[1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by McTrooper » Tue May 28, 2019 2:48 pm

I see the title now, but doesn't it still seem more like Eric just snapped from the caos of the day?

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Iceman » Tue May 28, 2019 4:21 pm

paarfi wrote:
Sun May 26, 2019 7:37 pm
At first I wasn't quite sure if this was Erika taking what Largo said and using that as a staring point to get into Moeko-mode, or if this was like the Moeko taking over, especially since she's so close to the source. Pretty sure it's former now. Though the latter would be much creepier.
On first read, I wondered which of the two it is too. After more thought, I'm fairly certain it's the former too, as Erika has reason to change into Moeko-mode, and I'm not sure a takeover is within the rules of this universe either.

Have a feeling that Erika going Moeko-mode nearby is going to be enough to wake her up, but my moneys on an empty bed or a finger twitch after Erika does her speech and is leaving.

How the whole Moeko endgame will go is a mystery, since you have to tie in Miho and potentially other players. I don't think Erika's going to go back to being an idol permanently, which won't satisfy Moeko, but it's her own choice of how to live her life. I could see her doing something like a one-time concert or something though. All I know is this is the start of something big.

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Roamer » Tue May 28, 2019 7:20 pm

BetaCygnus wrote:
Tue May 28, 2019 4:44 am
Roamer wrote:
Tue May 28, 2019 4:00 am
That, or she's a much better actress that I thought, and is doing this for Moeko's sake. (Certainly not for Largo's mental health, such as it is.)
My vote goes to your ‘or’, Roamer. =)
I like that idea a lot more as well, but the body language and wording seems so out of character for Erika - talking about her heart skipping a beat, and Fred was so clear in pointing out Moeko's power, I have to be suspicious. It's in my nature.

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Liminaut » Tue May 28, 2019 9:15 pm

The big question question is: Is Moeko taking over Erika or is Erika playing Moeko?
My answer is: there's a difference?

We've found out before https://megatokyo.com/strip/1519 that there's a pretty strong link between a magical girl / real thing / whatever and the actress that player her. There may not be that much of a difference between 'taking over' and 'acting'.

Except ...

When we saw Moeko before https://megatokyo.com/strip/1540 she wasn't the bubbly fountain of joy Erika is portraying. She was as dark and bitter as a fountain of 100%, no-sugar-added chocolate. Moeko and Erika might not get along that well after all.

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by BetaCygnus » Wed May 29, 2019 2:40 am

Haha, revisiting the page it still gets me laughing out loud:

‘Deep immersion into play can lead to a coma-like state.’

Though, of course, the situation is touchy — story-wise — I think this is one of your best Largo-jokes EVER, Fred!

Thanks for the ongoing smile!

=)
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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Roamer » Wed May 29, 2019 3:44 am

Liminaut wrote:
Tue May 28, 2019 9:15 pm
The big question question is: Is Moeko taking over Erika or is Erika playing Moeko?
My answer is: there's a difference?

We've found out before https://megatokyo.com/strip/1519 that there's a pretty strong link between a magical girl / real thing / whatever and the actress that player her. There may not be that much of a difference between 'taking over' and 'acting'.

Except ...

When we saw Moeko before https://megatokyo.com/strip/1540 she wasn't the bubbly fountain of joy Erika is portraying. She was as dark and bitter as a fountain of 100%, no-sugar-added chocolate. Moeko and Erika might not get along that well after all.
Wait, THAT was Moeko? (I was working far too many hours when that sequence came out). Ok, I'm probably wrong about my theory if that's actually her personality. Sure doesn't seem like the girl that Ririka was talking about, though, with that attitude.

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Dragonix » Wed May 29, 2019 5:46 am

"Is that even a question?"

This may honestly be the sweetest thing Largo has said to Erika thus far. He has this "blunt to the point of sounding rude" way about him, but that bluntness always leads to him laying his heart bare to Erika whenever she questions his thoughts and feelings toward her. It reminds me of this movie quote I once heard:

"Well if I annoy you so much, why do you keep sticking around me?!"

"Because I LOVE YOU, you dumbass!!!"

He doesn't sugarcoat anything, but he's nuts for the girl. They may not be the best characters, but they definitely have the best relationship in this comic. It feels believable and real. I look forward to these two tackling more adventures together, as well as with their friends. The bonds between all these characters is what really make Megatokyo so great to me. ^_^

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by paarfi » Wed May 29, 2019 5:55 am

Roamer wrote:
Wed May 29, 2019 3:44 am
Liminaut wrote:
Tue May 28, 2019 9:15 pm
When we saw Moeko before https://megatokyo.com/strip/1540
Wait, THAT was Moeko? (I was working far too many hours when that sequence came out). Ok, I'm probably wrong about my theory if that's actually her personality. Sure doesn't seem like the girl that Ririka was talking about, though, with that attitude.
This is actually an important point. We saw the real Moeko when she was really mad at Miho, and for good reason. She's probably not like that all the time. But the anime Moeko that Erika plays is still very different, as we saw again in the current comic. This is just like when Ririka talked about how anime Ririka was so different from herself [1499], or how the real Lovelies of Lavender are all in their 30s now [1418]. The characters are all "based on a true story" with a real person behind them, but they are highly fictionalized.

This of course relates strongly back to Miho and her problems. The real Miho is not a sickly dying girl, but her character is. And that character is what people care about, just like Seiya only cares about the Lovelies on TV, or Erika's fan mob only cares about her as Moeko's voice actress. That many people caring has tremendous power. In Moeko's case, the character is giving her a chance to live a life vicariously [1500]. In Miho's case, it has her locked into ~150yrs of being dragged along unwillingly by her characters' story cycle.
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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Lacronton » Wed May 29, 2019 9:38 am

Well, this is escalating something quick, and in a random direction.
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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Invisigoth » Wed May 29, 2019 1:12 pm

Much less random than you think

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by shadowrider » Wed May 29, 2019 7:46 pm

I think Largo has found himself in over his head now, and is in more or less freaked out by the MG transformation bit too.
I can only imagine what could happen when Moeko-mode Erika encounters Moeko, who is still comatose.

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Invisigoth » Wed May 29, 2019 7:50 pm

Honestly Largo trying to tell Erika about the weirdness in MegaTokyo is like a 12 year old air soft enthusiast telling grizzled combat vets about their adventures.

I doubt that Erika believes that there's any danger because she'd not take Largo in if she did

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Roamer » Thu May 30, 2019 4:08 am

Invisigoth wrote:
Wed May 29, 2019 7:50 pm
Honestly Largo trying to tell Erika about the weirdness in MegaTokyo is like a 12 year old air soft enthusiast telling grizzled combat vets about their adventures.

I doubt that Erika believes that there's any danger because she'd not take Largo in if she did
I would pay money to watch that conversation. That's a fight that Erika would have to use her weaponized bunny ears to win, and Largo would still drag himself into the room by his elbows once he woke up.

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Roamer » Thu May 30, 2019 4:35 am

paarfi wrote:
Wed May 29, 2019 5:55 am
Roamer wrote:
Wed May 29, 2019 3:44 am
Liminaut wrote:
Tue May 28, 2019 9:15 pm
When we saw Moeko before https://megatokyo.com/strip/1540
Wait, THAT was Moeko? (I was working far too many hours when that sequence came out). Ok, I'm probably wrong about my theory if that's actually her personality. Sure doesn't seem like the girl that Ririka was talking about, though, with that attitude.
This is actually an important point. We saw the real Moeko when she was really mad at Miho, and for good reason. She's probably not like that all the time. But the anime Moeko that Erika plays is still very different, as we saw again in the current comic. This is just like when Ririka talked about how anime Ririka was so different from herself [1499], or how the real Lovelies of Lavender are all in their 30s now [1418]. The characters are all "based on a true story" with a real person behind them, but they are highly fictionalized.

This of course relates strongly back to Miho and her problems. The real Miho is not a sickly dying girl, but her character is. And that character is what people care about, just like Seiya only cares about the Lovelies on TV, or Erika's fan mob only cares about her as Moeko's voice actress. That many people caring has tremendous power. In Moeko's case, the character is giving her a chance to live a life vicariously [1500]. In Miho's case, it has her locked into ~150yrs of being dragged along unwillingly by her characters' story cycle.
So...Moeko probably isn't this kind of shrew most of the time, but neither is she the sweetness and light that Erika is showing off to Largo. That's all Erika, except for her heart skipping a beat. That was Largo. Good for him.

(The below is a braindump, I do them when I get new information that triggers a string of new realizations and/or ideas. It's kind of messy. Sorry.)

What Paarfi says raises real questions about the mechanics of MT, and why it was constructed the way it was - and the effects it has on the players. Are Miho and Moeko actually players, and if so, has the game actually forced them to live out these utterly grim lives? Assuming you're using the brains' ability to speed up or slow down it's perception of time, has Miho's player had to live all 150 subjective years? To what purpose? It can't be for a game; the first time someone logged out and told the police "MT kept me captive for years for the plot" the entire thing would be shut down. Is it some kind of sociological experiment? A system for keeping captive things they can't otherwise control (Zillas, Magical Girls..)? A
way of directing that power of belief that the masses of people have inside the game? Or are there MG's in the 'real' UnMod world, and MT was created by rabid fans as a way of keeping their favorites alive, as I suspect the UnMod universe would kill MG's with a speed that Kyubey would appreciate?

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Invisigoth » Thu May 30, 2019 8:14 am

It's nested, no one is trapped within the game.

A greater horror would be living in MegaTokyo and learning that you are in fact living in a simulation and that your life was created by people who live in the unMod universe.

As far as we know, Largo=Largo, Erika=Erika and they are a married couple in the unMod world. Piro=Piroko and Miho=Moh who are dating in unMod. Also there's a really high level of probability that Moh is multiboxing and is also playing Kimiko

EndGames and all the other game worlds referenced are nested inside either MT or unMod

And the highest level is all in Fred's head :D

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by cidjen » Thu May 30, 2019 9:08 am

@Invis so yeah a real Matrioshka you got here heh :) it'll be fun if this turns out to be The Truth. Like, next level.

So if we assume unMod is the 'reality' level, and Megatokyo is the game available for unMod characters, then Endgames would be like a virtual machine ran world only available for Megatokyo characters... maybe newer/development/testing version, hence the crashes and loss of data; but the virtual Endgames would be the same game mechanics as Megatokyo, only loaded with different world data (so too a persistent world RPG where one can choose their playing style) but the AI/NPC code would be the same? Like a way to automatically test their code, before changes are promoted up to the main Megatokyo game, (or to unMod for the matter, that could be a game too, right?)
SpoilerShow
(for reference: I just saw one webtoon author (Winter Moon) come up with similar matrioshka construct... his artist has similar style to the ThreePanelSoul guys, hmm... but this isn't the place to discuss this, sorry...)
Did you say before, that Moh in unMod, is playing both as Miho and Kimiko? This would explain the Miho to Kimiko link... the moods, the goosing ::) the knowing-whats-going-on.

/me Wonders, who else might be.

Maybe here, uM 'Erika' actually chose to suspend the Moeko character (a Magical Girl game character) (hence the coma) to play something more her age (an Idol Game)? But she as the Idol could not stand playing the story of her suspended character, so she unexpectedly bailed that one and became an Idol In Hiding... hmm. Maybe now she will actually decide to wake Moeko up and play BOTH, like Moh does?

Let me rephrase that.

Moh is an experienced player and has no problem sharing attention between Miho and Kimiko (also the game does a lot on 'autopilot' when the player isn't giving the character attention, right?)

Erika started from playing a Magical Girl type character, but either messed up the character build or just got stuck on something and could not break through... (the sickly body with great energy, right?) so she suspended Moeko (put her into coma).

Then as she felt more confident she built the Idol character, but the game forced her to play similar story line (Erika the Idol was contracted to play Magical Moe-bo) so she could not forget what she's done to Moeko, and 'wracked with guilt' quit the Idol industry and confined this character into hiding. Maybe she was planning to abandon that one too.

Maybe the game would not let her create another character (account upgrade, DLC, may be costly... or genuine game mechanic limit, idk). So to stay in the game, she had to continue playing one of them (and the story of Moeko evolved and other NPC characters played it too...)

Now with help of Largo, her Erika character actually regained some happiness, she may want to give dual-character game a try?

Hah. There's my brain dump.

(Also, to whoever has the actual MT books : there was supposed to be more unMod Mods there, that we web-dwellers wouldn't get... I suppose, @invis may be meaning whatever is contained there. Care to put up a resume of book unMod somewhere ...?)
Last edited by cidjen on Thu May 30, 2019 9:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Invisigoth » Thu May 30, 2019 9:33 am

unErika playing both Moeko and MTErika does sound quite plausible.

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by cidjen » Thu May 30, 2019 10:08 am

Sorry more brain dump coming in 1...2...3...

So the game engine, probably confines one real player to choose their characters path similarly (like the search engines feeding you similar information to what you've already been looking for...).

Maybe Moh (unMod) created both Miho and Kimiko characters.
Maybe He actually completed the game once, with Miho, from start to finish. That means, death. Maybe the actual 'bad ending'.
Now he chose to play a second time, with Kimiko, but something (a glitch?) caused the Miho character to be resurrected (and have memories of this happening to her before).
Maybe what happens is, that the game world is populated with story characters, and the players can choose, which character they want to play, and they only can choose another completely different character, when whichever is active at present, actually dies? It is then resurrected into NPC / available story character again for other players. Maybe someone else actually played Miho before and got the 'bad ending'. (Other players may have tried to play her after that but have given up and reverted her to the playable state) So Miho's story got more complicated than the players could handle.
Maybe due to a glitch (ninjaedit: dualboxing! logging in from2 different computers to the same account!), Miho somehow ended as the second character on Moh's account and the only way to get her to 'leave' is to have a 'good ending'. Maybe the developers want to ensure this way there are more positive endings, so the game won't be 'gloomy' = more appealing to the players. So they force more skilled players to pick up broken characters and give them new life. That, or pay the price for account upgrade, lol. Maybe there are prizes for players who helped the broken characters back to life?

Maybe it was Piro(ko) who tried dual-play with Miho and Piro before but could not handle that? Maybe that's the reason why Piro is so irritated at the 'real Miho' (ref to the bathhouse scene').

For the matter, the newbie magical-girl path player, playing Yuki, could be trying to do something similar - playing Yuki and Yutaka at the same time ?

Maybe the game has a way to actually force the real players to choose 2 playable characters to play - to sort-of fake the fact that there were not a lot of real players on the servers? I mean, this compete(d/s) with WoW, LOTRO and other subscription games in the day. The characters... most of them come in pairs right? Dom and Ed, Miho and Kimiko, Yuki and Yutaka, Erika and Moeko, i'd hazard a guess - Largo and Komugiko... then which character would Piro(ko) play as the secondary...? Yakugashi? Megumi? Junko? or The Doctor? (not including Ping cause 'everybody' knows she's a robot, lol, Ping is the manifestation of the beta game AI mechanics...)

(ninjaedit: finished adding Maybe's)
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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Invisigoth » Thu May 30, 2019 10:37 am

the thing is, there is no end to the game

It's an open world sandbox/simulation

Oh BTW everyone in both MT and EG are fully sentient and intelligent and they have no idea that their world is a simulation

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Teddy-Werebear » Thu May 30, 2019 11:47 am

shadowrider wrote:
Wed May 29, 2019 7:46 pm
I think Largo has found himself in over his head now, and is in more or less freaked out by the MG transformation bit too.
I can only imagine what could happen when Moeko-mode Erika encounters Moeko, who is still comatose.
~shadowrider
Erika is totally acting... with her voice and body... because she is an actress... and Largo has fallen for her act hook. line, and sinker. She is quite likely fighting the urge to bust out in belly laughs over how frightened he is if she saw the look on his face in the last few panels.

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Invisigoth » Thu May 30, 2019 11:58 am

Teddy-Werebear wrote:
Thu May 30, 2019 11:47 am
shadowrider wrote:
Wed May 29, 2019 7:46 pm
I think Largo has found himself in over his head now, and is in more or less freaked out by the MG transformation bit too.
I can only imagine what could happen when Moeko-mode Erika encounters Moeko, who is still comatose.
~shadowrider
Erika is totally acting... with her voice and body... because she is an actress... and Largo has fallen for her act hook. line, and sinker. She is quite likely fighting the urge to bust out in belly laughs over how frightened he is if she saw the look on his face in the last few panels.
Nope, she's totally in to it now

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by cidjen » Thu May 30, 2019 1:13 pm

Invisigoth wrote:
Thu May 30, 2019 10:37 am
the thing is, there is no end to the game

It's an open world sandbox/simulation

Oh BTW everyone in both MT and EG are fully sentient and intelligent and they have no idea that their world is a simulation
Even in open world/sandbox games there are paths, scenarios, choices (imagine The Witcher 2 and 3... If that was made into a sandbox/MMORPG...) you can take. (Even WoW has that, only it isn't persistent and no multiple paths last time I played...) Hence they have endgame / end of paths scenarios/ endings.

So I was imagining a game where the player can choose their level of involvement... Noobs would choose auto mode mostly and only intervene if it was going not to what they think the objective of the story path was, or for combat. Only Senior players would actually chose to move the characters manually at all times. If player logged out, could choose if the character shall wait for them not proceeding with the story, or play it to the extent of its earned ability and stats, using AI.

Plus all the usual RPG mechanics ofc....
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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Roborat » Fri May 31, 2019 3:26 pm

I thought this was a very cute page, particularly when Erika started playing her character, thus causing Largo to become terrified; based on his expressions in the last two panels. Then it occurred to me, what if she isn't acting, but is actually becoming her character, the closer she gets to her avatar? If that is the case, Largo's terror is justified.

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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by cidjen » Fri May 31, 2019 6:39 pm

Not that unusual I think, remember Kimiko also almost became Miho for some time (or maybe rather, amplified the character through her acting) I suppose this is what the Megtokyo actress's ability is: amplification of the story, the feelings that the story conveys. But Kimiko had to dress up because she's not yet as experienced as Erika is - for Erika it's enough to think of what character she wants to be, to become one.
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Re: [1556] A magical girl transformation sequence

Post by Rapierman » Fri May 31, 2019 7:05 pm

Invisigoth wrote:
Thu May 30, 2019 8:14 am
A greater horror would be living in MegaTokyo and learning that you are in fact living in a simulation and that your life was created by people who live in the unMod universe.
Holy "Number of the Beast", Batman!
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