Messages

61

Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 43: Discussion

« on: May 29, 2015, 08:37:09 pm »

Not all stabbings are equal, except in generalizations that look at stabbings in general (and few stabbings in general would be with swords). If Bern is proficient at heart stabbing and used a sword to wreck his heart, basically into two or more pieces, it wouldn't function all that well, especially if the sword was left in there, and I doubt his odds of survival would be one in three whether or not he received modern medical care (maybe magic would be adequate, but then the warden would probably be expecting this, and she doesn't seem to be). As far as continuing to fight after that, probably not for long, anyway. As for his speed and efficacy at neck-squeezing, as well as his lead in terms of time on Bern, I wouldn't know.

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Mistake Thread

« on: May 04, 2015, 10:06:20 pm »

Panel two here reads "a warriors' pride" (if nothing else using an indefinite article before a plural) instead of "a warrior's pride".

EDIT: I meant "a"/"an", not "the"; corrected "article" to "indefinite article".

Panel four here reads "counter attacked" instead of the much more usual spelling "counterattacked".

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 43: Discussion

« on: April 14, 2015, 05:36:21 pm »

Oh, yeah, way to completely smash that I-beam Bern, and yes, it's an I-beam. It has an "I" cross section but a piece of metal welded over the end to make it look like a club.

Surely thou jest. In reality it was nearly square (rounded corners) but for having four slight indentations, one along each side. It was also consistently this way, and not merely modified on the end. There's no reason he'd have started with an I-beam (which is only symmetrical in two rotations, 0 and 180 degrees, rather than the four, 0/90/180/270 degrees, of this ex-weapon), nor really any reason that I-beams would be much of a thing in Flipside's world, for all we know.

If you look more closely at the debris of that weapon, you will see various pieces all wearing the iconic "I" cross section.

I suggest that you quickly go through the chapter and make note of the symmetric four-sided nature of the weapon. Also, when it was turned into chunks the depth of the indentations doesn't resemble bulmabriefs144's picture of an I-beam well at all, so there's no page I'm aware of that supports your conclusion very well.

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 43: Discussion

« on: April 13, 2015, 07:23:42 pm »

Oh, yeah, way to completely smash that I-beam Bern, and yes, it's an I-beam. It has an "I" cross section but a piece of metal welded over the end to make it look like a club.

Surely thou jest. In reality it was nearly square (rounded corners) but for having four slight indentations, one along each side. It was also consistently this way, and not merely modified on the end. There's no reason he'd have started with an I-beam (which is only symmetrical in two rotations, 0 and 180 degrees, rather than the four, 0/90/180/270 degrees, of this ex-weapon), nor really any reason that I-beams would be much of a thing in Flipside's world, for all we know.

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 43: Discussion

« on: April 04, 2015, 05:38:22 pm »

I still have to wonder why people are calling it an I-beam. It clearly has a rather square cross section, while an I-beam has an I-shaped cross section. It's not remotely an I-beam, is it?

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 43: Discussion

« on: March 24, 2015, 05:04:37 pm »

Shifting mass without changing the makeup or distribution of matter in the weapon seems a bit too convenient to me. Have you considered that perhaps the warden's use of terms is loose/doesn't match non-fictional modern scientists' use of terms? Anyway, another method would be to simply have the nanobots that are the source of "magic" in Flipside's world be compensating for all the missing force wherever it is needed to create the effect. So if he's lifting the (non I-) beam up it lifts with him to "reduce weight" from the wielder's perspective. This can be applied to any movement based on mass and/or gravity/inertia. For the target struck the nanobots don't have to reduce anything, and just let the beam hit normally.

67

Flipside Discussion / Re: The Criticism Thread

« on: March 01, 2015, 04:34:56 pm »

You can call it hesitation, but perhaps some of your audience didn't perceive it that way? Regardless, it is "weak" (the pattern of decisions overall more so than any step in the pattern) rather than decisively calculated/intelligent. Various stories (probably more often for fantasy or similar) tend to be about characters that are more interesting or otherwise better than normal people. People may prefer this type of character, invest into Bern under such premises, and just have ended up disappointed by her recent pattern of decisions. I'm not really disappointed because I'm not invested in Bern. Anyway, realism can also be a bad thing (there are lots of weak-willed or otherwise deficient people in real life, but these aren't always the characters people enjoy), and as for gravity...Bern and Polly were already crying and showing shocked faces, while the reader can also read gravity into the situation by evaluating the options, which were laid out well. So I do think it's a matter of preference whether one appreciates what has happened recently with Bern or not. Naturally you did achieve your aims regarding someone with preferences similar to your own. Some other people just want more and/or different things, and no story will balance everything for everyone.

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Flipside Discussion / Re: The Criticism Thread

« on: February 27, 2015, 07:07:38 pm »

Well, the explaining was properly done against option B, of course. The "problem" is that once Polly enlightened Bern with Polly's cynicism (again it can seem a bit weak/childish that Bern needs her hand held so much...this also meshes with how Bern was pointlessly* pacifistic while being evaluated by the warden as well as during fights) there was really nothing left. Bern just had A and D, but there wasn't really much comparison between these in the sense of attempting to get the reader to feel that these two options were close in value, so Bern not settling on one of those choices can seem like running from reality rather than having to agonize over her choice. No one with more than a shred of sense and mental fortitude (lacking these again can just equal plain weakness to the audience) agonizes over a $1,000,000 debt option when the only other option is a $100,000,000 debt, do they?

*Basically, imagine you have a vegan, and the sole reason for their being vegan is that they're concerned with the welfare or suffering of animals. Now imagine the vegan is put into a scenario where meat is grown in vats or whatever rather than on actual animals that have brains with which they could perceive anything. The vegan would accomplish nothing towards their goal by emphatically opposing eating meat in this scenario (the vegan could for example starve, be less healthy, or even just be inconvenienced in terms of eating with other people), just like Bern can accomplish nothing by being a pacifist in the colosseum...nothing other than hamstringing herself, that is. Maybe it "feels" wrong to Bern but we know Bern will stand up for others by using violence...not standing up for herself can be pretty contemptible, too, as she is also a human being. If she doesn't respect herself enough to work towards bettering her (and Polly's!) situation then why should readers respect her? Again, just a possible perspective. I'm not seriously affected by this due to a lack of investment in Bern as well as most characters in stories in general (relative to other story elements; most humans seem to love characters heavily in comparison).

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Flipside Discussion / Re: The Criticism Thread

« on: February 27, 2015, 04:26:39 pm »

I didn't really have a "problem", but I'm not invested in Bern in the first place. I think it might've helped if the options seemed closer to each other in value. Two of the options were strategic or moral non-starters for Bern, leaving just "rot in prison" (option "D") or the sex slave option. I realize that it would be painful, but if there's clearly truly nothing better then agonizing over it serves no purpose (purposeless agony can manifest itself as agony rather than interest in the audience). If Bern felt the options were close enough in value to be worth agonizing over then why remains unclear. It could appear to many that it just makes Bern seem flaky or unwilling to commit, i.e. weak, even though she committed in the first place for her father, something that she hasn't particularly continued since then (her pacifism means nothing in the colosseum given that she absolutely won't change the system, given that she needn't kill anyone, and given that those who fight choose to do so as their best option, which is again not something she can change). For those invested in Bern or otherwise hopeful about her character's development, this could be a problem. In comparison there's no real problem with Polly, unless one dislikes her idolization of Bern, since Polly at least was committing.

Contrasting with Fukumoto (this is incidental, and I don't mean to imply that you ought to write like he does, but you did mention him in the intermission), he has crazy metaphors and character/art expressions to represent or impress upon you the emotions of the characters, while the strategy is laid out as well. The former keeps the emotions more interesting even if you don't care about the characters, while the latter (and how it plays out in the plot) is the meat of the story. Last chapter lacked the former, which isn't Flipside's style anyway, and the latter appeared shallow. Of course strategy is more Maytag's thing anyway... ;p

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Mistake Thread

« on: February 25, 2015, 07:25:04 pm »

Panel four here (intermission page 3) reads "whenver" instead of "whenever".

Panel three here reads "All she could do was to keep her distance." It seems like it might be better if it read "All she could do was keep her distance." or "It was all she could do to [just] keep her distance." instead.

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Intermission 30: Special Voting Thread!

« on: February 20, 2015, 10:42:58 pm »

1. Maytag (Dark Cell Storyarc)

Not only more interesting to me, but it is what Brion, in his infinite wisdom, planned to do anyway. I also don't understand what people really expect if Bern's arc continues. Unless Brion drastically (and thus unexpectedly and probably not for the best) changes the pacing it may take several chapters to really end Bern's arc, and he likely wouldn't do them all at once anyway, so it's at best moving the "problem" to me. Or maybe the masses are fight maniacs, but I haven't found fights to be the most interesting aspect of Flipside anyway... Well, if the fight is what the masses want then perhaps it's fine to get it out of the way. Maybe Brion will make it exceptional, but I expect that I will continue to enjoy other character developments more.

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Mistake Thread

« on: January 23, 2015, 06:09:24 pm »

Page 48 links via redirect to here instead of to page 49.

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Mistake Thread

« on: January 22, 2015, 05:48:56 pm »

Page 46 was a double, i.e. actually pages 46-47, so this doesn't seem like a mistake, at least beyond not labeling page 46 as pages 46-47, which may be a limitation of Keenspot for all I know.

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Mistake Thread

« on: January 22, 2015, 01:57:17 am »

Panel three here reads "But, it doesn't really change the simple truth:", which seems to be an unusual pause after "But", if that's what it is.

Panel seven here reads "phtsical" instead of "physical".

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Mistake Thread

« on: November 12, 2014, 10:49:49 pm »

It's been a month, so please forgive me if double posting was not a good idea.

Currently this page links (via redirect) to here instead of to the next page.

Also, panel six here reads "occaisonally" instead of "occasionally".

EDIT: Panel one here reads "occaision" instead of "occasion". The comma after "special" also seems unnecessary.

EDIT: Panel five here has a comma that seems unnecessary after "spectators".

EDIT: Panel four here reads "There's no other options I can choose!" and "Yes, there is!" instead of "There's no other option I can choose!" and "Yes, there is!" or "There are no other options I can choose!" and "Yes, there are!".

EDIT: Panel seven, bubble two here has some unusual coloration in/over some letters, namely perspective, holding, partner, back, and you're.

EDIT: Panel two here reads "I could care less" when "I couldn't care less" is correct. Of course the warden may just use the wrong expression by default, like some humans do...

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 42: Discussion

« on: November 10, 2014, 05:50:33 pm »

Other than Polly and the warden, there aren't many interesting (at least since almost no one is a good match against Bern) known possibilities, are there? No, I don't think it's likely to be a Bloody Mary clone. ;p

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Mistake Thread

« on: October 08, 2014, 07:15:38 pm »

Chapter 42, page 4 doesn't currently link to page 5 when you click on the image or the "Next >" button.

EDIT: Panel five here reads "comfortabvle" instead of "comfortable".

EDIT: Panel five (counting the backgroundless area containing the first text box as a panel) here reads "crows" instead of "crowd".

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 42: Discussion

« on: October 07, 2014, 05:47:55 pm »

Poly's really gone out of her way for you.

An interesting misspelling... ;p

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Mistake Thread

« on: July 04, 2014, 06:22:26 pm »

Yeah, pages 2 and 3 both have no relevant image.

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Mistake Thread

« on: June 18, 2014, 08:59:52 pm »

Panel six here reads "in front of large group" instead of "in front of a large group".

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Mistake Thread

« on: June 09, 2014, 11:24:28 pm »

In panel three here Maytag says "There's a lot of people I feel "connected" too.". Ignoring that the contraction for "there is" should be "there are" (or "there're"?), as "there's" is at least somewhat normal-sounding, "too" should be "to", or it could instead read "feel "connected" to, too." or similar.

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 40: Discussion

« on: June 04, 2014, 08:48:32 pm »

I'm not sure Suspiria would be of much use if her magic comes from qualia and the qualia are uncommunicative and generally uncooperative.

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Mistake Thread

« on: May 09, 2014, 04:04:42 pm »

This seems like a mistake on page 38. Maytag is saying she wants one million gold for her sound show, and then says Lehm can keep his million gold. Does she mean that Lehm can keep his remaining 19 million other gold (out of the 20 million possible for the effort), 49 million other gold (out of the 50 million gold she knows he has), [unspecified other] millions of gold (out of the >50 million gold he's virtually certain to have) while she takes her one million, or what?

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 40: Discussion

« on: April 02, 2014, 06:46:23 pm »

Well, I guess it's a matter of how convenient magic is if you can really move and store 20 million (or even one million) gold in a D-bag. If you can then there's virtually no meaningful volume or weight limit to them (unlike for bags of holding). You'd probably want someone(s) to verify that all of it is legitimate currency, at least, so you'd probably need to pay guards as well as that person(s) for a "short" while, anyway, unless you seriously wanted to do that yourself (and trusted yourself to know well whether or not each coin was a trick to boot).

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 40: Discussion

« on: March 30, 2014, 04:51:06 am »

There is the non-trivial problem of actually moving that much gold into Maytag's "possession". Even if you could easily move it (say with magic), the way that amount has been played up in value I can't imagine that you can just drop it off at a convenient pan-continental bank chain (any bank that can absorb that much with no problem should have owners/stockholders with even more wealth and likely more money, and you'd expect yet more from high rulers, etc.). You'd need to spend money to guard it, or would preferably convert it into assets (businesses, property, estates, farms, mines, etc.) that will not decrease in value due to the inflation you're causing by spending it (although Maytag probably wouldn't be considering inflation due to her world, it would still be safer to spread the money out, and better to have the money be earning you money than to have it just sitting there in a pile awaiting an unfriendly sorcerer, dragon, or whatever can overwhelm your expensive, mandatory guards).

Lehm of course has a secret hideout and only associates with "trusted" people (or can just generate gold with magic, so he doesn't consider it a big risk, or only himself or himself and "super-trusted" people know the vault location(s)), so it would be convenient for him to hold onto that money in the form of gold, but Maytag can't exactly take possession if Lehm is the one who holds it, and I doubt Lehm would give up his location so easily unless he has another...perhaps he does (whether this is the location of the gold, or the gold is here and he'll just move there, I don't know). Either way, "giving" the gold while holding onto it is pretty flimsy, as Lehm could just take it "back" whenever, and I doubt the gold would be at a convenient location to withdraw sums of money from regularly.

Of course how he got the money and what Maytag's task is are important, too.

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Mistake Thread

« on: March 05, 2014, 06:16:00 pm »

Panel three here reads "thier".

Panel six here reads "If it has been any other time,". I believe it should be "had been".

Panel five here reads "for ereal", instead of "for real".

Panel one here reads "gaurantee", instead of "guarantee".

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Mistake Thread

« on: December 31, 2013, 03:20:23 am »

Panels seven and nine here read "grey" and "gray" respectively. These are both correct spellings, but normally one would pick one. I personally recommend grey without giving any other words British spellings. ;p

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 39: Discussion

« on: December 20, 2013, 09:17:03 pm »

And I suppose you're going to tell the chain woman what she may and may not do? ;p

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 39: Discussion

« on: December 19, 2013, 04:40:56 pm »

Well, ideally there isn't a need for capital punishment, but in some scenarios there really is nothing better. If you had a "society" of a small group of people stranded on a small island and one turned out to be extremely violent there simply wouldn't be the resources or will available to confine and provide for that person. The person obviously can't be allowed to just continue doing whatever, either. In modern societies the situation is a lot more relaxed than that, though.

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Chapter 39: Discussion

« on: December 18, 2013, 06:44:50 pm »

Ah, I see.  Thank you for the clarification... I understand your point of view in that.

Though I am still a staunch supported of capital punishment.  Not all killing should be punishable by death - sometimes, though it may indeed be someones fault it  may not be their intent, but premeditated murder I'll always stand by the death penalty.

"Its a hell of a thing to kill a man.  In one moment... you take away all he has, and all he ever will." - Clint Eastwood, 'Unforgiven'

Life is irreplaceable.  And to me if one actively plots and scheme to take it away from someone else it should be asked of them in as punishment.  I'm not talking about crimes of passion or the truly repentant... circumstance can always alter the situation.

But cold-blooded murder, yeah death penalty.  But that is just my view of it... your is no less valid.

Ultimately its up to a higher power than my wisdom who is guilty and should be punished - which is probably for the better anyways.

I didn't actually express any opinion on whether or not capital punishment should be used. I simply stated that it's categorically different from hard labor and rape because it always (rather than only sometimes) causes severe physical and/or psychological damage. Absolute damage from one point of view (personally I'd rather be killed than tormented for extended periods of time, but whatever). I'm not sure who you mean by a higher power, but if it's not the law then does this higher power subtract the punishment given by the law from the "correct" punishment "deserved"? Possibly even giving a huge refund for being overpunished, since apparently overpunishment (as well as punishment for the innocent and for victimless crimes) is the global norm?

------

Azure Priest, I think we can all agree (as per book 0) that Maytag would rather be raped than sentenced to hard labor (all else being equal, so perhaps right now she'd need some equally heavy promise to not perform hard labor (or just a need to save time (for the sake of completing a critically important task) by being raped rather than laboring for many days if not far longer) to balance out her promise not to cheat on Bern, assuming the rape counts as cheating to Maytag and/or Bern). Hard labor tends to be more physical while rape tends to be more psychological, but either way it can be quite terrible or not so terrible depending on the person and how hard the labor or rape is, and how long it lasts. Anyway, your studies obviously don't include "cave man" societies where the norm is for the alpha to screw all the women he likes because he wants to and the women need a huge amount of help to survive. Given limited language, philosophy, and culture on top of it being the norm I just doubt that those women reacted as strongly on average as a "modern" woman that expects to have full control over her body, finances, etc. tends to. I suppose you'd argue that those aren't civilized societies, and that's true from our point of view, but the point is that what counts as civilized and is thus accepted and expected of people is variable (they could just as well consider us rather than them uncivilized if they had the concept). There isn't one "true" set of rules for civilization. Hard labor is also extremely unpleasant to very many people, and can even effectively be capital punishment regardless of how the laborer takes it psychologically. Even if the person doesn't die they can forever be less physically able than before due to the hard labor. If you still don't understand how horrible hard labor can be, think about why it's called "hard" and what exactly it takes to force someone to actually do the labor. It is literally slavery.