Annotated 28-5
This scene’s mostly Phil, but it was important to me to fit at least one quip from Karmakat into the dialogue, as quipping was definitely part of the character, per the story notes. But he’s not the “improv Tourette’s” type: he can and will get serious when it counts.
So, the big problem with Phil’s idea, from the donor’s point of view, was Karmakat’s death scene. Some people would prefer their character get the chance to do Hamlet, so to speak, but the donor wasn’t interested in that. It was important to him, it was a dealbreaker, that in some manner his creation should live on after him… and his health was fragile enough that the idea of Karmakat living on was more urgent than it otherwise might be.
Once we understood that, our sense of duty shifted.
(To be concluded in the notes for page 7.)
Most of the comments from yesterday: assuming the guy was being a dick or wanted his OP character to centralize the story.
Truth: The donor truly believed that his character would end up outliving him.
Can anyone say “egg, meet face”?
Well, hey, that’s kind of how WE felt. Phil and I were having enough trouble agreeing with EACH OTHER on where the story should go, so at first we were like, well, who’s this guy think he IS, and then we found out more and were like… oh. OH.
I was really cynical about it last page, so I feel bad, because that’s actually a lot more reasonable than I thought. I think the past cameo is cool, but when you combine that with them also dying right away, I can see how someone might be less than happy with that.
Probably why when Andrew Hussie did that Homestuck adventure game Kickstarter, he had an already very expensive donation tier for “your own fan troll makes it into the comic”, and a tier that cost ten times the money for “your fan troll survives past the first panel”. This was a funny joke, of course, but it also ended up setting the expectation up front that your character can’t amount to anything in the story.
Two people took the “your fantroll is canon” spot for $10,000 each and they had the honor of having the character designs appear in a relatively detailed art style, in a flashback where they were immediately vaporized by a giant green space monster. From what I’ve heard, they were pretty happy about it.
I was definitely among the people who found the Karmakat situation kind of weird and awkward. In some ways it tainted the story for me, having “some OP furry OC” be an important lore figure. I think I’m a bit more okay with it knowing the context of health concerns and wanting something important and lasting associated with him, though.
I binged this comic having no idea this was someone’s OC and I didn’t even notice. So I think it turned out fine.
Yeah, I didn’t know it was a paid OC. I just assumed it was a cool legend, with a nod to Thundercats and the cartoons of the 80s where this kind of character was the norm.
And then they just decided to kill everyone around him so he lets himself be killed due to grief (or it backfires and gets super powered and/or reckless with anger). Or just encircle him make him quit moving and then prep/launch artillery while you give him a speech.
How else would you do it? I guess I’ll see…
I loved the Thundercats nod.
What I remember from this sequence, when it first ran, was the shitstorm a couple of readers started in the comments, complaining about furries and making personal assumptions about the donor. The arguments raged on for so long that once the comic’s creators were informed, Phil decisively told the complainers to cut the crap, adding that as a result of the flamewar at least a couple of the other donors, whose characters hadn’t yet appeared, had offered to withdraw them if it was going to cause ill will. Which was not what Phil or T wanted at all, of course. That would just reward the making of abusive personal attacks.
Very rarely do I ever comment, maybe this is my second or third one on here? Not sure.
I had initially missed a lot of that past event, but when it happened it was why I stopped reading the comment section here for a long time. It was pretty disheartening to see the vitriol and attitudes going on, but now that I learn more about Karma himself from T’s notes, my stomach bottomed out a bit rereading some of it.
It was pretty awful and my heart went out to the poor guy.