|
Rand Brittain posted:Anemone is saying, as literally as she can, "readers, please be aware that Cassidy is loving dead." There's no game here. Fans: "Ah, I see, this means Anemone isn't actually omniscient!"
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2020 23:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 11:17 |
|
|
I mean, we already know for sure she isn't omniscient. She can't account for goops or the golden shapeshifting animal. She was also surprised by Mark or whatever the outsider's name was. I think Anemone knows a lot, but she definitely has gaps. Those gaps seem to occur around the absolutely most important things that are happening. I think that Cassidy is dead or close enough, but it's hardly unreasonable to theory craft.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2020 23:29
|
|
|
Tenebrais posted:Fans: "Ah, I see, this means Anemone isn't actually omniscient!" I mean, technically she isn't, she admits to not knowing about what's going on outside the city, and did have to talk to Tessa in person instead of just reading her mind or something. So I suppose Cassidy could theoretically have disappeared to wherever Marc came from, since we don't have enough information about what that would even mean to rule it out. She's not though. She's extremely dead.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2020 23:30
|
|
|
I think Cube's more-or-less confirmed 'dead' at this point, there's just enough hinkiness in the set-up and even the comments today that still make me wonder if that doesn't necessarily equal 'gone'.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2020 23:35
|
|
|
I'm kind of curious what the people who thinks she's not dead think happened instead. Just breaking it down logically: 1. Cassidy's power splits her into two copies, and if one is destroyed the other becomes her real body again. 2. Both of her bodies were destroyed at once, leaving nowhere for her real body to appear. So... Where is she now? If losing both bodies just made her real body reappear elsewhere, then her power was effectively immortality without drawbacks as long as she had the magic to keep using it, which seems both beyond what we've seen any of the girls able to do and also just incongruous with the way the rest of it works both mechanically and thematically (and arguably makes losing both bodies at once more advantageous since it gets her to safety instead of leaving her in a vulnerable state until she can snip herself in half again). Also Anemone in this latest page seems to be shooting that down anyway, unless Cass appeared far away from here, which feels like a really cheap fakeout whether it's an excuse for her to eventually return or just to have her out of the story but not actually be dead. If you don't think that Mary's doing that, then, you basically have only one answer for where Cassidy is now: Nowhere. She's either dead, or in a state that may as well be death; she might be in some weird liminal state between life and death, like being trapped in the same realm as the woman in white (which means that she could perhaps appear in a dream or something and still have some direct influence down the line, beyond just the ripple effects of her actions and disappearance, and maybe even return at some point), but she is very much Not Here anymore, whatever the specifics of that entail. She's gone. Cassidy is not anymore. Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Jul 22, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2020 23:46
|
|
|
Make Cassidy win the popularity poll, so she has to be brought back!
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2020 23:50
|
|
|
Kennel posted:Make Cassidy win the popularity poll, so she has to be brought back! Prediction: Cassidy wins/does well in the poll, and her panel in the comic about it is empty except stating what place she got.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2020 23:59
|
|
|
quote:Make Cassidy win the popularity poll, so she has to be brought back! *Cassidy's panel is just a headstone with "Umm..." etched on it.* "SEE, COMMUNICATION FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE! SHE'S STILL--" (Yeah, I think she's dead.)
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 00:00
|
|
|
Just to be clear here, I agree that Cassidy is absolutely loving dead. I just think that there's enough Weird Magic poo poo going on that there's a chance she isn't. But y'know just because there's a chance she's somehow not dead does not mean that she is not dead. Because she's totally dead.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 00:01
|
|
|
I think Cass is probably dead, but if she's not my theory would be that her consciousness hitched a ride to wherever powers come from. It's not a very good theory, but does satisfy the condition that she's not anywhere Anemone can perceive.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 00:03
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:Anemone is saying, as literally as she can, "readers, please be aware that Cassidy is loving dead." There's no game here. this only heightens my resolve that she's definitely coming back any second now
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 00:07
|
|
|
Roland Jones posted:I'm kind of curious what the people who thinks she's not dead think happened instead. The only thing that still gives me pause about agreeing 'yeah, dead, gone, can't argue with that' is that if I was someone who just read the comic by itself and didn't know anything about the creator's social media or meta comments, then a death scene where both clone bodies disintegrate leaving no trace, when it was deliberately unexplained where her meat body goes or where her actual consciousness is when the clones are out, followed by the villain going 'huh, that sure was odd wasn't it?' and then the knowing-but-not-entirely-omniscient narrator being 'yes that was very unusual, but let me say that i can't sense the character's presence anymore, so you the reader should certainly assume that they no longer exist' would be a big flashing siren that there was more to it than the face value. But then Cube's always up front that she hates a lot of common tropes and is always willing to kill characters when she thinks it's necessary, so... Apraxin fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Jul 23, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 00:08
|
|
|
Apraxin posted:No idea. I think you pretty much covered the possibilities, most of them at this point would be a cop-out that I'm sure Cube wouldn't do. I guess maybe stuck in the barrier, or with the WiW or something, hypothetically? I think that some sort of "body gone, mind's still somewhere" scenario is plausible, but when people say "not dead" I've usually taken it as her still having a living body and all. Part of the barrier, hanging out with the woman in white, and so on, seem reasonable (though not guaranteed; I'd lean towards her just being dead-dead and if she's still around in some state it won't have a direct impact on events) to me, but aren't quite the same. Though I guess that gets into semantics about what "dead" and "not dead" mean exactly.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 00:34
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 00:47
|
|
|
Cass is a ghost in the shadow-magic-dimension, but she won;t show up for another thousand pages, so we'll think she's dead, but actually she's the key to defeating goops, as a crack of light magic in the dark.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 00:49
|
|
|
 I am here for this cross pollination.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 00:50
|
|
|
I mean I think fans are insisting Cassidy’s not totally gone because they think it’s not a great ending for the character and aren’t convinced the postmortem is going to be good - but also really like Cube’s writing generally. I admit I’m kind of in that camp, I’m skeptical that this will be enough or interesting enough payoff to what happened, and ‘RIP Cassidy, was a lovely teen and deserved to die’ is (I hope) not the narrative result, nor ‘Undine is just utterly miserable with guilt.’ I’m willing to see what results but I have some trepidation.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 00:58
|
|
|
YES. gently caress YES.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 01:09
|
|
|
Cassidy died because she placed petty teenage bullshit ahead of solidarity and relied only on herself. It's the exact same reason Team Alchemical died. I don't think it's fair to read the comic as saying either Cassidy or Team Alchemical deserved their fates. Rather, I think the comic is making an argument that you need to both help others and rely on others in kind of equal measure if you're going to be successful.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 01:16
|
|
|
Wittgen posted:I don't think it's fair to read the comic as saying either Cassidy or Team Alchemical deserved their fates. I think overall I'm in pretty much in the same (Slow)boat as Joe, in that if that last scene was just the end of Cass, full stop, and if the post-mortem shakes out that way, I'd be disappointed. But that's getting ahead of ourselves and supposing a lot of ifs, which isn't really fair at this point but I guess is a peril of getting invested in a slowly-updating ongoing work that you consume as it comes out. Apraxin fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Mar 16, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 01:36
|
|
|
Do people really think that these child soldiers deserve to die for making bad decisions and celebrate it when it happens? Like is this a thing in this comics audience??
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 01:38
|
|
|
Classon Ave. Robot posted:Do people really think that these child soldiers deserve to die for making bad decisions and celebrate it when it happens? Like is this a thing in this comics audience?? 
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 01:41
|
|
|
Cassidy survives in the dub.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 01:57
|
|
|
This of course gave me an excuse to go through Anemone's pages so far. I think Interstitial 5 contains the best impression we have of the limits of Anemone's powers. She states there she can't account for Mark's presence, Goops, or the Golden One. Otherwise, it seems that Anemone at least believes herself to be close to omnipresent when it comes to the city (we know from Interstitial 1 she has no idea what's outside the barrier). So it looks like her powers extend to everything within the barrier, on...the physical plane, I guess? She can't tell how Mark got in, where Goops and the Golden One come from, or where Cassidy and/or Cassidy's remains have gone. In that case, we may be able to insinuate that Goops and the Golden One originate outside the barrier, and Cassidy is there. "Outside the barrier" could also mean wherever the WiW is, in some sort of metaphysical realm, of course. Also relevant on Interstitial 5 is Anemone's statement that "our situation may finally become unsustainable." We know from today's page that she thinks the general situation with the magical girls is unsustainable, but on that page, I always assumed she was talking about a specific situation she has with the WiW. Maybe the answer is both, and she's asking whether whatever is trapping the WiW will end if the magical girl situation ends. In any case, I think today's page still leaves plenty of ambiguity for Cassidy to be alive or still existing in some form. What we get from it is that Anemone can't sense her anymore, and for Anemone (a known pessimist), this means it's most likely Cassidy is dead. You can understand why Anemone would lean towards that with her circumstances, but it doesn't confirm or deny anything 100% for us.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 02:02
|
|
|
While I don't think this is the case, there is the option that we've never seen Cassidy's true body, and the reason that either of the duplicates can become the "real" one is that the "real" one she goes to school with is yet another projection, while her true body remains safe at home/in a hospital bed/life support tank/wherever. I'd probably expect more clues pointing towards the Mysterious Secret of Cassidy in the comic if that was the case, though. Ah, missed the chance to vote "Orange Cassidy" and "Light Orange Cassidy" in the poll.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 02:08
|
|
|
Cassidy's power teleports her true body back to the surviving body when one dies. As they both died at the same time the power got buggy and dropped her real body at coordinate 0,0. If I recall that's near the Deadmines.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 02:34
|
|
|
nimby posted:Cassidy's power teleports her true body back to the surviving body when one dies. As they both died at the same time the power got buggy and dropped her real body at coordinate 0,0. this trick will shave hours off the any-% speedruns
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 03:16
|
|
|
I keep voting for Cassidy in these polls. Like I voted for Cassidy five times in the first one. I think it might've been against the rules but I was a bit drunk at the time. I'm probably going to vote Cassidy again in this new one.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 04:48
|
|
|
SardonicTyrant posted:Cassidy survives in the dub. Cassidy was banished to the Shadow Realm, which is where Goops has been keeping the rest of Team Alchemical captive all this time Tessa keeps going back to those weird stones in the stone park because they're beacons to guide her friends home
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 05:01
|
|
|
To be clear, I’m reasonably optimistic Cube’s further storytelling will handle this whole situation well, there’s just a number of ways it could go poorly, and the repeated authorial statements and this interstitial going ‘she’s dead dead dead’ are, well, not my favorite. There’s honestly no reason to hammer on it, let fans be wrong until it’s clear she’s never coming back. Fans who hold that unlikely theory can just be wrong for a while. Some of this interstitial was great like the thing about school attendance, but I feel like when you publish a page that feels like it’s trying to talk fans out of a bad fan theory it often comes off kinda weird. IDK maybe that’s just a bias against long serials on my part, and a preference for self-contained works.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 06:21
|
|
|
Elfface posted:Cass is a ghost in the shadow-magic-dimension, but she won;t show up for another thousand pages, so we'll think she's dead, but actually she's the key to defeating goops, as a crack of light magic in the dark. ah, the Daniel Jackson approach
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 06:27
|
|
|
Wittgen posted:Cassidy died because she placed petty teenage bullshit ahead of solidarity and relied only on herself. It's the exact same reason Team Alchemical died. I don't think it's fair to read the comic as saying either Cassidy or Team Alchemical deserved their fates. Rather, I think the comic is making an argument that you need to both help others and rely on others in kind of equal measure if you're going to be successful.  That being said, given the nature of what happened, yeah we needed this confirmation of her eating dirt.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 07:18
|
|
|
Hot take: Team Alchemical did nothing wrong, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and if Tess was there she probably would have died too
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 07:25
|
|
|
Cup Runneth Over posted:Hot take: Team Alchemical did nothing wrong, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and if Tess was there she probably would have died too Doubt it. Goops’ powers appear to have limits or she wouldn’t have failed to kill Rue. She’s an opportunist, a vulture. And Tess was really really overpowered.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 07:40
|
|
|
Tenebrais posted:Thinking back to Interstitial 5, Anemone seems to have settled on the idea that the system can't last. I kind of get the impression it's not entirely due to Goops, but that could be read either way. If Cassidy did get absorbed by Goopy, as some people were speculating, I assume the system can't last because the dream woman only has so much magical power to hand out to magical girls, and every girl who gets killed is +1 magic for Goops, -1 for the Woman in White.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 07:48
|
|
|
Captain Oblivious posted:Doubt it. Goops’ powers appear to have limits or she wouldn’t have failed to kill Rue. She’s an opportunist, a vulture. And Tess was really really overpowered. Yeah, people might be forgetting because it happened so fast and wasn't the focus compared to the state the girls were in, but Tessa one-shot the monster that mortally wounded Undine and outright killed the rest of her team. It went from "unharmed" to "nonexistent" within seconds of her arrival. At the very least, an entirely different approach would have been needed to kill Team Alchemical if Tessa had been there, because the time it took the elevator monster to raise up and drop the team would have probably been enough time for Tessa to annihilate it. Heartful Punch has stated something similar re: Goopy, actually; when telling Undine about the threatening call she received, she pointed out that her getting threats to buzz off is a pretty good sign that Goopy doesn't want her around, but can't easily do something about it personally. If she could, she'd just do that, but her attempt to do that failed, which is why she made that call after that; it was a tacit admission that she can't handle HP and the newly-empowered Undine together. Goops is a threat, and a serious one at that, but she's not all-powerful; in fact, her operations have grown less ambitious as the comic has gone on. First she ambushed Team Alchemical while they were lacking their leader and heaviest hitter, killing three and leading to said leader giving her powers up. Then she went for Undine and Kokoro together, relying on the former to be enough of a distraction that her minions could kill the latter despite Kokoro's absurd power letting her run solo normally. That failed, and next she went for Rue, a well-rounded but not super-powerful solo magical girl (and friend of Tessa, who she still seems to be targeting in addition to or as part of her obsession with Undine despite Tess not having powers anymore), which similarly failed when Zoe showed up and saved her. So then she went for Cassidy, someone who was actively avoiding her allies and in a really bad mental space, making her easy to distract and kill despite having a pretty crazy power set and seeming to be pretty strong herself. (That she did it on a night where an abundance of monsters would help make sure that no one wandered in and ruined her plans is probably because of how her attack on Rue was thwarted, too, whether she was directly responsible for the surge or just taking advantage of it. Further evidence that she's aware of her limitations and that the scope of her attacks is narrowing, or at least being refined towards minimizing risk even if the reward is similarly reduced, rather than expanding.) And even that ended with a blade in her eye, despite otherwise being a success. Speaking of, unless she keeps her left side buried in the wall or something, next time we see Goopy we'll get to see if Cass actually did permanent damage to her or not with her final attack. Her, well, goopy nature suggests not, but we don't know what exactly she is; she might be sporting a(n even more) hosed up face for the rest of the comic, or at least a good while, as the price of killing everyone's favorite Creamsicle-colored magical girl Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 13:44 on Jul 23, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 08:49
|
|
|
FronzelNeekburm posted:If Cassidy did get absorbed by Goopy, as some people were speculating, I assume the system can't last because the dream woman only has so much magical power to hand out to magical girls, and every girl who gets killed is +1 magic for Goops, -1 for the Woman in White. I feel like this is about right; the Woman in White only has so much to hand out but when a girl hits 18 or so those powers return to be handed out again. But rather than giving goops more power, if a girl dies while active, that power set might be lost forever, so it's an attrition thing. It makes me wonder if Rue had a point about the celebrity thing being propaganda, it's to draw attention towards these cool powers to hide in plain sight that they're cycling through the same ones over and over. See: HP's mother being part of a 'Team Spear (no relation to the current one)'. Aside note: Reasoning that out gave me a really dark mental image of a secret hospital where crippled or comatose MGs who are beyond even magical healing are kept on life support until they 'age out' so the city can have its next generation of defenders.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2020 10:28
|
|
|
Poll results are up! https://www.sleeplessdomain.com/comic/2020-character-poll-results
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2020 07:22
|
|
|
Alt Text seems to imply Cass is dead. :thinking:
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2020 07:39
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 11:17 |
|
|
Aww, Undine and Kokoro are cute. I'm probably going to be saying that a lot in the coming chapters. Also Bud has a nice hat.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2020 08:28
|
|