Messages

1

Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 35: Discussion

« on: January 08, 2013, 07:52:39 am »

So...is the new page supposed to paint Bern in a positive light?

Because all it does is show how she doesn't take responsibility for her actions, and instead lets Polly bail her out for mugging a healer. The whole non-resistance thing is a moot point when she knows full well that her current best bud is an Enforcer who can and will cover her ass due to being madly in love with her. Embracing cronyism with open arms, as opposed to owning the fact that she's a violent criminal, actually makes her look worse than fighting off the Enforcers would. It shows she doesn't have the courage of her convictions, otherwise, if she truly believed she was in the right, there's other no reason for her to let herself be taken than to have Polly come to the rescue.

She still has someone to love, someone to live for, and wouldn't that be a heck of a lot more important than respecting the laws and culture that would've left her father to rot away and die on the street? In this one instance, I really do wish Bern would take personal responsibility, if only because the alternative is much more shameful. The irony is that, by taking faux responsibility, she's essentially absolving herself of it like a coward, and simply giving up.

Bern...looks like a pathetic failure hero by the end of this chapter. Even more so than necessary. It seems like this chapter is entirely dedicated entirely to how much Bern sucks as a main character. Does the writer hate her or something? Because I'm really not sure what kind of entertainment or aesop is supposed to be had. The new page only makes me thing the comic would've been better off had Mary succeeded in offing Bern, just to spare her the shame conga she's currently dancing.

2

Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 35: Discussion

« on: January 05, 2013, 12:12:15 pm »

No more walls of text in the chapter discussion thread, please?

You know, that seems vaguely contrary to some underlying aesop in the comic from back when it was good. Oh irony. But alright, I'll try to keep it simpler. For great anti-intellectualism!

There's no doubt that some people will choose the monster-free country, especially if rumour travels about what's happening in Iscariot.

People are living in Marvallo. All I'm doing is proposing one reason why they might have chosen to live there.
You seem a little jumpy at people who defend the place though.
Chill out a bit. There's no need to be quite as demeaning as you're being.

I apologize for being demeaning, but anyone with a brain knows that an entire society can't be judged based on one single upper class neighborhood. That's obviously moronic. It's the kind of thing anyone would realize is wrong if you just sat down and thought about it for a minute. But that stupidity is the basis for your opinion, and stupid opinions are kind of my berserk button. Now, I've already outlined examples of why you're wrong, which obviously nobody even read. But if you're going to continue arguing a logical fallacy, well, I guess it was my mistake for responding, since I can no better disprove broken logic than I can the existence of a deity.

Back on topic, the newest page is kind of funny. From the pathetic way Bern's behaving, I half expect her to collapse on the floor and burst into tears about how she never even wanted to be a knight.

3

Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 35: Discussion

« on: January 04, 2013, 09:29:14 am »

Bern spent at least three years in a ghetto when she was in that gang growing up. And Bern hasn't exactly been protected from anything except for loud drunks who weren't even bothering her specifically. We've seen literally NO actual enemies in Marvallo.
We have a hint that Bern's memories of this place are 'dark', but that's not that specific.

Like I said. It's because the only time the comic shifts to Marvallo is in a rosy nostalgic flashback or when Bern's traversing the safety of upper class neighborhoods. There's a case to be made that Bern herself is an "enemy" considering she's in the process of mugging a healer in the name of justice. If the comic had taken place in Marvallo from the beginning, there would have surely been adversaries.

Why not? That's what happens everywhere else. Assuming the ghettoes are breeding grounds for the worst kind of people... wouldn't it spill over? Wouldn't there be stories of 'the twenty people murdered last week' or some other such gossip going on in the background?
The healer implied that being forced to heal is something that shouldn't happen in her neighborhood because of 'dues'. But no one has expressed any sort of fear or disgust for the ghettoes and what happens there, pity for those who live there, so on.

In short: The ghettoes don't sound so much like a hellscape of violence and awful, unthinkable deeds. They sound more like... the wrong side of the tracks, where you're likely to get mugged, or shot at if you piss off someone. Which, again, is a bit better than the monsters that Iscariot keeps pumping out.

It's more like the upper class in Marvallo is a lot like the upper class in real life. Rich people like a certain former post-Eisenhower Republican presidential candidate don't care about poor people. As long as what happens in the ghettos stays in the ghettos, why would they care? They've got Enforcers protecting them. The one time the ghettos were mentioned, though, it was with shock at Bern's use of violence. Which implies that the violent wrecking of business is commonplace, just not in "decent" neighborhoods.

As for the reason it wouldn't spill over is because the Enforcers are clearly good at their job. They'd have to be, otherwise people would stop paying them. That, and there's no reason thugs and gangs would seek to incite their wrath when they've got free reign to do whatever they please in the ghettos. Only an idiot would fuck up the chance to build a criminal enterprise in a lawless area filled with potential victims. And the vigilante gangs are the opposite. Polly's gang and such would have an interest in fighting other gangs to make sure the violence doesn't spread. Evil vs evil, so to speak. So it's probably a matter of the gangs being too busy killing each other to expand their territory. If you're a conspiracy theorist, there's even a chance that the Enforcers might have struck a deal with the ghetto thugs to stay out of their business if they stay out of the upper class neighborhoods. Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean everything's all bright and sunny. There's just far too much of Marvallo that we've never seen. Even so, one can draw conclusions from deductive reasoning and real life parallels.

Also, Iscariot doesn't pump out monsters. It's the Thin Man, who is, as far as we know, not in any way affiliated with the Iscariot government and has eluded capture solely because he's a big bad (who might even possess with an omniscient morality license) whose asskicking equals authority amongst his ranks. Or he's a magnificent chessmaster whose talent and intellect allow him to come out as the victor in any gambit roulette. Either way, it's not Iscariot's fault that there just happens to be a sorcerer who's really good at it. What could the Conclave possibly do against a villain even the main characters are powerless against? How would Marvallo fare any better if he were to set up shop there? How do you know that the Thin Man, the one behind most of the villains the party has faced, isn't actually The Great Benefactor, who's using the dues paid to him to fund his research into monster girls?

Clairen, was already a capable swordswoman, and an assassin (I believe?) before getting the Thin Man treatment. And it was a pretty tame treatment. You can't blame her on the Thin Man, she did that stuff all on her own.

Bloody Mary was created, but she was loose in that town for... a long time. The Phalanx 'protection' is pretty equal to Marvallo's in that regard. Spots get missed, but that doesn't reflect on the system as a whole. It just means you need more people to keep those spots from getting missed: Which is what Polly was saying.

And technically, the psychotic housewife killed him once and managed to get away with it for like... MONTHS. No one ever caught her, and authorities didn't seem to be chasing after her. The only reason she was stopped was because of the murder/suicide thing she did with her husband.

In Iscariot we've heard about, or directly seen: mass murderers, insanely powerful magical objects that may turn you INTO a mass murderer, people disappearing, various Thin Man subjects of increasing horror, and so on. We've seen and heard of none of that in Marvallo.

The protection in Marvollo is probably about the same in Iscariot. The same number of people sign up to be Enforcers, as sign up to be Phalanx/guards/security for Iscariot. The difference is that in Iscariot, there's some seriously scary stuff going on that doesn't seem to have a parallel in Marvallo.

The rest of your stuff was a bit too political for me to tackle.

Clairen would've been dead ten times over if she wasn't immune to attack from half the world's population. Or at least she wouldn't have had as much success as an assassin if her targets could fight back. This is obvious in Book 0, where the only reason she was able to get so far into the castle with ease was because of the Thin Man's anti-man tat job. The moment she came into contact with a competent fighter, who wasn't even a famous goddess amongst swordsmen or anything of the sort, her ass was thoroughly handed to her on a silver platter. What's more, Bern was handicapping herself by using a child's fighting style. Clairen got owned by kiddy games. Clearly, she was not as formidable as you make her out to be.

As for Mary, it was only three months. But let's be real. The entire Flipside world is filled with dangerous sorcerers. The problem is, the Phalanx differ from the Enforcers in that they don't abandon those in need. Unfortunately, like the Enforcers, the Phalanx aren't unlimited in number.  Which is clearly why there's less protection and it takes longer. Protection is rationed and prioritized, but always equally distributed, even to small out of the way towns that don't even have a level 3 healer. But the problem is sure to be solved once the Phalanx get there, like Shepard's big damn hero moment pretty much made 10 chapters worth of conflict moot. Truly, Shepard is a badass.

The point is, it's not that the protection is "equal" or that spots get missed. Neither of those things is true. The Phalanx knew what was going on. Suspiria even rushed there without their consent, and her arrival was delayed by who knows how long due to the fact that she was traveling without portals. Still, it'd obviously take longer to organize the distribution of Phalanx forces than it would if they were solely focused on protecting the wealthy. If they were like the Enforcers, there wouldn't have even been any Phalanx in that small town. Not Suspiria, or her backup. The town would've been stuck at Mary's mercy, because even the heroes couldn't stop a nightmare fueled knight of cerebus. Suffice it to say, that town would've been doomed as fuck. Without Suspiria and Kin around to catch the tragedy ball, the heroes would've had their shit wrecked in any believable scenario. Bern would've been deader than dead, and the others would've soon followed unless they abandoned the townspeople. In that regard, Phalanx protection is just that much better than the Enforcers' pay-to-protect way of doing business.

As for Noventia, part of the reason she got away with it might've been the fact that Seraph was trying to be dead to everyone but his traveling companions. The guy's been killed once, and telling the authorities about Noventia would've just made him that much easier a target by broadcasting his location. I mean, the guy wanted to live to train his disciples, not get knifed in the middle of a city while everyone around him is powerless to stop it. What's more, a jerkass he may be, but he genuinely did seem to care for his wife up to a point, so much so that he didn't just dump her ass when she started getting bitchy. The only time he expressly wanted to harm her was when he was driven to do so out of desperation. Even when she appeared before him in public without an assassin, good guy Seraph was only concerned with preventing conflict. There's a case to be made that he's just too damn nice to want the Phalanx to kill her ass dead. Indeed, Seraph had a horrible case of nice guy syndrome. If he didn't still love Noventia to some degree, there's no reason he wouldn't have set it up so that she was killed by the Phalanx. But seeing as he was the only witness to the crime, and he still had the hots for Noventia's god tier hairjobs, that would put the Phalanx completely out of the loop and incapable of knowing, or even acting upon, what happened. They're not omnipotent. As far as they knew, Seraph was dead, killed by an assassin that wasn't enough of a national threat to send a one man army to tear her shit up. And they were right. All it took was a single knight using a child's fighting style to do the assassin in. Not just her, but also the other female assassins from the beginning of Book 0.

It's more like assassins aren't so much dangerous, as they are so weak that any decent bodyguard or knight would be able to stop them if the person targeted actually sought help. Unfortunately, by virtue of them being assassins, the only witnesses to their crimes are too dead to point the finger at them. It's kind of a catch 22 in that their line of work is self-protecting. But at the same time, if they ever ran into trouble themselves, their lives would be forfeit. But then again, assassins and jealous wives are the least of the Phalanx' problems with guys in Infinity +1 bondage collars and scythe wielding cannibals running around killing everything around them. Omnicidal maniacs are a much more important issue than hired thugs.

As for seeing none of that in Marvallo, well, we've seen, like, 50+ chapters of Iscariot, and about 3 or 4 in Marvallo, and it's more of a Bern centered side story than a main plot. One that takes place in a peaceful upper class neighborhood protected by a badass banchou that nobody fucks with. I think you're mistaking Marvallo for a paradise based on "out of sight out of mind." It's like going outside and saying there aren't any terrorists because you don't see them. Or that 9/11 never happened because you've never heard of it, weren't in new york and don't know anyone affected by it. It's more like you're thinking in a bubble impervious to facts, logic and reality, and drawing conclusions from that without ever seeing more than just a single neighborhood in Marvallo. It's like saying Wall Street is America, and everywhere in America is exactly the same as it is. And even within the bubble the comic has created, the people are still scumbags. So what would scumbag Marvallians not bound by law be like? I'd wager they're as bad as Iscariotian criminals, if not worse, unless the author intends to break suspension of disbelief and paint Marvallo as a realistically unsustainable capitalist paradise where chaos and anarchy breed rainbows and sunshine. Suffice it to say, Afghanistan knows what not having a strong central government is like, and it's not buying any of that shit about everyone in lawless lands just getting along fine and dandy.

And...how the heck do you know how many people sign up to be Phalanx and Enforcers? We've seen far more Phalanx than Enforcers, so by your "BECAUSE I SEE IT" logic, isn't it actually the case that there are more Phalanx than Enforcers? You're setting up a logical fallacy based on false equivalence using everyone's general ignorance of Marvallo's ghettoes as proof of Marvallo's perfection. Your entire argument is based on things you don't or couldn't possibly know. It even runs counter to logic, deductive reasoning and reality itself.

Suffice it to say, if politics makes you squeamish, then you're probably not well versed enough in the realities of governing and economics to accurately analyze the unfortunate implications that stem from the way Marvallo's being run based on what happens in such situations in real life. I mean, we've seen what happens when poor people are herded into lawless lands. And they're not places you'd walk into with the cocksure assumption that somebody isn't going to mug the fuck out of you. In fact, it's a wonder if nobody's done that to you yet. Because you seem to have a skewed perception of the world being safer than it is, if you judge the safety of a place based on whether you can see criminals around. That's...a horribly inaccurate standard to go by. Mostly because you can't possibly know based on what you see. Judging an environment accurately requires a more nuanced approach, as opposed to your "one neighborhood" way of viewing an entire society.

4

Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 35: Discussion

« on: January 03, 2013, 02:07:45 pm »

One thing I think Marvallo has going for it? It seems less dangerous. Bern's been running around there for awhile now, and grew up there even, and hasn't run into any trouble... besides some unhelpful people.
Compare that to the rest of the world where you had the Xibulba collar and its two serial killer products, Clairen, Bloody Mary, Suspiria, that sorcerer and his wife... Outside of Marvollo, there's some sort of enemy appearing every other week. Enemies that won't hesitate to kill people, and do so very easily.
If news of those sorts of people and incidents keep drifting down to Marvollo... is it really any wonder that people might stay there, pay their dues, and know that they'll live a safe, happy life as long as they keep making the money to do so?

Social Darwinist Marvallo is not a safe or happy place to live.

Second, I don't think Brion is praising capitalism, he's in fact highlighting its reality behind the thin veneer of personal responsibility and choice.

As the fiscal cliff looms back on Earth, I am reminded of the real reason for government spending on welfare. It's not charity; it is the prevention of civil unrest. Welfare is the bread in bread and circuses.

We live in Marvallo; even Europe is just a toned-down version of that which unapologetically rules the roost here. Capitalism extracts from us our waking hours and repays us in fractions of the value we create by the work we do in those hours.

I think it'd be appropriate to end with this:

Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?

For united, we are strong!

United or not, there's no way for commoners to improve their circumstances when business and government team up to look out for their own monied interests.

5

Flipside Discussion / Re: Vote Incentive Request Thread for November 2012

« on: January 02, 2013, 07:57:07 am »

Also generally it should be one single character, group poses take too long

Voted anyway, but I would've liked to have seen an image of Beefitz and Shepard brofisting, Boss with a Twingana hanging on each arm, Mary on a leash held by Sierra, Ghost Kin romantically holding Ghost Clairen in his arms, Ghost Seraph being eternally nagged to life by Ghost Noventia, and Bonespiria in bone armor laughing haughtily while sitting upon a throne that's also made out of bone, all while Britannus pats Orransong on the back in sympathy as the latter kneels on the ground double facepalming at the lunacy of being the only sane, competent person present. All in the same image, with the entire group collectively forming an epic adventuring party that's embarking on a trip to travel the world. Of course, the title "Beefside" would be at the top of the page, as if it were the cover of a more comedic spinoff comic whose cast was comprised of all the interesting misfits (even the dead ones!) who're never seen again in the main comic after they encounter the spotlight stealing squad that is the comic's two less interesting main characters.

Just saw the vote incentive!  Love the Polly X Bernadette pic you got!  Thanks very much!

...Where can I find that pic?

6

Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 35: Discussion

« on: January 02, 2013, 06:54:32 am »

I would wish Bern would ask her own questions instead of standing there like a blubbering idiot while he cuts her down, such as, "You'd coldly let a human being die just because they couldn't afford to pay you to live? How could you live with yourself?"

I'm thinking Brion is trying to subtly parallel the question of healthcare in today's modern society, where emergency rooms have to help the uninsured who suddenly show up and want help, am I correct? 

It isn't just health care. There's also the case of the Enforcer protection rackets, where you get the protection you pay for. And they still might not help you even if you offer to pay them, especially if they're too busy helping other, wealthier clients, because there might not be enough of them to go around. Sure, it reeks of the dropping of a liberally biased anvil. But the reason it's so infuriating is because it is an accurate portrayal of conservatism, which puts personal responsibility above social justice.

Marvallo itself, as stated in a previous comic, abides by the anarcho-capitalist form of libertarianism, with all its plot holes, hypocrisy, inconsistency and parallels to modern America, along with all the inevitable tragedies that burst forth from turning economics into religion. Understanding that explains why Ron Paul is lecturing Bern on letting people die. It makes perfect sense in the context that capitalism and its cronies really are that abhorrent, and it leaves Marvallo open to criticisms that can be applied just as easily to real life countries.

Contrast the non-imperial opt-in one-country good government of the Conclave taking a bunch of steps towards libertarian socialism(/anarcho-communism), and looking like the Big Good because of it. Cue the unfortunate implications about lefitsm just being better for society as a whole.

Suffice it to say, the most important question isn't whether Ron Paul should let Grant die, or how it parallels modern issues. It's how long we'll have to keep reading his religious sermon on the glory of capitalism. There may be a valuable lesson in it, but if you're already a liberal, it's really just as groan inducing as Faux Newz. Or is this building up of resentment for Ron Paul supposed to make his comeuppance all the more enjoyable?

7

Flipside Discussion / Re: The Criticism Thread

« on: January 01, 2013, 06:58:10 am »

So...I'm just gonna take a moment to lament that Crest isn't present in the current page to offer an OBJECTION to the guy's hannibal lecture. Also, that Polly will swoop in and save the day without Bern having to make the obvious difficult choice of letting her father die or beating up the old fart who won't help him. Hasn't happened yet, but I figure it will, otherwise Bern would have to take a level in badass and earn her happy ending. And since this isn't Gurren Lagann, I'd be hard pressed to believe that the main characters will ever be awesome enough to go beyond the impossible and set in motion events that drive them to tear down the entire economic and governmental structure of an entire country just because it nearly cost a suicidal alcoholic his life. Disproportionate retribution? More like GREAT JUSTICE! Le sigh. A guy can dream.

The point is, there's at least five tropes that the current page is setting up, and it's a disappointing sign that the old guy hasn't been called out on his crap yet. I mean, Grant's about to go to the great castle in the sky, and the old fart's just been rambling on for like an hour about responsibility and money when a man's life is at stake. Even though responsibility and money are an illusion created by culture and state, respectively, while a person's life is very real. Yeah...I'm pretty sure everyone knows by now that Ron Paul a selfishly callous jerkass who's religiously devoted to his ideology no matter the human cost. How much longer will have to read about him lecturing on the glory of letting people die before someone, anyone, even a noble bum like Bruce Ironstaunch, yells that, LOGIC BE DAMNED, letting someone die is just as bad as killing them yourself?

Or rather, why can't there be even one hotblooded, crazy awesome idiot hero who actually has enough moral backbone to kick logic and reason to the curb? Besides Crest, of course, because he's useless. Or would merely being hotblooded count as a story breaker power?

Damn, if only Boss, Twingana and Reaper had their own spinoff comic. Or if they were still in this one. Now those characters were interesting. Antiheroes, fuck yeah.

8

Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 35: Discussion

« on: December 23, 2012, 09:31:55 am »

>Perhaps they don't see it as a lie.  (Not that I'm saying that all Marvallians embrace it.  There's probably a lot of them that dislike it, but don't have the capability to move.)

Makes sense. But...what exactly are the restrictions on travel in the Flipside world? The main cast doesn't seem to have trouble moving from place to place, even before a Phalanx joined their group. Is there a reason a sufficiently organized Marvallan gang, or even a small group of discontents, couldn't get together and leave for a better place? Isn't that just what Bern did, with great success?

>So is there a meaningful difference, or is an indirect punishment the same as a direct punishment?  Some people would say yes, and others no.  Depends on your point of view, right?

Indirect punishment has no limit. It scares people into paying dues by threatening with the alternative, which is chaos, anarchy and a violent death. Direct punishment coerces people into paying taxes by threatening them with imprisonment, all while providing shelter, food, water and maybe even the chance to plead their case. It's more infuriating than frightening. A person can go without paying taxes and still live a relatively long life, albeit in captivity. It's like how zoo animals have it better than those out in the wild who're unfortunate enough to be picked up by some scumbag abuser. It's just that the comicverse is a world of scumbags, so many that the Phalanx and Enforcers are a necessity for those not sufficiently blessed enough to be master sorcerers or badass normals. Which I'd bet is probably a vast majority of the nameless masses who're never shown in the comic.

It isn't so much that direct and indirect are the same. It's that indirect punishment is much, much worse.

This is even more anvilicious in the comic, where the Conclave are the ideal opt-in non-imperial government that for the most part seems to unrealistically respect the sovereignty of those who reject the Phalanx, despite having the power to subjugate all who oppose them. After going through the entirety of the comic, I have absolutely no idea what Marvallians are even afraid of, other than a straw boogeyman constructed by The Benefactor and their own ideological zealotry. Has the comic shown even one Phalanx who genuinely abused the power and authority for the evulz? Or are the Marvallians just paranoid conspiracy theorists?

>Remember the flashbacks to when Bernadette spent time in a gang?

Yes, but the flashbacks make my head hurt, so I take them with a grain of salt. I mean, you'd think the ghettos would attract the most violent criminals in the comicverse due to being lawless quagmires of crime and villainy, and that they'd be an absolutely horrible place for a group of cute young girls to grow up due to the guarantee that their very existence within the ghetto would attract a storm of rape and abuse. I mean, what would stop some random group of sorcerers from coming in, enslaving them all and then selling each one off to wealthy clients and gang lords? The Enforcers whose protection they can't afford? The upper class neighbors who care only about themselves? The Benefactor who maintains such a system in the first place? And if anyone tried to stop slave traders, wouldn't it just degenerate into a bloody gang war resulting in a mutually assured massacre? Under those circumstances, would anyone even try to stop them?

However, instead of hardship, sorrow and high octane nightmare fuel, the flashbacks only portrayed Bern joining a gang on a shallow whim because she had a crush on the leader, and then having a grand old time sparring with her friends with nary a care in the world. Even her reasons for leaving were petty, and Clairen was shown hating her life outside the ghetto. The underlying message of it all was that the ghetto was such a great and peaceful place that Bern and friends always had the luxury of following their emotions without ever having to worry about consequences. It was as if gang membership was just like joining a social circle, and not actually for protection. That whole crime thing Polly was going on about? Limited to harmless fisticuffs in a bar that's easily rectified with a bouncy ball and a stern lecture from an attractive woman. This impression is further enforced by how upper class Marvallo comes off as a horrible place to live, as it's filled with people who's only emotion is "GIMME MONAY".

The contrast between common sense and the rosy heartwarming flashbacks brings up a few questions. How could the gang scenes possibly take place in a ghetto, if such a place would realistically guarantee them all fates worse than death before they could ever organize themselves into a gang in the first place? Alternatively, if the ghettos are safe enough that even a group of young gals can live on their own without worry or fear, why does anyone pay the Enforcers in the first place? Or is it just that Bern's gang had a character shield protecting them from the harsh nightmare inducing abuse that would have undoubtedly resulted from living in a lawless haven that offers shelter to the worst criminals in the country?

The point is, those flashbacks are hard to make sense of on their own, which is why I was asking about an actual portrayal of the ghettos in the comic. Unless friendship, rainbows and sunshine is an accurate portrayal of the ghettos, and my suspension of disbelief is supposed to be shattered. Is that the case?

I...don't really understand Marvallo at all. It seems like a contradiction wrapped in hypocrisy and served on a plate of vagueness. It's hard to focus on the plot when the plot makes me wonder just how the heck Marvallo's ghettos can even function as anything other than a bloodstained hellscape, or how the violence doesn't spread into other towns. Or how Polly's ragtag band of misfits even survived. Is Polly some sort of invincible banchou whose power exceeds both heaven and earth?

It seems like every time I think about the current story arc, I wind up falling into an endless series of plot holes.

9

Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 35: Discussion

« on: December 22, 2012, 11:11:10 am »

Though... Polly isn't so bad... I kinda feel sorry for her too.  Though... I suspect there is something ... if not 'sinister' at least unexpected about her absence...

But we saw that Polly is supporter of this system and is working so it would stay like this...

Polly as a character is decent. Polly as an Enforcer, not so much. It wouldn't come as any surprise if she reappeared as an enemy, since it's her job to stop people like Bern. While I'd hope defeat would mean friendship, the increasing focus on drama makes it just as likely that if Polly doesn't stay absent, one shouldn't expect her to be around for much longer unless she comes down with a sudden case of sanity. But from the way she talked about The Benefactor, she might be too far gone.

Or maybe some people are just okay with that reality.  Not that I'm saying that I am, or that you should be.

To say they're ok with living a lie implies that they know it's a lie and embrace the philosophy despite that. Is there actually a single character who's been shown admitting that the Marvallan philosophy is BS while simultaneously advocating in favor of it? Because they all seem to believe that dues aren't taxes and Enforcers aren't a form of government oppression. If they don't even understand the philosophy they choose to live by, isn't it more a case of ignorance than choice? Because choice implies they're informed enough about not just their own philosophy, but other philosophies as well, enough so to accurately compare the two and then decide.

Realistically, the only rational advocate of the Marvallan philosophy would probably be a violent crime lord who operates in the ghettos, doesn't pay dues, doesn't buy Enforcers and realizes that the ghettos are both the true embodiment of Marvallo's ideals of freedom and responsibility and also a result of those ideals taken to their logical conclusion.

Ironically, if Polly's becoming an Enforcer is any indication, any Marvallans in the ghettos who actually do experience real freedom and personal responsibility don't seem too eager to glorify it. Polly's goal of cracking down on crime is an example, even though the very concept of crime only exists in societies with rules and restrictions of people, the very thing she claims to be against. This leads to the unfortunate implication that even the ghetto dwellers are just as deluded as the upper class and Enforcers.

On a side note, have the neighborhoods that don't pay dues/"Marvallan ghettos" been featured in the comic yet? Because I don't want to keep making baseless assumptions about them if they've actually been shown. I just can't seem to find them within the past few chapters.

10

Flipside Discussion / Re: The Criticism Thread

« on: December 22, 2012, 09:32:45 am »

>Just put things in your own words.

Which often degenerates into tl;dr text hell. Besides, after spending one too many hours reading tropes, one starts actually thinking with tropes. It's even number 49 on "You Know You Read Too Much TV Tropes When". It's also part of the reason there might be some misunderstanding or confusion, as I'm thinking with tropes and you're not. By linking to tropes instead, I was attempting to rectify that, and apparently failing. So as I shrug, Unlimited Text Walls.

>It's obvious why in Suspiria's case.  In Bern's case, she would feel betrayed by Maytag.  Bern would never allow innocent people to die simply because Maytag likes the murderer.

Mary's an innocent whom nobody had any problems with killing. Her dietary habits are akin to people killing and eating cows, only she doesn't have the option of switching to veganism, and some cows are responsible for her needing to eat them in the first place. Oh the irony. But I digress.

Does Bern think it's alright to let one innocent person die simply because it's more convenient? Is there some scale regarding the prioritization of innocence? Are some innocents more important than others? What exactly is an innocent? Is blaming a victim for being kidnapped and converted to forced cannibalism via body horror really just grounds for revoking "innocence"? Isn't that more of a cop out unbefitting one who once sought to become a heroic knight? The point about Nessy, though, is a bit of fridge brilliance. Which is lost on someone with an ever increasing dislike for the character since her better half is already gone. As the comic anviliciously points out, it's her fault that Kin's dead. Which is only excusable because she saved Bern, unless you're someone who's not a fan of Bern. Yeah...

Even setting the hypocrisy and questionable morality of characters aside, there's still one gaping plot hole that's ripped open and never resolved. I didn't even put it together until now, even though it should've been painfully obvious. Why would innocent people even have had to die? Apparently, Eschelon can rebuild limbs. They have the technology.  Even if Mary's stuck living as a cannibalistic monster, couldn't their technological Infinite Flesh Works have helped to manage her condition so that she no longer needed to feed on the living? In fact, would she even have had to in the first place if some random know-something person had bothered to suggest such a thing, instead of the villagers locking her up, starving her and then trying to kill her? In that context, didn't they kind of have it coming? Why didn't May mention it when she was going on about her arm being regrown? Why would she even have to regrow it repeatedly? Couldn't she just have had them regrow one arm, and then make a bunch of spares for Mary to munch on? Or, better yet, couldn't Mary, as a nigh invulnerable immortal capable of self-regeneration, have traded her value as a research subject to the Eschelon scientists wizards who specialize in matters of flesh in exchange for a continued supply of artificially generated sustenance? Wouldn't that have been the perfect, most obvious solution to Mary's dietary woes?

I guess what I'm asking is...is Maytag an idiot? Because she seems to have just casually handwaved the smartest thing she's ever said in favor of suggesting Mary become a superhero and not mentioned it again, even when talking to the Phalanx. She was so focused on the cure that she completely ignored the possibility that Mary might have been able to live a relatively peaceful life if people just stopped trying to kill her. To have a sensible outcome for the plot be completely ignored is a little jarring. Rather than making me see the err of my criticism, you've actually caused me to stumble upon an even better point of contention by chance, something I overlooked simply because the idea is presented in only one panel and treated like a joke. But...it wasn't a joke. It was the best, most sensible conclusion the arc could've possibly had. A conclusion so obvious, it's hard to understand whether the comic condemning Mary was because of anything more than plot induced stupidity.

The fridge horror gets worse later in the comic. If "anyone can grow flesh in a jar", why didn't Maytag, who came off as well versed with body part replacement as she went into squicky detail about various injuries, even try to convince genius level three plus sorceress Inverness to grow some flesh in a jar? The ease with which the entire arc could've been resolved happily, and the realization that Maytag sabotaged the ending by handwaving the idea, makes it even harder to stomach her betrayal, as the comic (unintentionally?) goes on to make the point that she had both the knowledge and opportunity to save Mary from her fate. I'm not sure if it was intentional on her part, but the unfortunate implication is that, however many are killed by Mary past that point, Maytag is solely to blame for their deaths. In that context, the arc doubles as a moral event horizon for her. It's...actually kind of hilarious that one of the main cast could set up such shocking fridge horror while simultaneously pulling a karma houdini.

On a side note, one of my greatest disappointments was that because the Mary arc was poorly handled, Danzig never got to see just how well the Thin Man's experiments work out for their recruits. I'm sorry, bro, but that was definitely a missed moment of epic. The expression on Danzig's face would've been just...absolutely hilarious. Of course, I'm assuming that, when faced with a nigh unstoppable eldritch abomination that would prefer to eat it off, even Danzig would be pretty horrified at how the thin man's experiments had gone horribly right. It saddens me that such glorious karmic retribution never came to be.

>Expecting sex whenever you feel like it without regards to how the other person feels could be seen as selfish.  Didn't Bernadette have a sensible reason for refusing in that case?

No. I once saw an image macro that was a screenshot from an adult anime. It depicted the character asking how another could love someone if said character wasn't willing to eat her...*ahem*. And aside from the stomach turning squickiness of it, it doubled as a heartwarming truth. How can someone claim to love a person if they're just going to make excuses to get out of being intimate whenever it's convenient?

I guess what I'm trying to say is, it doesn't really seem like Bern truly loves May as much as she thinks she does. Because words are cheap, and saying it just isn't enough for me, as a reader, to believe it. It seems like little to no development has been made since Bern came out way back in the earlier chapters, all while May comes off as bending over backward to make a relationship work with someone who doesn't seem to even want it to. There seems to be a dissonance with how you intend their relationship to come off as, and the disproportionate development that always seems to favor Bern not changing much. The more I think about it, the more she, pardon my language, comes off as a selfish bitch. I'm not saying I'd like to see her get freaky. But denying sex is basically the universal indicator of a dysfunctional relationship. Sure, there was that truth spell thing, but it seems like Bern's mostly lying to herself and is, in reality, incapable of accepting May for who she actually is. Her dismissing Maytag's behavior as a phase even comes off as a little demented, more so if she herself isn't even willing to take full responsibility for keeping her significant other properly satisfied whenever possible.

Of course, the fact that Bern's prudish in a land with magic birth control and magic STD protection is in and of itself nonsensical, further enforcing the perception that she just wants May as more of a trophy wife than an equal partner. Being possessive just for the sake of wanting someone to make you feel special? The entire relationship seems to be some sort of twisted emotional bondage play with May always winding up psychologically bending like a contortionist to fit into Bern's vision of an ideal lover. I don't know whether to be sickened or horrified at the imagery. As touching as their relationship is, their completely incompatible lifestyles make it hard to stomach.

>I don't see that as the limit to his role.

You're half-right in that he's not even good at that role, given all the times he's opted to be a doormat. I guess I mischaracterized him based on the early chapters when he was a decoy protagonist propped up by Maytag's fleeting interest in him. Those badass goggles turned out to do nothing after all. In reality, Crest is the most worthless character in the comic. He's not good at sorcery or swordsmanship. When it comes to combat, he has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Which is why being an awesome moral filibuster is just about the only purpose he could possibly serve. When he fails to do even that, well, I guess being Nessy's body pillow really is about the best he can do. Then again, at least his mother would be proud. Unless Nessy's on the magic, in which case he'll have been objectified and demoted down to the status of "toy".

It's a shame, because he was introduced as the type who had potential, the kind of character who'd become some sort of badass normal like Orransong. Instead, he's been condemned to nice guy limbo since he dropped out of the Maytag School of Sex Self Improvement. Thinking back...his decay probably started the moment he dropped out of Knight School during his backstory. But in-comic, it was when he thoughtlessly left Dice behind, even after learning that she was totally into him and was probably a perfect match due to her own shyness problems. Definitely a waste of a good plot. Crest x Dice x Inverness would even make a good OT3, if only because bedding two sorceresses could be interpreted as a de facto asset that would bump him up to mage knight status regardles of whether the magic was even his.

Instead, he hasn't accomplished anything since. I wonder, why does he still want to travel with a group of people who make him look incompetent? I think his mother was wrong to kick him out. Clearly, she was under the same false impression that Maytag would keep mentoring him. Ha! Crest staying in Solstice (with Dice!) would've probably given him more opportunity to make something of himself, as opposed to his current life of always being overshadowed by awesome 24/7/365. Maybe he should change his name to Krillin or Sokka. Barring the introduction of ass pull super powers, which would be absolutely horrible, it's hard to see how he could ever remain relevant during an adventure where he's faced with professional warriors and brilliant magicians. Without Maytag's guidance, he's degenerated from everyman back into the respectable loser he started off as. In a way, being put on the same bus as Shepard might've been the most merciful fate the comic could've given him. Because the humiliation of being kicked out by his mother and subsequently neglected by his "mentor", well, it's hard not to sympathize with the character for the bum hand the comic's dealt him. Did there really need to be a token male character? It seems like they all get screwed (figuratively), die or just leave. This leads to the unfortunate implication that male protagonists are only there to be used as plot devices, and not for any real long term character development. Cue unfortunate parallels with the role of modern men. The point is, instead of developing Crest further, the comic went back to focusing on two characters whose treatment of others and even one another makes them somewhat unlikeable. Crest is now as relevant to the comic as he is to their relationship. By which I mean he's currently not at all relevant, even failing to be an effective morality chain for Nessy.

To hell with personal responsibility. It'd be nice to see one of the female characters step out of the kitchen, take his hand and walk him back into the realm of badassery that, once upon a chapter, he had almost reached. Because after 25 chapters of un-development, it really doesn't seem like he's capable of getting there on his own, even with strong female role models. Or maybe that's the problem, that he doesn't have a male Kamina to ignite the greatness of his inner Simon. I mean, he's already got the goggles. Just not the friendship amongst men. Yeah...the guy's got a severe deficit of sex and inspiration, which isn't helped by his ability to just rely on his comrades to fix everything. At least in Solstice, his lone-wolfness drove him to become a badass card shark.

Did...did the comic change writers after chapter 10? Because it feels a little like Eureka Seven Ao or Gundam Seed Destiny, in that the comic seemed to know what it wanted to accomplish in the beginning, and then completely forgot it during a tone and character shift halfway into the plot. I wouldn't blame Crest's voice actor if he dismissed everything after 10 as fanon discontinuity. I kid, of course. But I am left with the impression that he's an expy of the protagonists of those shows. He starts off as the main character of the new series, only for the old characters to come back, steal the spotlight by being awesome and forget he even exists. Crest even gets paired up with one of the extras whose original object of affection is no longer attainable. Sadly, he differs in the sense that Crest doesn't even get a defining moment of awesome where he actually tries to take back what was originally his by impaling one or both of the heroines with extreme prejudice. With his sword. The one held in his hands. The one used to penetrate his adversaries. The one as hard as steel. Uh...alright, I'm not really sure how to descriptively differentiate between the two. But, previously unintended double entendre and rape subtext aside, Crest suffers from a significant lack of anger. The power of hate is pretty much the only weapon a character born of the useless loser archetype has at his disposal. And Crest doesn't even have that. What, exactly, is he actually good for?

>Personally I thought the Bloody Mary arc did build up to something and both Bernadette and Maytag got to shine in it.  Anyway, I think good drama is when the characters are faced with moral dilemma that don't have easy answers.

Yeah. They shined during the arc, but in the end, they ultimately failed to accomplish anything. One character was dead, one was emotionally distraught, one lost an arm, one nearly died and Crest cheered them on. It was more of a "look how heroic these two are acting" arc than a "these two did something heroic" one. I guess my standards are just higher, in that I expect main characters to find not just an answer to a moral dilemma, but the right answer, otherwise they come off as failure heroes who make you wonder just why the plot focuses on them in the first place. Heroes are supposed to be able to earn their happy ending, so when they don't...well, they wind up inspiring little more than disappointment. It wouldn't have been so bad if those first 10 chapters hadn't raised expectations in the first place by introducing them as the invincible knight and almighty janitor jester. In later appearances, they haven't really lived up to those standards. The only consolation is that they're still not as pathetic as Crest. Then again, aside from Crest himself, what still-living character is?

11

Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 35: Discussion

« on: December 22, 2012, 02:33:18 am »

Well, the point I was trying to make is that their philosophy isn't wrong because it's different. It's wrong because it ignores reality. In that regard, it is pretty clear-cut. Suffice it to say, it's harder to sympathize with members of The Benefactor's Flat Earth Society than it is to understand them. In fact, they're all essentially economic zealots with The Benefactor as their dark messiah. And that's before the baseless (but not disproven) assumption that he's also the big bad who happens to dabble in nightmare fuel and horrific human experimentation. There'd be no better place to do it than in Marvallo, where the government isn't just above the law, it is the law.

Either way, Marvallo's upper class neighborhoods are clearly a den of white collar scum, villainy and extortion, so much so that it's impossible to condense my earlier two attempts at typing up a reply because they degenerated into rants. That I can't figure out how to succinctly point out everything wrong with the Marvallon philosophy, blaming grant for where his life wound up or the recent portrayal of Trollem and Maytag as the trolls that they aren't makes me lament that my face can't hold all these palms.

So far, the only likeable Marvallon is still good guy Grant Everyman (whom we're supposed to hate for being a lonely alcoholic?), who did everything right only to have his life coincidentally spiral downward into suck after (but not necessarily because) he was denied custody of the girl he thought was his daughter (sniffle). That she reappears only after he's already doomed himself via substance abuse just drives those feels home. It's also kind of funny how, after 6 chapters, the only redeeming character in Marvallo is still the suicidal alcoholic who's about to die.  I'm still not sure whether this arc's meant to troll objective readers, or if it's just a stealth attempt at black comedy.

12

Flipside Discussion / Re: The Criticism Thread

« on: December 21, 2012, 04:27:39 am »

So I'm gonna omit the full quotes to avoid stretching the page out forever. Also, trope links included to specify the context of my remarks.

>"But she wasn't being setup that way."

Well, that's not the impression I got from her. From the start she seemed to be the one trying hardest to be a genuine idealist. I'm also using "honor before reason" loosely, to describe her putting love above self interest, or rather, making monogamous love her self interest despite the obvious hardship it entails. The reasonable thing would've been to not enter into such a relationship in the first place. Because love itself is unreasonable.

I also don't understand why her friends would coldly disown Maytag if she insisted on helping Mary despite the futility of doing so. That...doesn't sound like any kind of friendship I've ever heard of. Then again, maybe I was giving the main characters too much credit if they'd ditch her so easily even after hearing Mary's tragic backstory.

>"But isn't May also being selfish asking for sex"

This is essentially a matter of subjectivity, based on whether you believe sex to be a chore versus an expression of love. If it's the former, yeah, sure, it's selfish. But if May wanted to get her lovey dovey on, then I'm not sure if there's any scenario in which loving someone is selfish. Unless I'm missing some sort of family unfriendly aesop that's flown right over my head.

>"So in your mind, the only thing Crest is good for is calling people scum and punching old people?"

It's more like he's only good at providing a more sensible perspective to the events currently unfolding. When he's not causing shock and awe, he comes off as little more than a vestigial part of the cast whose existence hardly seems justified as he's become more and more unlike the person he used to be in earlier chapters. For example, when Nessy's transformation caused her ego to inflate to the point where she thought she could take on the masters of the comicverse, it was a missed moment of awesome when Crest didn't bring out his inner badass to talk her back down to sanity like he's done to Maytag every time she drops a drama bomb.

>"Crest calling Maytag scum is not the lighthearted way to end that chapter, then Bernadette is told she'll have to hide her lesbian side to fulfill her dream of joining the knights, then there's a hostage scene where May loses a finger, then May and Bern both make sacrifices for the sake of their relationsip.  That all seems pretty dramatic to me."

Crest and Maytag were actually pretty damn cool at that point in the comic. And Bern passing her secret test of character was a defining moment for her. Drama was playing second fiddle to how awesome each of the heroes was, until it somehow stole the show when their redeeming qualities became less and less prominent as the story continued. But that didn't happen for another few chapters, not until Mary appeared and shit got real. Cue what could have been being tossed out in favor of an ever increasing focus on angst for 15 filler chapters, culminating in a self-inflicted identity disorder, daddy issues and one of the heroes behaving like a violent thug. It's...a different kind of drama. Where as early drama built up to something, like big reveals or moments of awesome, the current drama seems more like a dark cloud constantly hanging over the comic's head. It's...a matter of nuance, I guess. Like, good drama and bad drama.

13

Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 35: Discussion

« on: December 21, 2012, 01:20:16 am »

In a way such society should with time eliminate beggars, poor, disabled and all other individuals who can't cope and live in such setting by hard default standards.

That's part of the dissonance. In theory, that would be true. In practice, capitalism is just an updated form of monarchism/feudalism, all of which inevitably produce their fair share of peasants due to society still being based upon caste.

Of course, having Bern try to force help out of people with the use of violence was a disservice to her cause. And maybe this is where you were going that I didn't catch on to.

Yeah, I'm not saying she was right or wrong, depends on your point of view.  When it comes to stories with moral dilemna, it's no good if it's easy to figure out the right thing to do.

Since Bern at least tried to compromise and play by the rules until forced to use violence due to sheer desperation, perpetual poverty and a lack of alternative choices, it's actually pretty easy to say she was 120% right. She worked within the system until said system (and those perpetrating it) failed her completely, at which point she could either let her father die or fight to protect him. Such is the choice that impoverished people across the globe face. If their government and community are founded upon greed and selfishness, using violence to compensate for a lack of money is perfectly justified once money and status become the only gods people worship. It's just another form of greed and selfishness, even if it's not one sanctioned by the state. When the conflict becomes evil versus evil, the lesser evil is always "right". Sure, that leads to a family unfriendly aesop for a people unfriendly society. But the comic's spot on portrayal of a conflict between social status and social justice is still one of the best plot points to ever be introduced. Even if the whole thing still came off as "wrong" in the sense that, once the inevitable extortion that was being hinted at happened, Bern humoring the Marvallons comes off as pointless in hindsight. Which leads to a bit of fridge brilliance in that it's symbolically important in context, as the futility of her efforts is the very thing that makes Bern more sympathetic than the Marvallons. Yeah...this might be one of the most well written parts of the comic, at least so far.

Besides, I don't think you're quite grasping his point: it's that in Marvallo personal responsibility is a necessary price they pay for having so much freedom and not having to pay taxes.  In this context "personal responsibility" means being able to take care of yourself.

I still don't really understand how Marvallo has freedom without taxes, if they're beholden to the Enforcers whom they pay taxes ("dues") to. The idea that they have the freedom not to pay is undermined by the implication that communities who don't pay are not "decent", which seems to be code for them being violent cesspools of scum and villainy where it's survival of the fittest and no one is safe. Let's call them "ghettos", the end result of the poor and disenfranchised being forced to live together and compete with one another for scarce resources, all while the wealthy entrepreneurs live lives of peace, prosperity and abundance like old world royalty and nobility. The reality is that oppression and taxes are the prerequisite for the wealthy class's faux freedom to live without violence, because it comes at the cost of other people's freedom to use violence in the first place.  The rich are enslaved to the state for fear of their community becoming a ghetto, and those from the ghetto are enslaved to the rich in order to attain the means to continue surviving. How is slavery freedom? Or was that comment meant to be taken as sarcasm? Everyone is still relying on everyone else, only they're all beholden to a skewed caste system.

My confusion mostly stems from the fact that the chapter brilliantly portrays the very real fallacies of such a socioeconomic system, while the author seems to defend the fake ideal that only looks good on paper. This is made worse by the fact that, in reality, relying on the Enforcers is the furthest thing from taking care of oneself. If Marvallons truly took care of themselves, there would be no Enforcers in the first place, because there would be no market for a protection racket in a truly self sufficient society.  Like real life modern conservatism/libertarianism/neoliberalism/anarcho-capitalism, the Marvallon philosophy seems to be little more than a sham founded upon delusion, nationalism, an unwarranted sense of self importance and the idea that the wealthy could succeed without government goon squads keeping the envious hordes at bay. Maybe there's some historical context (that I skipped) explaining why Marvallo became like that, but without it, it's hard to understand how any objective person could be sympathetic to their views. Especially not when their views are such that a cute girl's father should be left on the street to rot and die. The philosophy begins as a logical fallacy, but ends up escalating into an emotional one when put into practice. Are they really anything other than heartless fiends who're only masquerading as self-sufficient members of society?

It's rather unfortunate that some of the most realistic and well written characters in the comic are also the most ridiculously ignorant. Or rather, it's unfortunate in a social commentary sense, but impressively accurate in a literary sense.

14

Flipside Discussion / Re: The Criticism Thread

« on: December 20, 2012, 03:17:11 am »

I don't think that's true.  It's just that she was put in a difficult moral position where she has no choice but to leave Mary to her fate.  The only people who could've cured Mary claim that she can't be cured, and without that Maytag can't continue to defend Mary without being an accomplice to murder.  That's not to say that Maytag doesn't feel any sadness over Mary's fate, but morally what other choice does she have?

But that's very common in monogamous relationships.  Bernadette wasn't refusing her to be mean, she just didn't feel comfortable given the situation.

That is a shame.  I'm not sure I fully understand your reasons, but it sort of sounds like you just want to read a different kind of story from the one I'm trying to tell.  If that's the case, there's nothing I can do about it.  But thanks for expressing your thoughts.

> I guess my complaint is essentially that Maytag, for all her prattling on about friendship in even the most ridiculous of situations and naively leading Nessy right into to the den of a people eating cannibal, wound up catching a sudden case of pragmatic morality that didn't seem to be present throughout the entire rest of the arc. At the time, May was being set up as (or at least came off as) an "honor before reason" type of character, even compromising her own free love ideals for the people she cared about for no other reason than LOVE. But that way of thinking was thrown away out of the blue right when I was expecting a character defining "never say die" moment FOR FRIENDSHIP. Morality be damned, it still came off as her failing a secret test of character regarding whether she'd stand by a friend even the Phalanx had condemned. While I understand her motivations, it's still a bummer that, apparently, the answer turned out to be "no," even when I was hoping idealism would win out. It just makes her going on about friendship earlier in the comic seem harsher in hindsight, considering how easily it was for her to put morality first without even batting an eyelash. Then again, maybe I would've expected this had I read Book 0. But in the context of Book 1+, I really didn't see such hypocrisy coming from the "friend nut".

> Common doesn't mean justified. Refusing intimacy just because she didn't "feel comfortable"? I'm sorry, guy, but that's just selfish. If she was a guy who couldn't get it up, sure, completely understandable. The thing is, she's not, so there's not really any excuse for it other than "she doesn't want to, and what she wants is the only thing that matters". Seeing May compromise her own beliefs and happiness for 20+ chapters while Bern always her own feelings first was one thing, since there was always a reasonable justification for it. Sex denial, on the other hand, seemed like a character defining moment that made me worry about their relationship (which is a major focus of the comic) becoming boring to read about, like in those slice of life webcomics where couples are rarely, if ever, intimate at all, and reading about them is more like a chore. The girl on girl action was part of this comic's appeal, but it seems to be slipping more and more into the "shoujo drama" genre. Less sex, more talking. From a male perspective, that's a terrible and mostly unexpected development.

> You're half right. It's more like you were telling exactly the kind of story I enjoyed reading, and then changed the tone 20 or so chapters in to tell a different, more dramatic story where the characters stopped living up to expectations and started being more depressing. When once Crest yelled out "YOU'RE SCUM!" moments after I thought it, which gave me a good laugh, or punched old people who were totally asking for it (LIKE A BOSS!), he no longer seems to yell or do anything, while I'm stuck yelling like PSY in frustration (no, not really) that one of my favorite characters now seems to be good for nothing. When once I could nod approvingly of the heartwarming relationship dynamic between the lezzies, now it just comes off as something that's stifling the better aspects of their personalities. When once the comic was a little more on the silly side, it's become increasingly serious just for the heck of it.

Contrasting Maytag relaying her life story during a more recent standup routine with her previous performances that actually had her acting like a jester, is probably the best metaphorical analogy for the point I'm trying to make. Sure, Maytag's backstory is great. But I had to agree with the guy who thought a comedy club wasn't exactly the right place for an infodump. Likewise, the changing of tone from jokes and laughs to full on character development and interaction felt like the rug was pulled out right when the comic was getting good. The older, sillier chapters filled with slutting around, faux tradition and righteous anger now come off as kind of a bait and switch. It's not so much that I greatly dislike the story you're telling as much as it is the fact that the story has steadily moved away from the Book 1 that got me reading the rest in the first place, seemingly without any payoff for the reader.

Sure, the reader knows more about the characters now than before. But...is that necessarily a good thing? Metaphorically speaking, Jester Maytag is best Maytag, honesty be damned. Unless character development leads to funny, awesome or epic win, it just comes off as bland fluff and filler like half of the original DBZ series, which in turn is another example of a series that took a sudden shift in tone from a silly adventure to a more serious and dramatic story, without actually thinking through whether the change was worth it, or even warranted at all. Most of it could've still been done in the old style, with a few yucks here and there, but the writers wanted to tell the story their way, and...well, power levels and constipation. The recent chapters in Flipside give off the same vibe to a lesser extent, only they're not horrible enough to be downright funny. Except for maybe the Americ-I mean Marvallans. They're hilarious. Still, it's hard to enjoy reading about a set of main characters who don't seem to be enjoying the story, either. Unless those characters are large hams, who at least put on a good show for the reader. The cast of Flipside...don't. Even the villains come off as uninteresting. I'm not sure where you're going with the story, but is reading it ever going to make me feel something other than "wow, sucks to be those guys"? Because that seems to have become the constant prevailing theme of the comic. And it feels bad, man.

Although, I guess I probably will keep reading, if only because Angry Crest might be the most badass character to ever appear in a webcomic, aside from the cast of Double K. It's a shame he was put on a bus, but I'm holding out hope he comes back. Because 7-10 is the best page in the entire comic.

15

Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 35: Discussion

« on: December 19, 2012, 02:15:18 pm »

I love the hypocrisy in this chapter.

Having the average conservative old guy talking about freedom and personal responsibility on one hand, and on the other they're essentially coerced into paying protection money/dues to the enforcers under the implied threat of having no oppressive state goons there to ensure their continued ability to make money. Government by the rich, for the rich, beholden to the rich, and those who have no money to pay the enforcers have neither the protection needed to make money nor the money to buy said protection. Thus, the system of perpetual poverty for all but the noble owning class and their government cohorts eventually became known as capitalism. And lo and behold, some in Americ-I mean Marvallo even began to think that it was such a grand system of economics, that they would be just fine without the Enforcers there in the first place. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you, after the Enforcers worked so hard to set them up as a second, completely unaccountable branch of the ruling class.

Oh, wait, that hasn't happened yet in the comic. Yeah, it's probably too early to talk about chapter 60.

Still, I did enjoy Bern resorting to violence, state Enforcers be damned. Hopefully she'll watch out for "Magic Drone" strikes or being indefinitely detained. If not, she might have to be imprisoned by Enforcer's while the old guy lectures her about how he does everything himself and doesn't rely on anyone else for anything. All within earshot of the Enforcers that came to his aid. Truly, it would be a fate worse than Kin's.

16

Flipside Discussion / Re: The Criticism Thread

« on: December 19, 2012, 01:38:18 pm »

> stumbled upon this comic via tvtropes.
> started skimming quickly (skipped book 0)
> saw Crest call May scum for trying to cheat   
> skimmed slower
> finally finish chapters nineteen and thirty five X hours later
> stopped reading there 
> skipped to May's wardrobe malfunction
> saw Crest make May cry by pointing out the trust issue with her lying 24/7   
> best male character ever, like some sort of self insertion who acts as a much needed voice of sanity
> monster girl Nessy is <3
> finished reading up to the latest page

So I haven't read everything, but there were a few big letdowns in this otherwise great comic:

First, Kin was killed off. The guy was a total boss, and any development stemming from his demise wasn't worth the loss of such a great character. It seemed like a total waste of an awesome, newly introduced character, and little more than a cheap excuse to give Ness a reason to throw herself at Crest. Sure, the guy deserves to get some hot monster girl tail. But not at the expense of another bro's brutal murder at the hands of a cannibalistic serial killer.

Second, the Bloody Mary arc was such a big disappointment, I couldn't continue reading past the end of it. She started off as an immortal scythe wielding badass who turned out to be kind of a babe and would've probably cleaned up nicely had she ever come out of the cave for a shower. So after a bunch of chapters dedicated to this cute monster girl and her tragic woobieness, I was expecting there to be some sort of satisfactory conclusion that mad me feel a little less bad about how the arc was playing out. More specifically, I was hoping she'd join the heroes as a designated hero/token evil teammate, even if it meant May having to offer her arm as a chew toy for the rest of the comic. In fact, I wonder if there's a gallery image depicting just that, with May blushing suggestively while Mary nibbles at her flesh. Anyway, it wouldn't have made up for the loss of Kin, but the heroes slapping a leash on Mary and bringing her along as a pet people eater would've at least been something of a consolation.

However! The arc ended with Mary running off and May, upon finding out it was impossible to cure her, doing a complete 180 to the point where she appeared to be A-OK with her "friend" being murdered by what I've decided to call the "government goon squad". It felt like the story arc didn't accomplish anything, aside from using and discarding a likeable character, and my opinion of the series mascot nosedived once she easily tossed aside any concern for Mary's wellbeing. Throw in how quick Nessy seemed to move from grieving for Kin to coming onto Crest, and it seemed like the comic had taken a turn for the worse. I began to dislike the characters that seemed so great at first, and didn't really want to see how much worse they could get. Which is why I skipped 10 whole chapters that I consider ruined forever by the Mary Arc ending, and only started skimming again beginning with Maytag's confession in chapter 30 about her true self.  At least her friendly personality being an act explains why she callously sold out Mary to Phalanx.

Although, I did go back and read a little bit of the 20s, but don't get me started on how Glyph(?) wasn't the only one sad to have not had the chance to get to know Kin better, or how stunned I was at Bern denying May sexy fun time. At one time I empathized with her wanting May to be loyal and modest. Now it just comes off as her being a possessive control freak, if she's even started refusing to be intimate with May. Apparently, monogamy no longer means having sex with only one person as much as it does simply not having sex with anyone else no matter how pent up a person is from not getting any. I thought Bern was supposed to be the "guy" in the relationship, but apparently not. She's the inconsiderate wife who puts her own feelings above her partner's need. As much as May's developed into a more caring person, Bern is starting to sound like she's degenerating into someone who takes her relationship for granted. It's a shame Crest is taken, since this sounds like exactly the kind of thing he tagged along for in the first place.

But once the whole "pay money for directions" arc started, and the guy started preaching personal responsibility, well, that just did it for me. It only served to make me feel that much worse that Mary wasn't around to eat their faces. Or that Kin wasn't around to point out the error of their ways. That Bern even entertained their money grubbing ways warranted not just a single but a double facepalm. I began skimming through the past couple chapters again, and with monster girl Nessy gone, and Crest just letting her go, I couldn't think of a single recurring or temporarily present character that I actually liked reading about anymore. Crest's ballsy calling out of wymenz who do crazy shit was no longer present once Nessy started growing a few too many horns out of her skull. May's friend to all living things persona was slipping. Bern was far too pacifistic for her father's own good. And the rest of the characters don't even seem relevant, important or awesome enough to mention. Well, maybe it's also worth mentioning Regina's creepy dialogue about her being a stalker with a crush, leading to the unfortunate implication that she'd much rather be May than be with her. Yikes. That girl was crazy, and I can't help but wonder what the point of her being with that other dude was in the first place if she was just going to run off after the comic's resident sex goddess. Guess that whole plot was pointless.

In the end, I found the first third of the comic (after Book 0) to be absolutely fantastic, but the last two story arcs I read just...seemed to crush the admiration I had for a cast of characters that, up to a certain point, I couldn't find any fault with.  After the halfway point they just seemed to start suffering from badass decay, sanity slippage, poor judgment or just a worsening of their personalities as the story dragged on. It just wasn't much fun anymore, no matter how much nudity or hot girl on girl action was thrown in. It wasn't so much the personality flaws of the characters, which used to make them endearing, as it was the way they were being written in later chapters. Or maybe their worst flaws just became more prominent.  No character development is bad, but developing characters to be more drama prone isn't much of an improvement, either. Still, maybe it's just a matter of Cerberus Syndrome taking root, or the last 15 chapters simply being less interesting than the first 20. Granted, I didn't read 10 of them. But from what I saw of them, there wasn't much worth reading about aside from things like Kin's funeral rehashing one of my biggest beefs with the Mary arc, or Bern's ever increasing prudishness reminding me of one of my biggest beefs with modern wymenz in general.

The only quick fix I can think of to immediately improve the comic would be Bern and May splitting up, so that May could actually become a(/the only) fun character again. Monogamy and modesty hasn't done her any good from a likeability standpoint, and having her be more of a free spirit is the easiest way I can imagine for the comic to be a little more enjoyable to read. Other than that, it's hard to see things getting better without a cerberus retcon of what I see as the two greatest mistakes, or some jesterly silliness, even if the greater prominence of characters' negative traits will still be present.

Then again, I'm just the vocal minority and not even a regular reader, so it doesn't really matter either way. It's just a shame to start a webcomic with a smile, only to wind up with a frown and wondering when exactly it stopped being a good read.