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Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
Cassidy wanted more than anything to be a hero just like Heartful Punch. In the fullness of time, maybe we'll see that she got her wish.

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Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
Cassidy was awful, but she didn't deserve what she got. I guess the silver lining is that she never had to find out HP was teaming up with Undine.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
Heck yeah.

That perfectly sized step is the real MVP.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
I completely agree. If you have some insider information on future developments, then that deserves spoiler tags. If you're just analyzing or making predictions, there is no reason to do so.

Plus we are off the first page now, so I think it is fair to assume that anyone reading this is ok with discussion that assumes you have read everything that is out so far.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.

Mikl posted:

I just want to drive-by say how much I love that the setting is extremely queer-positive. We've had examples of lesbians, bisexuals, and trans girls (no gays or trans boys yet but that's kinda due to the fact that there are exactly zero male main characters), and no one bats an eyelid at it; the only "problem" was Zoe's parents going "Bloody hell we thought we were done with worrying if our child would come home in the morning or not when our first daughter aged out of the magical girl system but SURPRISE we have another daughter!" which is fully undestandable.

That scene with Zoe's parents was one of my favorites scenes. All the stuff with parents in this comic is really good. Undine's Mom feeling she has no right to say anything about Undine's magic girl related choices? It's heartbreaking, but it fits perfectly with how this society is set up.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
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.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.

:five:

I am here for this cross pollination.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
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.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
Bud also has hands down the best magical girl outfit. Bud rules.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
Today's comic is so friggin cute.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
The team alchemical sand jar has Undine as the bottom layer. It makes sense. Undine was the "nice one" unassuming but kind of the most important to their team cohesion. She was also the first one to get powers.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
Dead magic girls sure don't ever have eyes, do they. Wonder if that means something.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
There is a panel where Undine is thinking about team alchemical, and everyone but Tess has the Zimmy eyes.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
That is the page I was thinking of, but I misremembered the eyes as covered in black, not blank white.

I think I mixed it up with this page

Wittgen fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Aug 2, 2020

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
Well, yeah. It's obviously being used that way.

But eyes are a pretty strong motif in this comic, so it's interesting to think about what more could be being hinted at here. In addition to the pages already linked, there is Undine and Kokoro's eyes. They are very explicitly the way they are for a reason tying into the nature of magical girl powers. If you want to speculate on what happens to magical girls' powers when they die or why hoops is bothering to kill magical girls, the consistent use of blank or shadowed eyes for dead girls is notable.

The one where Tess has pink eyes is especially striking to me. Undine is guilty about what happened to all of them, but she still imagines Tess with pink eyes. Those eyes are the exact thing Tess gave up for Undine that would make her feel guilty. Cagle could have given her blank eyes and emphasized that Magical Aether is dead even if Tess survived. But she didn't.

Zoe's magical girl mark and goops getting stabbed are the other notable eye things that I can think of. Zoe feels like she has gotten a lot of screentime for how tangential she is to the main story so far. Could just be because she is awesome, but it feels to me like she will become more important and involved further on.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.

Mikl posted:

Bud's eyes are like that when she's transformed because her eyes turn into the funnels she shoots her lasers from.

I suspected this, but was it confirmed in paratext somewhere?

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
HP's pose in panel 3 is so ridiculous. What a great dork.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
If Rue and Zoe started dating, they would be the third interracial lesbian couple.

I am curious about whether or not male homosexuality or trans men are treated with the same equanimity. I assume yes because the author probably just wants to portray a more ideal world in terms of gender and sexual equality. It's a solid choice when gender and sexuality aren't really what your story is about.

But it could certainly be that trans women and lesbians are treated well because young women are the ones holding this entire society on their shoulders. If this used to be a society with the same prejudices as our own, it could be interesting to explore what the introduction of magic didn't change.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
Zoe is such a sweet girl. I fear for her.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.

Sundae posted:

They get some knowledge, but not all of it apparently. Example: Undine practicing for ages trying to do a high-pressure stream with her original team, but unable to do it until HP was in danger. In the original-team days, she was trying it based on being taught about a real-world machine implementation of it rather than because she knew her power could provide one.

Also, I'm going to guess that adults are mostly out of the picture in this comic more as a storytelling means of allowing additional agency to the children, rather than any actual social structure. Just not bringing them into the story is easier for someone to suspend disbelief than creating a system where they've handed the reins over to the kids. It wouldn't add much to the story, and it'd add more details for readers to decide they didn't like. It's like how no parents or adults ever seem to intervene in your average teen post-apoc/paranormal romance novels. It's easier to all-but-ignore the parental aspects entirely than to write the circumstances that allow a 16-yr-old girl to (e.g) go flotzing about in the woods with a werewolf and a vampire after town curfew on a school night.

Undine was able to do the high-pressure stream because she received Alchemical Aether's power. It's like how HP is more powerful than an average magical girl because she received some of her mother's magic. Still a very good point that there is room for creativity and invention with how people use their powers.

I do disagree with your point about the adults. I mean, they're not out of the picture. We've seen Zoe's mom and dad stressing out about her. We've seen Undine's mom say, "I know it's not my place to interfere in magical girl business." There might be some meta motivation to the world being this way, but I think the society is diagetically constructed with a hands off attitude. I wouldn't be surprised if there are some nefarious root causes to this. I kind of doubt Rue's distrust of the central government is entirely unfounded paranoia.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
New comic.

This comic is too cute.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
HPs need to be liked is consistently both funny and endearing.

I like how it contrasts with Undines personality. Undine is not at all bothered by people not liking her. But she does have this thing where she wants to keep the peace and help people. Where she doesn't want to be a bother. It's a subtly different mindset from HP, but they jive well together.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.

Tenebrais posted:

So why are Undine and Zoe in the same class anyway, isn't Zoe a lot younger and has also only been going to this school for a few weeks?

It's a high school. At least in America there are plenty of classes where it is not unusual to see kids from different years all in the same class.

I also don't think Zoe is a ton younger. She's just a lot newer to being a magical girl.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
I love that Undine is learning from her various social blow ups. It's pretty unfair that each instance of typical high school drama ends with dead teens, but still.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.

idonotlikepeas posted:

Bud is ace; that doesn't mean they aren't a couple, of course, just that the parameters might be a little different.

Is this word of God, or did I miss something?

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
Calling deku asexual is bi erasure of the highest order.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
I feel so, so bad for Undine. :(

Hope they kill goops in the end.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
Today's Sleepless Domain is definitely cute.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
New page.


It's pretty funny to me that The, a person who is super paranoid about the machinations of society, does exactly what Tess wants in response to crude emotional manipulation.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
She's not exactly wrong. No one has to be there for someone who's mean to them. But she's not exactly right either. A comrade in arms suffering from PTSD lashed out at her with the express purpose of pushing her away. Acting like Tess is asking Rue to manage her emotions isn't particularly admirable.

To be clear, I'm not really criticizing Rue here. It's mostly funny that someone who feels very confident they see through the government's manipulations can not see through the paper thin manipulation of a traumatized teen. It has some resonance with what I see looking at irl conspiracy theorists prone to ranting about big government.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
About 6% of the US population is girls age 10-19. If one percent of eligible girls get the dream, that is .06 percent of the population having magic. If it's one percent of the population at large having magics, that is one in six girls getting the dream.

What's interesting to me is how the latter situation emphasizes how disproportionately young girls bear the burden. The chance of getting the dream could be pretty high and still there might not be very many magical girls overall.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
She was super lovely. It's just that normal high schoolers who are lovely like that suffer some social exclusion. Unfortunately the stakes are way higher for magical girls.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
Cassidy didn't die because Undine didn't tell her about goops. Cassidy died because she threw a hissy fit, ditched all her support systems, and fought alone.

It's also important to note that Undine was hesitant to share information because she feared it would make people less safe. It seemed to her telling people could get them targeted. It's not a simple situation where Undine was withholding information and putting people in danger just because of her feelings.

Bud is being a butt here, and it's very interesting how much it's echoing Cassidy being a butt. Hopefully this time things go better.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.

GlyphGryph posted:

She absolutely did. It's not the only reason, but it's definitely one of the required ones - if she had been told about goops, what happened would almost certainly not have happened. This doesn't make it Undine's fault, because the outcome wasn't something she foresaw, but the chain of causation is still pretty clear.

This is nonsense. There is a difference between some action being involved in a causal chain that leads to a result and that result being because of the action.

For example, imagine that I'm talking on the phone with a buddy and I ask if he's doing anything special for his anniversary tomorrow. He goes, oh gently caress, I forgot. The town he is in is experiencing a horrible snowstorm, but he is determined to get something for his spouse, so he heads out anyway. He dies. Did my buddy die because I mentioned his anniversary? He wouldn't have remembered and thus wouldn't have gone out and died if I hadn't mentioned it. I might feel guilty about it and think it's my fault: if only I had kept my mouth shut. I knew he was forgetful and reckless.

But no, the buddy in this example died because snow storms are dangerous and he made a very bad, risky choice.

Cassidy died because Goops is a murderous rear end in a top hat, but also because Cassidy made a dumb, dangerous decision.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.

Joe Slowboat posted:

Undine isn’t less involved in her death than Tessa was in theirs.

This is where you are completely wrong. Tessa chose to let her team fight alone. Undine did not choose for Cassidy to go out alone. Cassidy made that choice.

I completely agree with you that it's wrong to say characters are dying in this comic because they're bad people. With the exception of Goops, there aren't even any really bad people in this comic. No, characters die because they make really bad choices. There are many parallels between the Team Alchemical tragedy and the Cassidy one, but one significant difference is that Tess was actively involved in the bad choices Team Alchemical made. Undine was not involved in the terrible choices Cassidy made.

Edit: GlyphGryph, I'm saying causality is complicated, especially when people are involved. Perhaps another example will make it clear. Say I break up with someone and then they flip out and go shoot up their workplace. They would not have shot up their workplace if I hadn't broken up with them. Is it at all fair to say they shot up their workplace because I broke up with them?

Wittgen fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Nov 22, 2020

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
For God's sake, someone hug that poor girl.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
Fuuuuck.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.

Unlucky7 posted:

My dumb personal theory is that its not actually personal; Goops just hates all magical girls. But it IS personal because Undine is a magical girl.

Hatred doesn't have to make sense.

This is how I've always taken it. Undine was going to die without being able to remember what magical girls really are and why that would mean goops would hate them. But Undine takes it personally (understandably) and that leads to her being very cautious about sharing the info.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
I don't think it is cool to post the whole image.

Very cool aesthetic to this night.

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Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
Here is the first explanation of the barriers. "We all know it keeps the monsters out" is mighty suspicious language. We know that there are people outside the city, and we know they think using magical girls like the city does is pretty gross. I wonder what it's like out there.

Eight now I lean towards thinking the outer barrier is in some way the first magical girl who gives the dream out. And the inner barrier is in some way goops, the second magical girl who hates her role.

I definitely can't imagine that goops and the first magical girl don't have a relationship that soured because of jealousy/resentment/something. The theming of everything else is too much in line with that.

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