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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
partner555

Main Monday Jul 16, 2018

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5 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

It seems to me that what Dan's saying is that he doesn't currently have any stories where revealing the deal with the Dunkels would be important to the plot, and he's waiting until he either comes up with such a story or is getting close to ending the comic before he does so.

He didn't said anything about end of the comics. I actually suspect he already has enough stories for century, no matter if he admits it to himself or not. Remember we are still in the beginning of the comics, as he though the main cast will be just shortly in high school and it will really begin when they got to college.

5 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

What I find interesting is he implies there's more to this than just a running gag, and he already knows why the Dunkels are the way they are even if he doesn't know what to do with that information.

He's definitely implying more than running gag, but "all sorts of things" doesn't sound like having everything ready. On the other hand, I said earlier I don't believe it ... so yes I expect he has something specific in mind already as well.

 

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5 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

He didn't said anything about end of the comics. I actually suspect he already has enough stories for century, no matter if he admits it to himself or not. Remember we are still in the beginning of the comics, as he though the main cast will be just shortly in high school and it will really begin when they got to college.

You have a point; I was just assuming since Dan was talking about Lord Tedd, and everything so far has made it seem to me like he (and/or General Shade Tail) was going to be the "Final Boss".

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28 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

You have a point; I was just assuming since Dan was talking about Lord Tedd, and everything so far has made it seem to me like he (and/or General Shade Tail) was going to be the "Final Boss".

The comment about Lord Tedd was probably joking around since Dan had stated that he felt like he introduced the Lord Tedd stuff too soon, like before he really had a good idea how to handle it, it hard to say whether he's made any progress with that despite bringing up the subject very recently.

To be honest though, which would be a better "Final Boss"? Lord Tedd/General Shade Tail? or Voltaire? From a plot standpoint, both are pretty big deals. But if Dan was going to end the comic with one of them, which would it be?

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1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:
13 hours ago, partner555 said:

And I've been following since about 2008. 10 years, more than half of the comic's run. That's about 40% of my life so far, on my god.

Hmm... I've been reading since 2006, so 12 years... which would be about 32% of my life. ...How much of my life I've been following EGS doesn't really surprise me all that much, but it is strange to think that 3/4ths of the comic's run has occurred since I started reading.

I've been following EGS  since October 2015; this is the first comic I saw. I think I probably found it looking for comics similar to I Dream of a Jeanie Bottle. I got interested in Jeanie Bottle because I was writing a story about a soldier at the end of Desert Storm who finds a bottle with a genie. Not a very big percentage of my life.

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All we know with certainty about the Dunkels is that Elliot's mother was very young when he was born.  Other than that, almost anything else could be true.  So anything that does not directly contradict what has been shown in the comic is within the realm of wild plausibility.

So this is what happened.  First the Earth cooled.  And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil...

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1 hour ago, Scotty said:
2 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

You have a point; I was just assuming since Dan was talking about Lord Tedd, and everything so far has made it seem to me like he (and/or General Shade Tail) was going to be the "Final Boss".

The comment about Lord Tedd was probably joking around since Dan had stated that he felt like he introduced the Lord Tedd stuff too soon, like before he really had a good idea how to handle it, it hard to say whether he's made any progress with that despite bringing up the subject very recently.

Dan was likely joking about both but I totally plan to remind him.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

To be honest though, which would be a better "Final Boss"? Lord Tedd/General Shade Tail? or Voltaire? From a plot standpoint, both are pretty big deals. But if Dan was going to end the comic with one of them, which would it be?

I hope we still don't know the final boss.

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7 minutes ago, animalia said:

It’s official. Dan is DEFINITELY leans towards the discovery style of writing.

Not the typical discovery style. He has lot of things already planned - but not everything. But it's true that when he gets to some point and realizes what he planned was not ideal, he will change it ... so it's definitely more discovery than outline.

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14 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Not the typical discovery style. He has lot of things already planned - but not everything. But it's true that when he gets to some point and realizes what he planned was not ideal, he will change it ... so it's definitely more discovery than outline.

Well no author/artist is COMPLETELY one or the other. For example, Brandon Sanderson while charctertizing himself primarily as Outline stlye, uses discovery style for his characters as he finds it help keep them real, and he will even change the outline as a result stuff he discovers about the characters.

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I've been to quite a few sci-fi conventions and heard quite a few writers describe their process. I don't think there's been one yet that is strictly an outliner - that writes a detailed outline and then absolutely sticks to it, for every story they do.

Not even the ones who claim to write 30K-word outlines for 100K-word books.

Some say they are usually that strict - but they make exceptions occasionally, because they have another idea that is just that much better than what's in the outline (and can be fit in without too much other change).

Then there are those who (say they) come up with a character, a setting, and a problem, and sit down and start writing without even an idea where the story will end up.

I'm in between usually. When I start writing I know where things will start and have a pretty good idea where things will end up (both subject to change, but at least I know what I expect) and maybe a few of the likely stepping stones along the way. More stepping stones get filled in as I go - sometimes when I get to them, sometimes early, sometimes late and I go back and rewrite.

But that's when I start writing. I have the concepts for two whole worlds stirring in my head waiting  for characters and story to show up before I can start writing them. (Meanwhile I have three whole worlds for works already in progress.)

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4 hours ago, Scotty said:

To be honest though, which would be a better "Final Boss"? Lord Tedd/General Shade Tail? or Voltaire? From a plot standpoint, both are pretty big deals. But if Dan was going to end the comic with one of them, which would it be?

Well, in terms of attack power and HP, Voltaire is probably more powerful - but EGS isn't a battle-heavy series so I don't see that as the deciding factor. Plot-wise, Voltaire is likely going to be the "Big Bad" of the next major set of story arcs, but his threat is likely to not be as personal as LT/GST. Furthermore, as the second major villain revealed (following Damien) and as the first one to strike (via retcon, in the original Goo arc), Lord Tedd has seniority over all other EGS villains. As a result I think that if EGS ends within the next decade or two in real life, and within the next few years in-comic, it will be the most satisfying if Lord Tedd & GST are the final antagonists.

If the comic continues after the main characters get out of College, and for as long as Dan can make the comic, it probably would be better to get around to Lord Tedd sooner or later rather than constantly holding him in reserve, but with the build up he's already had, plus the anticipation of waiting this long for him, I would at least hope that his arc served as a major end of an era.

41 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

I've been to quite a few sci-fi conventions and heard quite a few writers describe their process. I don't think there's been one yet that is strictly an outliner - that writes a detailed outline and then absolutely sticks to it, for every story they do.

I had a period where I would usually have the basic plot for a story figured out, then wing it on the details, but almost every time I would eventually get to a point where I couldn't figure out how to get from where I was to where I wanted to be. Since then I usually put together a fairly detailed outline first - though I'm always prepared to change things if I think of something better. That said, I do have one story I've been writing for a while where I basically decided on the characters and setting and have been just letting things flow from there, and it's been working fairly well too.

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23 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

If the comic continues after the main characters get out of College, and for as long as Dan can make the comic, it probably would be better to get around to Lord Tedd sooner or later rather than constantly holding him in reserve, but with the build up he's already had, plus the anticipation of waiting this long for him, I would at least hope that his arc served as a major end of an era.

It would make sense, however it seems that THIS arc served as VERY major end of an era ... despite having quite weak antagonist. I mean, WHO was actually antagonist of this? Pandora? No, the whole arc was basically about making her protagonist, starting with first story line being her backstory. Sirleck? Weak and killed almost by-the-way. Magus? Not really antagonist either. The golem? Fresh new and only on few pages. The vampires? Fresh new and only on few pages ...

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50 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

It would make sense, however it seems that THIS arc served as VERY major end of an era ... despite having quite weak antagonist. I mean, WHO was actually antagonist of this? Pandora? No, the whole arc was basically about making her protagonist, starting with first story line being her backstory. Sirleck? Weak and killed almost by-the-way. Magus? Not really antagonist either. The golem? Fresh new and only on few pages. The vampires? Fresh new and only on few pages ...

It is quite possible to have an interesting story with fascinating, well-rounded characters without there being a "Bad Guy" at all.

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34 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

It would make sense, however it seems that THIS arc served as VERY major end of an era ... despite having quite weak antagonist. I mean, WHO was actually antagonist of this? Pandora? No, the whole arc was basically about making her protagonist, starting with first story line being her backstory. Sirleck? Weak and killed almost by-the-way. Magus? Not really antagonist either. The golem? Fresh new and only on few pages. The vampires? Fresh new and only on few pages ...

It is quite possible to have an interesting story with fascinating, well-rounded characters without there being a "Bad Guy" at all.

Obviously ; my point was that Lord Tedd arc might fail to result in major end of era because all major ends of era would happen with weak or no antagonists but would be done in way it STILL wouldn't be disappointment.

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Obviously ; my point was that Lord Tedd arc might fail to result in major end of era because all major ends of era would happen with weak or no antagonists but would be done in way it STILL wouldn't be disappointment.

An antagonist need not be evil or even human. Arguably, the antagonist in this recent arc could be Magic and its impending change. Most of the major actors focused on it at least in part. Arthur wanted it to happen, not fully understanding its ramifications. So did Voltaire, for different reasons. Tedd and Pandora tried to avoid it. Sarah got drafted into a last-ditch attempt to stop it. And every single magic-using character would potentially be subjected to its effects.

The whole arc is comparable to a natural disaster movie where some immense force threatens to affect the lives of everyone. Possibly a good comparison would be that old classic, a potential breakdown at a nuclear power plant. Everyone is moving about in blissful ignorance without knowing that at best they may be about to lose all power and at worst they may be about to experience a huge spill of radioactivity and poisonous waste into their lives. Arthur, Tedd and Van proved to be the engineers that came up with the last-minute lifesaving patch that stabilised the situation but still left many problems to be solved and difficult decisions to be made. While it is possible to have villains in a story of this kind, it is not really necessary, and a Big Bad may in fact be counterproductive to the overall effect of the story.

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41 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

An antagonist need not be evil or even human.

I understand what you mean, but note that literally, noone I mentioned was human. Pandora is fairy, Magus started the arc as some sort of ghost, the golem was golem and aberrations are no longer considered human.

43 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

While it is possible to have villains in a story of this kind, it is not really necessary, and a Big Bad may in fact be counterproductive to the overall effect of the story.

It's surprising how many Hollywood movies will put some human villain into such story anyway.

44 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

The whole arc is comparable to a natural disaster movie where some immense force threatens to affect the lives of everyone.

... and there are lot of natives who would argue that the fact Tedd talked the natural disaster out of being disaster doesn't invalidate it :)

 

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9 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

It's surprising how many Hollywood movies will put some human villain into such story anyway.

It's Hollywood. If the movie doesn't contain certain clichés, they don't know what to do with themselves. If Hollywood ever produces a movie about the formation of the Universe as we know it, they will put a villain in it.

Then again, the Bible did that, too. I guess it is traditional.

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30 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

If Hollywood ever produces a movie about the formation of the Universe as we know it, they will put a villain in it.

Aunti Matter tried to annihilate all the regular matter of the Universe before the place was even one second old.  I think she can be quite easily cast in the role of Villain for that story.

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Just now, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Aunti Matter tried to annihilate all the regular matter of the Universe before the place was even one second old.  I think she can be quite easily cast in the role of Villain for that story.

That's wrong from one end to the other! It was regular matter that tried to annihilate her. And all because of that feud almost as old as the Universe because many a picosecond ago regular matter borrowed a cup of sugar from her and never returned it.

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1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

That's wrong from one end to the other! It was regular matter that tried to annihilate her.

That may be true.

However, the descendants of Regular Matter were the survivors and they told the story their way.

The descendants of Dark Matter outnumbered Regular Matter's kids.  But the Dark Matter family wouldn't interact with their Regular neighbors, on a quantum level at least, so they largely ignored each other.

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1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

That may be true.

However, the descendants of Regular Matter were the survivors and they told the story their way.

The descendants of Dark Matter outnumbered Regular Matter's kids.  But the Dark Matter family wouldn't interact with their Regular neighbors, on a quantum level at least, so they largely ignored each other.

Ah well. All that hardly matters anyway.

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18 hours ago, hkmaly said:

It would make sense, however it seems that THIS arc served as VERY major end of an era ... despite having quite weak antagonist. I mean, WHO was actually antagonist of this? Pandora? No, the whole arc was basically about making her protagonist, starting with first story line being her backstory. Sirleck? Weak and killed almost by-the-way. Magus? Not really antagonist either. The golem? Fresh new and only on few pages. The vampires? Fresh new and only on few pages ...

There are multiple valid answers to that. Magus was the one who got the Sirleck/Vampire balls rolling, so he could be considered the primary antagonist of that plot-line (or the protagonist, by the older definition where they were the one who caused changes and drove the plot), even if he wasn't even close to 100% evil and got away in the end. Meanwhile, Voltaire manipulated Sirleck (and in so doing orchestrated Pandora's reset) and was trying to influence the outcome of the Magic change, so he's also a good candidate for the primary "villain" of Sister III.

The Old Hack's view that the primary obstacle was the change in magic itself also holds some merit.

...Actually, though, this doesn't really feel like the end of an era to me. Sure, it's a major turning point, but Pandora will be back, the masquerade isn't going to be dropped immediately, and the change in magic didn't result in anyone loosing any magic. Pretty much the only things that ended were Pandora's instability, Magus' time as an incorporeal entity, and Sirleck's life, none of which I expect to have a major impact on the main cast's lives (at least once they get past the worst of the pain of Pandora's reset and until Magus launches his next plot, whatever that might be). The magic clog is supposed to end too, and that might actually have a big impact on the cast, but we haven't seen that yet.

I think what will really serve as the biggest ends-of-eras in EGS will be the cast getting out of High School, and (assuming the comic gets that far) their getting out of College. I suppose it would be quite the coincidence to have the gang have to deal with Lord Tedd right around one of those times, but that's the sort of thing I was thinking of.

13 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

It's Hollywood. If the movie doesn't contain certain clichés, they don't know what to do with themselves. If Hollywood ever produces a movie about the formation of the Universe as we know it, they will put a villain in it.

And a love triangle.

Edited by ChronosCat
Slight change of wording.

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1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:

And a love triangle.

Well, the book of Genesis does contain two accounts of the creation, and they differ on the creation of humans. In chapter one, humans - both male and female - were created after everything else, and they are unnamed. In chapter 2, God created a man immediately after creating plants; then created animals; then named the man Adam and made a woman (unnamed - she doesn't get a name until Adam gives her one toward the end of chapter 3) from Adam's rib.

Somehow, out of this, certain Jewish mythology-crafters derived Adam's first wife Lilith, who was disobedient and left the garden before Eve was created.

But the two versions agree on when (albeit not how) the first woman came into existence; they disagree on the first man. Maybe he objected to having a rib removed (I don't blame him: surgical techniques were not well-advanced), and split, so God had to create a new man and a woman.

Either way, there's room for a love triangle.

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19 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

Either way, there's room for a love triangle.

In a world where so-called Christian Evangelicals find parallels between a child molester and the Immaculate Conception I am willing to believe it.

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3 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Magus was the one who got the Sirleck/Vampire balls rolling,

I'd say it was Pandora that did that, she was the one that first brought Sirleck in to bribe the guard to let Tedd and Elliot into the PTTwhatever. And Pandora dumping Magus for refusing to make Edward kill Abraham was what drove Magus to go back to Sirleck.

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