Comments on: Annotated 37-18

By: Andreas

Andreas — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 14:51:23 +0000

If there was Arkerra-to-Sepia overlap, I’d think perhaps the Zerkapocalypse could have corresponded to a gamer subculture getting radicalized into foaming-at-the-mouth nutballs.

But, of course, that wouldn’t be believable

By: Beroli

Beroli — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 06:36:58 +0000

They had plenty of importance to each other. Going the way you’re talking about, from Sepia World to Arkerra, Byron’s player was able to create the berserker curse, and Syr’nj’s player probably invented Graiya; E-Merl’s player is able to dictate that E-Merl will not walk away from the obvious slimeball shortly. Going the other way, we all saw how upset Rachel’s player was when Rachel was erased from existence.

What there does not seem to be, is a positive ongoing influence from Sepia World on Arkerra. All the Sepia World players who appear in the comic, embedded or non-embedded, envisioned their characters as heroes, and perhaps that’s the only reason they became so or even the only reason the specific characters Scipio, Bandit, and so on ever existed, but that doesn’t mean that there’s some less-empathetic “default Bandit” now. When E-Merl’s connection to his player is cut, he will indeed lose something: the influence of a puppeteer who can make him do stupid things because they’re more interesting from a Sepia World “it’s all a game” perspective.

Also, Chekov’s Gun only makes sense conceptually in works that are really simplistic. A story is stronger and more immersive if you can’t look at everything that’s depicted and say “that’ll be used at some point later or the prop wouldn’t be here.”

By: BM03

BM03 — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 02:03:08 +0000

Well I did say closing that link wouldn't have a massive impact, so that ending doesn't have a reason to be that dark. Either way, I feel like establishing these specific characters as connected somehow but having absolutely NO importance to each other whatsoever, not even a minor influence, raises a bit of a Chevok's Gun situation.

By: SteelRaven

SteelRaven — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 15:05:09 +0000

Same, too many became dismissive of some characters after the introduction of the Sepian world.

By: Beroli

Beroli — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 14:55:38 +0000

Unlike BM03, I’m _really_ glad you made them essentially completely independent, with Scipio not even noticing that anything’s changed with Kaye’s death. The “the game Kingdoms of Arkerra goes down permanently” ending would be a lot darker otherwise.