Have a Prequel-related macro.

>>218177
This storyline is making me anxious.

Also Tarquin's getting super mad.

>>218200
I hate that fucker.
Using the beauty of classical story structure as a justification to perform evil. HOW'S THAT LITTLE IMPROV IN YOUR CONVOLUTED PLAY TASTE YA BASTARD?

>>218200
Casters are overpowered as fuck

>>218215
As they should be.
Its the reward for been really shitty at the early levels.

>>218217
D&D 3.5 is a terrible system, literally made by nerds trying to get back at the jocks that physically beat them up in childhood.

D&D in general is a pretty terrible gaming system that doesn't deserve the momentum it has built up over the years that keeps sucking in newbies.

>>218219
Out of curiosity, what system would you recommend for newbies? I've played a little 3.5, played a 4e campaign, but neither really made much sense to me.

Also, boys are gross.

>>218260
I hear pathfinder's pretty nifty.
Then again, I know nothing about pen and paper RPGs at all.

>>218261
Pathfinder is literally the same game as D&D 3.5 with a few balance tweaks and a handful of tweaks. It doesn't really do anything to resolve the real issues with D&D's use as a system for anything outside the Wargame genre. Don't get me wrong--if you like hack and slash dungeon crawls, D&D is great at giving you those. But if you want something with more focus on characters and/or telling a story together as a group, you're better off looking toward something with more of a narrativist focus, like Fate. I haven't been able to play it yet, but I'm also intrigued by Shock!

>>218260
Fucking christ boys, get your shit together!

>>218269

Makes you wonder whether they're like this 'cause they're just like that now, or they've been effected by the timewarp in some manner, like Ryan and Amy.

Though that would imply that the reason Sonny wouldn't come out of his room earlier in the storyline was due to impled puberty induced flatuence... which I didn't even know was a thing.

So, since I've been bored at work lately and since it's author always puts reference links to older comics, I've been shotgunning through the archives of El Goonish Shive.

Anybody else read that webcomic? I started on that way goddamn forever ago, it was just about the literal third or fourth webcomic I ever started reading.

It's got some flaws, the cast is huge by this point, I'm not even sure who the main character is supposed to be, it's more like an X-Men sized core ensemble, and some of them have enough backstory and development by this point to have justified them having their own comic, the ever-expanding magic system is really really convoluted (as implied by "ever-expanding,) and it's so chock full of gender-bending/size-changing/animal-hybrid transforming that I'm reasonably sure that at least some of the writing process goes something like:

"Hey!"
"Yes, Pickle?"
"I'd shuur like me a little tickle!"
"Well alright, Pickle."

Still, the art's improvement is something to behold, and despite the stuff I mentioned before, I really like the characters, and exposition-marathon aside, I think the setting has a lot of potential. Anybody else think so?

>>218296
I read it, and it is something of an unusual case among the comics I follow. On the one hand, I can't really recommend it to anyone because, yeah, it was not very good. The art was blegh, the writing was poor, and the author's fascination (if not outright fetish) with transformation shone through like a lighthouse. It had all the markings of someone who doesn't know how to make a comic trying to make a comic. So why do I still read it?

Well, partially it's because of all those markings. Isn't that why we like webcomics? Thanks to the internet, anyone with the drive can make their comic available to the public without needing a ton of investment or a major publisher with which to sign? And, although the comic was pretty crummy, it got better. Much, much better. The art is leaps-and-bounds above what it used to be, the main characters are very sympathetic, the story arcs are original and interesting, and the world, although quite complicated, has a logic to it that remains consistent. Really, it has all the markings of being a quality webcomic that is marred by the fact that it only got that way after years of being little more than something some guy on the internet made in his spare time.

>>218299
Webcomics being free is a major reason I like them

>>218299
>Really, it has all the markings of being a quality webcomic that is marred by the fact that it only got that way after years of being little more than something some guy on the internet made in his spare time.

That's a sign he should end this comic and start another one using what he's learned.

>>218333

If we're being fair, I think even Dan realizes this is true.

http://learnfromwebcomics.tumblr.com/post/31445954537/lesson-twenty
http://learnfromwebcomics.tumblr.com/post/31492215835/feel-free-to-tell-your-students-that-even-the-author-of

Four years later, we're finally going back to the material plane. Holy shit I can't believe it's over.

Oh come on Jack!
You used to be cool.
At least Linton haven't lost it at all.

Awww yeah here we go. Sorry, boys, I like you and all, but Sette and Duane are where it's at.

>>218363
HOLY FUCK I CAN'T HANDLE IT

I only remember to check up on this every month or two. The updates were inconsistent for so long that I keep forgetting it's actually regular again.

>>218488

I am so incredibly hype.

Too bad we have to wait until January.

>>218472
So puberty is just kicking the shit out of the boys sense of reason right?

>>218492
Oh, sure. Reason, motivation, resourcefulness - just about everything useful for sleuthing.
Give 'em a year and they'll be these charming lads.

Haha. Smooth, Sette. Very smooth.

So...

The entire city of Cumberland is now going to collapse into a pile of rubble, isn't it?

Either that or the whole robot just seizes up, and Cumberland is permanently a mecha-shaped city.

>>218569
I'm betting neither, at least immediately; enough "cool" people/dinosaurs have crossed into McNinja's dimension at this point that they will be able to muster something to keep the robot functioning.

Hell, Ron Wizard was able to fashion an entire dinosaur mech by himself for the President to pilot, so I doubt Radical's robot will stop by disabling the defense system.

>>218578
Or not...

I really like García.

I really like Starchman Stars as ridiculously valuable currency in Mayview.

Just what kind of prizes ARE those?

WELP.

>>218748
...GOD I've missed having a Wulfenbach on-camera.

>>218532
>I fear Duane is juuuuust about fed up with the charming little compulsive liar routine.
Welp on this end too.

Doubling Down on the WELP'ing.

Oh wow, Old!
You're really that desperate, do you?

Woooooo!!!

He's gonna die, sin't he? :(

>>219001
I'd say it's about 50/50.

>>219001
It seems incredibly obvious, but at the same time it might be TOO obvious meaning he won't

And since this is D&D he could always be rezzed, letting the cliché both occur and be subverted

>>219001
My ass is a ton of hints.

>>218958

I just came here to ask if anyone else was watching the shit going down. Is this going to be the point where Duane just loses it entirely?

>>219001
>Elan used to wish that his parents remarry.
>Now views Julio as father figure
>Elan's mom apparently was/is a big fan of him...

I usually don't like these kind of convoluted perfect endings, but I Want To Believe.

>>218965
>You're really that desperate, do you?
Ha ha, grammar.

Given what we know of Doc, this isn't really that radical of a conclusion to which Old would arrive. He's never really shied away from extreme violence. He just doesn't like killing when he doesn't have to.

>>219045
At the very least he's finally lost all patience for the little rat girl.

>>219001
Yes, probably.

I suppose a positive side of all this time I'm spending without internet/a computer is atleast I don't have to wait too long to read a bunch of webcomic pages.

>>219045
YUP

>yaay
Heh.

I'm honestly disappointed it was as simple as turning the key. I would have thought some one from Radical's dimension would have an alternative at this point, or that Ron would at least hold the thing together.

Well, maybe they'll do something yet.

I just remembered how much less I can tolerate from webcomic creators than artists in other media. The behavior of the latter doesn't really affect me unless they're a truly terrible piece of work, but for some reason seeing someone simply be a petty, conceited prat on the internet makes me want to not touch their stuff ever.

And this is why I should follow artist tumblrs with all text posts blocked, damnit.

>>219118
I know what you mean. The creators of shows/comics/whatever really don't affect me. They can be huge assholes, but as long as I only watch/read their work and it's good I don't care. creators online however....

I can't tell you how often a webcomic has been spoiled for me by their creators being whiney children

Meh. Sorry you've had that problem, but... welp, I haven't. Two of my favorites, which I would highly recommend to fantasy fans, are Tales of The Questor and Elf Life. The latter is written by a guy that can be nice and can be a major asshole, and whose political beliefs come up once in a while in a wh... look he canceled Elf Life for a while to devote all his time and energy to political cartoons I disagree with. Suffice to say, while I love his comic, he and I would not get along. Tales of the Questor is a truly underrated gem, with fun characters, an interesting world, quirky humor, and generally clever writing that regularly puts a smile on my face. And the guy who writes it is so lacking in social skills that any day now he's likely to be reclassified as some sort of walking skin disease. Separating the art from the artist is just part of life.

Well. I cannot say I was expecting this.

>>219211
Huh. I wonder If Bacon is gonna join up with the party after this, outcast as he is. What does the big book of JRPG-clichés say about it?

>>219244

Hino Nacional do Brasil - Oficial

>>219265
Urgh, this was amusing when it was just a funny little superhero comic, including the fetishy stuff, but now its just a fetish-comic trying to be DEEP with hamhanded drama.

>>219275
Isn't that the "Classic" lifecycle of webcomics?

Yeah dude, the comic inspired by Empowered and Strangers in Paradise, that introduced a girl dying from ALS as a main character way back in chapter 1, went and started having serious moments.

>>219278
A handful of comics manage to avoid that, but yeah, I've quit more comics than I can remember because they lost the lighthearted tone they started out with. I'm sure in plenty of cases the writer just gets a bug up their butt about doing something "serious", trying to force it onto the comic they're already working on, rather than creating a separate story where it'd be more appropriate, but mostly I think switching to drama is just an easy out for when a writer suddenly has trouble maintaining consistent comedy. That's not to say good drama is any easier than good comedy, but coasting along on bad drama seems to be more readily eaten-up by people than coasting on bad comedy.

Spinnerette was no more intended to be purely lighthearted than Empowered, which was a direct inspiration. He worked out the character origins before the first issue. We didn't get the full stories until later, but he wasted no time hinting at Mecha Maid having ALS and foreshadowing Tiger’s origin (old man was murdered, passed on his powers to Tiger, but his superhero life resulted in his wife leaving him with their kids because she couldn’t handle being afraid for him all the time).

He worked things out well in advance because this wasn’t your typical “write and draw it as you go along” comic. He had to go out and get artists to draw it issue by issue. He needed a lot worked out in advance. If it’s not your cup of tea, hey, whatever floats your boat. But if you think he started writing something light then changed his mind, or let attention go to his head or something, you just weren’t paying enough attention. Comedy mixed with drama was pretty much the plan all along (or more specifically Strangers in Paradise-inspired relationship drama superimposed over a superhero inspired by Empowered only where the other heroes aren’t such dicks all the time).

I've heard "you started cute then got serious damn you" thrown at Empowered, Spinnerete, and Little Victory. Scratching my head at the author-and-logic-contradicting assumption it was ever going to be anything else in every case.

>>219289
Yeah, I always thought similar. I put Classic in capitals because this pattern was a lot more widespread during the phase when everyone and their dog ran a webcomic basically as a hobby and predictably a lot of people just plain couldn't come up with new material or got bored/tired of having to do so constantly. These days (at least from in my experience) it's less common because there's simply less webcomics and more that start with a point in mind.

Of course sometimes the results are awful even if the author did plan ahead of time. There's such thing as bad ideas. Isn't Shortpacked/Willis's other comics like this or just first case? Because man that's the first thing that comes to mind when I think of terrible internet dramedy.

Speaking of death in comics~

>>219293
>>219279
Except the problem is his drama writing is terrible.

>>219295
paranatural can do nothing wrong, apparently.

>>219295
>Goku's stack of halos
The imagery in this comic is so relentlessly amazing.

Spinerette can clearly get a bit narmy, but there's little overlap on the venn diagram of legitimate problems with the comic and things people complain about. It definitely strikes me as one of the comics that gets disproportionate hate from /co/ due to a perception that it's "pandering to tumblr" or some shit. Only webcomic I've seen inspire a "why are straight white men the only people it's still okay to be prejudiced against?" tirade on /co/.

I very much enjoy Sette getting a great big helping of humble pie. Let's hope it sticks.

They... they tried to kill hundreds of people on purpose? Wow, they actually might be worse than that Selkie. She at least had magic as an excuse for being a murderous lunatic.

Someone mentioned Bob & George in the megaman thread..

Man... remember when sprite comics were all the rage?

>>219345

Yeah okay that's true enough and all but it's a bit secondary to OH GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING

>>219345
And all that was just to ruin their teacher's memory.
Truly terrible people.

>>219374
I think that their existence might have depended on the train arriving on the rails they sabotaged. They have this purple aura around them because they were stuck in a paradox, where they came from nowhere but their actions still affect the timeline. Now that their conditions for existing are not met AND they don't do anything important, they're disintegrating.

They sacrificed themselves to ruin their teacher's good memory. Truly the most noble of motives for suicide

>>219379
But their attempts have just been thwarted. And it can't be that their existence depended on the train being sabotaged since they wouldn't have existed in the prime timeline to begin with.

My thinking is that they've spent too long in the past without coming back. Grumpaw did warn the girls not to stay in past whatever time he gave them, and I don't think the boys have been paying attention to that--it might also explain that energetic discharge the girls got when they touched them.

>>219380

Ah, but if the train's diverted, it never comes into town, and Boughy never has his golden memories, and so the boys never go back in time to ruin said memories.

Things are getting worse by the minute.

>>219380
No, they doomed themselves when they sabotaged the train. The train arriving from that rail on time was something that led to them being born in the first place. Their grandparents might have met there, or something. When they destroyed the train, they got stuck in a paradox because now they have no origin but still leave a mark on the timeline by sabotaging the train. Even though the girls saved the train, the original conditions are not identical, so they still don't have an origin, but now they aren't doing anything meaningful either (since it's now the girls' "fault" the train was diverted). Therefore, they are being devoured.

>>219385
This is a nicer, softer version where they still exist in present time.

>>219398

The connection might be even more obtuse than that. Shauna in the new timeline isn't just possessed of a boyfriend, her family is also well-to-do instead of wrong-side-of-the-tracks. This shit ripples.

>>219401
That may be tied into Amy/Ryan. Shauna's family was going to cash in on Des, until Shelly and Amy prevented them from doing such.

That's so like Catbert, too.

>>219344
...I think the fitting point to say she ate humble pie was immediately after the flashback ended. That's not what's happening here.

What's happening here is that she's been telling the truth, but getting hit with backdraft over 1: past lies told (and present attempts to avoid confessing this), and 2: the present truth leading her onto a pair of landmines (Duane's struggling religious convictions and the people that he's lost).

Duane's handling all this very poorly. I can't blame him for that, but neither can I blame Sette for her deceptions. She's just trying to be the good daughter because she wants her father to love her.

Yeah I can't exactly cheer right now. I mean, Sette can and has been nasty, but right now she's just a scared little girl getting smacked around by a guy suffering some serious grief induced madness.

>>219446
Yeah i had no idea this was gonna be some physically traumatic, ultimately though I think they'll be better for this and Sette is super tough so I think she can take but even so FUCK is it hard to watch.

>>219454
This is as terrible and hamfisted as that nonsense with Captain Alberta, the one-note super racist/homophobe

>>219456
Which is, from what I've picked up from /co/, the only Spinnerette story ever written.

>>219467
It wasn't very good, but the hate directed toward it is incommensurate with how poorly it was written. As I said, I suspect there's an element of /co/'s generalized loathing for anything that could be seen as "social justice" writing.

>>219481
But at the same time you can't allow the fact that some backwards people disliked it be as a shield to avoid mentioning the fact that the storyline WAS bad on its own though.

That Alberta fellow was more straw than water if you understand what I am putting forth. And nothing about the heroes starting a fight with him in a civilian bar was very smartly written.

>>219487
It was bad. The hatred it gets is disproportionate, and it's frankly irritating that you can't have a Spinneratte thread on /co/ (or post a page here) without "lemme tell ya about Alberta..."

>>219488
Its not like any of the attempts at more dramatic storylines are very good. The only thing the series has going to it is fapbait.

>>219099
This is starting to become extremely frustrating.

>>219489
I find this comment kind funny considering the thread started with a conversation about El Goonish Shive.

I will never not like Brawl in the Family.

>>219454
I thought it was cute.

>>219494
I did too.

I love you Zac.

Things don't bode well for the mystery girls.

The WORST kind of person.

I fucking love them.

God DAMN Unsounded.

Also Uncle Coolguy I'm sorry I thought you were going to be the villain of that flashback, please maintain your Coolguyness for this one.

>>219345

Yeah, I mean, Sacha was a miserable person and extremely dangerous, but she was just following her nature. It's not her fault she got caught out so young.

These boys are just assholes.