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See, that's my point. Saying "It doesn't need to make sense because it's fiction" is always a cop-out, and could be applied to nearly anything in any story ever. The Xenos in the Aliens movies were pretty much born of "We need antagonistic aliens that drool acid and can reproduce through chestbursters", but when they do weird things that don't jive with what Earth creatures do, the idea isn't to think "Yeah they do this because the writers wanted cool scenes, it's so much writer fiat", the idea is to think "Hey maybe, just maybe, aliens could have radically different biology to ours and won't make sense to us because they're alien to us." Then again, I tend to enjoy stories more if I just pretend they adhere to some possibly hidden or accidental internal logic, as opposed to focusing on what the writers may or may not have intended. v  v
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May 13, 2012 03:14
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Bobulus posted:This is honestly the right attitude to take. I doubt Hussie has thought about it that much. He just made them mostly human and then went back later and gave them nonhuman traits later to make them more alien. Trying to justify it is an exercise in frustration. Even though I'm nthing the "this doesn't really matter" point of view, we've also seen the egg come out of Kanaya's mother grub. I know that it was for another mother grub, but it did look distinctly troll-like. I do like the idea that the trolls are all basically the same sex; it kind of explains why they don't think about things like gay or straight.
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May 13, 2012 03:24
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I'm just saying that maybe the question you should be asking isn't "why does this alien girl from an anime I read have boobs" is all.
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May 13, 2012 03:25
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Well what else are girl trolls going to put in their wobble rucksacks?
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May 13, 2012 03:42
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Hmm yes let's have a detailed discussion of troll biology and reproduction OH WAIT UPDATE thank god. Not a lot happening in the new pages. I think this may be the first time anyone in the comic has actually broached the idea of fighting Lord English head on, though. For a while things kind of seemed to be shaping up towards having the alpha kids wind up creating Lord English (who they knew very little about beyond being the one thing that the batterwitch feared) but that's looking less likely now that Aranea has put him on Jake's radar as something to be stopped.
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May 13, 2012 05:55
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Upd8! Seems like most of our guessing are playing out correctly. It's interesting that the Frog Temple (or something similar) apparently landed on the moon in the the A1 version of the game. edit: ^ Defeated by not killed is a good target to set against Lord English, it seems. That's new info. edit2: I like how each of the antagonists in this story are established having different strengths and weaknesses. - Doc Scratch was tricky and nearly indestructible, but could be overpowered and was susceptible to Hussie. - Lord English is, seemingly, all powerful and completely immortal, but seems to be more of an unthinking, malicious brute than a master planner. - The Condense is malicious and power hungry, but seems to poorly think out her plans and is prone to overconfidence. - Jack basically has no plans, just kills for fun. Each will need to be / was defeated in a different way. Bobulus fucked around with this message at 06:04 on May 13, 2012 |
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May 13, 2012 05:56
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As a movies expert, Jake knows that the way to beat the bad guy is by killing him. As important as all this stuff surely is, I think I am about ready for Jake to stop receiving exposition. Aranea is as long-winded in this incarnation as she was as Mindfang, and even Imaginary Dirk is getting old. Fortunately, it looks like that's what's about to happen. Meenah is in there, but it was implied there are others.
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May 13, 2012 06:00
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Spooky ghost smooches, hooray!
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May 13, 2012 06:08
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So it's pretty much guaranteed that it's going to 100% cut away to another character soon before there can be a group meeting. It seems like Hussie is going out of his way to not...do...anything at all with moving the plot forward lately.
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May 13, 2012 06:25
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Bobulus posted:It's worse than that, I'm afraid. Recall that we've seen a mother grub (Kanaya's lusus) and it's an entirely different species than the trolls. While it certainly has social reverence, it is a lusus like all the rest. Yeah, okay, not that I care about this too deeply as it transpires in the comic, but this isn't how the designation "species" works. When your species has one gender, and your only method of procreation is by inseminating another species that also has one gender, that is not a one-gender relationship with another species. That is a two-gender relationship with the other gender of your own species. That's how those words work. Modern biologist will very explicitly back me up on this. Sexual dimorphism, bro. I know girls are weird and all but their weird shaped pelvises don't disqualify them from the human club. Look, the real reason that there are girl trolls and boy trolls? Is because those genders are universal traits. Like, Skia assigns classes based on them. Trolls have girls and boys for the same reason they have souls.
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May 13, 2012 06:26
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Rotten rear end Joe posted:So it's pretty much guaranteed that it's going to 100% cut away to another character soon before there can be a group meeting. It seems like Hussie is going out of his way to not...do...anything at all with moving the plot forward lately. I wouldn't say that. We did cut back here after Jackbreak, so I'd say this feels like a flash coming up.
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May 13, 2012 06:27
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Man, cobalt-blooded trolls just keep failing to use their psychic powers in ways that would actually avert disaster.
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May 13, 2012 06:38
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Bongo Bill posted:As a movies expert, Jake knows that the way to beat the bad guy is by killing him.
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May 13, 2012 07:12
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ShardPhoenix posted:This has been kind of a problem with this whole act to some extent - too much time spent spelling out things which are mostly pretty obvious to begin with. You forget that a lot people aren't very bright and don't realize the things that are obvious.
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May 13, 2012 07:24
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Somethin' just ain't right about that boy.
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May 13, 2012 07:38
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Astro Ambulance posted:You forget that a lot people aren't very bright and don't realize the things that are obvious. edit: Also to be fair I still laughed at some parts of the recent updates. ShardPhoenix fucked around with this message at 07:48 on May 13, 2012 |
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May 13, 2012 07:42
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Eikre posted:Yeah, okay, not that I care about this too deeply as it transpires in the comic, but this isn't how the designation "species" works. When your species has one gender, and your only method of procreation is by inseminating another species that also has one gender, that is not a one-gender relationship with another species. That is a two-gender relationship with the other gender of your own species. That's how those words work. Modern biologist will very explicitly back me up on this. WARNING: BIO-SPERG A COMIN' Welllll, not quite. The link you provided is a really cool example of sexual dimorphism, but you're still assuming that "boy impregnates girl" is the only game in town when it comes to sexual reproduction, when really it isn't. Obviously many species lay eggs instead of getting knocked up, plus there are a handfull of species where the males actually are the ones who get pregnant. So, what makes a male a male and a female a female if dude pipefish are the ones havin' the babies (and they are)? It all comes down to gamete size. The very simplest form of sexual reproduction came about when little primordial critters started branching out into two groups: one group made big gametes (eggs), and another made little ones (sperm). Biologically speaking, whichever sex makes bigger dna packets is considered female, no matter who carries the kids. I don't think the mother grub is supposed to be the female of the species, since it's implied that she isn't actually contributing dna, just sort of cooking it. It's theoretically possible that mother grubs actually are another species with a separate evolutionary lineage that just entered a very close symbiotic relationship with trolls. What about the imperial drones? Different species or just specialized morphology? Who knows? They're aliens in a webcomic that is written by a guy who is way less spergy about biology than I am, and I'm not going to try to apply the principals of sexual reproduction to them because a) it probably wouldn't make sense and b) I don't feel like thinking that hard about cartoon baby making. END BIO-SPERG
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May 13, 2012 07:43
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ShardPhoenix posted:edit: Also to be fair I still laughed at some parts of the recent updates.
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May 13, 2012 08:33
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I like how everyone is so paranoid about the potential of sounding too invested in discussing fictional biology, and being completely unsubtle about said insecurity in their posting. Like the equivalent of going "Well, it's not like I'm gay or anything, but.." to preface every paragraph when discussing fashion. Anyway, with the slightly sluggish update schedule lately, I'll admit that even I've been antsy to move on past the long blocks of text we've been getting, and I was someone who actually was amused by the Doc Scratch updates. As mentioned, we're going over a lot of things we basically had already guessed and could have been summed up much more succinctly. (Perhaps the difference is that Aranea lacks the more amusing smugness Scratch and her ancestor/descendant possessed.) I do have to give 5/5 hats to Dirk for his amazing participation, at least, although I don't think even he could save this segment if it goes on for much longer.
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May 13, 2012 09:35
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Screw Jake; I want to see what's happening with Roxy. Seems like her prison-block home is on fire and she needs to get her rear end in the game before she's roasted, like with what happened to Rose. That'd be a lot more interesting that "Jake is awkward. Again".
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May 13, 2012 09:55
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Pessimism posted:WARNING: BIO-SPERG A COMIN' It's explicitly stated in Dirk's historical exposition bit that trolls/lusii/drones are a symbiosis thing, along with all of their ludicrous biotech. e/ gently caress it, im gay. Eikre posted:Yeah, okay, not that I care about this too deeply as it transpires in the comic, but this isn't how the designation "species" works. When your species has one gender, and your only method of procreation is by inseminating another species that also has one gender, that is not a one-gender relationship with another species. That is a two-gender relationship with the other gender of your own species. That's how those words work. Modern biologist will very explicitly back me up on this. No, see, those are all still fish. There is no taxonomist on earth who would put a giant butterfly grub in the same phylum as an erect quadrupedal vertebrate, let alone the same species. Renaissance Robot fucked around with this message at 10:37 on May 13, 2012 |
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May 13, 2012 10:09
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So I think Homestuck finally broke Treestuck. Even when Eridan went on his killing spree, she only wanted them to lock him up until he calmed down. She didn't want him to die. Until that Seek the Highblood scene...Treestuck posted:equius The entertaining part is that she keeps setting herself up for this stuff: quote:MAYOR WHY ARE YOU SO CUTE Bobulus fucked around with this message at 11:54 on May 13, 2012 |
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May 13, 2012 11:52
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Bobulus posted:So I think Homestuck finally broke Treestuck. Even when Eridan went on his killing spree, she only wanted them to lock him up until he calmed down. She didn't want him to die. Until that Seek the Highblood scene... It's like watching a dog get kicked over and over again and bringing its master a bigger boot every time.
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May 13, 2012 11:58
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Ominous Jazz posted:It doesn't matter though because they aren't real. It doesn't serve the story in any way to be concerned about how it doesn't make sense because for the purpose of the story it does make sense. You kill a Dracula by staking them in place (not necessarily with a wooden stake: Dracula himself is impaled to the bed of his coffin by a bowie knife) while they're sleeping then sawing off their head. See, the thing is, within the story, that does make sense: vampires are so preternaturally strong, fast and tough that you need to immobilise them before you can kill them, and you can't do that unless you get the jump on them, and you'll never get the jump on them unless they're sleeping. Internal consistency is a thing. Just saying "anything can do anything, it's a story, it's arbitrary!" is a bad attitude towards writing, and tends to create poor stories. If things don't work in a consistent, interlocking way, you lose suspension of disbelief, and then people buy out of the story!
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May 13, 2012 12:37
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Renaissance Robot posted:No, see, those are all still fish. There is no taxonomist on earth who would put a giant butterfly grub in the same phylum as an erect quadrupedal vertebrate, let alone the same species. I don't think there's enough information to say whether mother grubs are the same species as trolls or not, but they seem pretty similar.
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May 13, 2012 14:30
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Renaissance Robot posted:No, see, those are all still fish. There is no taxonomist on earth who would put a giant butterfly grub in the same phylum as an erect quadrupedal vertebrate, let alone the same species. Remember that trolls are literal grubs when first hatched, and can be induced to develop butterfly wings. Also, do we actually know that trolls have spines and giant butterfly grub monsters don't?
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May 13, 2012 14:32
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Renaissance Robot posted:No, see, those are all still fish. There is no taxonomist on earth who would put a giant butterfly grub in the same phylum as an erect quadrupedal vertebrate, let alone the same species. Taxonomists classify species based on evolutionary lineage, not just what they look like. Some species have such massive differences in morphology that taxonomists thought they were different species until dna testing could verify that they were actually the same. Would you see a species containing giant butterfly grubs and also humanoid forms on earth? Not likely. In a webcomic? Sure, why not? Not saying this definitely means they're the same species and not symbiotes, but it's possible.
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May 13, 2012 15:14
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Android Blues posted:You kill a Dracula by staking them in place (not necessarily with a wooden stake: Dracula himself is impaled to the bed of his coffin by a bowie knife) while they're sleeping then sawing off their head. See, the thing is, within the story, that does make sense: vampires are so preternaturally strong, fast and tough that you need to immobilise them before you can kill them, and you can't do that unless you get the jump on them, and you'll never get the jump on them unless they're sleeping. Yeah, even Hussie is aware of this when he goes out of the way to create absurdly overpowered villains. Demonhead Mobster Kingpin had a load of superpowered bullshit that got disarmed in ways that the comic had foreshadowed like crazy. A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 17:01 on May 13, 2012 |
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May 13, 2012 15:25
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Renaissance Robot posted:e/ gently caress it, im gay. Hey, apropos of nothing, don't use this like that. Edit: I think, somehow, the whole key to defeating all the big bads is going to be turning them against one-another. The Condesce using Jack against English, maybe. Jack's still sort of the wild card here, as he's pretty much unrelated to the entire English/Condesce/Scratch/Handmaid web. Cabbit fucked around with this message at 17:07 on May 13, 2012 |
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May 13, 2012 16:49
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Cabbit posted:Hey, apropos of nothing, don't use this like that. I think he was referring to that post comparing all the "I don't care about troll sex biology but..." to "I'm not gay but...", not using "gay" as a synonym for "lame".
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May 13, 2012 17:26
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Cabbit posted:Hey, apropos of nothing, don't use this like that. well my baseless speculation is around Aradia and co. rallying all the doomed timelines to take out English, since that addresses one of the thematic points pretty strongly about Alpha vs. Beta timelines. (how can you have a choice when every choice but one ends up killing you/being annihilated from existence? It seems pretty important for all those other timelines to have meaning to avoid deterministic nihilism, so what better way than having all the "doomed" come back to gently caress poo poo Up?) A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 18:20 on May 13, 2012 |
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May 13, 2012 18:16
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Cabbit posted:Hey, apropos of nothing, don't use this like that. It was a poor reference to Midnight Raider's post, and an admission that I'm a shameless dweeb and don't care who knows it.
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May 13, 2012 19:54
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closeted republican posted:Screw Jake; I want to see what's happening with Roxy. Seems like her prison-block home is on fire and she needs to get her rear end in the game before she's roasted, like with what happened to Rose. That'd be a lot more interesting that "Jake is awkward. Again".
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May 13, 2012 20:12
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Wrist Watch posted:This is pretty much how I feel about things right now. Jake is the least interesting of the 4 kids, especially given that the rest all have some pressing issue they need to address right now. Jake is just currently really, really dull compared to like half the cast. To be fair, he does have a volcano exploding right next to his house. He got knocked out by flying debris, remember? Since the session already has a forge (Jade's planet), I'm not sure if Jake's volcano will come with him, or, more likely, it's the disaster he needs to get away from. It's more that, like Jade, his crisis can wait the longest, so he gets to spend time getting info that will help the others.
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May 13, 2012 20:46
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We know Jake's volcano doesn't come with him: the views of the future during Jane's entry flash include one where the top of it just pokes out of the sea.
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May 13, 2012 20:49
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Hamiltonian Bicycle posted:We know Jake's volcano doesn't come with him: the views of the future during Jane's entry flash include one where the top of it just pokes out of the sea. Furthermore, there's also some sort of BC-structure and Gl'bgolyb appears to be hanging around, perhaps suggested the island becomes the Condesce's earth headquarters.
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May 13, 2012 20:53
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Oh hey, update. Looks like Jade did the family thing and stole the archagent's fourth wall. Interesting that she apparently headed into the session and back out long before (on the incipisphere's timeline) any of the players arrived.
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May 13, 2012 22:11
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Update. So it looks like grannyJade nabbed the 4th wall. Maybe that's what the giant thing in Jake's inventory is?
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May 13, 2012 22:13
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I wonder what kind of help the Penultimagent will be able to scare up, with the rest of the crew occupied with being dead, imprisoned or adora...bloodthirsty?
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May 13, 2012 22:14
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Luminous Obscurity posted:Maybe that's what the giant thing in Jake's inventory is? Possibly. Wherever it is, if it's not in his inventory it's most likely still somewhere on his island, and also most likely where John and Jade will be coming in from. (The meteor gang will just sort of drift in from the Furthest Ring, I guess.)
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May 13, 2012 22:29
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