Confrontation
- Thread starter The Wooster
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Then why do you want this arc to continue and for me to leave?hooksashands said:
Ah ha, another brilliant counter. It's not criticism, it's only bitching, therefor I don't have listen to it. Class act. And a quick question, if I'm bitching, then what are you doing? That little " I hope you leave" thing really conflicts with your accusation of me bitching.
So a convoluted arc crashes and burns while an author uses an entertainment medium to spill teenage-level angst all over the pages disguised as legitimate problems. And nothing of value was lost.
Sorry to dwell on the negative but I don't see a positive side to this, and like any movie or game with a downer ending, I feel increasingly cheated of what I wanted from it--i.e. entertainment--when writers decide to spit in our faces as some kind of reality-check wake-up call or derail their own work to ***** about some imagined problems instead of doing their damn job. I know this is the case, because people who have absolutely nothing to complain about but decide to be pissy anyways generally put their characters through some kind of gauntlet of emotional, psychological and physical torture just to emphasize their own bad mood without offering any kind of potential resolution that will allow them to grow as characters, even if they don't necessarily come out on top. Linkin Park, you're on in three.
Stephen King spent years with a drug problem and was nearly killed by a van. Yeah, it shows up in every single book he's written since, but it always happens in the first act and you only ever hear about it again as some kind of potential positive--that is, living through his issues gave him the perspective necessary to see things in a better light.
So go on, have psycho here spin this into something she can grow off of. If it's anything but some cheap Family Guy cop out where her behavior will just be accepted and/or it vanishes never to be discussed again, I'll be pleasantly surprised.
Sorry to dwell on the negative but I don't see a positive side to this, and like any movie or game with a downer ending, I feel increasingly cheated of what I wanted from it--i.e. entertainment--when writers decide to spit in our faces as some kind of reality-check wake-up call or derail their own work to ***** about some imagined problems instead of doing their damn job. I know this is the case, because people who have absolutely nothing to complain about but decide to be pissy anyways generally put their characters through some kind of gauntlet of emotional, psychological and physical torture just to emphasize their own bad mood without offering any kind of potential resolution that will allow them to grow as characters, even if they don't necessarily come out on top. Linkin Park, you're on in three.
Stephen King spent years with a drug problem and was nearly killed by a van. Yeah, it shows up in every single book he's written since, but it always happens in the first act and you only ever hear about it again as some kind of potential positive--that is, living through his issues gave him the perspective necessary to see things in a better light.
So go on, have psycho here spin this into something she can grow off of. If it's anything but some cheap Family Guy cop out where her behavior will just be accepted and/or it vanishes never to be discussed again, I'll be pleasantly surprised.
How the hell is this inconvenient for you?erttheking said:
Are you...Are you recently new to Critical Miss?Aglynugga said:
I would think that a story conning down a path I don't like would be pretty inconvenient for me.Zachary Amaranth said:
Why do people hate spontaneous and non perfect women? Way I see is is half these forums are sperging hard and dating someone maybe equally bugfuck crazy would be an eye opener for some.Piecewise said:Thats because he can only draw so many faces.TopazFusion said:Huh, I only just noticed that her face kinda looks like that medusa head from a few strips back.Scorched_Cascade said:
But yeah, Erin is a psychotic ***** with no redeeming traits.
Not leave the Escapist site, lord no. Just any content you don't like. I want you stay here if only to one day climb over your anger wall.erttheking said:
Your logic reversal fails. I'm not calling you out for being a critic, I'm calling you out for being a whiner. Valid criticism implies you have a complaint worth consideration and/or discourse. You don't. It's a shitty opinion about another person's creation. It's a deliberate act of irateness so you can dip your hand into that idea (in this case two peoples idea) and steer the thing to exactly where and how you envisioned it. But you can't. Every artist or writer or animator upon the creation of a work must acknowledge the inevitable. They accept that they'll be judged for it, but they also know their entire portfolio is not meant to please the audience all the time. To act like someone is torturing you for essentially having a different dream or memory is ludicrous. Ergo, you think this particular thought/idea should be tailored to you? That dog won't hunt. Impossibru.erttheking said:
I was actually hoping her trip inside herself would be more drawn out and more mind-fucking kind of thing. Anyone see that episode of Duck Dodgers (the 2000's Duck Dodgers) where his friends go into his mind to rescue him or make him back to normal? Something like that is what I was expecting.
We're happy to work with Grey and Corey on whatever they care to do - even if it's a story arc you don't personally care for.Mr.Pandah said:
I personally happen to really like where this has been going.
Oh yeah, if you don't like something you shouldn't read it. Things should only be read by people that like it because otherwise people might complain about the quality.hooksashands said:
You're putting words in my mouth guy, when did I say that it was torturing me and it should be tailored to my vision? And how are my complaints of me not liking any of the characters and that the plot is descending into a mess whining? Then again your argument does seem to reek a little bit of straw man. God forbid I be less than satisfied with critical miss and display my grievances, apparently if I do that I'm whining/bitching/entitled/whatever other word people throw out so that they don't have to deal with people besides the one that gobble up the product that they like. And what the hell is this about memories and dreams? I thought we were talking about a comic strop put up for tens of thousands of people to see. On topic please.
Really I just got on someone's rear because he berated someone for actually having a complaint about this arc and now everyone is jumping on me. It's kinda funny actually.
People aren't upset that you're being critical of the comic - Our content is constantly criticized. They're upset because they feel that you are being rude in your delivery of your criticisms.erttheking said:
You know how people say "don't stick your dick in crazy"?Genericjim101 said:
There is a huge difference between "spontaneous" and "incapable of respecting any societal standard at all, even just basic respect for human beings", and there is a huge difference between "non perfect" and "having an ego the size of a small third world country".
Of course Erin's behaviour, put in any strictly "realistic" or "reality abiding" scenario, would get her in deep trouble very quickly, the sort of unfun trouble it is not entertaining to write a story about, so keep in mind that when people express an opinion of her they start by acknowledging she lives in a special fantasy comic world where it's okay to be crazy and surreal, I don't think any sort of misogyny is at work here.
The problem is that Erin and her shenanigans have stopped being funny.
Allow me to elaborate: the part where I was convinced this comic has fallen deep into the bad writing territory was actually during the last strip, "Pep Talk", where at the bottom the author makes an interesting rant about Hollywood insanity and how it's stupid and against all actual reason to expect a speech such as "Stop being depressed!" work against depression and how such an event, even in this webcomic, should not be taken as a stance on mental illnesses and how they work.
And this opens up a can of worms: if Erin's illness works with Hollywood logic or at least is to be considered a comic book mental illness, there should be no need for such a warning, because we already assume that, in a comic about a video game journalist talking to video game characters she can only see and having surreal adventures, one is expected to not expect any higher dose of realism than the bare minimum.
However, the main issue is that, with this arc in particular, the comic has been tapdancing way too wildly between its surreal and comedic roots and a masochistic desire to chug drama down everyone's throats for the sake of being more "adult", which has only resulted in confusion: are we supposed to laugh at how Erin's being weird and having wacky shenanigans? Are we supposed to feel for her because the drama bomb dropped and now playtime's over and now it's CONSEQUENCES TIME? It doesn't matter which approach you choose, the comic doesn't flow in either way: if you interpret it through its wacky shenanigans, you'll notice how there's way, way, WAY too much artificial drama in the way of fun, and if you get the ALWAYS GRIM ALL THE TIME glasses on, the snarky sarcasm gets too surreal for comfort.
Also, Erin is depressed? Well, good thing we had no way of telling that other than the author telling us on a rant in the previous strip! And before you point out about Erin's snark, I shall remind you this is the exact same behaviour she has always kept throughout the entire series, except that now it's SUDDENLY GRIM ADULT REALISTIC CONSEQUENCES TIME! Apparently, or maybe not, I'm not sure, it's still too much of a bait and switch for me to be sure.
By the way, her mental illness is also a huge tapdance around this realism/wacky hijinks divide: the fact she sees and talks with video game characters that she witnesses interacting with her and objects around her as if they were really there is a clear sign that this is pure Hollywood insanity with no hint of realism anywhere around, and yet apparently, again according to "Pep Talk", we're supposed to classify her previously assumed quirk of being abrasively snarky as an effect of real-world no-joke depression rather than her being, well, a surreal comedy comic character.
It feels like the author started off with something and then suddenly felt like doing something completely different, but instead of starting a new series he just decided to mash the old one into the new idea. Needless to say, up until now the results have been terrible.
Woah there buddy, someone's looking into things too deeply for a production of its calibre, gazing into the abyss abyss gazing into you and all that. I guess I've dated some pretty equally egotistical people then D :Mokuren said:
Oh, I've dated the wrong girls too, believe me, but on the bright side they made me jaded to other wrong people, so I didn't end up getting tangled with people better left alone (though I still facepalm at mach 5 when I see a certain friend of mine keep smacking his face teeth first against unhealthy relationships, one after the other, but that is a different story).Genericjim101 said:
Anyways, I was merely describing something that a lot of people seem to be misunderstanding in relation to why there is so much irritation at how this arc is being handled: when the "change" first started and Erin got her "crazy stuff" there was no reason to believe the comic had moved in any different direction than that of its origins.
This arc, and the last, well, three months or something have made it clear that all our assumptions on the comic, Erin and her wacky hijinks and how she gets away with it are all wrong. Or maybe not. Or maybe yes. Or maybe it's all in her head. Or maybe it was but now she's awake and reality and consequences are going to hit her back. All the while the author is tapdancing between hollywood insanity and serious no-joke depression, or maybe schizophrenia? I can't tell anymore and worst of all I fail to see whether this should be relevant or not, or why I should care.
I don't think the problem with this comic is that it went from one-strip sketches to story arcs, it's how extremely poorly this transition, and the thematic shift, has been handled.
