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[PA Comic] Friday, September 20, 2013 - The Tithe, Part Seven

13

Posts

  • SiduriSiduri Oakland, CARegistered User new member

    Really cool. As I read it I could hear drum beats going along with the rhythm of each line.

    Thank you! I was envisioning it as a skipping-rope or clapping rhyme for children.

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  • The Mighty SibhodThe Mighty Sibhod Registered User new member
    Siduri wrote: »

    Thank you! I was envisioning it as a skipping-rope or clapping rhyme for children.

    They all were, back in the day when you had to teach kids something integral to their survival in ways they'd latch on to! Back in those days every child was either clapping, skipping rope, or dying of plague. Because they didn't remember the rhyme about avoiding the plague.

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  • Adam CasalinoAdam Casalino New York (in my heart)Registered User regular
    Siduri wrote: »

    Really cool. As I read it I could hear drum beats going along with the rhythm of each line.

    Thank you! I was envisioning it as a skipping-rope or clapping rhyme for children.

    Oh cool, sort of like "ring around the rosie" only much more interesting.

  • WithBowandBloodWithBowandBlood Registered User new member
    I love how the three factions- Lookouts, Thornwatch, Daughters- all have their own realm of responsibility. There isn't really a black or white, good or evil line drawn; each group's goal is the safety of their protectorate. That these goals don't always coincide is evident by The Blade's (douchey) behavior.

    I hope the Mother can help Hanna come to terms with her change. I suppose sprouting flowers on your head and being called away from home forever is a bit more traumatic than regular puberty, but I imagine an experienced woman's perspective is still helpful just the same.

    Only three more! I could read this story for years, and bury myself in lore. I'll have to make do with patterning out my Mother of The Eyrewood cosplay! Hopefully I can go to PAX East in it. :p

  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    I can't decide what medium I'd most want to see to explore this world more. I'd love a book from Jerry, because then we could really sink our teeth into the rich detail. But if it's just prose, you miss out on the great art.

    Maybe a long-form graphic novel, and/or an animated film trilogy.

  • BelgandBelgand Registered User regular
    The element that I don't think has been explored enough is that the Eyrewood seems to be inherently destructive to the villagers in many ways. It demands from them like a petty god and this is usually accomplished by taking their children.

    Lookouts serve as sacrifices and Daughters replenish the forest and protect it. Thornwatch are the ones who realized this and are now outcasts not just for oath-breaking, but, for the people in the know, because they have broken this contract with the Eyrewood and now help people rather than give them over to the forest.

    I really would be interested in seeing former Daughters in the Thornwatch rather than just renegade Lookouts. Surely there's a place in there for women and the more we learn about the Daughters the more interesting a recreant Daughter becomes. I can see her as being almost a bit like Hellboy. Her blossoms shorn off, denying a nature she has chosen to reject.

  • StericaSterica Yes Registered User, Moderator mod
    edited September 2013
    Turns out the berries are very yummy and nutritious. He mentioned the river because you shouldn't go swimming after eating .

    Sterica on
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  • megascorchermegascorcher NorwayRegistered User regular
    I have to admit that at first I wasn't really engaged with this world. The very first Lookouts strip seemed like another "dad analogy" from Mike & Jerry, especially with the podcast that went with the writing of it, and though I like some of those strips I couldn't see the appeal of the setting at that point.

    Now though, I see the whole picture, and this shit is thoroughly ballin'. Even just what Mike wrote in his post today about players taking the role of summoned Thornwatch is now setting off a thousand roleplay ideas in my mind. I want this in my life.

    I'm gonna have to work hard to find someone else near me who is interested though...

  • PedroAsaniPedroAsani Brotherhood of the Squirrel [Prime]Registered User regular
    Belgand wrote: »
    The element that I don't think has been explored enough is that the Eyrewood seems to be inherently destructive to the villagers in many ways. It demands from them like a petty god and this is usually accomplished by taking their children.

    Lookouts serve as sacrifices and Daughters replenish the forest and protect it. Thornwatch are the ones who realized this and are now outcasts not just for oath-breaking, but, for the people in the know, because they have broken this contract with the Eyrewood and now help people rather than give them over to the forest.

    I really would be interested in seeing former Daughters in the Thornwatch rather than just renegade Lookouts. Surely there's a place in there for women and the more we learn about the Daughters the more interesting a recreant Daughter becomes. I can see her as being almost a bit like Hellboy. Her blossoms shorn off, denying a nature she has chosen to reject.

    I wouldn't call Lookouts sacrifices. It's simply part of life that the village is located in a dangerous area. The Lookouts require people help defend the village, and it takes years of training to be able to do this. Starting at an early age makes sense, as it accomplishes two goals at once. Young boys are kept out of danger by learning about it, and they are trained to assist in the defense when needed. Ideally that wouldn't happen until they were older, but how often is the world ideal?

    Daughters could be more of a sacrifice, but again just as the Forest (capitalised for anthropomorhization) needs girls to assist in it's survival and growth, the forest is the very thing keeping the village alive. Symbiosis, in essence. They are aware that if the village grows too much, it will drain the forest of resources.

    Thornwatch aren't "people in the know" any more than the Lookouts or the Daughters. They simply look at the needs of the individual rather than the community. They say "when you speak in the abstract that a balance has to be maintained or that some must give their lives for others, in reality that means people suffer and die. And I'm not going to stand idly by and let that happen."

    The forest has inhabitants that are dangerous. Some are natural. In certain cases, the Daughters are going to be at odds with the Lookouts (defend the village) and the Thornwatch (defend the Lookouts who are in way over their heads). Others are... Jerry likely has a word for it, but Tainted is what I'll use until then. Obviously evil, unnatural entities that all three will agree should be killed. Vampires were mentioned in Mike's post about the game. I can't see any of the groups wanting them around. For sure there will be others, Bog Beasts given form by some malevolent process, etc.

    I don't know that Daughters could be in the Thornwatch. Would the Forest allow them to abandon the Calling? It does seem that being Chosen is a one-way ticket. But certainly it has been said that there are women in the Thornwatch. Maybe a Daughter or Mother could join if she extricated herself from the Forest, but that wouldn't be without consequences.

    I wonder just how large the Eyrewood is. Are there many villages like this, scattered throughout? How different are they? Do they know of each other, do they communicate? Is there such a thing as a city in this world?

  • Cultural Geek GirlCultural Geek Girl Registered User regular
    edited September 2013
    Edit: bah, crossposted with PedroAsani

    To point out where Mike said there were women in thornwatch, in the newspost from part five:

    "In reality the Thornwatch is probably not nearly as bad as the boys think. They are men and women who have left their duties true but they have found new purpose helping those in need."

    So there are some Thornwatch women out there, but they didn't get summoned this time. Partially because it seems that the gender ratio in the Thornwatch skews male, but also because of narrative causality. A woman could have potentially messed up the "three kinds of unhelpful" beat, because I'm betting if you grow up as a girl in the Eyrewood, you think a lot about whether you might be called one day. You're more likely to have lost friends to the calling. I'm interested in seeing what the ladies of Thornwatch are like, and I think potential connections to daughters could be interesting.

    That said, the characters here are exactly what they need to be for the story to hit this note.

    Cultural Geek Girl on
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  • kismesisterkismesister Mu Bellevue, WARegistered User regular
    I never want this comic, or these threads, to ever end. They are such a great read! I love seeing everyone's theories.

    This page is so good it gives me chills. I love that every page her flowers seems to open up more and more until we'll ultimately know what she's growing. I love that it started raining as soon as she felt completely and utterly hopeless-- possibly because she feels so hopeless.

    I love this world so much, I never want to leave.

  • ZerogamerZerogamer Registered User new member
    Hello there, new user here, been reading a while, yadda yadda boring stuff. Okay, look. Love the Tithe so far. I mean really I literally just made this account to say that more or less. And one other thing. First off those I really do find this impressively amazing. Which is weird, because at first I actually didn't really like it. However it...grew on me. Or lord the puns. I think I realized that the world it suggested the vagueness of it is what put the final nail in the coffin. I had always liked this world that these stories are set in. However thinking on the Thornwatch a bit is what brought me to my second reasons for making this post.

    Is anyone else imagining some sort of cool Thornwatch character? Like, it's one of those things where as little as we know it gives you the most room to sit their and think of a cool guy/gal that would be in the Thornwatch. All the possible different stories and reasons for breaking various oaths or simply seeking out a group that protects those who need it. The reasons, the destinies at play. I can only hope in the future for more looks into the various different Watch members and their skills and stories.

    Anyways, it's awesome. Can't wait to see where this story goes. I really HOPE it has a happy ending, but something tells me the ending is going to be either very bittersweet or melancholy. It doesn't feel like a happy ending is coming.

  • CanisAquilusCanisAquilus Registered User regular
    This world is much better than the one I've got.

    Can we do something about this? Does anyone know how to covered the earth in some kind of magical forest?

  • ZerogamerZerogamer Registered User new member
    This world is much better than the one I've got.

    Can we do something about this? Does anyone know how to covered the earth in some kind of magical forest?

    Are you mad? As magically awesome as that world is, NORMAL nature is scary. Could you imagine how terrifying magical nature is? It's got to have at least twice as many mouths.

  • status253status253 puyallupRegistered User regular
    I want a book! I could get lost in this universe!

  • DeserterKalakDeserterKalak Registered User regular
    edited September 2013
    Man, Steve has a real chip on his shoulder. I'd actually respect him for his honesty if he weren't so obviously spiteful with it... I think saying "look kid, honestly, you're fucked" has more legitimacy than the Greenheart blowing smoke up Hanna's ass and telling her that being a tree is totally all she ever wanted, she just forgot or something.

    Not a lot of compassion from the Thornwatch : / Honestly, I'd probably have reacted much like Scar-Eye did; there's nothing to be done about it, and I'd probably be even worse at comforting a frightened child than the Greenheart. But one of them could at least have stayed with her, even if it meant missing their ride and having a long walk home.

    DeserterKalak on
  • eagleagl Registered User regular
    edited September 2013
    Homestar wrote: »
    I love that it started raining as soon as she felt completely and utterly hopeless-- possibly because she feels so hopeless.


    Oh hell yea. I saw that and didn't make that connection. That totally makes sense. The whole forest might cry when she feels alone.

    eagl on
  • AlazullAlazull Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.Registered User regular
    See, Steve's answer is awesome from the perspective that it leads to creating a backstory for a character we've seen for like four panels.

    The Thornwatch strikes me a bit like the Night Watch from A Game of Thrones. They're outcasts that rely on each other to survive and realize they can only find companionship in each other, people that understand their lot in life because they are sharing it. Also, considering their position of being people who have not only broken the code of the Lookouts (something the villagers seem to wholeheartedly endorse) and sometimes come into conflict with them, probably have to forage for most of their supplies.

    So what if Steve is the only survivor of a party of Thornwatch who had been trying to hunt some game and came into battle with a Daughter? Perhaps he saw some of his closest friends, perhaps even guys he'd grown up with, torn apart by one of these "witches." Maybe the village he came from was destroyed by the Daughters, for some reason Steve can't fathom? What if he belongs to a part of the Thornwatch that broke their oaths because they want to destroy the magic of the forest, which the Daughters represent? The possibilities for why he talks with such obvious contempt to this girl are endless, but something to consider is this...

    If Steve wanted her dead so bad, why not just kill her? She isn't a Daughter yet, she's an inexperienced little girl alone in the woods, while he's an experienced fighter. If he really wanted her dead, he could just do the task himself. So what stays his hand? I think its pretty obvious he wants her to commit suicide, what with trying to trick her with the berries, and isn't trying any reverse psychology.

    Hell, now that I think about it, why doesn't the guy just toss a knife at her feet and tell her to slit her own throat or just offer to get it done with quick and clean. There's nuance here that I find really exciting.

    User name Alazull on Steam, PSN, Nintenders, Epic, etc.
  • PedroAsaniPedroAsani Brotherhood of the Squirrel [Prime]Registered User regular
    Not a lot of compassion from the Thornwatch : / Honestly, I'd probably have reacted much like Scar-Eye did; there's nothing to be done about it, and I'd probably be even worse at comforting a frightened child than the Greenheart. But one of them could at least have stayed with her, even if it meant missing their ride and having a long walk home.

    I'm thinking that whilst the spell can summon them to the tree, once they arrive they have to return under their own power. If they could teleport out at will, it would eliminate a lot of the problems that they face. For example, in the three part Thornwatch comic, the Warrior could have simply grabbed the kid and ported out. Instead he has to stand and face down the Wolf-Bat Thing. (Seriously Jerry, books or Wiki. I just know you have a name for this that is so much cooler.)

    I don't know what the narrative device for this will be, but from the description Mike gives it seems that the spell is what calls and moves them. The Thornwatch members don't have the ability to teleport on their own. There is going to be some way the members of the Thornwatch are bound to that particular branch of magic, probably part of the rites when they become a member.

  • frankifranki Registered User new member
    I also had to join to chip in. Hello world!

    Reading through people's take on why so bitter Steve, there's an angle I've not seen yet. If Steve lost his daughter to the forest, would he be so harsh to a kid just called? Perhaps, but I think it more likely that Steve lost his sister to the forest. Perhaps he tried to help her resist and was put squarely in his place or perhaps other family were lost. Daughter daughter killed Steve's father? He's not going to kill her or even giver her a knife, his knife, his responsibility, but he'll tell her how she can use her forest to finish herself. Forest's doing, forest's responsibility.

    I get the impression that Steve's resentment has had a long time to stew. Alternative version, he was a lookout and the rest of his group were taken out by the forest, the daughters didn't help. Perhaps they even watched.

    I love this world. I went back to the earlier strips and saw something on the first page that gave me chills. Check out the woman with flowers in her hair. Sure, you live in the forest, you're not going to have a lot of alternatives to pretty up your hair but in light of the current story.... brrr.

  • DegraineDegraine Pinsomniac Victoria, AustraliaRegistered User regular
    I don't think it matters so much why he's so antipathic (is that right? You get what I mean) towards the Daughters (having an answer would probably be much less interesting for us all here!). It's enough to know that he doesn't like them. Really doesn't like them, if seeing a girl who barely knows what the hell is going on prompts that reaction from him. He certainly wants to twist that knife, and he probably feels entirely justified in doing so, knowing what she'll be one day.

  • ZerogamerZerogamer Registered User new member
    franki wrote: »
    I also had to join to chip in. Hello world!

    Reading through people's take on why so bitter Steve, there's an angle I've not seen yet. If Steve lost his daughter to the forest, would he be so harsh to a kid just called? Perhaps, but I think it more likely that Steve lost his sister to the forest. Perhaps he tried to help her resist and was put squarely in his place or perhaps other family were lost. Daughter daughter killed Steve's father? He's not going to kill her or even giver her a knife, his knife, his responsibility, but he'll tell her how she can use her forest to finish herself. Forest's doing, forest's responsibility.

    I get the impression that Steve's resentment has had a long time to stew. Alternative version, he was a lookout and the rest of his group were taken out by the forest, the daughters didn't help. Perhaps they even watched.

    I love this world. I went back to the earlier strips and saw something on the first page that gave me chills. Check out the woman with flowers in her hair. Sure, you live in the forest, you're not going to have a lot of alternatives to pretty up your hair but in light of the current story.... brrr.

    As I was reading through the responses up until this one I was actually thinking THAT exact same thing. What if The Blade was that guy who's sister was taken away to be a Daughter. I mean, you can only believe I was thinking that, but trust me I was. Hell back when I made my first post that was what I had in mind. What if there was a guy in the Watch who had had that happen. Had his own Daughter or Sister called away to one with the woods.

    However it isn't just that. He's probably just as frustrated as he is angry. Look how defeated the other Daughter Hanna met was. Greenheart is a weirdo, clearly even the daughters aren't happy about their position.

    Now though....I'm hoping Hanna rejects her role and becomes one of the Thornwatch. Man, that would be so cool.

  • PedroAsaniPedroAsani Brotherhood of the Squirrel [Prime]Registered User regular
    franki wrote: »
    Alternative version, he was a lookout and the rest of his group were taken out by the forest, the daughters didn't help. Perhaps they even watched.

    If that is the case, it is possible that the Daughters were actively involved, siding with the Forest.

    If the village encroaches on the forest too much, that would put the Daughters in conflict with the Lookouts. Or if the Lookouts try to drive out a dangerous natural creature. Sure it is picking off villagers, but it also performs a valuable task for the ecosystem.

  • BrewBrew Registered User regular
    That 3rd panel with Blade's face reminds me so much of Jeff Smith's work in Bone. Beautiful art and superb inking. I'm enjoying both graphic and literary aspects of this so much.

    1st ever "Penny-Arcade Hero Academy Tournament" Toilet Bowl Champion!
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    And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."
  • GoslingGosling Looking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, Probably Watertown, WIRegistered User regular
    By the way, do we know the Blade is called Steve or are we all just going off of Rorus' comment at the top of the thread?

    Granted, even if he wasn't named Steve before, he probably is now.

    I have a new soccer blog The Minnow Tank. Reading it psychically kicks Sepp Blatter in the bean bag.
  • PedroAsaniPedroAsani Brotherhood of the Squirrel [Prime]Registered User regular
    Gosling wrote: »
    By the way, do we know the Blade is called Steve or are we all just going off of Rorus' comment at the top of the thread?

    Granted, even if he wasn't named Steve before, he probably is now.

    Steve the Blade. It's very reminiscent of an Eddie izzard sketch.

  • superjermssuperjerms Registered User regular
    PedroAsani wrote: »
    Belgand wrote: »
    The element that I don't think has been explored enough is that the Eyrewood seems to be inherently destructive to the villagers in many ways. It demands from them like a petty god

    I wouldn't call Lookouts sacrifices. It's simply part of life that the village is located in a dangerous area.

    Daughters could be more of a sacrifice, but again just as the Forest (capitalised for anthropomorhization) needs girls to assist in it's survival and growth, the forest is the very thing keeping the village alive. Symbiosis, in essence. They are aware that if the village grows too much, it will drain the forest of resources.

    Thornwatch aren't "people in the know" any more than the Lookouts or the Daughters. They simply look at the needs of the individual rather than the community. They say "when you speak in the abstract that a balance has to be maintained or that some must give their lives for others, in reality that means people suffer and die. And I'm not going to stand idly by and let that happen."

    No "could" to it: the daughters absolutely are a sacrifice. In this universe, humanity must accept that all of its children are.

    It's not that there isn't symbiosis, just that it's a *tremendously* uneven power relationship. Humanity is completely dependent on the Forest, but the forest only needs one (exceedingly small) thing in return: to maintain balance in the ecosystem by keeping corruption in check. The forest already has basilisks, manticores, sphinxes, etc. It doesn't need Smokey the Bear making sure that visitors pour water over their finished campfires. Mankind is just one of the Forest's many tools, and not necessarily its best one -- they're weak, soft, and squishy, and are so prone to corruption that it's ridiculous.

    Man's corruptibility, and his natural inclination towards conquest, are profound threats to the natural order. And that's where the Daughters' real role comes in to play: psychological subjugation. The tithe, the Lookouts -- te forest is saying, "Never forget who's really in charge here. I will kill your sons. I will steal your daughters. And, I might even send your children back to kill you."

    PedroAsani wrote: »
    franki wrote: »
    Alternative version, he was a lookout and the rest of his group were taken out by the forest, the daughters didn't help. Perhaps they even watched.

    If that is the case, it is possible that the Daughters were actively involved, siding with the Forest.

    I don't think Steve's use of the word "witch," is just name calling. Especially after Mike's post yesterday, sounds like the guy watched a Crone destroy an orphanage or something. Or more likely, his own family. Forest kills your loved ones + village does nothing to help = become a very angry Thornwatch.

  • DracMonsterDracMonster Registered User regular
    For some reason, I really want this to end with Hanna meeting Twisp and Catsby. I'm just imagining her bereft, running through the forest, and stumbling upon their little holiday cottage.

    Catsby: A girl with a Head Garden! She appears distraught.
    Twisp: Fertilizer!

    Yeah, yeah, I know it won't happen, but I can dream, can't I?

  • Twenty SidedTwenty Sided Registered User regular
    For some reason, I really want this to end with Hanna meeting Twisp and Catsby. I'm just imagining her bereft, running through the forest, and stumbling upon their little holiday cottage.

    Catsby: A girl with a Head Garden! She appears distraught.
    Twisp: Fertilizer!

    Yeah, yeah, I know it won't happen, but I can dream, can't I?

    And then they rub her head with brown crap while she looks extremely confused.

  • Twenty SidedTwenty Sided Registered User regular
    Zerogamer wrote: »
    This world is much better than the one I've got.

    Can we do something about this? Does anyone know how to covered the earth in some kind of magical forest?

    Are you mad? As magically awesome as that world is, NORMAL nature is scary. Could you imagine how terrifying magical nature is? It's got to have at least twice as many mouths.

    In my private fanfiction, the world is actually Earth after a last ditch biotechnological effort to forestall global warming. (Sand is a result of a separate human initiative to avoid the same.)
    All extant organisms trace their decent from a few basal non-Mendelian organisms which were deliberately programmed to evolve rapidly into a panoply of new species in order to rapidly fill ecological niches in an abbreviated amount of time. In order to meet the demands of the program, many of the old advances in material chemistry (i.e. nanotechnology) were incorporated into genetics and a toolset of pre-planned phenotypes of the seed organisms.

    However, this program was too successful, creating a disaster analogous to the grey goo. The innate versatility and power of the "seeding" meant that the most successful descendants of the program developed emergent properties far beyond their initial expectations. Many of these notable successes possess powers and strengths which may as well be indistinguishable from magic.

  • ossuaryossuary Canada, eh!Registered User regular
    Alazull wrote: »
    If Steve wanted her dead so bad, why not just kill her? She isn't a Daughter yet, she's an inexperienced little girl alone in the woods, while he's an experienced fighter. If he really wanted her dead, he could just do the task himself. So what stays his hand? I think its pretty obvious he wants her to commit suicide, what with trying to trick her with the berries, and isn't trying any reverse psychology.

    Hell, now that I think about it, why doesn't the guy just toss a knife at her feet and tell her to slit her own throat or just offer to get it done with quick and clean. There's nuance here that I find really exciting.

    The way I interpret it, the Thornwatch has been summoned magically by the spell Hanna cast (and the blood she shed in so doing). It's a binding contract, of a sort. They were magically summoned to her based on the types of people she was looking for (via the knots she tied), and the spell grabs the closest members who meet those (unknown to us) criteria. Being thus summoned, Steve CAN'T directly oppose her or do anything to harm her as much as he might want to, as the summoning has magically bound the three of them to her service temporarily, so they have to help her to the best of their ability... but Steve can sure as shit do his best to subvert that summoning by trying to get her to off herself with his words, since he can't do so directly with his actions. He clearly has issues with the Daughters as a whole (backstory, please!).

    I say again, this whole history and lore just blow me away with all of the potential. I want to know why the humans are even TRYING to live in such a harsh environment as the Eyrewood in the first place... is it the entire planet? Are they somehow trapped inside and there is nowhere else to go, so they have to do the best they can in this harsh and unforgiving terrain? Or is the forest just so vast, the people living inside don't even know they could just leave if they went far enough, and get somewhere better and safer? That would be a pretty interesting (tragic) twist of it all.

    --ossuary
  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    He might want her kind dead/think she'd be better off dead but not feel sufficiently strongly about it to actually murder a child himself.

  • Twenty SidedTwenty Sided Registered User regular
    edited September 2013
    There's the rhyme that suggests that the Daughters are about killing their parents as a sacrifice. It's basically blood libel. The invective, "witch," implies that the Daughters are a poorly-understood object of superstitious awe. They're seen as no better than malicious crones who dabble in malicious and unnatural arts.

    This makes me think that Steve genuinely hates the Daughters, but understands the political reality that it's, frankly, not his business or the business of the Thornwatch.
    Druid guy and others who don't hate the Daughters probably think that they're simply ill-equipped to educate or handle Hannah. It's basically a medical condition that they can't do anything about. Not their ballpark, there are other people better equipped for this.

    The older Daughter that Hannah has met is likely a late-bloomer, if you'll forgive the pun. She's somebody who has been around long enough that her condition isn't especially novel or alarming, but she's not too thrilled about it either, as she now has to leave her old community behind. She knows this is just what you do when flowers pop out your head.

    Twenty Sided on
  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    @PedroAsani Brooooo you got a shout out on the front page. :^:
    Gabe wrote:
    Tycho and I have a tendency to make our projects a bit ambiguous. We like to leave room for your imagination. Somehow forum user PedroAsani cut right through all our bullshit and nailed the world in just a few lines. It’s too perfect not to post here:

    “From what I understand, based on the comics on the site and the Cryptozoics, the three factions have loose affiliations based on their mandates.

    Lookouts: protect the village from the things in the forest.
    Daughters: protect the forest from everything. Sometimes that means the people in the village.
    Thornwatch: protect the vulnerable from the village and the forest.

    So sometimes their goals align, sometimes they are opposed.”

    I am shocked at how on the money this is. I don’t think we could have ever put it so succinctly.

    -Gabe out

    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • PedroAsaniPedroAsani Brotherhood of the Squirrel [Prime]Registered User regular
    Cambiata wrote: »
    @PedroAsani Brooooo you got a shout out on the front page. :^:

    Yep. I'm now internet famous. Where's my Nike deal?

    I just can't wait until Monday and we get another piece of the Tithe. Hanna is going to be in the rain for a while. Three left, and they have yet to explain just what "Becoming" entails. What kind of powers does a Daughter wield? How do/can they vary? Am I right about
    her flowers being bright blue?
    Do we get to find out just who/what is doing the Calling? Is the Forest personified in some way?

    And most importantly, will we have to wait a year before returning to the Eyrewood for the Thornwatch comics?

  • AnkleAnkle Registered User new member
    Lovely story and setting, lots of that "human heart in conflict with itself" stuff. First: I'd like to say it reminds me a bit of "Princess Mononoke"; visually and thematically there are interesting parallells. Second: "fantasy boy scouts" is such a brilliant concept, and the Daughters as a female coming-of-age analogy fits nicely along with that (in a slightly reactionary kind of way). But the Thornwatch are very much straight fantasy, aren't they? They don't seem to represent any recognizable adult real-world counterpart? Where is the fantasy middle-age, middle class drudgery?

  • PedroAsaniPedroAsani Brotherhood of the Squirrel [Prime]Registered User regular
    Ankle wrote: »
    But the Thornwatch are very much straight fantasy, aren't they? They don't seem to represent any recognizable adult real-world counterpart? Where is the fantasy middle-age, middle class drudgery?

    They are a kind of cross between the A-team and International Rescue. They have real-world counterparts, but it's wrong to just label them as police. They aren't vigilantes either. They don't dispense justice, they render aid to those who ask for it.

    As for the middle-age, middle class drudgery I think if we spent more time looking at the village we would see it in the Council of Elders or whoever comes up with the laws, superstitions and such.

  • Twenty SidedTwenty Sided Registered User regular
    PedroAsani wrote: »
    Ankle wrote: »
    But the Thornwatch are very much straight fantasy, aren't they? They don't seem to represent any recognizable adult real-world counterpart? Where is the fantasy middle-age, middle class drudgery?

    They are a kind of cross between the A-team and International Rescue. They have real-world counterparts, but it's wrong to just label them as police. They aren't vigilantes either. They don't dispense justice, they render aid to those who ask for it.

    As for the middle-age, middle class drudgery I think if we spent more time looking at the village we would see it in the Council of Elders or whoever comes up with the laws, superstitions and such.

    When somebody says "middle ages," I think, "an agrarian feudal society, snooty nobles and no middle class to speak of." My impression of Lookouts is that this is a tribal hunter-gatherer society by necessity because, I assume, there is no agriculture and no mechanized industry.

  • DeserterKalakDeserterKalak Registered User regular
    Gosling wrote: »
    By the way, do we know the Blade is called Steve or are we all just going off of Rorus' comment at the top of the thread?

    Granted, even if he wasn't named Steve before, he probably is now.

    I think we were all amused by the Blade being named Steve (who is kind of a dick) and all independently decided to go with it :)

  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    I wish PA would stop with all this witch shaming.

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