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Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
No matter what, there’s always a kid named Pasqualo.



They are the sort of plucky protagonist who will overcome any challenge... unless it's crippling depression. Luckily, their love for their friends can overcome even that!

And for one friend, Pasqualo would do absolutely anything. Anything.

Pasqualo’s (frequently updated) story is consistantly two parts funny, one part psychodrama, and is separated into three parts (so far). Note with each sequel the exclamation points increase :haw:



The first volume, God Damnit!, is completely optional - it's an old comic and a bit rough, and the artist Gobotatula may or may not consider it canon (ultimately it does not matter). However, its sense of humor and much of the cast did carry over to It Hurts!!, so when you are all caught up, why not? (it's a quick read, too). When Pasqualo’s goldfish dies of completely natural causes, they embark on a quest to kill God with their bare hands.



The second volume is called It Hurts!! Which starts out as a slice of life about Pasqualo and their chums getting into all sorts of hijinks as their school prepares for an awesome talent show! You can find the thread about it here, but you can binge it from the start by clicking this link! Note: you’ll get the full effect of It Hurts!! By going in cold and reading up to and including the hundredth comic! (Stick with it, trust me on this). It will also explain why Pasqualo is a boy during It Hurts!! and now a girl in Please Forgive Me!!!



The third and current volume is called Please Forgive Me!!! - but you already loving knew that. Pasqualo is a cheerful, kind girl, and adorable as hell. She’s so goddamn considerate she’s gonna do the character introductions for me!




P.S. I’m the paper frog Okay, so two more things, assuming you are a completely new reader of this fine series!

The First is about the creators, and I mean this in the best way (Hi Gob), but never ever trust the creators. They will corner your expectations in the prison shower and shank the gently caress out of them. If something seems like foreshadowing, it probably is, and just like mice if you see one, there’s probably dozens you’ve missed. Except it isn’t mice, it was actually snakes the whole time.

What am I talking about? Okay, look up at that comic there. See the top of the second page, that poster that her head’s blocking?



That guy will probably show up later, maybe a non-zero chance he'll be the villain. Or maybe not at all, because it will turn out that the hobo used to be a scientist and actually can bring Peggy from Mad Men to life, if they only had the scratch. Sometimes it’s just that kind of comic, in between the dick jokes.

Second and lastly: The next post is full of spoilers for It Hurts!! To bring old readers up to speed etc, or if you don’t mind having It Hurts spoiled. In fact, it’s all spoilers from here on out, so be aware.

So just loving go and read It Hurts!!, God Damnit!

Literally Kermit fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Mar 8, 2018

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Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
Wowie zowie, a whole new Pasqualo adventure awaits!

A caveat: this comic is a dumb comic about butts. It's also a smart comic that waxes poetic sometimes (also often involving butts)! Either way it's getting harder to deny that there's a greater narrative weaving together, and it may or not may not be accidental!

So! This thread should not be taken as a super serious treatise or anything, and any theories I, me, and you put out on the thread are just that.

If you've finished with It Hurts!! but it has been a while, here's a quick recap:

After the hundredth strip, Pasqualo learns he's actually been an indestructible cyborg since birth, and Aurora is literally the Song the Ends the World. Monsters turn out to be very real, and civilization quickly falls into ruin. After the apparent death of all his family and friends, Pasq suffers a slightly deeper level of depression than usual, but snaps out of it in a couple of weeks when Allison revives as a zombie. When they discover this is actually pretty loving cool, they go on to become super-villains and gently caress around with the survivors.

When that gets old, they decide to become sort-of benevolent rulers of their own empire, the center of which is a building consisting of their old school and all the other schools they've taken over stacked on top. Pasqualo forges new friends and re-establishes some old ones, and Aurora returns and makes peace with everyone, and all is well.

That is, until a (seemingly throwaway) joke from earlier in the comic (the Space Rhinos) blows up the entire loving planet, no-sells Katie's escape-rocket plan (killing everyone in the process), super-no-sells Pasqualo's magic bullshit cyborg powers, and murders poor Aurora with a giant flyswatter. Aurora last fleeting thoughts are about how much she cares for Pasqualo before she completely ceases to be. :smith: Everyone else goes straight to hell.

Hell turns out to be not all that different than New Jersey, but while our heroes settle in, it turns out that Hell really sucks because if you die there, that's all she wrote - you cease to be, and it's retro-active. To everyone else, it is as if you never exists - everyone, that is, but Pasqualo, who remembers Tubsy after he and Poop the Wolf fall in battle again Jennifer (Pasquale's mom), who died earlier and trained herself to be a god-slayer (not unlike God Dammit!-era Pasqualo, actually). Pasqualo can't bear Allison forgetting Tubsy, so he rejects Hell, goes to Heaven, and confronts God.

We'll get into what exactly happens with Jennifer later in the post, but unsurprisingly she fails to kill God (she did manage to kill a metric poo poo-ton of armed angels just before that, though). God, who looks identical to their incarnation in God Dammit! (They would but They called in sick to work!) is actually a super-nice reasonable person, and tells Pasqualo two important things: that Pasqualo is an Anomaly (which is why he can remember things that were erased from existence) and that They were not responsible for sending Aurora to Pasqualo, but their mother(!), Harmony, is, and perhaps he should go see Her by going to the very end of the universe. They then give Pasqualo Their Dick (!!) and returns Pasqualo's soul back to its frozen, charred inert corpse, restoring its ability to regenerate and returning Pasqualo to full power.

Pasqualo snags Allison's hair bow as a memento and flies off resolute in his final quest. After a year or two, he gets frustrated but after helping some aliens, feels a new resolute purpose. So as the years tick away and he continues on, he helps more and more aliens, getting more haggard over time, but also growing in power exponentially! After 3,199 years after the destruction of Earth and the start of his current quest, Pasqualo goes One Punch Man on the Space Rhinos, blowing up their home planet, their entire armada, and finally gaining closure over everything he's lost - almost.

After "the end of the universe" turns out not to really be a place, but literally the end of everything, a completely unrecognizable Pasqualo encounters a small gold object that causes him to wake up (back in his original cyborg form) in an old-time theater showing... the end of existence, admit one. Harmony, in the form of a beautiful giant woman comes out on stage and sings a song about... well, everything (with the embodiment of Chaos, tickling the ivories).




She sings (the same way Aurora once could), and Pasqualo's life flashes in front of his eyes along with everyone else's. At the end Harmony takes a bow, and applause fills the air - as Pasq looks around the previously empty theater, he sees a bunch of smiling versions of him from other universes. Pasqualo can only ask the woman if she's Aurora. But sadly, she is not.

Harmony explains this is the end result of entropy. Both Heaven and Hell have long been reduced to ashes and dust that in turn have also faded away (turns out God, while super nice and loving, is really into character building, and Pasqualo took one of the hard ways around!). She also says that Aurora was a tiny piece of her power, sent to Pasqualo because of his sheer desire to know happiness. When the Space Rhinos killed her, that power returned to Harmony, and everything that made Aurora Aurora... simply ceased to be. And speaking of cessation, by now everything and everyone else is also long gone, souls and all. Basically, Pasqualo's journey was all in vain, but the good news is he gets first "dibs" in creating a brand spanking new universe! One where neither he nor anyone he wants to recreate will have any memories of what happened in It Hurts!! but hey it's a start.

The only catch is while Pasq can reboot the new universe in a way where he has the desire to pray for Aurora, then history is damned to repeat itself - neither he nor Aurora can exist in the same universe without causing another Apocalypse. To do anything different would result in an Aurora who isn't really Aurora at all. It'd be the same thing if he tried to create an Allison who wasn't a filthy little tomboy who is... probably black? Or a Tubsy who wasn't capable of punching the gently caress through some skulls when the need should arise. Pasq muses he's basically doomed to be unhappy - but both Harmony and Chaos explain there's alternatives available - he shouldn't need Aurora to be happy. And if he does need her again, that's okay too, because eventually everything will come to nothing in the end, and the cosmic ballet will go on in its eternal cycle. The choice is completely up to Pasqualo, they say, and there's no real "wrong" answer.

But in Pasqualo's mind, Aurora was an actual independent person, with her own thoughts and an endless sense of compassion and empathy. He's actually okay with not needing her to make himself happy - he wants to make it so Aurora herself is happy, and able to make her own choice, rather than be forced into her role in the cycle. Both Harmony and Chaos are stunned, and before they get much of a chance to react, Pasqualo decides it is time to reboot the universe. He knows now what he must do (and given Harmony's reaction, also may well be the first time things have played out this way). But just before the It Hurts!! Pasq fades into a brilliant golden light, he makes a point to ask Aurora's forgiveness for the choice he has made.

Eventually one day, in a new universe, on a new Earth, and in a new New Jersey, a blonde-haired girl sits under a tree and writes in a journal about Charlotte the spider and Wilbur the pig, and the amazing friendship they shared. Just as a new Allison and new Tubsy come over to pick her up, this new girl (named Pasqualo and has a suspiciously Aurora-like way of speaking) concludes that the selflessness exhibited in Charlotte's Web seems pretty impossible to emulate... but she will still try!

So begins Please Forgive me!!!


Man that sure was a recap, wasn't it, gang? So let's move on to Questions Brought Up by the Ending of It Hurts!!

Is God Damnit! canon?
Let's just leave it at it's not not canon. The ending of IH!! shows that there's been been numerous versions of Pasqualo who made it to the End of Existence, so there's no reason to say that GD!-Pasq isn't one of them - hell, the twist is that the universe keeps rebooting, so why the hell not? It is, obviously, the prototype for It Hurts!!, and I can imagine looking at it probably makes Gobolatula continually wince, but that aside there are a number of elements betwixt GD! and IH!! that are consistent, even sequential. For example, in It Hurts!!, both God and Satan seem to remember things from GD!, notably God being adamant about how much They hate getting punched in the face. Satan also just kind of shows up in IH!! without any warning, and has an attitude towards Pasqualo that makes much more sense in context with the relationship with GD!-Pasqualo. There's also his instant (if lopsided) rapport with Jennifer - we'll get back to that in the theories section below. What was the question? Oh, yeah. Yeah, God Damnit! is probably canon, sure. Whatever.

What exactly is Aurora?
In the original OP for the IH!! thread, I had a theory that somehow Aurora was God (first seen in GD! and not again until the end of IH!!). I was close! They are siblings, and Harmony is their mother. The main difference is that Aurora is a small adorable godling and God is, well, God. Even with the tiny power she had, though, Aurora could consistently rewrite reality, just not to the extent that she could undo the apocalypse or bring back the dead. To be fair, she was only alive for like, the day before IH!! began, and only had a few years to really develop her powers, although apparently not against giant flyswatters (I still can't get over that it had a formal name). As mentions above, though, Harmony clearly states the only reason Aurora exists is because Harmony answered Pasqualo's prayers to finally know happiness. Aurora being the trigger for the apocalypse also has more to do with Pasqualo being "the Anomaly" - which in these kinds of situations usually means "because gently caress you, Pasqualo, gently caress you."



(Work in process)

Literally Kermit fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Mar 9, 2018

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

Alopex posted:

How many paper animals does Pasq have in her pockets?

Exactly as many that are needed.

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

There Bias Two posted:

Pasq is Aurora this time right?

Android Blues posted:

The impression I got from the end of It Hurts!! was that Pasq recreated the universe so that the new version of him would serve as a replacement for Aurora by being as much like her as humanly possible, mostly erasing his own personality in the process. He felt that Aurora was good, his own personality was fatally flawed, and that the best thing he could do to make a happier world would be to reshape the next version of himself into something as much like Aurora as it was possible for a mundane human to be. Other people seemed to read it as being literally Aurora replacing Pasqualo's "spot" in the universe. I was never clear on which of those was canon though.

vyelkin posted:

I read it as Aurora replacing Pasqualo, because the final comic of It Hurts!! makes it pretty clear that Aurora and Pasqualo can't exist in the same universe as each other because they will always seek each other out and cause the apocalypse, so his solution was to sacrifice himself so that she could live a good life in his place, hopefully not only giving her the chance for a normal and happy existence but also hopefully improving the universe by replacing sadbrains Pasqualo with happy cheerful Pasqrora.

My take on it is since he and Aurora could never be together without causing an apocalypse, he rigged it so the two of them were together as a single being from the very beginning (I believe this because the new Pasqualo's name is still "Pasqualo", not "Aurora", so it probably was not a simple stop -n- swap. If it were, she'd neither be Pasqualo (the Anomaly) or Aurora (daughter of Harmony), and this new Pasqualo is clearly a fusion of both of them.

This is very much what Aurora did not want. She said it, verbatim, during her final moments in IH!! She wanted Pasqualo to stay her Pasqualo, and to be happy, just as Pasqualo wanted her to be happy - but not at the sacrifice of his individuality! Pasqualo went through with his choice anyway, which is why his last words were Please Cheese "forgive me!"

At the end of IH!!, Harmony mentions that Aurora was simply a small portion of her, just like that Batman episode with Clayface (liek this if u still cry evry tiem) - and Aurora only exists if Pasqualo prays for happiness. I imagine there's probably going to be some repercussions for essentially exploiting a loophole in the universe.

By the way, if you got any good theories I got some really good takes on the Zelda timelines wanna hear I am happy to add them to the second post! Because why not, give my own autistic scrawls some company. :sax:

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
Actually if you hate fun my dumb fanon theories, at least allow me to paraphrase and please take the following to heart:

Either IH!! Pasqualo successfully set up a universe where Aurora can be a happy real girl but some sort of tragic twist will surely occur (a world without a Trisssh, the worst world)

Or Pasqualo failed, he only set up a universe where his new self would grow into a person who just emulated everything he loved about Aurora, and events unfold to the point where the apocalypse will somehow happen anyway

My loving point is this: we will need a massive stockpile of origami animals of various colors, and we need to start stockpiling them now.

Who’s with me

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
No gosh darn gratuitous swearing? This is horse hockey (never stop)

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

Data Graham posted:

Dumb request, but could someone post the new pages here as they come out, or at least links? I didn’t realize there were new ones since last week :saddowns:

Sure I GUESS. (only links, since i think Gob trinity goes without supper otherwise)



Devilcat Crybaby

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
Guys, she's clearly bummed because she can't give ol' Mr. Sun a giant origami duck to chase his clouds away.

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

:swoon:

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

cant cook creole bream posted:

Eliza and Mr Jones!

And me

Gonna be... big stars :unsmith:

PasqPFM!!! is a wonderful blend of PasqIH!! and Aurora I must say

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

pathetic little tramp posted:

Guys, just a clarification, this isn't Pasq 2.0, this is Pasq, like, 879.0... and even then it's not really the same Pasq as the first 876 or so. This is a major fork.

I was going to correct it but I didn’t want to be a huge nerd and go back into fan theories mode like how Jennifer is almost certainly Goddamn It! Pasq reborn into the IH!! world

Gobolatula posted:

The Final Pasq.

It’s cool man I forgive you

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
Fukkin' Traditional?!

Who do I got to blow make origami for around here to get me some savory Peanut Chex instead

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
You’d think blue ghosts would have a natural fear of Ms. Pasq-man :haw:

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
Telling your depressed, self-depreciating side to go gently caress itself cause it ain't nothin' special hit a little too close to home. :smith:

Having your dad bug your room in order to get blackmail material on you also hit a little too close to home. :smith:

That proper banana bread protocol, tho'. :unsmith:

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

cant cook creole bream posted:

I mean, her general point still stands. People are precious and important, no matter how much they talk themselves down. And she certainly deserves to be happy without having to fake a good mood, or giving up her dreams and personality to please others. She's a good kid, who strives to do the right thing, because she likes the world around her and sees potential in the little things. I hope she'll realize how her attempts to make the world a better place might actually come from a place of love, rather than from self deceit.

But her retort was just awful. I tend to just toss bananas if I don’t get to eat them the first day.

JESUS CHRIST

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

readingatwork posted:

Is... is he dead?

Was he, at any point, well and truly alive?

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
(For a friend)

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

Space Cadet Omoly posted:

There's really no other way that could have gone, honestly.

Also, yeesh, another frog killer? I guess the moral here is never trust anyone who's mean to amphibians, it's a major red flag.

I whole-heartedly endorse this post

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
Pretty sure Pasq's dad is mixing himself up some Flaming Homers Moes, which continues to show his finer, vastly understated qualities.

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
Yo, this comic fuckin’ owns bones

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
Welcome aboard, friend-bro

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
Attack on Fright-an

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
I enjoyed that

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
The comedic timing of the punchlines in this comic is loving perfection

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
I KNEW IT

I FUKKIN CALLED IT

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

Elfface posted:

Meanwhile, in an attempt to be cruel, Trisssh sends Pasq away to look at trees for a few hours. Didn't think that one through, did she?

Trisssh is now 0 - 2 in inadvertently loving around with secretly super powerful beings

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
Mods please change my name to all of those at the bottom of the poster

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

TwoPair posted:

Didn't know Gob was making an early '00s Newgrounds the best game :v:

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
Deep down aren’t we ALL a Triple-nipple Kevin waiting to happen?

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

Keromaru5 posted:

If anything, it's a line from Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner.

They can still see his headless body
Stalking here about
While Triple-Nipple Kevin
Got his pecker out

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

VJeff posted:

Pow. Gangsta poo poo.

All-time motherfukkin' champeen moment, of all moments.

Edit: I, too, am casey and also maybe tire iron

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
This is the road trip side story I never even knew I needed but here we are :allears:

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
Oh gently caress a duck

GOT ME AGAIN, GOB

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
"I want you to be happy"

"You, Pasqualo. You"

She just wanted Pasqualo to be himself, in the end. :saddowns:

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

Space Cadet Omoly posted:

Okay good, Patience is fine and nothing of value was lost!

Says you, that loving hot dog cart had a FAMILY, you MONSTER.

you monster

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
o

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
Triple-ultra-twist: he was a ghost back then, too

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

Data Graham posted:

Did Pasq's coloration revert to early It Hurts style just for that one panel? :haw:

Looks more like it's a crayon drawling type effect. (SO MAYBE).

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

Hellsau posted:

Hopefully Chair Lots's friend gets treated for her delirious stalking behavior, and both of them get treated for severe social anxiety. Fortunately there's a great mental health treatment facility near town!

Quality service since 1830!

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Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

T-man posted:

Plz4give.me is great

its true

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