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Prequel or Making a Cat Cry: The Adventure or Everything is a Federal loving Issue and is Also Trying to Make You Miserable  Prequel mini-FAQ: What is Prequel? Prequel is a webcomic created by Kazerad on the MS Paint Adventures forums. It is set in the Elder Scrolls Universe created by Bethesda Softworks. Specifically, it is set before the game Oblivion, hence the title "Prequel". Oh, great, so I have to know about this video game if I want to read the comic? Not at all. The sum total of helpful information you should have before starting the comic: Khajiit are cat-people. Assuming you know that, you'll know as much about the plot of the game as the protagonist of this comic does. Having played the games lets you in on a few in-jokes, but apart from that it isn't necessary to enjoy the comic at all. What is the comic about, then? A down-on-her-luck catgirl who moves to a new country to try to start a new life. Her efforts are not always entirely successful, and watching her repeated failure is a source of entertainment to us, the audience. Because we are terrible people. Terrible people who like making a cat cry. So... it's a furry comic? Look, the Thundercats had cat-people in it, too. Was it a furry cartoon? Hobbes was a tiger; did you imagine that was a fursuit? Pogo was a possum, and when he met the enemy, was the enemy a furry? Yea, brothers, even Bugs Bunny is a talking rabbit that walks like a man. Will you call him a furry? Do you dare? Why are the page titles so weird? Why does the main character keep talking to people with names like wetnap7589? Prequel originated in the MS Paint Adventures "Adventure" subforum, where artists collaborate with posters to decide the course their stories will take. In this particular comic, the forum posters are represented as conflicting thoughts in the character's head. Why does this need its own thread? People had been discussing the comic in the MS Paint Adventures thread quite frequently, and eventually it was decided that giving it its own thread would reduce the chatter in that one. Hopefully this move will continue to keep the signal-to-noise ratio high for both comics. Plus, every time it comes up in another thread these days it provokes horrifying arguments. This way is better. Really, Mr. Peas? Really? A catgirl comic based on a video game from the MSPA forums? REALLY? I know how it sounds! But it's actually pretty good. Seriously, just try it out for a few pages, it won't kill you. Unless you are allergic to HILARITY. In which case you should consult a physician; untreated allergies can be extremely dangerous. And you DEFINITELY shouldn't be reading Something Awful. Do you have a death wish, allergic reader? What is wrong with you? OK, where are the links already? If you'd like to give Prequel a try, you may find it here: http://prequeladventure.com/ It is strongly recommended that you start at the beginning. If you'd like to submit a command, you may do so here: http://www.mspaforums.com/showthread.php?51302 idonotlikepeas fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Aug 20, 2013 |
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Jul 29, 2011 00:32
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SirSamVimes posted:You didn't include the best of its alternate titles! Well, we can't have that, can we? Fixed!
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Jul 29, 2011 13:15
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Right now we don't know enough to say whether the main story of Oblivion would have Katia as an NPC, as the main character, or as part of the opposition. Right now all three are possible, although "random NPC" has received a huge blow due to Katia being born under the sign of the Atronach. Not everyone in the Elder Scrolls universe has a special birthsign. I suspect she's supposed to be the Hero of Oblivion, but take a look at the very first update - she talks about not getting involved in any more cults. A cult is a main part of the opposition in Oblivion... so of course the joke should be that she's going to be "involved" because she'll be fighting them, or it could be that one path for her is joining them. It may be that the commands she receives will help decide which way things go.
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Jul 30, 2011 14:51
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Kazerad posted:He just doesn't think I can do it. He doesn't think I can pull off My Little Portal. My Little Portal, My Little Portal A-ahhh-ahhh-ahhhhhh I used to wonder what Portals could be Until you shared their magic with me Testing Chambers, turret guns Companion cubes with hearts drawn on Physics puzzles, they're no easy feat And gratuitous cake references make it all complete You have My Little Portals... Did anyone tell you the cake is a lie?
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Aug 1, 2011 16:47
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Volmarias posted:Not in the last 5 minutes, no. It is, you know. It is a lie. Also, Kaz, welcome to Something Awful. You may wish to check out a few other threads if you have the time: * The MSPA thread because lord knows coming from the MSPA forums you couldn't possibly have seen enough discussion of MSPA yet. * The Comics Shop Talk thread, which is where comic authors discuss the process of working on comics with each other. A few medium-to-large names in webcomics drop by from time to time; it's a good place to pick up tricks and ask for advice. * The webcomic readers thread, which picks up discussion of all comics that don't have their own threads (and perhaps should have been where the Prequel discussion went, but this thread pulled it out of the MSPA thread more effectively, I think).
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Aug 1, 2011 18:36
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EvilKosh posted:It's just that this comic is bankrupt of any sort of creativity or value. That's all. Hmm. That's a rather sweeping generalization. And fairly trivial to demonstrate as false. Creativity is a subjective term and easy to get bogged down in, but value is fairly simple to demonstrate. Like most other comics, the primary value here is entertainment. While you personally may not be entertained by the comic, it is clear that others are (some have even said so in this thread). Therefore, it has value. If you'd like to have a discussion about the structure or merits of the comic that is an actual discussion, that seems reasonable; even the author has come here to respond to others doing that. If you plan to just periodically drop by to remind everyone else that it sucks and they should stop having fun, I would respectfully suggest that your time might be better spent regrouting your bathtub or issuing cryptic proclamations to an alien race in furtherance of your hidden long-term agenda.
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Aug 2, 2011 07:13
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Kazerad posted:Seriously though, whenever someone really hates my work I try to figure out where they are coming from. I think I found your DeviantArt page, and you were apparently doing a commission drive? If that's still a thing you're doing, would you have an interest in advertising on my site? I've been planning to try out some new on-site advertising techniques I came up with, but I need some people offering products/services to help me kick it off. I don't care about payment or anything, I'd just want detailed statistical info on how it affects your commission quantities. The problem with Google Ads is that they give me no indication of what happens after people click on the ad, which is what I care about. ...Kazerad wins the classiness game with a three-pointer.
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Aug 3, 2011 21:27
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Maybe we should stop that one before it starts. Friends, let us all pitch in to keep this thread from becoming lovely. If you want to discuss rape, let's do so only in the context of Prequel, the webcomic, and not as a general concept. Particularly, let us not explore whether having sex with a drunk person counts as rape or not. I am sure there are threads in D&D that would be perfect for that kind of thing, and if anyone wants to link to one to route traffic, by all means do so. With a couple of minor exceptions I think this thread has been pretty good so far and I think we all would like to see it stay that way.
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Aug 8, 2011 17:59
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Things I like about Dmitri: 1) His robes have clearly been torn up by his cats and repaired. 2) He's idealistic enough to believe that Katia, whom he knows nothing about except that he had a drunken threesome with her, would have been fine as a pet owner.
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Aug 11, 2011 05:57
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Technically it could also have been a potion gift basket, but I'm going to guess one of the potions would have been magicka resist or fire resist or something. It will be interesting to see if Dmitri can be convinced to send one of the other things afterward. Assuming he survives.
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Aug 26, 2011 23:19
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Dolash posted:I've been trying to work out if the name "Grow Up" is meant to hold some clever meaning, like he's a representation of the challenges of maturity or something. Or it could just be a clever name. Gro is a fragment that appears in all male orc last names. (Gra is the equivalent female version.) So his name is really Gharug Upp, Male Orc. You will notice that the very first thing that Katia says after she wakens from their night together is "You hosed up." See, she hosed Upp. ... Yeah.
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Aug 30, 2011 21:20
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Don't grieve for Dmitri. The hero of Oblivion would have killed him eventually anyway. Necromancers are one of those groups you just murder randomly for treasure or skill training when you're bored. They infest areas you want to go to plunder, like ruins and caves. The only conversation you're likely to have with them is whatever noises they make while they try to murder you. Basically, they're like rats, only human-shaped and with a better loot table.
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Sep 5, 2011 23:13
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Pakled posted:Hell, I'd celebrate someone killing Cliff Racers too. Jiub is not someone Kazerad made up. He's the first person you meet in Morrowind, and in Oblivion you actually do find out that he was made a saint for cleansing the cliff racer scourge from Morrowind.
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Sep 9, 2011 15:33
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J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5, had a few things to say about the topic of serial writing. He was comparing television with books, but the issues are actually quite similar. He said he'd known writers who did a gag where they wrote a short story one page at a time, in front of an audience, and slapped each page up on the wall as they were done. He said writing for TV was a lot like that, and I'd say writing a webcomic is a similar experience. Really, it means all of the following: 1) If you're doing anything that lasts more than one "page" (episode, issue), people are going to only see half of it and judge it immediately. That's endemic to the form; it's tempting to say "don't worry about that, it'll be awesome in five hundred pages when you see what I was setting up", but the reality is that nobody is really going to believe that but you - they see the story you've created so far, not the plans you have in your head, and simply asserting that those plans exist won't change their minds. That's something JMS had some trouble with, and I see Hussie having it too. To them, and to you, I would say: people get confused and annoyed because "it'll all turn out right later" is something that people who are committing legitimately bad writing will say as well, even genuinely talented people. I still remember Star Wars fanboys defending The Phantom Menace on that basis; just wait for episodes two and three! They'll even make Jar-Jar Binks okay if you give Lucas a chance! It's perfectly fine to do things like this - hell, in some cases it's great - you just have to be aware that some people aren't going to wait five hundred pages to see how it all turns out. This is where your archival readers come in - some people aren't following you the whole time and get all the pages at once. This is also why DVDs are a huge winner for TV series that plan things out in advance (and can seem a bit schizophrenic for series that are making it up as they go along). 2) You can't take anything back. (Comic book writers in particular suck at this one.) The fact is, you put the page up on the wall already. Everyone has already read it. You can't just go back and edit part of what they've already read, like you can if you're publishing a book all at once. It's tempting to try to fix broken things by going back and recasting the events or having actual time travel that alters them, but unless you really know what you're doing that's just going to leave people feeling cheated and unsatisfied. The more you do it, the more you disconnect people from your story - if they can't trust that the story they've already read will stay put, why will they trust you enough to keep reading what you're writing now? 3) You have to keep putting pages on the wall or the audience will get bored. This is something else you're probably running into right now. People like regularity, or at least frequency, and with the web providing them a large number of entertainment options, their attention tends to drift quickly. Normally people like a regular schedule, because then it becomes part of your habitual behavior. "Oh, it's Wednesday! Time to go read Penny Arcade!" That said, Hussie has actually tapped into a different human behavior - a variable interval reward schedule. Basically, if you provide a reward (new content) frequently but irregularly, people will be trained to perform the behavior (checking the site) frequently and not to be disappointed when they find nothing (since it is normal to go for some period without reward). The trick there is the initial training period, where rewards have to be fairly frequent. Once it's happened, though, people will be pretty tolerant - imagine what the fan reaction would be to most comics taking a month off to work on something that they'll probably spend five minutes watching!
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Sep 25, 2011 02:45
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100 HOGS AGREE posted:See: The loving castle plotline in Girl Genius. I was a bit curious, so I did some looking. The first GG comic is dated 11/04/2002. The most recent is 9/23/2011. So a total of roughly four hundred and sixty-odd weeks. I'm going to be generous and say that the "Castle Plot" starts when Agatha enters the castle (although theoretically you could include some of the Mechanicsburg stuff as well). That happened on 12/21/2007 (well, that's when she changed clothes to go in, which is close enough), roughly two hundred weeks before the current strip. That means that the Castle Plot is now more than FORTY PERCENT OF THE ENTIRE STORY. No wonder people think it's dragging.
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Sep 25, 2011 02:59
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Kazerad, this is basically the most wonderful thing. I only wish you'd released it sometime other than when Hussie put out the end of act flash so you could get more attention.
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Oct 25, 2011 18:20
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You know, something else I've been thinking about. Katia approaches life like an addict. Which shouldn't really be surprising. See, a lot of people who are addicts (or even people who are stuck in other kinds of lovely situations), think that there's some magical point at which they can stop being addicted if they do the right things. Like, one day they will wake up and not want alcohol or heroin or whatever and everything will be right with the world. And the fact that that day never comes just means they aren't doing it right. Katia does that, too, only with her whole life. She keeps on saying "hey, THIS time everything is going to be awesome, forever", because one big event is obviously going to change everything and once things are awesome they will just stay awesome. In real life, the only people who get out of their addictions are people who realize that they will have to deal with them every day, for the rest of their lives. I wonder if this character will realize the same thing about her life?
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Feb 13, 2012 18:40
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Volmarias posted:So she's addicted to failure? I'm not sure I understand. She's obviously got a drinking problems but I think there's more to her than that... I mean she thinks of her life as something that can be solved. Like, now that she can join the mage's guild everything will be fine. When in reality your life tends to veer between good and lovely pretty much all the time and you have to exert continual effort to keep it on an even keel. The first way is the way addicts think about their addiction, and the second way is the way people in recovery do.
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Feb 13, 2012 18:55
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I wonder if Sigrid put the deer and flowers around to try to make Necromancy look less horrible. Or just to make it look like there isn't any going on. "Necromancy? What necromancy? We practice FLOWER LOVE MAGIC here."
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Mar 11, 2012 19:59
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An update has occurred, for those that might be wondering what that's about.
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Mar 18, 2012 22:34
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Meme Emulator posted:Imagine if Toady One and Hussie had a baby, and Kharazad was the godfather who imparted oblivion lore. Hed make the best webcomic with the most wierdly focused devotion ever. This is an Internet Comic. It is encrusted with obscure references. The object is adorned with hanging rings of suggestions and fiat. It menaces with spikes of Flash. All craftsgeekship is of the highest quality.
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Mar 21, 2012 01:18
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Hmm. Perhaps a slight shift in topic. So how do you guys think things will go wrong at the guild? There are so many possibilities...
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Apr 4, 2012 06:05
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Yesssssssssssss..... Catharsis at last!
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Jun 4, 2012 05:19
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My favorite counterexample on the matter of art being a different thing than entertainment is, of course, Shakespeare. Widely regarded as one of the best writers ever to live (if not actually the best), his works studied as Great Art literally for centuries, made a whole big bunch of dick jokes. Seriousy, half the stuff in any Shakespeare play is bullshit he put in to make people in the cheap seats laugh. And the other half is in there because it would make his patron happy.
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Aug 11, 2012 01:49
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I think I mentioned it upthread, but the key with variable interval is that the rewards have to be frequent and irregular to start. The reason this works is that you get in the habit right away of checking for a reward frequently and not being disappointed when the reward doesn't appear, since another reward will be along shortly anyway. After a while, you can gradually stretch out the periods between rewards, since the behavior of checking for a reward and not being disappointed is already conditioned. This schedule has what's called a high resistance to extinction, meaning the conditioning continues for a very long time after the rewards are stopped. This is why Hussie can stop updating for a month and nobody stops checking the site; because the previous irregular/frequent schedule has convinced you that you'll be rewarded if you keep checking (and you will, because Hussie will come back and update unless something happens to him). Hussie (and to an extent Kazerad) are also varying the proportion of the difficulty of getting the reward with the size of the reward itself. So sometimes it's a single panel update with virtually nothing in it, sometimes it's a full flash walkaround where you have to put in significant effort to wrest the story out of it, and sometimes it's a page like Kaz's latest update where you get something awesome almost for nothing. This isn't as big a deal as the schedule as long as the reward is always considered to be sufficient for the effort expended in getting it, but it does have some effect on making people more enthusiastic to check the site. It might be a fifteen-minute flash movie this time! There's also the concept of a variable RATIO schedule. Traditionally, this is done by varying the number of times you have to perform the reinforced behavior before getting a reward. (This doesn't apply to checking the site, since checking the site N times won't produce a result even for very high values of N unless enough time has passed.) You see a better example of this in things like World of Warcraft, where the number of monsters M you have to kill to get some cool item is unknown to you (but you believe you'll get one if you kill enough). You start out with M being small and gradually increase it, and people stick around in the same kind of way. This one produces the strongest response but not necessarily the strongest resistance to extinction. I'm not sure people would accept a webcomic built wholly on this principle, but it's interesting to consider.
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Aug 14, 2012 17:09
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I think this is the best discussion that has ever been had in a thread about a fictional alcoholic cat.
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Aug 21, 2012 23:11
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jetz0r posted:That's a squiggly green guitar. My creation of this thread has now been fully justified. Tollymain posted:Yeah the second one looks a lot better. On that note now I'm wondering if I will ever happen to get around to watching Samurai Jack. You really do need to get out and watch that. It's wonderful. Just be aware that the story isn't really complete. They keep talking about doing an animated movie to finish it off, but that hasn't really gone anywhere (although it may yet; stranger things have happened).
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Aug 26, 2012 04:21
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Oh my God, that is beautiful. For some reason I couldn't stop laughing at "Katia F. Manigan" even though it's probably the least ridiculous thing on that page. It's just such a pointless change! The relentless use of "bleep" is pretty awesome too. (the trick is adult Bleep-rated)
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Sep 18, 2012 05:24
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Hauling a discussion from the Webcomics thread over here instead:Kazerad posted:If you're going to portray a fantasy setting with non-human races coexisting with human ones, you pretty much have a choice between addressing it as a major theme or just hoping people accept it as "oh, this is a fantasy thing" and don't question it any further. It's probably more accurate to say that authors who want to show racism often do it with a fantasy setting. Unsounded also comes to mind (though with the majority of racism existing between human races than between human- and non-human ones), as does Astral Aves and Gunnerkrigg Court. And that one I write. Pinstripe Hourglass posted:You mean the one Bethesda writes? Kazerad posted:They didn't write very much racism. I poke fun at that. Rincewind posted:The Stormcloaks? Skyrim for the Nords? The Gray Quarter of Windhelm? Human resentment of the White-Gold Concordant? Bongo Bill posted:It's present in the lore but less so in the quests, especially in Oblivion. Now, I always thought that was part of the joke. There's all kinds of books and stories about how downtrodden and drug-addled Khajiit are, but you play as a catperson PC and nobody seems to give a poo poo. You get the same dialogue from everybody.
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Nov 5, 2012 02:12
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Kazerad posted:It's already getting kind of boring and tapering off, though at least it lasted long enough for the phrase "ballstink turdsludge" to be created. I haven't encountered a single person who didn't like that one. You realize now that you have to work that into the comic.
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Nov 8, 2012 06:16
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Well, I was going to sleep tonight.
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Nov 20, 2012 04:48
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drat, I was hoping Slippery Pete would be in there somehow.
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Nov 21, 2012 05:39
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Guys, we all stopped talking about it in the other thread because it was getting lovely. Let's avoid reopening the can of worms in this thread, because this thread is also one of the least lovely threads I've seen for a comic with this many people that hate it and it would be great if we could keep it that way. I think the safest thing to say is that we've got a bunch of different people here with different ideas about what the morally correct way of hiring independent artists is. I genuinely do not believe anyone is trying to be an rear end in a top hat, and I think that lots of people feel very strongly about this issue, so let's just let it go and maybe come back to it once there's a bit more distance from this argument.
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Dec 7, 2012 09:08
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I think the idea was always that the character would evolve out of that mindset. You'll notice that, for instance, this last time she rejected drinking as a solution to her problems, and scammed the poledancing striptease dude so she could get armor and learn to fight. (Which is still not great, but it's an improvement.) We, the readers, are not supposed to think her attitude is healthy or good. It is uncomfortable, though; I think he meant it that way, although it's certainly legitimate to talk about whether him making these uncomfortable scenes had the effect he wanted.
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Dec 8, 2012 14:18
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Probably the best way of handling inventory in this sort of game would be to have a way of automatically selling things you don't need, with the six trips back to base camp to drop them off taken as read. That way the game can retain a limit on active items, without needlessly encumbering players who just want a few extra gold coins to buy spells with.
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Dec 17, 2012 05:42
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As far as I can tell, Tumblr's general reaction to all this is "hell yes, more villainous Quill-Weave" and some related fanart.
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Aug 5, 2013 06:33
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Just in case anyone was waiting on it, the Quill-Weave: Take Control bonus page is now complete, as Kazerad has completely ruined the pony contest with 3500 votes. http://www.prequeladventure.com/qwtake-control/
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Aug 10, 2013 22:59
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I'm pretty sure we all have a fairly good idea of what she's doing with that pineapple, and I really don't need to see it in the comic. It would be funny if it turned out she were just juggling it or something, though. Everyone is scandalized because it's going so high that it's breaking the Levitation Act.
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Aug 13, 2013 17:01
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How about we link to that new update: http://www.prequeladventure.com/2013/09/3105/
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Sep 22, 2013 06:05
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As some folks may have deduced, there is a new update: http://www.prequeladventure.com/2014/03/3344/
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Mar 24, 2014 22:26
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