Chapter 27 – Page 26
Aaaaaaan that’s a wrap for Chapter 27! Guilded Age returns on Monday the 2nd with the 2013 Axemas Special!
In the meantime, we’ll be spending Thanksgiving and Black Friday by showing off some of our favorite Guild-itizations from the FRIGGSTARTER, all while busting our asses on producing more of the rewards over the weekend.
Hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday, and for those that don’t celebrate, just have some great fucking days why don’t you?
Does this mean Carol’s a genuine black magic woman?
Bwum- Bwum- bw-Bwummmmmmm, Bwum- Bwum- bw-Bwummmmmmm
well, I know what will be in my head all day.
Oh isn’t that just the cutest, it’s a teensy little HR. And it’s hurling head first into a purple vortex right between green vat and orange vat. I hate pastels! So the squares are Carols thoughts in progress. So she is gonna tell HR and they are gonna do something. Ah well, I suppose it would be a dull time in Sepia world iffin they didn’t do sumpin.
Eh, I don’t know. Looking at him up close, I don’t think he can hold a candle to the original.
He lack a purple necktie, yes.
That’s not the only thing Mini HR is missing…
He’ mini mini…
Actually, the Orange Vat is behind HR Huffnpuff, Gravvy is in the Brown Vat
Yup, Carol has drunk the Kool-aid
To be fair it was magickal.
I believe it was actually “magyckal”.
Deep Purple Kool-Aid
It’ll be interesting to see if Carol’s ‘so you say’ means ‘if you insist we have to kill you, we’ll kill you’ or ‘you overestimate your importance if you think that we need to kill you’.
It’s like they say, one of the biggest blows to one’s ego you can do is make their life – and death, – meaningless. In one of my favorite book series, the big bad villain throughout the near-dozen books is finally taken by the good guys, and all they do is kill him quietly then dump his body in a mass grave, not telling anyone about it. He’s dead, now we can move on to more important things. >:3
What series?
Ah, that’d be the Sword of Truth series. I loved those books, and found that to be rather appropriate as well.
I took that to mean “we don’t need to kill you to get rid of you.” I believe they have an extra, vacant tube in that basement.
A naked, robotic, mustachioed figure arrives in Arkerra in a flash of purple lightning. It walks into a nearby bar, approaches a surly bearded man drinking an ale, and says (in a thick Austrian accent): “Gif me yor cloothes.” After murdering the tenants, it approaches the last survivor – a terrified young man, Saral Connor. Before the HRminator can act further, a glow-y mace smashes him into the wall. An armored redhead grabs Saral’s hand, saying, “Come with me if you want to live. And by that, I mean FILL MY BOX, let’s COME TOGETHER. RIGHT NOW. OVER (on top of) ME.”
“I’m an alchemical organism, magical tissue over a metaphysical endoskeleton. Cum with me if you want to live.”
I NAME THEE ANNIHILATOR!
I can’t think of anything funny to say right now so …
Ahhl be baaack.
T, Phil, John and Jason: I just want to say I really enjoyed this chapter. I think it’s one of your best yet. Although I know reader opinion is still mixed on the Sepia World segments being there, I’m glad you devoted so much space to that plot in this chapter, given that it underlies everything that happens in Arkerra itself. Similarly, although I see that reader reactions to BigNo–I mean Shanna–has been mixed, I very much enjoyed the interaction between her and Carol, and I was all “D’OH!” when Carol backed away on the precipice of finally confiding in her. I trust Shanna will continue to be a thorn in Carol’s and H.R.’s side. Go, girl.
I approve of this product and/or service
Thanks, Alice. This one went through a lot of permutations, and Phil and I were tweaking certain parts right up to the end. I’ve changed a lot of my writing method in the last year or so, and it’s nice to know the results are resonating with those who’ve followed me for a while. (Phil and I don’t talk a lot about who did what here, but it’s probably no spoiler to say that I was heavily involved in the Shanna scenes, nor to say that we definitely have not seen the last of her.)
The comments that “nothing happens in Sepia World” have started to quiet down a bit.
Phil and I have already addressed the few comments we really disapproved of, and it sort of fascinates me that anybody’s still insisting HR has the best interests of Arkerra and his captives at heart after this, let alone this. However, it amuses me that Shanna’s a divisive figure here as she was in the first year of Fans. It’s sort of part of her design.
Yeah, I’ve enjoyed the chapter as well – but it’s hard for me not to be convinced that Shanna wouldn’t be getting a tenth of this hatred if it was a male reporter in her place. ‘Manipulating’ and ‘scheming’ would be viewed as ‘charismatic’ and ‘bold’. The same attributes that were making some readers want to see Shanna beaten (“hit her again!”) or killed would be viewed in an entirely different way. That response has really looked ugly, to me.
Yeah, kind of alluded to that above. Phil and I try not to guide the discussion too much here, but it’s something we’re continuing to keep an eye on.
(I’d probably be responding more aggressively if Guilded Age didn’t have an array of strong female characters who generally haven’t drawn such comments. Even so.)
I admit I don’t like Shanna and I also don’t like Joffrey Baratheon but I think they’re both great characters. It’s important, I think, to make the distinction between disliking a character as a person and disliking them from some meta-literary standpoint.
Also I can’t speak for others but I generally don’t apply the same principles and expectations to fictional characters that I do to real people. For example I just love Payet Best in GA but if I met someone like that irl I’d probably hate them and think they’re a douchebag. This duality is why the concept of a “cool villain” exists. I also remember plenty of people cheering and rooting for Best to die (unlike Shanna upon whom only non-fatal violence has been wished…I think) but no objections from the authors were made then. All I’m saying is that applying the severity of real life rules and morality on enjoyment of fictional content is a tricky proposition at best.
There have been several comments wishing Shanna a gruesome demise.
I’m on my first read-through of GA, and those comments, along with all the Sepia World hate comments, have been a real downer. I know I’m getting a much higher dosage of such bile, because I’m reading several pages a day, but still, it kinda makes me wanna rage vomit.
I wouldn’t want people’s freedom to post their feelings restricted, but I wish they’d consider what effects their comments have on other readers, when deciding how often to make negative comments.
It’s nice to see that I’m not the only one thinking that.
I also wonder whether the fact that Carol hasn’t drawn nearly as much criticism for her actions in this chapter, and the previous one to feature her, as Shanna has, may be because of her subservient, “stand by your man” behaviour as opposed to Shanna’s “speak truth to power” orientation. Then there’s the continuing issue of attitudes toward women in some (not all) sectors of the gaming community which may be a factor in some of the more extreme responses to Shanna. Or I may be reading too much into it; I don’t know.
OH SNAP I did not see that.
To be fair, though, if Shanna had been a man, I wouldn’t classify her (or in that case, his) behavior as ‘charismatic’ or ‘bold’….but rather CREEPER ALERT *alarm bells ring*
The calling out authority aspect, though, yeah, that seems to be a thing.
Part of it is gender bias, I’m sure. However, part of it certainly appears that the creators have meant from the outset to make Shanna somewhat abrasive to the reader. As an exercise, go through the “sepia” segments since she was introduced, and count the number of times that she wasn’t scowling, grimacing, smirking, or screaming. You’ll end up with a really low number. The one “smile” I found, while she was talking to Carol in the park, looks completely pasted on…literlly as if her face had been Photoshoped into a smile, like the Waltrips hadn’t even accounted for “Shanna smiling” as a possible event in their character sheets. She’s drawn from offputting angles. Every visual cue you get from her is “don’t like/trust this person”. I think she’s meant as the upsetting element to the “real world” story, and that element is turned up to 11 in her presentation.
There’s also the possibility that there are a lot of people here who read Fans!, and still don’t like Shanna from that story. I know I have a bias against her, but I also heavily dislike Fans! in general. If Rikk showed up here, I’d wish him some degree of bodily harm, most assuredly.
Good points all, Slack One. Shanna is, as T himself stated above, meant to evoke strong reader responses. Whether here or in Fans!, she’s not a “smiles and sunshine” character, so by no means do I expect everyone to like her, nor do I think gender bias is the sole factor in most of the negative responses to her. Indeed, for many readers it’s probably not a factor at all. Again, my main concern, like that of others who’ve raised the issue, has been those comments which explicitly wish violence upon her. (And at the risk of sounding like a stereotypical Tumblr social justice warrior, I should add that for some survivors of assault, to come across, without warning, comments advocating violence in explicit and brutal detail–even if meant as a casual, offhand fan rant–can be triggering. That does NOT mean no one should ever write about brutal violence, anywhere–it depends on context–but it’s something to keep in mind.)
If Shanna was instead Shane, I still wouldn’t like him. As other people have said, he’d come across as a bit of a creeper. Nothing to do with gender, just a personality type that rubs me the wrong way.
I do apologize if I offended anyone with some of my comments. Never occurred to me that applauding Shanna getting slapped was offensive, since other people have said worse about other characters in the comic with no comment.
Also, totally missed T Campbell’s response back on the “Shanna gets slapped” page. Thanks for the response, and I get what you’re saying about Shanna. I had some doubts — in one of my first comments about disliking Shanna I asked if that was the intended reaction. I guess the responses that I got over time made me feel a bit defensive and I came across harsher than I intended.
Thank you, Alice!
I completely agree with Alice! As a fictional setting, every character interests me to one degree or another, even if I don’t “like” their behavior taken from a real world perspective. That is the beauty of fiction, you can enjoy experiencing characters, settings, and situations that might normally bother you, on a personal level, without it actually doing any harm.
Keep up the great work guys!
Responding with my very first post ever to say a thousand times this.
Very interesting that we see some true color in this world via the magic. Showing perhaps that whatever HR is using is either something brought over from Arkerria (like a reverse of what happens to Parson in Erfworld) or that it is something that was in our world and thought lost (suggesting our/their world was similar to Arkerria, before)
So that means that the source of HR’s power is actually his tie, which actually matches the color of the swirling void. That makes more sense than it has any right to.
So is the proper nomenclature “magic” or “magick”? Because Carol is kind of switching between the two.
I’ll tell you as soon as I figure out the proper spelling of “typo.”
Fixed.
I blame Alistair Crowley for there being an alternative spelling at all.
Freaking 19th century hipsters, “magic” is “too mainstream” pfah!
Crowley’s reason for adding a “k” at the end was to distinguish occult theory and practice from stage magic. But yeah, that really isn’t necessary. It’s not as though it’s hard to tell from context what sort of “magic” someone means.
aww, does this mean you won’t be at Gilded Fest anymore?
I’m afraid not, moirla. We’ve got too much Kickstarter fulfillment to do and it would’ve been tricky to coordinate with Thanksgiving anyway. We switched the next show to AwesomeCon some time ago, but sorry for not making a bigger deal about it.
aaand she’s on to full on megalomania
If this works so well, I wonder if they could bring Ferris back to life by making a second homunculus out of nothing but his blood. I don’t think they will, but if it’s a possibility they’re all the worse for overlooking it.
Maybe, but one problem I see would be that Ferris v2.0 would only be about eighteen inches tall.
And while the current homunculus might not raise the dead, it does raise the question: Will HR v2.0 be in the proper scale after his portal traversal?
And what happens in Sepia World does not stay in Sepia World!
Kind of an underwhelming result for the price of killing a guy. He didn’t even need the whole guy to do it!
If he can do that with just a hand imagine what he can do with the whole guy!
So is Ferris’s arm the first horcrux?
Alright. Now, Carol is officially amongst the evil enemy characters.
The favorite to play Blackguard is by taking a few Paladin levels first.
Good heroes make great villains.
“You Either Die a Hero, or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become the Villain.”
“‘There is no Magick?'” means something else than “‘There is no magick’?” (notice the position of the question mark relative to the end quote).
As written, it indicates that the quote was originally a question, which isn’t accurate.
Carol’s getting to grips with the boss’s… Hex appeal.
Aint it romantic…
Just like Harley Quinn & Mr. J…….
Wait, that didnt end well either
“midwifing existences”. This may be one of my new favorite expressions.
Carol, I’m really disappointed in you. I thought with your intelligence, strength, and conscience, that you would be able to stand up to H.R., but it seems instead, you’re turning the Sepia World story into a not so novel Harley Quinn romance.
Don’t you dare believe that the fact that the story is getting really, really interesting is any excuse for your bad behavior, young lady!