messed with Ping first in _this_ game, after all.

Thank you for another great page Fred!

So this would be the game over for the player playing Junko then?

Piro won with her.
Kimiko also won.
Largo and Erika too.
Miho narrowly escaped death.
Junko has been defeated.
Слава Україні!
🖕💩🥫🚽🖌️
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Translation to polish
and where it happens when I have time to stream

Blessed be those, who, having nothing to say, avoid trying to tell this to the world in their own words - J. Tuwim ( liberally translated )

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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by garapagosu » Sun Apr 14, 2019 7:34 am

It's ok Junko. Maybe he just doesn't swing that way (and that could also mean interfacing with girls a solid 30+ years his junior)
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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by paarfi » Sun Apr 14, 2019 8:46 am

garapagosu wrote:
Sun Apr 14, 2019 7:34 am
It's ok Junko. Maybe he just doesn't swing that way (and that could also mean interfacing with girls a solid 30+ years his junior)
I'm not seeing it that way. Ping is telling Junko that DrGero didn't want Ping, but does want Junko. Ashe knows different, and told Megumi, but Junko doesn't know that yet. Junko finding out about DrGero's real attitude toward her is yet to come.
cidjen wrote:
Sun Apr 14, 2019 2:10 am
So this would be the game over for the player playing Junko then?
I understand the logic behind the "megatokyo itself is a game" theory, especially with the existence of endgames, comics like [1068], and some of the things vis regularly says. However, I gotta say: I really dislike it. MT is full of characters who are real. Their feelings matter; their decisions (good or bad) matter. Being able to start over or load from a save, as you can in a game, would be cheating [468] and would ruin the legitimacy of those decisions and feelings

What happens in games typically does not really matter. I don't game much anymore myself, but I've slaughtered thousands of alien invaders and nazis in my time. I've watched my nephews running around towns for the sole purpose of finding people to murder. This does not bother me because I understand the difference between games and reality, and that that difference is important.

But that difference cuts both ways. If MT were really a game, I think it's so easy to picture a player saying "Lol, let's make Piro and Kimiko bang". And that totally ruins it. It's no longer two real people we've come to love tentatively getting together, with all the additional complications of Miho still hanging over their heads. But rather it's a 12yr old looking for a cheap thrill.

Games can matter to players, like they did for Piro, Miho, and Mugi in Endgames, and for some other people in real life. Relationships built in games can leak into real life. But those are the rare exception. Most of the time games are an escape, where decisions have little consequence beyond waiting until you respawn. It's fun in a large part because getting it wrong matters so much less. I don't want that for Megatokyo. I love these characters, and I want what they do to mean something.
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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by Invisigoth » Sun Apr 14, 2019 8:57 am

Oh the game thing is a lot more complex than that because it's not just a game but a simulation with sentient AI existing within it who are unaware or their situation. Their lives are being messed with by others who "play" them as an escape from the grim reality of their own lives.

Where are ethics in this?

It gets worse because a similar situation exists in EndGames where those entities have no idea of what a computer simulation is or that they are not even a first level iteration but exist outside of the knowledge of the actual gamers.

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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by Yl33 D4 N00b » Sun Apr 14, 2019 12:29 pm

I reckon we'll be waiting for Dr. Gero to drop the bomb on Junko himself........ :|

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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by eomdal » Sun Apr 14, 2019 1:57 pm

paarfi wrote:
Sun Apr 14, 2019 8:46 am
I understand the logic behind the "megatokyo itself is a game" theory, especially with the existence of endgames, comics like [1068], and some of the things vis regularly says. However, I gotta say: I really dislike it. MT is full of characters who are real. Their feelings matter; their decisions (good or bad) matter. Being able to start over or load from a save, as you can in a game, would be cheating [468] and would ruin the legitimacy of those decisions and feelings

Games can matter to players, like they did for Piro, Miho, and Mugi in Endgames, and for some other people in real life. Relationships built in games can leak into real life. But those are the rare exception. Most of the time games are an escape, where decisions have little consequence beyond waiting until you respawn. It's fun in a large part because getting it wrong matters so much less. I don't want that for Megatokyo. I love these characters, and I want what they do to mean something.
Agreed, but this assumes that the game of Megatokyo - if it is a game - was designed without player emotions in mind, with deeper involvement being an unintended exception to the rule. What if the goal is the player's deep emotional investment? If the game was designed for this then there could be certain safeguards built in, like not being able to force characters to do something too far out of character for them (alignment check) and not allowing reloads or respawns. (Rage quit would still be possible, but involvement between characters and audience can be cut off in linear media as well) And, what if the game's architect unknowingly designed it too well for its purpose, allowing for mutual emotional and intellectual involvement between the players and the AI characters to become something that nobody had considered or thought possible?

Fred likes to say - often enough and clearly enough to discount the Fred Herring effect to me - that his characters have a life of their own and are affecting the course of the story. If so, this would fit with a Megatokyo-as-emotion-game theory.

It also gives me another thought: that the Engineer is a new author insert. Piro is still in that role, but now more as a memory. The Engineer (or perhaps I should say, Architect) is someone who has created something that was meant to entertain players by being a vehicle for various anime and J-culture tropes, but with an element of emotional involvement. It has now become something...new.

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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by Eraden » Sun Apr 14, 2019 5:50 pm

So, in the previous thread, I had mentioned the possibility that Megumi was in the process of awakening to become a nine-tailed kitsune (assuming those tails and ears were not jokes). Ashe is about to spill the beans to Megumi. I wonder how Megumi will react to this information. Is THIS what will finally push her over the edge and fully awaken? If so, I wonder, should she find our scientist's behavior rather unseemly, if she is going to voice her displeasure in a rather....spectacular way. Hell, even if she doesn't go nine-tail, her current capabilities might be sufficient to make the scientist want to head straight for Sony headquarters....and safety.

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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by cidjen » Sun Apr 14, 2019 7:34 pm

Yeah, what Invis and Eomdal said, I concur.

This game, what players do and feel, matters. To them reciprocally, and to the AI that plays the characters in their steads.

Because in this game, also the story is what really matters most to all who take part in it.

( I could add the reference to something I recently translated, emotions we have in game(s) are real - be it just for this game or just this universe. Sure, sometimes it's hard to find any in some other games, but that is not their purpose. I just hope that purpose of this one is not to make us sad... That's it.)
Слава Україні!
🖕💩🥫🚽🖌️
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Translation to polish
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Blessed be those, who, having nothing to say, avoid trying to tell this to the world in their own words - J. Tuwim ( liberally translated )

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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by S1arburst » Sun Apr 14, 2019 11:09 pm

Okay, I've been wondering this for a while, but is Ashe signing in ASL (American Sign Language)? From what I've heard, the Japanese have their own totally different sign language. Or is this something like the joke where Junpei still uses weird grammar even when speaking in Japanese, and she's actually signing in Japanese but Fred is 'translating' it?

Also, she is a MASTER at lip-reading. I wanted to smack Ping's dad for talking away at a mile a minute without pausing for Ashe to digest or clarify if she didn't catch something. Especially after he got a clue that she might be deaf. Yet it seems she caught pretty much everything.
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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by LogicalLube » Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:56 am

S1arburst wrote:
Sun Apr 14, 2019 11:09 pm
Okay, I've been wondering this for a while, but is Ashe signing in ASL (American Sign Language)? From what I've heard, the Japanese have their own totally different sign language. Or is this something like the joke where Junpei still uses weird grammar even when speaking in Japanese, and she's actually signing in Japanese but Fred is 'translating' it?

Also, she is a MASTER at lip-reading. I wanted to smack Ping's dad for talking away at a mile a minute without pausing for Ashe to digest or clarify if she didn't catch something. Especially after he got a clue that she might be deaf. Yet it seems she caught pretty much everything.
She does use JSL according to Fred in a stream but whether the "snapshots" of sign we get to see in each frame actually translates over to a genuine JSL word (or part of one) I couldn't tell you, I don't know the first thing about either language.

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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by BetaCygnus » Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:09 am

I don’t know if MT is meant as the story of a multilayer game or a story of real people in a comic world in which every character has his or her own perception of what’s going on…

…but I do admire Fred for being able to draw a comic and add the dialogue so well that he actually manages to convey such very subtle emotions as very raw ones in one and the same page — and cause me to feel for *all* of the characters.

Thanks for this beautiful update, Fred!

=)
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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by Mamma Peach » Mon Apr 15, 2019 10:15 am

What if Ping suddenly started treating the Dr. as her dad? ("Daaaddy, why won't people play with me?" *sob* *cry*) Would he be weirded out?

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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by darrin » Mon Apr 15, 2019 11:34 am

Ping: "He (the Old Man) wants you (Junko)!"

I would be very wary at this point of assuming that Ping is actually correct about this. It's clearly what Ping believes to be true, and may very well be something she wants to be true, but that doesn't mean she's not mistaken. (Or at the very least that her definition of "wants" might not map to anything similar in his head... I doubt Ping means "wants you for further use as a research subject".)

Compare her earlier epiphany that "Piro-kun needs to care about Miho-chan!" Granted there are plenty of supporters of the claim that Piro loves Miho and not Kimiko, but objectively it has to be conceded that it's far from played out as a done deal in the comic so far; and given what Piro said to Kimiko starting 1208, and Piro and Miho's interactions in the last chapter (argument around 1275, and the latent hostility in the bathhouse scene), it's pretty clear Ping's assumption back in 707 was at best over-simplistic.
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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by DrunkenSailor » Mon Apr 15, 2019 3:42 pm

I believe Fred has stated he's using Japanese Sign Language, not American. Though I'm surprised he doesn't just put a tiny " < " and a tiny " > " around Ashe's hands. ;) And he recently stated in twitter under hashtag "#outsmartedmyself" that when he changes her dialog he has to redraw her hands. Don't know how serious he was about that, but he is apparently paying some attention to getting the sign language right.

Also I asked before, why doesn't Ping recognize the old guy. That they've never met seems like the "duh" answer, but he's designing her. How many prototypes do they have? I was wondering if she had an anonymizer function built in so she can play games that require her to emote to the hero (her user) as if he were a stranger she'd met in game. It would also make testing her back at the lab easier in that they wouldn't have to bring in new people constantly to test how she deals with strangers. That such a function were on might have a knock-on effects small and large that would affect her behavior. Perhaps she had to turn it on for SONY employees to make her escape possible in some way.

Seems like a lot of conjecture for a trifling amount of fact, but that she's never met that guy back at SONY Labs, just seems so odd to me that I'm keeping such a possibility open.

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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by darrin » Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:25 pm

DrunkenSailor wrote:
Mon Apr 15, 2019 3:42 pm
Also I asked before, why doesn't Ping recognize the old guy.
I have been assuming that Sony R&D standard procedure would be to do a memory wipe before she leaves each lab; so before the Old Man sends her from development down to the QC lab, or hypothetically before one leaves the QC lab to be sent to Sales or whatever. (Obviously I mean "short term" memories about who she's talked with and what they've done, not fundamental stuff like how to walk or move her mouth when she speaks.) Since the whole point of the SEVS is to adapt to and respond to the emotions and personality of the "user", they clearly wouldn't want cruft from what (test/demo) games the Old Man et al. played with her to interfere with that.
Seems like a lot of conjecture for a trifling amount of fact
Granted elaborate speculation on the specific details is probably premature (if Fred were ever to even go into them, which might not be all that likely); but that Sony would want to do something of the kind seems pretty certain to me.
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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by darrin » Tue Apr 16, 2019 9:57 pm

I mentioned in a twitch chat a couple weeks back how much I admired Megumi's ability to very rapidly "switch gears" emotionally, to go from her usual snarky shell to being very caring and considerate when the situation demands it. (E.g. at Anna Miller's, when she is initially disdainful of Piro doing the "dumb boyfriend" schtick but immediately warms up when he shows that he's there to actually help and not be yet another thing they need to deal with; or when they first showed up at the Foxhole, and she teased him mercilessly until she realized he was genuinely freaked out (and not just playing coy), and immediately switched to "big sister" mode and tried her level best to calm him down.)

I love how that is coming out again in this strip. Obviously she doesn't know exactly what Ashe is on about yet, but she presumably knows her cousin well enough to know that it's non-trivial (even likely to be harmful to Junko given Ashe asking her not to translate particular details). So she deliberately decides to quite literally support Junko from behind... rather than joining the other ladies in front and making Junko feel like she's facing a Sawatari tribunal

Excellent work here Fred.
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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by Dragonix » Tue Apr 16, 2019 11:39 pm

Man, these last few pages have been a bit depressing... Loving the story for Junko and Ping getting fleshed out a bit more, but I'm starting to think we all should get a small cut back to Largo and Erika, or something, just for a nice emotional purge.

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Re: [1552] All of either of them

Post by S1arburst » Fri Apr 19, 2019 6:19 pm

LogicalLube wrote:
Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:56 am
She does use JSL according to Fred in a stream but whether the "snapshots" of sign we get to see in each frame actually translates over to a genuine JSL word (or part of one) I couldn't tell you, I don't know the first thing about either language.
Well, I only took one semester of ASL, but in frame 2 of this comic she's definitely signing "stupid", and in [1531] she was signing "help" in ASL as well.

Changing the subject, anyone else find it slightly ridiculous that someone who works at a love hotel is disturbed by a man who's only interested in parts of the girls he deals with? Some of their patrons like Kimi and Piro would like a long-term relationship, but there's plenty of couples who come through who are only interested in a "short game" [1255] and not in getting to know each other in depth. Kimiko didn't even remember that she'd been to a love hotel twice since she's been rooming with Erika. I would expect people who work at a place like the Foxhole would be the least likely to be bothered by something like that next to workers at an actual brothel.
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