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ChrisBTY
Mar 29, 2012

this glorious monument

Ditocoaf posted:

This is a really interesting direction to take the newly merged Tessa in daily life with this outside infusion of confidence and feelings of superiority. Feels believable.

And the statement works on both side of Contessa's persona. "Sorry I called you a fake magical girl." "Sorry I tried to kill you"

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Twibbit
Mar 7, 2013

Is your refrigerator running?
https://www.sleeplessdomain.com/comic/chapter-21-page-7
https://www.sleeplessdomain.com/comic/chapter-21-page-8

I forget to post one week and none of you pick up my slack!

But hey double the post

afatwhiteloaf
Oct 19, 2012
The should have Vedika read Kokoro's mind and share Gooptessa's appearance with everyone else.

isasphere
Mar 7, 2013
I like how Zoe constantly has that "I'm still not sure why I'm being included in the cool kids group and if I make one sudden move it might end" nervous air even when she's just sitting there listening politely.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!

Twibbit posted:

https://www.sleeplessdomain.com/comic/chapter-21-page-7
https://www.sleeplessdomain.com/comic/chapter-21-page-8

I forget to post one week and none of you pick up my slack!

But hey double the post

How would I pick up your slack when this is how I find out new comics have been released? :v:

nimby
Nov 4, 2009

The pinnacle of cloud computing.



afatwhiteloaf posted:

The should have Vedika read Kokoro's mind and share Gooptessa's appearance with everyone else.

The mind reading/sharing seems to be very intrusive and taxing, Vedika is probably not up for that after her rough night.

Tenebrais
Sep 2, 2011

isasphere posted:

I like how Zoe constantly has that "I'm still not sure why I'm being included in the cool kids group and if I make one sudden move it might end" nervous air even when she's just sitting there listening politely.

It's fun to imagine just how elite the friend group must look from the outside. You've obviously got Heartful Punch, who even other magical girls are fans of. Vedika has the highest grades in the school. Bud is connected to basically everyone. Harley is kind of an unknown but clearly very tough-looking. And more recently they've picked up Undine, the survivor. No wonder Cassidy had a bit of a complex about belonging there, really.

Bussamove
Feb 25, 2006

Even without that, the initial period where you’re being accepted into a new friend group is a stressful time and sitting there vibrating like a nervous puppy was definitely my typical response to it.

“Okay be cool be cool don’t gently caress this up don’t blurt out some weird poo poo don’t.”

ronya
Nov 8, 2010

I'm the normal one.

You hate ridden fucks will regret your words when you eventually grow up.

Peace.
Undine was the bass player on a hit band herself. Fame-adjacent.

It does seem clear that the training club de facto revolves around HP - "it's HP's club", it's the club she started, plus club members literally physically follow her around when they show up on page together. During their crisis meeting she winds up sitting in the center after everyone sits back down. It's a mirror to the power dynamic of Team Alchemical.

I don't know how much Cagle intended for the rest of the club to also be intimidatingly interesting people, as opposed to HP plus randos. Club members do seem to be all set up as 'adjacent' people, right down to the newest member herself being mainly known as Famous MG's Younger Sister. Having HP not overshadow all of them would undermine the narrative symmetry.

ronya fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Jan 23, 2023

Tenebrais
Sep 2, 2011

New page


The Discord channel has certainly had a lot of speculation about the possibility of there being other magical girl schools in the past. Nice to see that confirmed.

Nitrousoxide
May 30, 2011

do not buy a oneplus phone



Tenebrais posted:

New page


The Discord channel has certainly had a lot of speculation about the possibility of there being other magical girl schools in the past. Nice to see that confirmed.

They said “other school” not “other magical girl school”. There is already at least one magical girl who goes to a regular girl school so why not just be another one of those?

Brought To You By
Oct 31, 2012

Tenebrais posted:

New page


The Discord channel has certainly had a lot of speculation about the possibility of there being other magical girl schools in the past. Nice to see that confirmed.

Zoe and Bud understanding that anything can be on the table as far as possibilities are concerned.

Tiny Myers
Jul 29, 2021

say hello to my little friend


Nitrousoxide posted:

They said “other school” not “other magical girl school”. There is already at least one magical girl who goes to a regular girl school so why not just be another one of those?

The context just feels very much like they're referring to other magical girl schools imo. Like, "if she's a magical girl she probably goes (to this school for magical girls)" "there are a few smaller private ones".

I wonder if they have sports competitions between the big school and the smaller ones. Like is there a football rivalry.

isasphere
Mar 7, 2013

Tiny Myers posted:

The context just feels very much like they're referring to other magical girl schools imo. Like, "if she's a magical girl she probably goes (to this school for magical girls)" "there are a few smaller private ones".

I wonder if they have sports competitions between the big school and the smaller ones. Like is there a football rivalry.

It raises some interesting questions about the economy and social classes (and population numbers?) if there is the one state-funded prestigious school Undine is attending but there is also enough wealth and demand for other smaller ones.

Tenebrais
Sep 2, 2011

With Future's Promise being both very well-funded and outright pushed on all magical girls, I think any other private schools are going to exist for people who actively want their daughters to be treated differently to the normal magical girl culture. On Patreon Mary mentioned one is the religious school for Founder-worshippers, who we've heard consider magical girls to be sacred warriors.

Twibbit
Mar 7, 2013

Is your refrigerator running?
The pressure you have to be under at that school

ronya
Nov 8, 2010

I'm the normal one.

You hate ridden fucks will regret your words when you eventually grow up.

Peace.
I'm full of so-how-big-is-the-city-really questions and it looks like the SD discord is too

rannum
Nov 3, 2012

These are absolutely not things you're meant to think about

but


I wonder how much of sustainability in the city is because of magical girls. I don't just mean from the "protect against the monsters" thing, just like...in general. Food, production of goods, infrastructure, etc.
I imagine a large city still runs into issues in all these things when the only consistent direct link to the outside world is the waterways that dont offer direct contact to anything. Any means of producing stuff, even synthetic foodstuffs, would probably dwindle pretty quickly with a city this big.

Mingxing's prosthetics were provided by magical girls, seems like that could easily extend to other things. And imagine all the logistics issues when a girl dies loses their magic, that's probably fun :v:

JuniperCake
Jan 26, 2013

rannum posted:


Mingxing's prosthetics were provided by magical girls, seems like that could easily extend to other things. And imagine all the logistics issues when a girl dies loses their magic, that's probably fun :v:

Yeah, she had to swap prosthetics when the first girl retired. If providing for the city's needs was also the responsibility of magical girls and the city wasn't guaranteed to always have access to certain powers, it would make for a pretty interesting setting. Like there's enough seeds there you could have a separate spin-off comic with that concept alone. Something interesting to think about if nothing else.

Tenebrais
Sep 2, 2011

I think any vital infrastructure run on magical girls is going to have serious problems with the fact that any given girl is going to have her powers for maybe eight years at the absolute most, with no consistent pattern of who gets what powers. Plus, all of the powers we've seen are at least tangentially geared toward them being fighters - the girl who made Mingxing's hand is also Team Blitz's scout - so you'd be at a real stretch to rely on there always being someone with the power to make super-fertiliser or something.

Still, there's nothing saying that magic in general isn't underpinning some of this. The big dome exists independently of any living magical girl; there might be some similar system providing the city with magical industrial capacity. But, yes, most likely the city is just built on large reserves of Shut The gently caress Up.

Cup Runneth Over
Aug 8, 2009

She said life's
Too short to worry
Life's too long to wait
It's too short
Not to love everybody
Life's too long to hate


It's a good thing the powers are granted by an intelligent being and the city keeps extensive records on existing magical girls at any given time, then

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005

Tenebrais posted:

But, yes, most likely the city is just built on large reserves of Shut The gently caress Up.

Just want to say that I love this line and will steal it for something in the future.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



ronya posted:

I'm full of so-how-big-is-the-city-really questions and it looks like the SD discord is too

Do we have any sense of like, what proportion of girls become magical? Not to do demographics I’m just curious if it’s more in the ballpark of ‘half the girls are magical’ or ‘one in ten at most’ - looking at the families we know about with multiple magical girls, and how parents react, it seems maybe closer to the half?

Tenebrais
Sep 2, 2011

Joe Slowboat posted:

Do we have any sense of like, what proportion of girls become magical? Not to do demographics I’m just curious if it’s more in the ballpark of ‘half the girls are magical’ or ‘one in ten at most’ - looking at the families we know about with multiple magical girls, and how parents react, it seems maybe closer to the half?

No canonical numbers, but it seems to be treated as rare. For one thing, there's only one major school for magical girls in the entire city (with "a few" smaller private ones). We haven't seen many normal girls thinking about the possibility of becoming one themselves, but the couple we have certainly aren't treating it as likely (although little Claire was very hopeful, with two of her cousins having been magical girls). The closest thing we have to actual numbers is that in the normal school Tessa attends, the ratio of girls to boys looks to be pretty equal, so it's certainly not going to be anywhere near half of girls getting powers. I imagine the proportion to be more around 1%, with the assumption that the city is metropolis-sized.

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Tenebrais posted:

with the assumption that the city is metropolis-sized.
I'm going to assume the city is Metropolis-sized, i.e. exactly has big as the superhero comic we're reading needs it to be for the story to work.

Tenebrais posted:

But, yes, most likely the city is just built on large reserves of Shut The gently caress Up.
:hmmyes:

sirtommygunn
Mar 7, 2013



If the city relied on magical girls for basic industrial or agricultural needs I don't think the water mage would have been allowed anywhere near the monsters.

Cup Runneth Over
Aug 8, 2009

She said life's
Too short to worry
Life's too long to wait
It's too short
Not to love everybody
Life's too long to hate


Undine dejectedly spending her nights going from greenhouse to greenhouse spraying plants

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?
Magical girls, a transitional power source.

habeasdorkus
Nov 3, 2013

Royalty is a continuous shitposting motion.
I adore that particular SMBC strip.

ronya
Nov 8, 2010

I'm the normal one.

You hate ridden fucks will regret your words when you eventually grow up.

Peace.
There must be quite a lot of MGs for some MGs to be considered celebrities relative to the rest

I can buy the authorial belief-suspension fiat to prevent MGs from being used in industrial roles - allowing magitek or mundane tech so advanced that the powers MGs exhibit don't add any value would make the setting unrelatable

But this also intrudes onto the tricky question of MG combat power scaling, which is central to Tessa's character motivation and Undine's sense of inferiority. There are presumably so many average MGs that the city is not seriously under threat (something can be dangerous but well-controlled, like fires and fire regulation IRL) to the point where combat MGs mostly disdain training or planning and just wing it. There's unpowered civilians hanging around as film crew but none as combat support officers to force-multiply MGs, because it's not really necessary to do so.

The value-add of being an exceptionally powerful combat MG seems to be mostly social, like being a sports superstar. It doesn't really move the needle on securing the city in the aggregate...

.... most of the time, anyway! The appearance of a really dangerous magical enemy - or the unexpected unreliability of the inner barrier - changes the external motivation quite a lot. It makes the "I'm the most powerful I should be making the battle calls because our entire strategy hinges on when I can kaboom something" inciting conflict substantially different from merely wanting to be queen of the playground sandpit

I don't think the narrative is going to veer into sudden serious-business "sorry, y'all announcement on your team-up tonight is cancelled because all team-ups have been cancelled you've all been conscripted here are your draft letters" but I feel like the tension has to be answered in some way

ronya fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Feb 2, 2023

ConanThe3rd
Mar 27, 2009
I wouldn't want to be the suit that gives emotionaly unstable teenagers, whomst can shoot lazers amongst other things, consciption papers.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



I wouldn’t want to be the suit who has to explain to the people of the city “hey the context that allowed denial about your daughters being child soldiers is over now.”

blacksocks
Feb 20, 2007

Not you in particular, but I'm not sure how people can take the "child soldiers" perspective and still be reading this series.

Rand Brittain
Mar 25, 2013

"Go on until you're stopped."
Because that's literally what's happening and a lot of the story elements are about how their society is designed to make that as palatable as possible?

Captain Oblivious
Oct 12, 2007

I'm not like other posters

blacksocks posted:

Not you in particular, but I'm not sure how people can take the "child soldiers" perspective and still be reading this series.

Why would that be an obstacle to reading? It’s not really a perspective, that’s just what they are. It’s text at this point, not really subtext. Characters have engaged with it in dialogue repeatedly.

It’s not really a fact of the setting that is framed as a good thing.

blacksocks
Feb 20, 2007

Ok, thanks. I'll share that the reason I used "perspective" instead of "fact" there was that I would have to compartmentalize that kind of narrative to enjoy any lighter romance, comedy, cool action scenes, etc.

Captain Oblivious
Oct 12, 2007

I'm not like other posters

blacksocks posted:

Ok, thanks. I'll share that the reason I used "perspective" instead of "fact" there was that I would have to compartmentalize that kind of narrative to enjoy any lighter romance, comedy, cool action scenes, etc.

So does everyone else in the Sleepless Domain setting which is why they have the kabuki theatre of idol culture around magical girls.

That’s the point.

coolusername
Aug 23, 2011

cooltitletext
The opening chapter ends on a massacre, so it’s pretty much established from the get-go that it’s not going the traditional route. I do like how they set it up to look like it’d be the combo-heavy precure type magical girls series about learning to become a team before swerving.

Safari Disco Lion
Jul 21, 2011

Boss, if they make us find seven lost crystals, I'm quitting.

blacksocks posted:

Ok, thanks. I'll share that the reason I used "perspective" instead of "fact" there was that I would have to compartmentalize that kind of narrative to enjoy any lighter romance, comedy, cool action scenes, etc.

Why would you compartmentalize the literal neon-flashing-sign not-subtext-just-text of the comic? It's literally the framework of how everything else, aka the "lighter romance, comedy, cool action scenes" is contextualized. gently caress right out of here with that "ugh how can you read this comic, it's so problematic" nonsense.

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blacksocks
Feb 20, 2007

I wouldn't be posting here if I didn't read it? And enjoy it.

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