14-09-17 Really gonna hate me

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worldshaking00
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Re: 14-09-17 Really gonna hate me

Post by worldshaking00 »

Spidrift wrote:
Thu Sep 14, 2017 11:18 pm
The band is "Zii and the Troublemakers". That makes booting Zii kind of tricky. Especially given that Yuki probably still feels some loyalty to Zii.
Indeed and I agree. But Yuki doesn't exactly get along well with Didi unless Yuki is getting something out of it (her modeling for manga, her pancakes, etc.). We all know Yuki still has a soft spot for Zii, but Sonya & Yuki now share a past and Sonya knows how to press Yuki's buttons. I guess it will depend a lot on how/if Sonya spins the band against her and how/if Zii neglects her other responsibilities to keep Didi (and herself) pleased. Blatantly choosing Didi over the band has already happened once... slippery slope? I am sure Sonya would remind the rest of the band of Zii's priorities should it come up.
A plot involving Izz as a Zii-substitute has two problems. (1) Izz is a fanatical Zii fan. (2) Izz has been consistently shown as a highly erratic and often crap musician. She'll probably show up in the end-of-volume strip, I guess, but I'm not sure to what effect.

Actually, I'd mostly like to see the band play a second gig. Otherwise, they do seem a bit pointless.
Also true. Neglecting one's fan has a similar effect to dumping a lover given time.

I can't help but appreciate your Chekhov's Gun reference last forum thread. Practicing for what, exactly? If it is meant to be scripted, it will happen I hope.
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edisnooM
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Re: 14-09-17 Really gonna hate me

Post by edisnooM »

I can't help feeling this is a form of animal cruelty.

I personally don't feel overly bad for Sonya here, chickens coming home to roost and all. I am a bit surprised that she appears to have given up (for the moment at least) instead of fighting on. And Didi is surprisingly observant, though also quite blunt here.

I'm also a bit curious if Sonya will be the next recipient of some Comic Book Guru wisdom?

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Re: 14-09-17 Really gonna hate me

Post by OllieOrOlly »

Spidrift wrote:
Thu Sep 14, 2017 10:27 am
OllieOrOlly wrote:
Thu Sep 14, 2017 9:49 am
Huh, even if it was blatant, didn't expect DiDi to realise that Sonya was aiming to break up her and Zii, though, it seems, the reasons of *why* are either unknown to DiDi or she doesn't care.
Uh, the "why" is hardly a mystery; Sonya made it clear in words of one syllable.
OllieOrOlly wrote:
Thu Sep 14, 2017 9:49 am
Perhaps it is belated karmic retribution? Although seems a tad disproportionate to this situation.
Even in settings where "karma" really exists, it's very rarely proportionate. (Kind of a classic theological problem, actually.) And Giz and Dave don't play those games; they just assume that actions have consequences, which make stories.

(Hmm. "Karma" is a western misunderstanding of an eastern philosophical idea, and perhaps we should indeed replace it with something more classically Greek when talking about Ma3. The gods have laws, and may or may not punish someone for breaking them - but any punishment is going to be arbitrary. Actions have consequences, sometimes... Also, Zii, Sonya, and Yuki would indeed be great casting as the Furies...)
OllieOrOlly wrote:
Thu Sep 14, 2017 9:49 am
Anyway~ I don't consider Zii asking if Sonya wanted her to stay as genuine kindness or a sign of empathy, but rather the merest sense of obligation, as well as her probably not enjoying the feeling of being "the bad guy."
That's the best we can expect from most people, really. In itself, it makes Zii a fairly decent person, but only for now. The real test is whether she makes any more efforts to fix the consequences of her actions.

1.) I know the why isn't a mystery, the point was that I'm surprised DiDi picked up on it, especially since there have been occasions when someone expresses their thoughts but she inadvertently ignores them due to being too rapt in her own issues.

2.) Pardon my Western sensibilities for not realising the literal, classical definition of "karma." I presumed, perhaps wrongly, that the Western audience here would have a similar understanding of the concept, i.e. it is a notion of balance and can be seen as vaguely comparable to Newton's laws of motion. Regardless, it is a turn of phrase, my pedantic fellow reader.

3.) I can understand the viewing of Zii being "fairly decent," however, don't agree with it myself. Her *attempt* to console Sonya was more akin to trying to calm down a hysterical person that one is more annoyed by than cares about. Zii's half-hearted support is "the best we can expect from most people" when dealing with acquaintances, but Sonya is her band mate, former and current lover, sort of friend, and the one who was there for Zii when - in the latter's mind - there was nobody left; I don't want to rant on, so simply: Zii isn't a bad person, yet she is certainly not a decent one.

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Shinjischneider
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Re: 14-09-17 Really gonna hate me

Post by Shinjischneider »

SailorDh wrote:
Thu Sep 14, 2017 11:26 am
She's always been like that. I've hated her guts since day 1
At the moment she could run face-first into a chainsaw and i wouldn't mind.

She's a horrible person and has always been. But she's also the writers pet and the readers fap, that's why she gets away with it.
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Error of Logic
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Re: 14-09-17 Really gonna hate me

Post by Error of Logic »

Lita: "I HATE YOU ALL!"

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Spidrift
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Re: 14-09-17 Really gonna hate me

Post by Spidrift »

worldshaking00 wrote:
Fri Sep 15, 2017 12:39 am
But Yuki doesn't exactly get along well with Didi unless Yuki is getting something out of it (her modeling for manga, her pancakes, etc.). We all know Yuki still has a soft spot for Zii, but Sonya & Yuki now share a past and Sonya knows how to press Yuki's buttons.
I could see Sonya recruiting Yuki to a scheme to attack DiDi and detach her from Zii, very easily. But Yuki's thing for Zii is more than a soft spot; it's obsession, probably love, and certainly intense loyalty. (Remember the band's first gig, when the one thing that could make Sonya and Yuki stop fighting was a threat to Zii.) And she loves being in the band. Actually detaching Yuki from Zii and the band would probably require something thermonuclear.
edisnooM wrote:
Fri Sep 15, 2017 12:41 am
I personally don't feel overly bad for Sonya here, chickens coming home to roost and all. I am a bit surprised that she appears to have given up (for the moment at least) instead of fighting on.
This is a first depressive crash; she needs to get things out of her system to start with. For that matter, we've seen her in a depressive slump before - Peggy helped her out of the last one. I reckon she'll bounce back and not give up, but there's nothing strange if it takes a day or two.
worldshaking00 wrote:
Fri Sep 15, 2017 12:39 am
I'm also a bit curious if Sonya will be the next recipient of some Comic Book Guru wisdom?
I can't quite imagine that. Sonya isn't a comics fan, and doesn't hang out at the shop that we've seen, outside of band rehearsals - and she probably doesn't have a great regard for geeks. Still, I guess that she likes Jung's work on costumes well enough.

Talking of input from third parties - one thing that I find sad about the indefinite postponement of SDB is that it drops the characters there into limbo. Ruby and Zii aren't very close, but they did become friends - and we know that Ruby is often good for a sane outsider's eye on the cast's usual behaviour. Seeing her making a cool-headed comment or two on Zii's current situation would be fun. ("Have you thought about not doing these things?")
OllieOrOlly wrote:
Fri Sep 15, 2017 12:50 am
1.) I know the why isn't a mystery, the point was that I'm surprised DiDi picked up on it, especially since there have been occasions when someone expresses their thoughts but she inadvertently ignores them due to being too rapt in her own issues.
DiDi has made some very small progress as a character. She does notice other people more - but everything is still all about her in the end.
OllieOrOlly wrote:
Fri Sep 15, 2017 12:50 am
2.) Pardon my Western sensibilities for not realising the literal, classical definition of "karma." I presumed, perhaps wrongly, that the Western audience here would have a similar understanding of the concept, i.e. it is a notion of balance and can be seen as vaguely comparable to Newton's laws of motion.
I was talking about the western version, actually. I'm really not qualified to talk about the original eastern philosophical concept. But the western fiction version is rarely proportionate, if you look at it. It usually seems to consist of a character being irritating and mildly unpleasant, and then having their whole life ruined forever as retribution from the universe.

This stuff goes back to the Greek myths, where it's at least explained as the gods being horrible bastards who'll condemn somebody to an eternity of torture for being rude to someone. In bad modern fiction, it's the universe miraculously hosing someone who the audience wasn't meant to like. Ma3 is a bit more realistic; characters who behave like asses attract revenge from other people, and those who don't think about long-term consequences suffer from them.
OllieOrOlly wrote:
Fri Sep 15, 2017 12:50 am
3.) I can understand the viewing of Zii being "fairly decent," however, don't agree with it myself. Her *attempt* to console Sonya was more akin to trying to calm down a hysterical person that one is more annoyed by than cares about. Zii's half-hearted support is "the best we can expect from most people" when dealing with acquaintances, but Sonya is her band mate, former and current lover, sort of friend, and the one who was there for Zii when - in the latter's mind - there was nobody left; I don't want to rant on, so simply: Zii isn't a bad person, yet she is certainly not a decent one.
I won't say that Zii is being great here. Actually, she's shown some of her old worst habits in this storyline - primarily, running away from problems instead of trying to fix them. Trying to conceal her relationship with DiDi from Sonya was a bad start; even if DiDi hadn't been an idiot, how long could that have lasted? And she was quick to want to leave Sonya crying. Actually, strictly speaking, she's missing the point rather horribly in the first panel of this strip.* But, well, she has at least recognised a problem, and made a token attempt to help with it. By her standards - by human standards - that's minimal decency.


*Why should Sonya want or need to talk about her feelings? They're very clear and entirely predictable. You could say that it's her fault for allowing Zii to describe their relationship as casual when it clearly wasn't, but blaming her for that wouldn't help just now. What Zii should bloody well be doing is apologising, up to and including grovelling. She can say that the heart has its reasons, and that they could all have handled this better, but the fact remains it was Zii who screwed another woman in Sonya's own damn apartment, after promising not to. Even if Sonya didn't accept the apology, it's past due. Hmm, she really needs Ruby sitting on her shoulder...
Shinjischneider wrote:
Fri Sep 15, 2017 5:37 am
She's a horrible person and has always been. But she's also the writers pet and the readers fap, that's why she gets away with it.
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And yet, you're still here and reading the comic...
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KittyHat
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Re: 14-09-17 Really gonna hate me

Post by KittyHat »

Shinjischneider wrote:
Fri Sep 15, 2017 5:37 am
SailorDh wrote:
Thu Sep 14, 2017 11:26 am
She's always been like that. I've hated her guts since day 1
At the moment she could run face-first into a chainsaw and i wouldn't mind.

She's a horrible person and has always been. But she's also the writers pet and the readers fap, that's why she gets away with it.
All
The
Time
Yeah, at this point, I think Zii and DiDi are the only two characters whom I do not want to see getting happy endings.

Gary's spineless, but he generally means well.
Sonya can be a bit crazy, but she's not actively malicious (usually).
Yuki is very crazy (and dangerous), but she genuinely wants to be better and has worked hard to be.

... and so on. But Zii and DiDi are completely self-absorbed sociopaths, and they never seem even slightly interested in trying to be better people, or even particularly concerned that they may have done bad things. Worse, they never, ever suffer any consequences for their actions.

Screw DiDi and Zii. The only thing I want to see them do is fail.

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Spidrift
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Re: 14-09-17 Really gonna hate me

Post by Spidrift »

I can't say I hate Zii - she's mostly just immature, and if that's unforgivable we're all of us damned - but this scene shows that she hasn't progressed much from her volume 1 version. She's still run by her hormones all too often, and she still tends to run away from problems. The next volume may have to run her through quite a lot if it's going to give her a happy-ish ending that we can believe will stick.

Hmm. The only character who's hit comparable levels of unreliability and been pulled a little way out of it is Dillon. Perhaps this comic needs an extended Ruby guest appearance.

Incidentally, while I stand by the opinion that Izzy can't and won't plausibly replace Zii in the band, it now occurs to me that Izzy has that rather creepy way of sometimes wanting to be Zii. If she finds out that Sonya is Zii's ex, and Sonya wants to pull some kind of half-arsed rubbing-Zii's-nose-in-something, finding-a-substitute/better-Zii type of gesture, thise two could wind up in a not-terribly-healthy relationship...
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Zellgato
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Re: 14-09-17 Really gonna hate me

Post by Zellgato »

Who's gonna bet that she'll come back some other day to test Sonya's skills?

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Re: 14-09-17 Really gonna hate me

Post by BlairFan »

Sonya would be better off with Kiley right now. At least Kiley would not scratch her.
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Re: 14-09-17 Really gonna hate me

Post by Grotesquespirit »

Zii, please go home with DiDi, and take your things from Sonya's place.

I think maybe Sonya might leave the band, leaving the band open for a Bass player. Maybe Izz can' try her hand at Bass guitar? Who knows? She might have a gift for it.

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Spidrift
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Re: 14-09-17 Really gonna hate me

Post by Spidrift »

Those are the most boring possible plot options. Far more fun if Sonya destroys Zii's things, and the band gets thrown into turmoil.

(Actually, the band getting thrown into turmoil would be the most interesting thing that'd been done with it for a long time. After one gig and a few practice sessions, its only reason for existing seems to be to give the plot an excuse for Zii, Sonya, and Yuki to hang out together.)
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-- Motto of Hogshead Publishing of fond memory, and wise words to set your Foes List by.
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Re: 14-09-17 Really gonna hate me

Post by SailorDh »

Zii as the readers fap? Eww no thanks.
Dillon dressed as a woman is more attractive than that whore ever will be.

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Re: 14-09-17 Really gonna hate me

Post by vampire hunter D »

I think she's cute
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Re: 14-09-17 Really gonna hate me

Post by Don Alexander »

The comic's main character returns!! :ymparty:
worldshaking00 wrote:
Thu Sep 14, 2017 10:53 pm
I hope that Lita doesn't scratch up Sonya, but I can't help but imagine the parallel of Sonya losing face to failing to seduce Didi and getting clawed by Lita.
If she's not careful, she'll literally lose face. Mrowr! X( X( X(
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