#pmwiki

[whisconsun]

i like that amok time was written to be totally normal and not gay at all, according to the writer

[bigfatbreak]

Yooo your Viceroy/Dad Villain AU is on TVTropes

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/DadVillainAU

WH

[demilypyro]

It's a TV trope not a fucking religion

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedOniBlueOni

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Bill Griffith's 'Three Rocks'

I'm in the home stretch of my 24-city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in LONDON NEXT TUESDAY (July 1) with TRASHFUTURE'S RILEY QUINN and then a big finish in MANCHESTER on July 2.

What better format for a biography of Ernie Bushmiller, creator of the daily Nancy strip, than a graphic novel? And who better to write and draw it than Bill Griffith, creator of Zippy the Pinhead, a long-running and famously surreal daily strip?

https://store.abramsbooks.com/products/three-rocks

Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller, the Man Who Created Nancy is more than a biography, though. Griffith is carrying on the work of Scott McCloud, whose definitive Understanding Comics used the graphic novel form to explain the significance and method of sequential art, singling out Nancy for special praise:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Comics

For Griffith – and a legion of comics legends who worship Bushmiller – the story of Bushmiller's life and the story of Nancy and its groundbreaking methodology are inseparable. We watch as Bushmiller starts out as a teenaged dropout copy-boy in the bullpen at a giant news syndicate, running errands for the paper's publisher and, eventually, its cartoonists. Bushmiller burns to get into the funnies, and he's got a good head for gags, but his draftsmanship needs work. He secretly enrolls in a life-drawing class, which does him little good, but he applies himself and applies himself, and eventually is given his big break: taking over Fritzi Ritz, a daily cartoon serial about a sexy flapper.

Bushmiller's run on Fritzi Ritz outlasts flappers, and, as he struggles to keep the character relevant amidst changing times, he eventually hits on a "Cousin Oliver" gambit: adding in a sassy niece named Nancy:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CousinOliver

Cousin Oliverae are rarely successful, but Nancy turned out to be the exception that proved the rule. Nancy took over the strip, and "Aunt Fritzi" receded in importance, taking a backstage to Nancy and her pal Sluggo.

As Nancy came into her own, so did Bushmiller. Bushmiller combined an impeccable sense of the gag (he started with his punchline panel – "the snapper" – and worked backwards) with a visual style that he refined to something so pure and refined that it inspired generations of comics creators.

Bushmiller was the master of simplifying, and then simplifying more, and then simplifying even more. Visually, his characters and his furniture (especially the iconic "three rocks" of the title) are refined to something so iconic they're practically ideograms. While some accused Bushmiller of re-using a small set of drawings, Griffith makes the convincing case that Bushmiller perfected a small number of icons, and repeated them as motifs. Indeed, these characters are so perfect and finely tuned that when Griffith inserts Nancy, Sluggo and other characters from Bushmillerville into his graphic novel, he doesn't re-draw them – rather, Griffith carefully crops these characters out and collages them into his own panels. Every image of Nancy in this book was drawn by Ernie Bushmiller.

This pared-down, severely restricted graphic style provides the perfect toolkit for the Bushmiller gag, which, at its best, is profoundly surrealistic, often playing on the form of the comic itself (for example, when Nancy asks Sluggo to give her a push on a bicycle, Sluggo obliges by stepping out of the comic and tipping the final panel at 45 degrees, sending Nancy rolling "downhill"). These meta-humorous gags give rise to Griffith's key insight: that Nancy isn't a comic about what it's like to be a kid – it's a comic about what it's like to be a cartoon character.

This is such a good organizing principle for understanding Nancy's staying power and influence. Other cartoons like Peanuts are nominally about being a kid, but are actually about being a small adult. Nancy, meanwhile, shares a lineage with, say, Animaniacs and Bugs Bunny and Groucho Marx (who, we learn, wore out his welcome with Bushmiller and his wife by relentlessly hitting on the latter at celebrity dinners at the Brown Derby). It's no wonder that Scott McCloud, the prophet-explainer of sequential art, loves Nancy: she practically invented stepping outside the frame and making us think about how these pictures and words worked, and why, and she made us laugh the whole time.

Bushmiller had a unique mind. He was a workaholic, turning out a 7-day/week strip for decades, even as he shouldered a variety of side-projects and other strips. Once he started making money, he moved to the Connecticut suburbs where he could have a work-room big enough to accommodate four drafting boards, so he could work on four strips at once. He would sometimes get a year ahead of schedule with his publishers. It was only very late in his life that Bushmiller took on any kind of assistants, and even then, he obsessively supervised them, counting the spikes in every depiction of Nancy's hair to ensure that they fell within the regulation 69-107 spikes.

Despite his massive following among artists, hipsters and intellectuals, Bushmiller insisted that the secret to his success was in his devotion to simplicity and the universality it brought. Bushmiller's editorial process seems to have consisted almost entirely of his removing words, images and lines from his panels, paring them down further and further until they became, essentially, narrated pictograms – almost funny Ikea assembly instructions.

Griffith – a daily cartoonist workaholic who has been turning out Zippy strips since 1971 – bursts with admiration for Bushmiller, and this biography saves a lot of space for Bushmiller himself, with long sections given over to reproductions of some of Nancy's best outings. Griffith has had more than half a century to think about what makes surreal comic-strips tick, and, like McCloud, he pours these out on the page, but largely confines himself to illustrating his insights with Bushmiller strips and panels. The result is a heady volume: a great biography and a great book of literary criticism and comic arts theory.

Nancy is still around, written and drawn by the amazing Olivia Jaimes, whose first collection of new Nancy comics I called "incredibly, fantastically, impossibly great":

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/10/17/the-first-book-collecting-the-new-nancy-comic-is-incredibly-fantastically-impossibly-great/

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/27/the-snapper#69-to-107-spikes

[pillowseastar7]

I wanted to expand Lalaloopsy's TV tropes and now I need help

So I decided to expand lalaloopsy's Tv tropes because a majority of the fandom neglects it but then I realized i don't know how to write code so if you do please help.

here's the link: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Heartwarming/Lalaloopsy

[armyflags]

can you make a paraphilia flag for the attraction to dot eyes? this specific type of eye 👉 https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackBeadEyes

᲼᲼᲼᲼᲼᲼᲼᲼᲼᲼᲼Beadoptophilia

᲼᲼᲼᲼᲼Bead + Opto ( eyes ) + Philia . ᲼᲼᲼᲼᲼Attraction to beady black eyes , often seen in cartoons .

[sm-baby]

Hello, sm-baby. I'm a user at TV Tropes named UzarNaimBer15 (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Tropers/UzarNaimBer15). I've created pages for other TADC AUs before (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/TheAmazingDigitalFightClub and https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/TheAmazingDigitalCircusFreakshowAU, you can see in the "History" tab, if you want to), and I was wondering if we could use an image from the Carnival AU as the main image for a recently created page another user made (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/TheAmazingDigitalCarnival), if it's no bother.

It would be an honor!

[emblemxeno]

I saw that my ask had gotten eaten by this hellsite, so I'll repost it again. Lucky you, I had it saved!

I think the thing that pisses me off the most about FE fans... is how much they often feel like they miss the point of the series.

"According to the developers, the Fire Emblem series' central theme revolves around the inherent humanity of the characters, who have more to them than just being chess pieces. The games also encourage a lot of individual growth and players using whoever they like the most, due to the emphasis on the humanity of the cast and the sanctity of each life. This, it seems, is sadly lost on the portion of the fandom that takes the Nintendo Hard difficulty as a reason to rigidly adhere to using characters within the lens of strategic elements based on immediate gains. Add that to how a lot of the series locks behind character potential through supports and the fandom's reluctance to actually learn more and state their opinions on it without adopting an extremely binary morality view (see below), and the community clearly enjoys the game, if for much different reasons than what the devs intended. Can't get more of a dissonance than to have a theme song loudly blare The Power of Friendship and people not understanding that the characters are humans within their own rights. Matters are not helped by virtue of people wanting to validate themselves within their "correct" opinion of the story, not taking into consideration how others may see differently or the fact that there's only losers in war for all sides, a theme that Fire Emblem Fates and Fire Emblem: Three Houses bash you on the head with." Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/MisaimedFandom/FireEmblem

Like, FE has always, always been about love, bonds and the power of emotions triumphing all in a simulation RPG. The bonds of who you use, who lives, who dies, who marries who, that has been the heart and soul of the series by treating the various cast members as their own people with their own lives, will to live, and inherently diverse views on how the world works. There being so many ways to play FE and so many strategies that if you make it work, that just shows you overcoming the game's challenges; you can use Seth or Titania to solo most of their games, but just as much use Amelia or Rolf to do that if you so want to. And the difference is that while there's often restrictions for said characters, you can and often do are able to make it work by playing on those inefficiencies and use whatever strategies you can to overcome the challenges in a simulation RPG. It's inherently about subjectivity, and inherently about love, hope, and kickass swords! The broad strokes and worldbuilding of the series yet sheer richness of the story and sheer randomness for how your runs may turn out leave so much to headcanon and worldbuilding, letting YOU play the way you want to play and nobody else. It makes for a truly amazing storytelling experience that isn't rivaled by any other FE game in the series. It's inherently subjective, straight from interviews, no less:

“I think it’s because of the focus we’ve had in recent games on having you develop affinities for the characters,” Maeda says. “You choose the characters you like out of a large stable, you’ve got a lot of freedom to build them the way you like, and each player has their own characters they’re fond of.” [...] “It looks a bit like you’re moving players around in a chess match at first, but in reality, each one of them are human beings, with flesh and blood,” says Intelligent Systems director Kouhei Maeda. “As the player, you don’t want to lose them. You love them as a real person/character, and you want to make them stronger.” Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/plrmlt/i_found_a_really_interesting_interview_on_the/

NOM: So the purpose was to make it simple but fun, but what does that mean, exactly? Narihiro: When it comes to Simulation, it is actually difficult to think that there are too many visible components. Each component alone is simple, but variation increases based on the combination of these components. By combining a multitude of simple components, it means that each person can play in their own way. For example, individuals who say, “I want to fight using only female units” or, “I only want to use bows!” can play according to their own desires. (laughs) Source: https://kantopia.wordpress.com/2020/04/21/fire-emblem-path-of-radiance-staff-interview-highlights-nintendo-dream-june-2005/

FE is truly unique, special and amazing for the sheer empathy, warmth and humanity it exhibits, and it taught me to value the meaning of human life and all it values. And I'd have no problems if people actually realized how geared FE is to inherent subjectivity regardless. But that's not what happened. The FE fandom is reclusive, reactionary and territorially aggressive to even the slightest bit of self-expression or non-curative fanlore, being so utterly obsessed with being "objectively correct" they invented stuff like 'Personal Experience Means Nothing' despite the inherent subjectivity of the series and bashed anyone for having the "wrong opinion" while taking what's fundamentally a simple yet fun gameplay experience and not only tried to outright compare it to chess, but had the shitting temerity to act like they were qualified to "teach" the centralized way of playing FE at college communities. (https://twitter.com/lucky_lunatrick/status/1790562171207696517). This is a fandom that revels in excluding people while continuously gaslighting anyone who dares protest this abusive relationship (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlIOI057L0g) while shitting on anyone for daring to show emotion to the story as "bad taste" (https://youtu.be/DInHAC3FIL4?si=xIWiekGECP_McfLk, https://youtu.be/p2k24l-c13w?si=BGzqZr6eGx5RO3Xa). All while they are so dedicated to "fighting misinformation" in the fandom, while being blind to their own biases in story and spewing open misinformation or misinterpretation of the story or coming up with ideas of what they're like. They take a game series fundamentally about subjectivity with many right ways and tried to make it as objective as possible with there being only "one" right way of playing the series. They took a series that bashes you on the head of the humanity of all sides yet they only see from their perspective and try to act like their side is automatically right while all others is evil. It's cartoonish how much they miss the point of the series. It's like saying My Little Pony supports Nazi beliefs like /mlpol/ tried to argue, when that's just objectively not true. Given it involves openly hacking the game for 0% growth runs or playing in blatantly rushing elements, it feels sincerely like they're playing for factually the wrong reasons, and I don't use that term genuinely. Worse, they actually think this hyper-fixation on being "objectively correct" means they can exclude others!:

>"Players feel excluded when their gameplay doesn't reflect community standards" This is a non-issue. Not everyone needs to be part of every discussion. I keep bringing this example up in these threads, but if I play Smash Bros casually and there's a competitive tier list thread going on, I don't feel the need to participate. I can read it and it's fun to learn how competitive people play and how they see the game, but at no point do I feel like I need to butt in with my uninformed opinion. The problem is people wanting to be included when they have nothing of value to say. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/16q6tnu/how_efficiency_has_warped_the_fe_community_and/

Like, to give an idea how fucking unhinged this is; Smash Bros. is a metagame that, doubtlessly as you know, has an extremely in-depth and complicated metagame of ways to play the game and the best ways to win a match-up. Everything is usually fiercely defined by usability and with clear winners and losers. This is okay, because there doesn't need to be anything other than that, because Smash Bros. is at a competitive level on a fundamental level that doesn't need that. The skill ceiling is very high and only the best of the best will win you the day. Which is fine... but FE is a single-player strategy RPG. A game that explicitly has it so that you're strongly encouraged to play the way you want to play and emotionally invest in the characters you love, and ultimately use that gameplay to help them change their fate and earn them a happy ending through the amount of emotional investment you provide them. All while still not applying any kind of media analysis on FE or what its story means.

The fandom absolutely hates having to dig for any story context even when it's there in the game and loudly screeching at the player, because if it's not lore dumps or blatantly spoonfeeding context to the player, it's useless. People hated Fates because it so dissatisfied this completionist/"true gamer" mentality because it was emotionally unsatisfying for them because they refused to dig deeper. While 3H gets praise for them removing that fundamental self-discovery and personalization element of the series and spoonfeeding it by forcing it to the player as unsubtly as possible to tell them what they think. In almost any other fandom this would be seen as ridiculous, but the FE community is so ass-backwards they think this is good writing and gobble it up while shitting on Engage for being "back to basics" (which I didn't like like you did OP, but I respect what people love about it so much).

FE is a fandom that willfully and ignorantly twists the series's sentiments to its own self-justifying perspective while having a superiority complex over a fucking anime JRPG. And gets mad when you point out how pointless it is and only exists to be exclusionary! And I'd be fine with it if it was one sector of the fandom, but this shit is fucking everywhere. It's like if Fallout only had No Mutants Allowed as the only place to go for the fandom when you don't think the Bethesda Fallout games are the devil (well, not me and 3 anyways, that game slapped), while the shitting on people's tastes is so omnipresent it makes me wonder how anyone tolerates them IRL because they're the kinds of people who will die alone because nobody would put up with their above-average midwit brainiac egotist Brian Griffin-lookin' ahh.

Point is, while there are fandoms with a reputation as more toxic (e.g. Steven Universe pre-porn exodus, Danganronpa, Undertale, etc.), I cannot think of a fandom that's as exclusionary or downright missing the point of the series on an objective level (and again, I avoid using absolutes as much as possible!) as the FE fandom. The kicker is that people loved Fates and you consistently have luck with people who adore the story and its characters outside of these mainstream communities, but the hardcore fans are so utterly toxic they shame anyone for daring to express it despite the fact it didn't become the second best selling FE ever out of thin air. I think you cannot get more closer to missing the goddamn point of your own series than if you made a mecha show that's fundamentally anti-war and say "Wow! Cool robot!".

this was the long post, guys.

the post where i was frustrated with this website, was applied to this

[hootbon]

Hey, did you know that your Freakshow AU got so popular that there's an TV Trope site for it? You could check it out here:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/TheAmazingDigitalCircusFreakshowAU

I did but hehe I LOVE reading what you guys have to say or write about my au

[danganronpa96]

Oh, someone did a TvTropes page for Danganronpa96, if you want to know.

Yeah I did see it actually! There's even one for DR69 too

If anyone's interested in taking a look at them, here are the links:

DR69 -> https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/Danganronpa69

DR96 -> https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/Danganronpa96

I appreciate the people who made them, as going through both fics' story lines to pick out these details must take some time to do 🫡

[chaifootsteps]

a super long vid dropped on Lily Orchard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPfvu22vioA

not recommending you watch it since it's super long but it's a pretty good compilation of everything in chronological order.

I did notice something he didn't cover though - he mentions Lily having an alt called Alchorative, but I remembered a user going by that exact name who was edit warring on TV Tropes a while back: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/remarks.php?trope=YMMV.LilyOrchard

looking at the user's edit history, they've only recently edited pages related to Lily, or to Stockholm, the fic she denies writing

he also didn't have time to cover Lily's low key plagiarism - as well as stealing art without credit she has a habit of repurposing script lines from other youtubers and dumping them in her scripts. I'm not sure if they count as homages but there's definitely more than one I've noticed in the past. same with her 'season of MLP in a minute' - they're lifted mostly wholesale from TV Tropes' Warp That Aesop

and then there's her never ending oneside beef with better YouTubers like Lindsay Ellis and Contrapoints. She's made full videos on Contrapoints but she was always putting in snide remarks about them (as well as Josh Scorcher, her former most frequent target). She also sniped at Sarah Z and Jenny Nicholson in the past, too (for some mysterious reason it's only ever the female 'BreadTubers' that she has outright hostility for)

there's just so much stuff he couldn't cover it all in a 2+ hour video

I'm not sure if it's too much to hope this vid is to Lily what Hbomb's was to James Somerton, since Lily's remaining fanbase don't seem to care for some reason, but it's probably the most exhaustive video made by an outside party that I've seen

Wishing a very special "die in prison" to Lily Orchard.

[hockeyisforthegays]

Don't know if anyone has told you this, but your Jujutsu Kaisen fic has a TVTropes page now:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/TheHeroineIsAnnoyingButSheDiesSpectacularlyAtTheEnd

NO. NO ONE TOLD ME. HELLO?

[dexjarxenoengage]

Metaphor: Refantazio is my GOTY of 2024, and is slowly becoming one of my favorite video games of all time. As per such, I’m going to be a tad bit defensive and biased towards its story beats and characters (both of the good and bad). One such arguments that I want to address is the morality of its antagonists. More specifically, Joanna, the Holy woman responsible for the kidnappings in Martina. And compare them to Zorba, Louis’s right hand man.

This post is NOT for the sake of defending the actions of both of these characters. This is post for dissecting their actions in the story, but more importantly, how the characters react to the actions of these two antagonists.

Naturally, there will be spoilers.

From: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/MetaphorReFantazio

“Joanna in the Martira arc is portrayed with a degree of sympathy and is treated as such in-universe by the heroes. However, the extent of her malice, despite her tragic backstory, led many players to struggle with sharing the party's sentiments. Joanna has been feeding innocent townspeople—including children—to a monster, driven by her desperation to feel like she had regained her lost child. Her backstory is undeniably tragic: her mixed-race child was murdered by a nanny fueled by superstition and prejudice. But the sheer cruelty of her actions—sacrificing innocents ultimately for revenge—makes her difficult for many players to empathize with. While the party does not condone her crimes and instead directs their anger toward the societal forces that pushed her to such extremes, they remain strikingly kind to someone who inflicted the same tragedy she experienced upon countless others, with only Strohl really pushing back in response but ultimately viewing her the same way as everyone else in the end. Though Joanna is ultimately executed for her actions and it is heavily implied that her descent into madness was driven by Melancholia corruption—born of her regret and a sudden moment of clarity after the defeat of her "child." For some players, the level of sympathy Joanna receives can be jarring, given the scale of her atrocities. This is in complete opposition to Zorba, who — while his actions are indeed monstrous — actually deserves more sympathy.”

The reason why I make this is not questioning whether or not Joanna and Zorba deserve sympathy or not. This post is meant to be a question of why Will and the others feel the way they do to both of them. So in order to illustrate my point, I need to explain the crimes these characters commit and how this weighs on the Kingdom at large, as well as the characters themselves. Personal grudges IMO play a huge factor in this post.

- The weight of crimes

As far as crimes are concerned behind both Joanna and Zorba, we need to look at how it affects everyone involved: both the characters themselves and the kingdom.

Due to Zorba’s long term presence in the main story in comparison to Joanna, I have to talk about him first.

Zorba is responsible for using the Grand Cathedral to steal the Royal Scepter to give to Louis. Taking into account what Louis planned on doing with Royal Scepter, and why he sent Zorba to get in the first place, as well as Zorba being the only one who knew Louis’s endgame from the start, Louis’s on turning the nation into Human Monsters has been his plan from the start.

And this is without mentioning his “Day of Calamity” that he was likely planning on by Louis’s order. Zorba reanimated the Louis brought to the Royal Funeral with the intention of it destroying all of Grand Trad, and young and old people in it besides.

Why is this important? Because, to the people that say Zorba deserved more sympathy in comparison to Joanna, forget that Zorba was going to unleash an undead Human out on a city with many people in it (including the young Maria who had just lost her father, Grius).

Speaking of Grius, this adds to the list of “personal” sins on Zorba’s list. Zorba reanimated Grius (who died at Louis’s hand) to use him to attack Will, Strohl, Gallica, and soon-to-be new ally Hulkenburg. All of whom have personal connections to Grius, and all were grief-stricken and powerless to save him.

Even if Zorba did not survive the battle at the Cathedral, the dude already has a lot of blood on his hands. And this without taking into account what other sins he may have committed while under Louis’s service, we don’t know when exactly did he became devoted to Louis.

(Of course, this isn’t to say that Zorba’s reanimating powers are in and of itself sinful. But Zorba has used this power to not only attack innocent people, but use Grius to attack our heroes who were close to them. To use another character as an example, Veyle from Fire Emblem Engage has the power to revive people as Zombies, but would rather not use that power to hurt people (among other reasons). Having that power and using it to hurt people is what makes that power evil.)

Within the time we had with Zorba until he was revealed to have been alive all along, Zorba has helped attack the Cathedral to further Louis’s plans for ending the world. Has used a friend to attack his other friends. And finally, was going to send a human to destroy Grand Trad, which would have resulted in the causalities of many young and old people alike. And people expect me to believe that Zorba deserves sympathy?

Now we look at Joanna in comparison. Joanna has indeed been sending many people (especially children) to gallows that use the jaws of a baby human out of hatred towards the world for the death of her child.

Why is this important? Because the scale of crimes IMO is just important as the crime itself, maybe even more from a certain perspective. Joanna’s actions, from what we know, is locked exclusively behind Martina. The only time people that aren’t necessarily connected to Martina are the people who just happened to be unfortunate to be at the wrong place at the wrong time (as Klinger can attest to). And the only action that affects the party (outside of the fact that Strohl hates humans because of the destruction of his home, which is another personal sin on Zorba to add to the list) is Heismay, who is a recent addition. And even then, as we will get into later, Heismay can’t bring himself to truly hate Joanna.

Zorba’s actions on the other hand were clearly affecting a wide range of characters and the world of Metaphor at large through his actions; both morally and personally. For the entire party, Zorba is responsible for briefly turning the recently deceased Grius against them (who is with the person responsible for killing him). For Strohl, Zorba’s actions was going to repeat an event that has haunted him all his life, not helped by the fact that he an devote ally to the person responsible for both Halia’s destruction, and Grius’s death. For Hulkenburg, it’s also personal, outside of Grius’s reanimation, Hulkenburg sees Zorba as betrayal towards the oath of knighthood (something which is big deal for any story involving knighthood).

- The reason for said crimes and the response to it:

The thing that the people who play this game have a problem is how the party responds to these characters who have done these things. Zorba was discriminated his whole life for being Mustari/Clemar hybrid (not only are Mustari are the second most hated race in Metaphor, second only to Elda, but Hybrids are often mistreated as well, as seen with Maria’s Social Link). Not helped by the fact that many people were disgusted by his ability to reanimate (not that I blame for that). The reason for why he is so devoted to Louis is because he didn’t judge him for his race or his abilities.

Zorba is hated by the party (especially the starting party members). All of whom, during their encounter in the cathedral call him out for his hypocrisy (such as when the characters uses a portrait of Louis to get Zorba out of their way, it’s fine to disrespect the dead, but bad if Louis is insulted), but also refuses to excuse his actions just because of his suffering.

• Zorba (talking to Will): “Surely an Elda like you know what it’s like! To be an outcast, to be every fool’s scapegoat! They call us “lesser tribes”! They loathe us! Their speeches of tribal harmony mean nothing when every day, they cheat and abuse us! Do you think I didn’t believe, once? That I never dared to hope my efforts made me equal? Then I heard exactly what they think of us… “The lessers are expendable. Send them to the fore and they shall be our living shields” They doomed us and laughed as we died.

• Hulkenburg: “But these atrocities make you no better than your oppressors!”

We move on to Joanna, who lost her child (who was also a hybrid and illegitimate child) to the nurse who was sent to look after her child. All the while, even her family was glad the half blooded child died. And finally, her husband was ratted off of Martina, leaving her alone. Let’s see how the characters react to her story in the midsts of her heinous crimes…

• Strohl (who, along with the others, have witnessed Homo Jaluzo devour Morris (he deserved it): “This is your child? It just devoured a man! All I see is a mindless monster!”

• Joanna (who is enraged by this response to her “child.”): And a monster is all I see…when I upon the world! People are beasts of fear and superstition. Murderers without remorse. I have done nothing they’ve not done to me. Abominations… They are the unnatural. They deserve to die. They should all be so glad to nourish my child. My dear… sweet… child.

• Hulkenburg: A mother’s love should nurture. But this is beyond the pale…

• Strohl: And you? Do you not condemn her? She kidnapped children, murdered them in cold blood, and would see you blamed for it!

• Heismay: In truth… I know this woman’s pain, all too well. In the name of her child, she was willing to turn against the entire world. Behind her atrocities… I see the devotion of a bereaved parent. You found yourself unjustly in a terrible darkness… and I struggle to blame you. Burying your own child is unbearable. Grief and madness fill the gaps where love had been. But my eyes were opened. These people helped me see. The only way to beat the darkness… is to confront it! Step by meagre step… You must walk back to our reality! Look upon that… And see true that it is not the child you once loved!

The main difference between Joanna and Zorba’s actions and parts in the story is how the characters react to them. Strohl, as the Human Slayer is naturally appalled by Joanna’s actions and the human himself, and ask for Heismay’s response to this. Heismay, who was also a victim of the death of a child in a world filled with discrimination. Heismay calmly understands why Joanna would take the path she did while still making it clear that what she’s doing is wrong and she needs to face reality and accept her child’s death.

Heismay knows full well that, in another world, Heismay could have been the kidnapper everyone deemed him to be. I think that’s why Heismay doesn’t fully condemned Joanna to the extent that could (and perhaps, should) have.

- The aftermath of crime

Another crucial factor in how Zorba and Joanna are treated by the characters in the story is the aftermath of their respective defeats. Zorba outright ignores Hulkenburg’s point of calling out Zorba for his actions. Joanna, on the other hand, comes to see the error of her ways. In fact, IMO, this is the most important aspect about this discussion. Joanna admits her wrongs and makes the choice to atone, Zorba did not.

After Joanna is defeated, she makes good on her initial promise to give Martina’s support to the Prince if Will and the others succeeded in solving the case. By offering up her head for the Exhibition for the Brave… As well as clearing Heismay’s name.

While we are on this topic, the reason for why the party are even in Martira to begin with. They wanted to turn in a criminal for the Tournament for the Throne in order to gain the political support needed to get Louis’s attention so that the team can find a way to break the curse over the Prince. So accepting Joanna’s atonement is the right thing to do from a mission/political standpoint, not just a moral standpoint.

And another thing, the fact Joanna kept her word. If Joanna wanted to, as Strohl pointed out, she could use this chance to escape and continue to cause trouble elsewhere. But Joanna stood true to the promise she made to the very end. And thanks to this action of choosing to trust Joanna’s word, the party is one step closer to defeating Louis.

Joanna vs Zorba

• Will: The rumours painted Heismay as a criminal, but I chose to believe in him. I want to extend Joanna the same grace. A country where no one’s future is written in stone… If that’s our goal, then this is a chance we have to take.

Gallica may think Will is too kind here, which is probably what most of the fandom on this moment may think, but just remember that Will was going to kill Louis to break the curse. He’s not as soft as Gallica (or the audience) may think.

- Sympathy (or lack thereof) for the wicked:

I have seen the Martira Arc plenty of times, along with Joanna’s execution, and I wouldn’t say the party was overtly sympathetic towards Joanna like people think. The only person who was the closest to that point is Heismay and Will. Strohl only is more lenient with Joanna because she made the choice to repent (and again, she kept her word when should could’ve gone against it).

And again, thanks to this choice to atone, the Prince is one step closer in being king and defeating Louis.

Now again, we go back to Zorba, who had been revealed to be alive all along, helping Louis’ goals in the shadows, during which, he has transformed his body into a Human. What does Zorba do not long after he is hinted to be alive? Continue to help Louis’s plan, ensuring that Forden dies (not that he didn’t have it coming). When Louis is about to kill a Church family in order to get the party to come clean about the Prince’s survival, he causally watches and mocks Fidelio’s death.

Afterwards, Zorba is directly responsible for the death of the original Prince, and had Will given up and not accepted being the Prince’s Archetype, this act would given Louis the final victory. On top of that, there was another corpse found prior to the reveal of the Prince’s death.

Again, this is why I can’t agree with the people that say Zorba deserved more sympathy. When you think about it, not only does Zorba’s actions affect them personally alongside the entire Kingdom, but Zorba lasted longer than Joanna for his actions to affect the story itself. I’m not saying that the characters shouldn’t have tried to make some effort to get him to understand what he was doing was wrong, like with Joanna, but you can tell how much his actions affected them.

And it’s not to say that the others don’t sympathize with him to some extent, once we get to his final fight, the others are horrified to see his human-mutated hand. And after the fight, Basilio (last party member, and also knew him from their time with Louis) understood Zorba and showed no anger towards him. And once Zorba does die by his own hand, which the boys did try to save him, the others sadly noted that he chosen his path. Even at the end, when the characters do try to understand him, unlike Joanna, he was beyond saving. Or rather, he didn’t want to be saved by anyone who wasn’t named Louis. Hulkenburg, in comparison to their battle at the Cathedral, does commend Zorba for his loyalty, even if it was towards a madman.

To the people that say that Zorba deserved more sympathy, did Zorba himself made an effort to understand what he did was wrong like Joanna did? No. Was there any implications that Zorba was being manipulated by Melancholia? Given that he showed no signs of calming down or changing his mindset after being beaten TWICE, I would say no.

This whole section may seem like a contradiction of us questioning the sympathy level of these two characters. Again, let me remind you, this was a question on the morality of the characters themselves. Every party member may be flawed people who also have anxiety in their hearts, but remember that they gained their Archetypes by learning to channel those feelings in a healthy manner.

All of them do have a strong sense of justice, if handled differently for each character. And it’s not like having a personal reason for standing against evil is bad thing, considering that’s the reason Strohl awakened to his Archetype in the first place.

You can question the characters all you want, everyone will have different answers compared to mine. But Strohl and the others only showed grace to Joanna because she chose to atone for her sins, whereas Zorba did not. These characters are about fairness, and IMO, they did well on that front.

[eyesoftheholder]

For you Time is Fickle AU...

Have you ever wondered at any point that all the screwing with time, with like 5/6 different travelers from different timelines brought together attracts "Clock Roaches", or, monsters that chase after time travelers/anomalies?

Here's a link to the subject in case you are intrested: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ClockRoaches

But yeah, could imagine an already screwed up timeline being made worse by monsters out to wipe the party out of existance for messing with time.

holy shit i’ve never heard of clock roaches (or at least the name of the trope) but i love it. evil cackling.

A perfect excuse to get Loop involved in the family’s adventures

I’ll have to spend some more time thinking on how to integrate that though… maybe something with the change god or house of change could be involved?

If anyone has ideas feel free to share

[yesornopolls]

are you prone to using buffy speak?

if you don’t know what that is, here’s an explanation here:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuffySpeak

[goldenshrikecomic]

How do you feel about the TV Tropes page for Golden Shrike currently?: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/GoldenShrike

I don't want to read it just like I don't want to read the wiki. A whole lot of biased text and people coming up with the weirdest, non-canon things and calling them facts. I hate that either page exists for my comic and how they're forcing me to DMCA if I want them down.