>Start thread for MS Paint Adventures

I thought that Hussie had mentioned something about the Sylph class being passive, but the wiki reveals that I am mistaken. However, process of elimination suggests that Sylph is a passive class.

We have Witch, Knight, Thief and Prince confirmed as active classes; Rogue, Bard and Seer confirmed as passive; and Heir, Sylph, Maid, Page and Mage unconfirmed. However, evidence strongly suggests connections between the Knight and Page classes and, to a lesser extent, the Seer and Mage classes. Of the confirmed class placements (and excluding master classes), Prince/Bard is known to be situated at the second furthest degree of the scale, with a male/female pair at the extremes and a female pair slightly closer to the centre.

Now, we know that Witch is a strongly active class, but whether it is more or less so than Prince is uncertain. If it is the most active normal class, then it forms an opposing pair with a male class, which all evidence points to being Heir; if it is less active, then it opposes a female class, which would be either Sylph or Maid.

In your arrangement, this would make Sylph an extremely active class, which... is there any real evidence of this? Sure, Aranea goes into her crazy master plan like a stampeding bull, but her rhetoric really isn't that far from Rose's when she went power-mad. And all of this completely ignores Kanaya, who has yet to actually realise her class powers at all.

Now, as to why I don't think that there would be an explicit "creator" class pair, I'm pretty sure that the "healer/transformer" class pair and the "custodian/preserver" class pair serve as a pretty strong counterweight to that. On the active side, the Witch conjures and heals, the Maid preserves and tidies, and the Prince conquers and vanquishes; on the passive side, the Sylph brings the water of life, the Heir oversees the balance, and the Bard incites destruction. It's sort of an analogue to the Hindu creator/preserver/destroyer trinity, but more RPG-ish.

Why would you assume pairs have to mirror each other on the scale? There is no reason for that.

Also your statement about a "counterweight" comes across as just "I like my idea better" which is fine, but if you intended to sound convincing I would assume you meant to get something else across with that.

And you...seem to not actually enjoy or even like a comic you are in a discussion about. This makes me feel sadness for you.

edited 29th Aug '14 12:21:07 AM by TheoristKing

I dunno, I might use that to describe 8-Bit Theater and I definitely liked that. Raised the anticlimax to an art form, it did.

@TK: For bonus points someone on tumblr pointed out that the background in Terezi's shot gradually turns the purple of a certain clown.

Oh 8 bit theater. That's probably the best personal example of "It's good but not to my taste" that I have ever read. It was funny and, as you say, beautifully anticlimactic, but after a while the static nature of the characters and the story made it kind of a chore. Again, It was a good comic, and it deserves its reputation (also the writer was on Namco high! It all ties back there, Nemu Nemu, Homestuck, Cucumber Quest, 8 Bit, all to that game), but I'd take Order of the Stick over it.

It's the simplest explanation and the one that would make the most logical sense. Each member of a given pair is a mirror of the other in degree and sometimes in properties. It is also worth noting that the two confirmed pairs are also indicated to be at precise opposite ends of the scale. (It also does not entirely serve my own theories: The arrangement makes Witch/Heir and Maid/Sylph just as plausible as Witch/Sylph and Maid/Heir.)

Please also remember that a class being more or less polarised does not implicitly mean greater or lesser power. A more strongly polarised class means more strongly polarised effects, but Roxy being able to make things poof into reality and Rose gaining eldritch spell-caster powers are about as hardcore as Eridan exploding things with his belief in science or Jade shrinking planets... if on a smaller scale, and less flashy.

As for the latter bit, I did not mean a counterweight to your idea, but a counterweight to the Prince/Bard pair. Like, if you have healing/preserving/destroying as a trio, it serves a similar function to creation/destruction.

edited 29th Aug '14 12:35:41 AM by JHM

Oh man, OotS rules. Like this arc Belkar's on, where he goes from a sociopath who'd fit in with Black Mage's group to faking character development to actual character development to being insightful about the nature of character development.

But 8-Bit, yeah, very static. I think of it as like, say Merry Melodies. Bugs Bunny is still going to be the same stinker after a hundred episodes that he was in the first, but he'll still be funny.

Oh Hecks yes, OOTS is awesome and funny. Xykon's deviously bad, Belkar's arc is great, Tarquin, while people argue got nerfed, I think is probably one of the greatest villains ever, from set up to defeat (though explaining why he's great requires me to ramble to my friends). the Author's mitigation on good vs. evil is very well done, both thoughtful and pretty subtle.

I'd compare my 8 bit theater experience with Tom and Jerry, it's good, but I didn't enjoy it as much as others, and there's only so much of Jerry getting the best of Tom I could watch (variations aside).

edited 29th Aug '14 12:59:27 AM by DrPsyche

I liked what I read of Order of the Stick and I appreciated the humour, but I prefer stuff like Cucumber Quest, Vattu and Gunnerkrigg Court. I like when people make their own world and really make it their own, if peppered with little allusions to others.

Hell, that and the character interactions are why I love Homestuck so much.

...OK, and the weird self-referential subversive batshittery.

edited 29th Aug '14 1:24:02 AM by JHM

And another Hecks yeah to Cucumber Quest. Beautiful stuff man, especially book 2. CQ's really pretty, and it's got great depth, That's gonna be my Christmas gift to my little cousins.

edited 29th Aug '14 1:37:13 AM by DrPsyche

What I probably like best about OotS is the way is has post-modern they-know-they're-in-a-comic-and-a-game-world-when-it's-funny meta bullshit and ties it in with plot and character. Like how Belkar's character development arc revolves around the concept of character development, or how Tarquin is menacing because even if the heroes beat him he still wins by his terms (because he understands that's the villain's role in the story and is happy with the tradeoff for getting to rule an evil empire until that point). And then how Elan manages to make Tarquin lose by subverting the storyline Tarquin's setting up and declaring himself a supporting character.

This is actually relevant to the thread I swear, because there's some of the same kind of stuff in Homestuck, like Aranea deciding to move herself out of the supporting character slot, or whatever weird relationship there is between Hussie and Caliborn.

Yeah, Gunnerkrigg's good stuff. (Bocaj, I swear she emotes now.) I'll get around to getting all caught up on Cucumber Quest at some point.

Tom and Jerry is the more apt comparison, I think. There's a reason it's not Bugs getting parodied as hyperviolent in the Simpsons.

Cucumber Quest has some of the most beautiful art in the web-comic world right now, next to Ava's Demon.

On a related note (nice art), you should read Vattu if you haven't already. It's weird and great.

Yep, that's one of the many reasons OOTS is awesome! Though I do have to wonder, what was Tarquin's plans for the afterlife, wouldn't he just end up burning in hell? The thing with Julio and being a hero is both meta and awesome. As for Cucumber Quest, Dooo ihttt!

I love Ava's Demon as well, though compared to each other, I feel Cucumber Quest wins out with better characters. The two comics are pretty similar though.

I'll look into Vattu, and Gunkrigger court is a definite on my list (It's so popular it was the only print webcomic available at my library, before I flooded the comic section with compulsive donations)

edited 29th Aug '14 1:55:31 AM by DrPsyche

...

It is literally impossible to feel enough sadness for Terezi. I...I wasn't good enough. I'm sorry, I just wasn't good enough...

That story was disappointing

Alright JHM, if I understand your premises correctly, all I really need to do to convince you that Witch and Heir are a pair, is show there are at least two standard classes more passive than Bard. How hard could that possibly be?

No, wait, thinking about it, it could still go, Lord, Maid, Witch, then Prince.

Okay then, all I've got to do is show that Witch is more active than Maid.

edited 29th Aug '14 6:47:50 AM by TheoristKing

That's assuming that you want to convince me of something. This is getting suspiciously evangelical. Do you go door to door? Because my ivory tower has a lot of stairs.

Also, the order of most passive to most active is Muse, two male classes, a female class, a whole bunch of less polarised classes, a female class, Prince, a female class, Lord. Given what Calliope said about Bards, they're probably the penultimate normal passive class (that we have actually seen in-story). So yes, in this case, Witch would have to be either more or less passive than Maid to confirm either interpretation... on that front.

It's almost as if Imp were still alive and with us today.

What would be wrong exactly with wanting to convince you that I am right? I assume you would try to do the same, and whoever is more convincing would succeed.

But if you don't want to I won't. It's cool.

Not sure if you mean me, Theorist King, or both of us.

edited 29th Aug '14 6:47:29 PM by JHM

Well I'm sure it's a reference that is very relevant and meaningful to long time readers of this thread, I naturally did not get it, so...

Sorry? I get the sense there is some bad blood with some guy here. Like. Some really awful guy you guys don't ever want to deal with again or something. If I accidentally like, triggered you about this guy, I'm sorry.

I haven't been here in a long time, but if this is who I am thinking of, Imp was a former regular who had a lot of pet ideas and got really touchy if somebody said something he didn't like.

Ironically, I'm not generally argumentative at all. I just find this subject interesting and my total lack of better things to do with my time has lead me to develop some reasonably intricate theories about it. I don't mind if canon contradicts me because canon is what I am trying to determine in the first place, but I have good reasons for holding my opinions and I freely admit that I'm not great at articulating them sometimes.

Right, I think I'm the same way.

Anyway, I just look at theorizing as an exercise in Narrative Science. So for me, I like the sort of, intellectual spar, of dueling ideas. If I phrased it in such a way that came across as assuming I was right, again, I'm sorry. It's just that it wouldn't work the other way around. You couldn't convince me of your theory by showing convincingly that Maid is more active than Witch, because my assumptions do not preclude that.

I was merely making a logical statement about what would constitute evidence for or against your theory.

Also I don't think Prince was confirmed to be ranked second most active standard? When was this, and where.

edited 29th Aug '14 7:05:39 PM by TheoristKing

Suspicion levels rising...

You guys are starting to weird me out. Like, what the fuck am I doing wrong? If you just kinda, like, leer at me, I don't know how to stop and make you all more comfortable.

Chill. A former thread regular who had a bad exit spoke like you, that's all. BUT YOU KNOW THAT DON'T YOU