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Well, that thing with Robin was a manifestation of the problem noted upthread, namely that despite his obsession with it as a theme, he cannot write abuse well, compounded by his tin ear for tone - he tried to play a downlow repub committing home invasion against her female lust object as funny. I think I wasn't the only one who lost patience there. Also Carla made my teeth grind hardcore - rich kid with endless money MPDG* teacher trans person who's a techie? Talk about grating stereotypes. And you know, the person who recognized the classic suicidal abuser progression being villanized, despite it not applying in this case was.. well, see that he doesn't actually get abuse as well as he thinks he does. *still fits, even if ace.
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Feb 12, 2020 16:55
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StratGoatCom posted:Well, that thing with Robin was a manifestation of the problem noted upthread, namely that despite his obsession with it as a theme, he cannot write abuse well, compounded by his tin ear for tone - he tried to play a downlow repub committing home invasion against her female lust object as funny.
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Feb 12, 2020 18:09
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rannum posted:https://www.sleeplessdomain.com/comic/chapter-14-page-28 I want to see Cassidy get suplexed into the earth's core.
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Feb 12, 2020 19:29
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Captain Oblivious posted:I want to see Cassidy get suplexed into the earth's core. I would settle for Cassidy getting some kind of fatal injury from her own weapon with Undine making a "you shouldn't run with scissors" quip ex post facto.
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Feb 12, 2020 21:26
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oh yes oh god yes form the head FORM THE HEAD unghhhh...
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PetraCore posted:Eh, I think he gets very specific kinds of abuse well - the kinds he's dealt with growing up, as manifested mostly through Joyce's religious struggles. Everything else is varying degrees of making an effort but falling somewhat flat or short to time for literal supervillains I guess. This is essentially what I'm saying, though, albeit more specific?
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Feb 12, 2020 21:34
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I have a feeling no matter how this fight shakes out, that Undine is going to leave the club and HP 
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Feb 12, 2020 23:52
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What I feel bad about with Cassidy is that these kids have practically no adult guidance outside of their agents. It's like the whole world of SD has gone all in on denial about this situation: it's not just that the dystopian government is trying to deceive the world into thinking Magical Girls are a fun, exciting part of their lives instead of an army of child soldiers, the dystopian government has convinced itself that these girls aren't child soldiers. So they're running around with no chain of command, no officers, nothing that could realize that there's issues with this level of autonomy or their clear PTSD risk. I'm not saying that fascist militarism would be better, but Cassidy's situation is entirely because the government's attitude is just "Have fun being superheroes, children!" and so she's taking responsibility for her friends' safety entirely on her own shoulders. Yeah, she's being a bitch, but what recourse does she have other than, as a teenager, personally confronting Undine, and doing it poorly because, again, teenager.
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Feb 13, 2020 02:47
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Precambrian posted:What I feel bad about with Cassidy is that these kids have practically no adult guidance outside of their agents. It's like the whole world of SD has gone all in on denial about this situation: it's not just that the dystopian government is trying to deceive the world into thinking Magical Girls are a fun, exciting part of their lives instead of an army of child soldiers, the dystopian government has convinced itself that these girls aren't child soldiers. So they're running around with no chain of command, no officers, nothing that could realize that there's issues with this level of autonomy or their clear PTSD risk. It's an interesting mixture of child stars, with the agents and publicity and fan mail, and child soldiers, with the trauma, fighting, and death.
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Feb 13, 2020 04:08
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Precambrian posted:What I feel bad about with Cassidy is that these kids have practically no adult guidance outside of their agents. It's like the whole world of SD has gone all in on denial about this situation: it's not just that the dystopian government is trying to deceive the world into thinking Magical Girls are a fun, exciting part of their lives instead of an army of child soldiers, the dystopian government has convinced itself that these girls aren't child soldiers. So they're running around with no chain of command, no officers, nothing that could realize that there's issues with this level of autonomy or their clear PTSD risk.
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Feb 13, 2020 07:29
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IronSaber posted:I would settle for Cassidy getting some kind of fatal injury from her own weapon with Undine making a "you shouldn't run with scissors" quip ex post facto. Sleepless Domain is a good comic with some weird-rear end fans.
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Feb 13, 2020 14:19
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fritz posted:Sleepless Domain is a good comic with some weird-rear end fans. In my defense, I've only read these latest few pages. If there really is a whole theme of magical-girls-as-child-solders, then I take back any dumb quips I have made.
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Feb 13, 2020 16:51
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IronSaber posted:In my defense, I've only read these latest few pages. If there really is a whole theme of magical-girls-as-child-solders, then I take back any dumb quips I have made. The context for this scene, and the inciting incident of the whole comic, is Undine's entire magical girl team besides her getting slaughtered and/or depowered. Precisely one of the five got depowered. The others are all dead. Cassidy is confronting her because she thinks Undine must be in some way responsible for her team dying, which the reader knows is deeply unfair to Undine. The entire comic is framed around trauma and these kids being the last line of defense between people and nightly monster waves in this city.
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Feb 13, 2020 17:06
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Sleepless Domain seems to be running with the idea that so far magical girls are the only thing that's really worked to fight the monsters, and so everybody is kind of trying hard to run with the idea that it's cool and noble even though it's really not.
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Feb 13, 2020 17:06
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Joe Slowboat posted:The context for this scene, and the inciting incident of the whole comic, is Undine's entire magical girl team besides her getting slaughtered and/or depowered. Precisely one of the five got depowered. The others are all dead. Holy poo poo. Yeah I definitely retract any and all dumb quips I have made.
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Feb 13, 2020 17:10
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Rand Brittain posted:Sleepless Domain seems to be running with the idea that so far magical girls are the only thing that's really worked to fight the monsters, and so everybody is kind of trying hard to run with the idea that it's cool and noble even though it's really not. It sort of feels like the point is that it's easiest for everyone not directly connected to the magical girl thing to think of it as fun, cool, and noble entertainment and sometimes accidents happen, but boy how lucky those girls have magic! And then everyone actually on the inside is like, this is actually super messed up and stressful. Not just the girls themselves, but we've also seen how stressful it is for the family, to the point that Zoe's family were really relieved when her sister aged out and they'd not have to go through that again bc they didn't have any more daughters, and then whoops it turns out their second child is also a daughter and a magical girl now.
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Feb 13, 2020 18:30
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That all works up to a point, but it doesn't really explain the exploitation industry of Magical Girls where they all have agents and managers. I can come up with a couple reasons how it may have developed, such as giving the girls a buffer between them and the media/public and also giving them the chance to earn even more money than whatever they're getting as a stipend from the government. Still, the end result is the commoditization of child soldiers- and it doesn't even protect them from the media since Undine got jumped by a camera crew right after getting out of the hospital after watching three of her closest childhood friends die and the fourth give up their own (significantly greater) power to save her life.
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Feb 13, 2020 18:43
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Undine's mom also talks to her about "I know it's not a parent's place to tell a magical girl how to use her powers," which is really messed up when you think about it.
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Feb 13, 2020 18:44
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Gonna start reading the Sleepless Domain archives now.
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Feb 13, 2020 18:46
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habeasdorkus posted:That all works up to a point, but it doesn't really explain the exploitation industry of Magical Girls where they all have agents and managers. I can come up with a couple reasons how it may have developed, such as giving the girls a buffer between them and the media/public and also giving them the chance to earn even more money than whatever they're getting as a stipend from the government. Still, the end result is the commoditization of child soldiers- and it doesn't even protect them from the media since Undine got jumped by a camera crew right after getting out of the hospital after watching three of her closest childhood friends die and the fourth give up their own (significantly greater) power to save her life. Like I guess if you don't come out all gung ho about fighting and being excited to master your powers so you can protect everyone then it's a shameful thing??
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Feb 13, 2020 18:50
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Yeah, the way Zoe was treated was very white feather-esq. Which is bullshit, Zoe has just started her transition! She's like 13 or 14! I think based upon what she's said about always wanting to be a magical girl she understood she was trans, but that's still a loving ton to put onto the shoulders of a kid. Also, I don't know that Rue is necessarily wrong about the government being untrustworthy. We just haven't seen much from them and it's hard to figure out since all of our perspectives are from high school aged girls who don't have any access to people who would know something - or who would tell the girls if they did know something rather than just providing medical checkups and gathering information for the govn't.
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Feb 13, 2020 19:06
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...god is SD actually kind of what SFP wanted to try to be in its world construction?
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Feb 13, 2020 19:07
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One of the low-key elements of the setting is that the city is... not in really great shape, and pretty clearly unequal. It's a capitalist society on some levels, but it's an arcology or something where they don't even know whether anything but monsters exists outside their barrier. The rations served at the Normal Children School is a great example of this; thing are clearly not what we would consider normal on the foundational levels. Food supplies are not totally limited, but they are very utilitarian if you're not at 'Please Consider Dying For Your Country, Have Nice Things' High School. So you have basically an enclosed city with limited resources whose government has no idea how any of the monster-fighting magic stuff works, but is desperate to maintain some kind of social order presumably inherited from the pre-magical-girl-apocalypse world (we know that the 'Founder' of the city is considered a religious figure, and pre-Founder religion survives in holidays like Crimmus/Christmas, which has become Magical Girl themed). Sleepless Domain is about a post-apocalyptic colony of survivors trying to maintain a vaguely 21st Century way of life, reliant on magical girls to hold the line. And that leads to them sublimating the actual mortal terror of the situation into an economy and social framework where treating magical girls as pop idols who kill monsters is at least bearable (for the people who aren't magical girls or their families). Meanwhile the government has clearly been trying to understand and maybe do something about magic for a long while and gotten nowhere - the survey about Magical Girl dreams is a sign of that. The adults in charge have no idea how this all works other than the most basic observations, and I bet there's offices full of government specialists in the nightly monster war having soul-freezing anxiety all the time. I'm personally of the opinion that there's no government conspiracy, the government is just unable to handle this or admit that things are not in any way under their control. Anemone knows what's up but she doesn't seem to have any connection to the civic structure of the city. E: Oh and there's that one guy who's clearly from outside the city! So we're likely to have the classic Post-Apocalyptic Hidden City plot where the rest of the world is much less destroyed/absent than the survivors think it is. But what exactly is outside the city is totally unknown right now, except that the guy in question looks like a Half-Life 2 resistance medic, so presumably things are at least somewhat rough in the immediate vicinity of the city. Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Feb 13, 2020 |
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Feb 13, 2020 19:08
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PetraCore posted:Yes, that's part of what I mean by the system has clearly soured at some point, but given it's heavily implied this has all gone on for a while it could have easily started as propaganda and magical girls hiring agents for better self-advocacy and solidified into a hosed up system at some point. Now the result is you've got girls like Rue who are going out every night risking their lives to fight and getting 0 benefits at all because they don't trust the government, and while Rue's definitely a paranoid conspiracy theorist I can't rightly say she's wrong, either. Or you have a girl who literally just got her power (and that's how she came out to her family) getting bullied bc she's attending the nicer perk school but didn't immediately throw herself into potentially fatal danger, when like, you'd think even aside from that being her choice there'd be some social grace period for figuring out what the heck is going on. We don't know how often trans girls get powers, but i'm assuming even if Zoe was out to herself before this she completely wasn't expecting to deal with magical superpowers on top of everything else she's figuring out about her identity. wait that was how Zoe came out? I just kind of assumed it was one of those self actualization things where she comes out (to her immediate family, at least, if not publicly presenting) and then that connection brings her the dream kind of deals, not what's basically a dox. Basically dream girl does you a solid in that situation.
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Feb 13, 2020 19:17
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It's literally a society based 100% on magical girls, so it makes sense they'd be the sole military, the focus of entertainment, and the basis of religion. Parents aren't too involved likely because that's a trope of the genre that it's playing with. Some handwaving of that kind of thing is fine for the kind of story it's trying to tell, for me at least.
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Feb 13, 2020 19:18
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Rotten Red Rod posted:It's literally a society based 100% on magical girls, so it makes sense they'd be the sole military, the focus of entertainment, and the basis of religion. Parents aren't too involved likely because that's a trope of the genre that it's playing with. Some handwaving of that kind of thing is fine for the kind of story it's trying to tell, for me at least. See also: the city is all we know, but it is large enough and modern enough to still have a wide variety of modern conveniences that run mostly as normal. Enough resources to make a bunch of merchandise, TV, store fronts, run hospitals, schools, assorted modern businesses, etc Just one of those things you don't think too much about beyond the gulf between Magical Girl School and Normal School or how no one has cell phones since it's just the conceit of "modern day magical girl" setting
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Feb 13, 2020 19:25
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rannum posted:wait that was how Zoe came out? I just kind of assumed it was one of those self actualization things where she comes out (to her immediate family, at least, if not publicly presenting) and then that connection brings her the dream kind of deals, not what's basically a dox. Basically dream girl does you a solid in that situation. My understanding was that her family learned she was trans because she woke up with shiny metallic hair. But I don't know that it's been directly stated as being such.
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Feb 13, 2020 19:30
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Joe Slowboat posted:E: Oh and there's that one guy who's clearly from outside the city! So we're likely to have the classic Post-Apocalyptic Hidden City plot where the rest of the world is much less destroyed/absent than the survivors think it is. But what exactly is outside the city is totally unknown right now, except that the guy in question looks like a Half-Life 2 resistance medic, so presumably things are at least somewhat rough in the immediate vicinity of the city. This makes me wonder if the city wasn't originally a fortress (it does have some kind of magical ward system) that's blocking some kind of gate to a hell dimension. Maybe the City is actually all that's keeping the monsters from overrunning the rest of the world?
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Feb 13, 2020 19:32
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Hostile V posted:...god is SD actually kind of what SFP wanted to try to be in its world construction? Examining a side of a genre that doesn't get looked at very much, or at least done well? Fair.
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Feb 13, 2020 19:33
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habeasdorkus posted:My understanding was that her family learned she was trans because she woke up with shiny metallic hair. But I don't know that it's been directly stated as being such. My impression has been that more girls get the Dream than become magical girls, because some percentage of them probably dip out at that point, so the ones that become magical girls are more predisposed to choosing to fight monsters, because they've already made that internal decision during a very important dream conversation, but the fact that they don't remember the conversation complicates things.
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Feb 13, 2020 19:45
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rannum posted:See also: the city is all we know, but it is large enough and modern enough to still have a wide variety of modern conveniences that run mostly as normal. Enough resources to make a bunch of merchandise, TV, store fronts, run hospitals, schools, assorted modern businesses, etc
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Feb 13, 2020 19:51
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Hostile V posted:...god is SD actually kind of what SFP wanted to try to be in its world construction? Eh sort of yes, sort of no. SD basically observes that the concept of magical girls is pretty messed up, as they're essentially child soldiers, so it seeks to explore that aspect to its natural conclusion, with obvious respect and love for the genre itself. All the conventions and tropes of the genre are taken seriously, and the setting has adapted to the fact that they're all real. SFP is also using the concept of "what if superheroes were real" but more in the sense that it's a vehicle for the author's thoughts on social justice and the responsibilities of having power. Until it's not and it became about some superhero as gently caress conspiracy thing, and they spent a whole chapter in Patrick's head with Lord Boy. Oh and the author has never read superhero comics and doesn't know what the conventions and tropes are, or how much of the superhero deconstruction territory they ventured into had already been done to death.
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Feb 13, 2020 19:52
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The big difference is that SD doesn't really seem to be geared to examine the implications of its genre in real world terms, which was a big part of what SFP was ostensibly about. SD's setting is carefully constructed to justify the conventions of the genre, it's not "what if real world but magic girls"
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Feb 13, 2020 20:00
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Yeah, but SFP has Clevin and SD does not.
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Feb 13, 2020 20:05
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habeasdorkus posted:Yeah, but SFP has Clevin and SD does not.
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Feb 13, 2020 20:06
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habeasdorkus posted:Yeah, but SFP has Clevin and SD does not. Clevin's still forever out there, getting smokes or something, just about to discover his GF and her crush platonically snugging in bed. He will live on in my heart
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Feb 13, 2020 20:14
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It probably goes without saying, but Cagle is also a fan of Madoka, though SD's brand of deeply hosed up is different
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Feb 13, 2020 20:32
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Unlucky7 posted:It probably goes without saying, but Cagle is also a fan of Madoka, though SD's brand of deeply hosed up is different Your soul is curropted untill you become sort of ambomable monster that is only good for being put to the sword and having what is left moped up and sold to the "greater good"? I dunno, dood, that sounds exactly like the japanese pop idol industry to me. ConanThe3rd fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Feb 13, 2020 |
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Feb 13, 2020 20:53
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Sleepless Domain is like if Garth Ennis wasn’t transgressive and got hired to do a Sailor Moon run
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Feb 13, 2020 23:57
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i have decided to read sleepless domain
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Feb 14, 2020 00:11
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i wasn't going to read it, because it brings back traumatic memories of my own time as a magical girl, but to shitpost effectively i need some understanding of current notable works
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Feb 14, 2020 00:12
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